I’ve needed a function generator for a while now. The Rigol DG4000 series got good reviews from Mike (Mike’s Electric Stuff) and Dave (eevblog), so I got one. Specifically the Rigol DG 4102
Some quick specs:
I’ve been looking for a set of good instrument screw/torx/nut drivers. I found the following Wiha 92190 Master Technicians Bench Top Set, 50 Piece after watching a TheSignalPath video and Shahriar showed the set he has.
The set contains:
You can buy a set from Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000T9XZFO
They come with a desk stand with enough holes for the 50 drivers.
Extremely nice tips. Everyone seems to say they are indestructible.
Conclusion? A great set of very high quality screwdrivers, they are a bit pricey but I can highly recommend them.
I bought some extra 1.8mm ABS plastic from Netram for the Replicator. Of course it didn’t come on a spool that fits the built in brackets. No worries, I designed my own.
The following archive contains both the STL files (ready to print) and the Solidworks parts if you want to make modifications. spool_mount.tar.gz
So I bought my self a 3D printer. I went with the MakerBot Replicator. Here are the unboxing photos.
Box seems to have survived the shipping process in one piece, maybe the +10 Fragile stickers helped.
All the bits and pieces are packed inside the frame. Luckly everything was accounted for. Pity they don’t throw in some stickers, that would have been cool. Read More…
I’ve got a pre-paid electricity meter installed at my new place in Cape Town. It outputs a 1/1kWh pulse via a LED on the front panel. I thought it would be pretty cool to read and log the power consumption of my house. It’s also an excuse to play with WiFi and other fun stuff.
Hey everyone.
I’m going to be moving to Cape Town over the next couple months. I start my new job 1st of September, but my house and workshop stuff is only coming down at the end of the year. So thing are probably going to get a bit quite around here till I’ve set-up at a new place.
Chat to you guys soon
The lathe is done! Wow it took long enough. Quick recap (please see part III for the full story)
There were a few parts missing after we finished the rebuild. Parts included a gib strip for the top slide and a spacer for the main spindle. Unfortunately you can’t run the machine without these parts, so another order from myford was needed. At the same time I ordered a dust cover and some other miscellaneous bits.
There was a motor include in the auction, it needed some work, like everything else. But there was no motor controller to be found so we needed to build one.
The controls consist of a Direction switch (forward, reverse) a Start button and a big mushroom Emergency stop. Also there are two 18A 240v contactors for the actual motor switching. Below on the right are the control switches, on the left are the two contactors.
Have a look below at how the motor and controller is wired up to allow you to change the motor direction, but basically you change the polarity on the start wiring to change direction.
Above you can see the finished wired up control box, all that’s still missing is the incoming power cord.
Once the final few parts and motor where installed it was time for some testing. We just found a large steel bolt then tried to round the head and cut a bit of a shaft out of the threaded bit.
We definitely need to get some sharper cutting tools, but the one we had did the job OK. You can see below the final result, not to bad for the first test!
There is lots and lots of tweaking and adjustments left to do. All the slides need to be tightened and aligned, there is also a bit of play in the cross slide lead screw. I’m not sure how much we can fix or if it’s going to need to be replaced. And we definitely need to get some new cutting tools.
So that’s it, all done. We now have a working metal lathe in the workshop. If you want to go back and see how things came together, here’s all the posts.
I’ve got a 1998 HP 200LX palmtop. Wikipedia describes it as:
a personal digital assistant introduced by in 1994. It was often called a palmtop computer, and it was notable that it was, with some minor exceptions, a MS-DOS-compatible computer in a palmtop format, complete with a monochrome graphic display, qwerty keyboard, serial port, and PCMCIA expansion slot.
What I wanted was a single “dongle” that will allow me to connect to the palmtop over USB as well as power/charge it. Unfortunately it require 12V DC to charge or run the plamtop so I’m going to need to use a DC/DC boost converter.
Some links for those that want know more about the HP 200LX
Just to recap from Part 2. After cleaning off the dirt, grime and rust, things where looking good, thats until the paint started giving problems.
The troublesome paint has had 5 months to dry properly, so the respraying went quite smoothly. We finally found the colour that closely matches the original Myford grey. Everything got a good degreasing and sanding before spraying a couple of new coats on. The paint dried with out much hassle, the air was very humid (upwards of 90%) which causes some issues with water droplets but these where fixed with some more sanding and another coat. Read More…
(Update 2012-10-20) I see there is a new version of Twitter Tools, ver 3.0. The new version is a complete rewrite so this plugin is no longer compatible. I’m planning on taking a look to see how much work it is to update and get it working with the new version of Twitter Tools
I’ve been looking for a YOURLS url shortener plugin that is compatible with Twitter Tools for a while now. There was one “yourls plugin for twitter tools 2.0” but it’s been unmaintained since August 27th, 2009.
I finally bit the bullet and wrote my own. The plugin is based on Twitter Tools – Bit.ly URLs code and has been tested with WordPress Version 3.0.1. It’s still pretty Beta, for example I don’t check if the Service URL and Signature token is correct or even entered. But it works for me.
Copy the contents of the archive into the wp-content/plugins/ folder then activate the plugin on the “Plugins page”.
yourls-api.php). You can find your Signature token on the tools page of your YOURLS installation.
Here is a packaged version of the plugin yourls-tools.tar (27 August 2010)