Bendix 37 pin feedthroughs

After some unfocused googling, I decided to look up the part number for the Bendix 37 pin connector on an old drawing, and found that the internal connector used was part number 973106A-28-21P.

This turned out to be a MIL-DTL-5015 part (Formerly MIL-C-5015), not a MIL 38999 part. It is also known as "type 97".

There is a Digikey catalog page for this part, and they even have 34 in stock. The catalog page for it has a nice image of the pinout:

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/amphenol-industrial-operations/97-3106A-28-21P/97-3106A-28-21P-ND/341000

Here it is at Newark:

http://www.newark.com/amphenol/97-3106a-28-21p/circular-connector-threaded-circular/dp/09WX9540?MER=sy-me-pd-mi-alte

The way that the part number works is that the last two numbers, 28-21 are the insert type. For some reason neither of these numbers match the number of pins but that's how things are often done by military contractors. Here's a datasheet showing the insert options:

http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/2158844.pdf?_ga=2.223425371.1359845224.1503779982-1653510471.1485545260

Glenair has a lot of MIL-DTL-5015 hermetic connectors, and feedthroughs. I don't presently have an answer for what distinguishes their "Type D" MIL-DTL-5015 feedthroughs from their "regular" MIL-DTL-5015 feedthroughs. For some reason, Glenair seems to have multiple pages for these connectors that have the same information.

https://www.glenair.com/hermetic_connectors/g.htm

https://www.glenair.com/interconnects/mildtl5015/

Mario's vacuum chamber uses 37 pin feedthroughs by Douglas Electrical Components with a part number on the side of SET28896. Sadly, this part number can not be found anywhere on their website or in their current catalog. The catalog does make references to MIL-C-5015 feedthroughs, with one option being 37 contacts, but the table does not seem to have information on how to order or availability.

http://www.douglaselectrical.com/brochures/dec_product_catalog.pdf

Interestingly, Pave Technology does seem to sell these feedthroughs, although their site doesn't offer the option to download drawing PDFs if I'm using IE:

http://www.pavetechnologyco.com/design/pm1_productindex.html

Trying to add an on screen keyboard to Raspberry Pi

For my Pi3 with the 7-inch touch screen, it's a no brainer. Yet the distro that we got with NOOBS didn't come with any. Like everything else with linux, the promise of easy installation was misleading.

First I tried installing "matchbox-keyboard".

However, not initially having access to a network connection, I made the mistake of trying to download the .deb files, for matchbox and two dependencies per this site.

In retrospect, there was no assurance that the .deb files would match my distro. When I ran matchbox from a shell, it spit out piles of Xwindows errors and crashed, leaving the OS inoperable, with no ability to open new windows or even reboot. But I'm not the only moron to encounter this; googling the error message gets tons of hits, none of which have any fixes except 'use xvkbd.'

https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/47865/raspbian-jessie-gui-hangs-after-running-matchbox-keyboard


Later, once I was home and could hook up to my own network, I did an update and then an apt-get install for Florence.


After installation, it didn't run.

https://www.google.com/search?q=florence+couldn%27t+connect+to+accessibility+bus&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS705US706&oq=florence+couldn%27t+connect+to+accessibility+bus

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/230238/starting-x-applications-from-the-terminal-and-the-warnings-that-follow

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/at-spi2-core/+bug/1193236

However a few forum threads helpfully suggested installing the at-spi2-core package.

forums.pimoroni.com/t/florence-will-not-load/3995/2

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=123189

Now it worked, and none of the keys were blacked-out which is a problem that I was experiencing before. It is ergonomic and beautiful... except that when I press the ALT key, the entire pi freezes up. The mouse still works but I can't click on anything, and even a physically connected keyboard no longer works.

https://www.google.com/search?site=&source=hp&ei=b7mBWfuME82cmwHm97lI&q=florence+alt+key+crashes+mouse&oq=florence+alt+key+crashes+mouse&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.3...3236.27726.0.28253.41.40.1.7.7.0.396.3975.24j15j0j1.40.0....0...1.1.64.mobile-gws-hp..0.36.3087.3..0j41j46j0i131k1j0i46k1j0i22i30k1j33i160k1j33i21k1j33i22i29i30k1.c0R5jf7tlbQ



https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS705US706&hl=en-US&ei=vbuBWdbiMYTSmwHPzLnABw&q=florence+alt+stuck&oq=florence+alt+stuck&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3...336137.340736.0.341190.10.9.1.0.0.0.111.801.7j2.9.0....0...1.1.64.mobile-gws-serp..0.9.697...0j41j33i21k1j33i160k1j0i22i30k1.cgo6dkJeLR4


Unfortunately, there aren't a lot results when googling this problem. The one link that I've found so far just has 'use xvkbd' as the workaround.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=164844

with no solutions, I decided to uninstall Florence:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=9905