We Did it, YouTube! - Project Light Tether Pt2 (finale)
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
2,014 words · ~10 min read
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okay so part two we're ready to get back
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at this actually we had never intended to shoot a part two of this but uh it
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would have been like a 40 minute long video so yeah let's
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go Intel skull Canyon Nook features a sixth generation core i7 processor and
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Thunderbolt 3 you can learn more at the link in the video
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description we got through all the troubleshooting crap and it looks like
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the way that it can work because you have to understand that HDMI over
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DisplayPort is not quite the same thing
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as native HDMI and that's what the Vive uses it uses HDMI over DP so the way to
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handle that then was to feed my DP
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signal all the way through the Thunderbolt cable to my Elgato dock out again through a
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DisplayPort cable into DisplayPort here and we were able to do the
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translation that way it didn't work when
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we just tried to use a mini DisplayPort to HDMI cable and go HDMI into the box
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but that means the proof of concept is
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running now so let's assemble it
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I'd love for this to be able to fit like right here so we'll call that kind of
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good enough for a proof of concept and then
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power to this the
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output
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sick I also need
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this for valves box then goes to where the hell does
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that go right I remember that goes okay
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oh actually oh that's kind of tricky
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this one needs cables going into both
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sides of it I wish I could oh you know
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what that would be a pretty freaking cool place to put it something yeah cuz
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there's already um there's already a velcro strap here MH so I'll just grab
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some double-sided uh
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okay I don't understand how this bag
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works there we go so
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that is theoretically the light
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tether now I've just got to get the bag attached to the
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headset so I've done another round of
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cable shaving which I'm hoping is going to give us
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enough clearance here to close the top of the bloody headset so first is HDMI
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then USB although this is a very short USB
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cable the 3 and2 mm audio extension I realized I can just use the original one
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it's already light and
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short and the last thing we need
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is power I could have grabbed an extra
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power adapter see they all use the same
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for the cable breakout box and for the headset itself they all used the same
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12vt power and the same size connector but even if I did bring one from
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home it wouldn't be right angle and I really don't want to destroy that cable
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so I hit a bit of a roadblock while I was able to strip down
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the HDMI cable and the USB cable to make
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the cover fit on the Vive headset which is more important than I thought because
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the headstrap doesn't go into place without it I I don't have a DC power
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plug that I can use for it because the only one that comes with the Vive that's
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a reasonable length and isn't attached to the tether is a straight and B
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already needed for the breakout box the
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good news is I found this a USB to the
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same size DC plug freaking Wicked so all
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I have to do then is take a 12vt 1.5 5
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amp power adapter which I can power in the backpack and splice it onto that
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plug Boop oh my God how am I going to do
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this it's just ripping away one of the wires every time I try and uh strip the
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outside but I'm not going to be defeated by a wire not today
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Luke do you need to shoot crap
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these are so crappy like the sheathing is stronger than the copper wires
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inside okay so flight takes off at what did I just
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do oh son of a I just spliced the
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two freaking ends together okay what's my
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excuse this may work though hold on a
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second I could totally claim to have done that on purpose I just created uh
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an adapter for that other battery bank now I don't need to use AC power for the
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Vive headset boom that's what I meant to do okay so we're back in business and
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this is great because carrying around this power brick honestly isn't much
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worse than carrying around all this copper cabling and now we can power the
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Vive with this instead I just have to
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find a place to put
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it actually that might work
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nicely oh oh oh don't you you love it
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when things just work I probably would but I wouldn't
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know oh sick
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okay that's a beautiful thing that I just witnessed right
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there so
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now we can go HDMI in
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here uh oh this is one other thing that I grabbed off camera
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just a short USB extension cuz that USB Cable's really short this is a fun
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Discovery even though these ports are all colorcoded blue they're USB 2 ports
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I had no idea I was running and looking high and low for USB 3 a TOA cables and
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then I found the original one included with the Vive I didn't really want to
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destroy that one and I kind of want what the hell these are USB 2 cables anyway
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so anyway I've got a short extension here it's kind of a ghetto extension
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it's got this like stupid extra cable on
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it then
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power which oh crap I hope that fits I
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actually didn't um see cutting towards yourself is only dangerous if you get
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impatient and press too hard
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slip really not through yet okay got to
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be through now
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ah there we
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go come on come
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off okay
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work the wires are basically just soldered right to this connector end
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here so effectively by just bending it I think
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we can make it 90° hey
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hey okay now let's see if it
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fits and if I can put it in without
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damaging it sort of fragile now well that is a
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ghetto wiring job if I've ever seen
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one the new and improved lonus tether
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uh
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oh no this
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way
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okay all right
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put on the wrong way again does this look like it's on
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wrong it does it it sits weird doesn't
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it up okay is it open or something oh no
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no it's just like sideways isn't it okay
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fine ah okay so it's the other shoulder
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then now I'm getting this all tangled up
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so this shoulder
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yes okay that feel is that the I just put it
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on this ARM to okay clearly this backpack is not the
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one that I would want to use cuz I can't figure it out shoot how did that come
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off I mean aside from it being a horrible piece of crap
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okay it's back on my USB
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extension is Mia there it
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is okay okay so I still have to power the
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headset which admittedly there isn't a
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super crazy easy way to do right
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now
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okay so let's try
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it oh okay my
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Thunderbolt dad is not showing up okay
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let's try the old reboot see if that fixes it what I would do if if I were
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actually setting this up for real is I would tie this in a knot like a tension
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relief knot so that I don't pull too hard on it cuz one aside from the weight
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and uh size Advantage uh these Thunderbolt cables are very very strong
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so you could also tie it like around the leg of a chair at the bottom if you have
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a bit of extra length and tie it here so you don't risk uh ripping the connectors
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out at either end something I have definitely done
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with my standard tether at home
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okay I rebooted the headset it's on okay uh what cable is that is that oh
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oh it went off for a second what cable is this can I do I get a little bit more
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length for that one or no no freaking
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way no freaking way I think it worked I
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mean no it worked okay hold on hold on I'll get a game
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open oh my goodness I can't even believe
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this look at that I mean that's a better
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tether
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hey I mean yes I'm wearing a backpack now but I can't even feel that okay
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let's see if it's actually working it seems like it
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though oh shoot
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right the this backpack is certainly not ideal during my benchmarking I noticed
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that if I turn to the side quickly it loosened also it actually has a bunch of
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other random crap in it right now so it's much heavier than it needs to be
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but something like a body pack that has
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all the appropriate pieces slotted into it so it's nice and tight against the
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body actually wouldn't add a lot of weight and now that I've done the proof
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of concept would work absolutely
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fantastically there's still a lot of question marks how long the battery life
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would be for the headset as well as for
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the Thunderbolt dock as well as how many actual customers would exist for a
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product like this I mean we're adding another $200 to the cost with the cable
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alone we're adding another $100 for a Thunderbolt EX card for and it only
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works on isus motherboards and it's got to be Thunderbolt 2 because Corning
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doesn't have Thunderbolt 3 optical cables yet there's still some things to
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work out you're adding another hundred over dollars for the Thunderbolt dock
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plus all of the batteries and all that kind of stuff I mean we're looking at a
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solution that would cost probably as much or more than a Vive in the first
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place though the way that I see it there's only two kinds of people who
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shop for a Vive the kinds of people who just spent all of their money or the
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kinds of people to whom $600 is nothing
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so maybe the potential customer base for
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this is not as small as you might think either way this was a lot of fun for me
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I'm still not sure if I'm going to convert my personal rig we'll see about
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that cuz there's a lot of refinement that would have to be done to the idea
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but it's very cool to see it working in practice and not have to worry about
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stomping on a super heavy thick and
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uh oh man it's awesome so thanks for
14:14
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