Monthly Archives: January 2013

PCB Fabrication – been there, done that.

Posted on January 27, 2013 by jimbo

Well, I did it. I decided to tackle something simple for my first attempt at etching a circuit board. I wanted something with a low parts count, and that was easy to test. I decided on a voltage level shifter … Continue reading →

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Thinking about PCB creation

Posted on January 22, 2013 by jimbo

So far, I’ve been able to successfully avoid making my own printed circuit boards (PCBs) for all the electronics projects I’ve done. Between Protoboards (letting someone else do the etching), perfboard (which I hate, but end up using), and “deadbug” … Continue reading →

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NAS is the new Plex

Posted on January 16, 2013 by jimbo

In my continuing battle against the $70/mo “cable” bill (I have satellite TV, but same guts), I have been pushing both hardware and software at the problem. So far, I’ve tried: Here’s a short history of recent events. In November, … Continue reading →

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CNC – going in a new route

Posted on January 15, 2013 by jimbo

My new Porter Cable 892 router showed up tonight. First thing I did of course was to remove the handles so I can start looking at getting it mounted to the CNC. I’m going to have to do some cutting … Continue reading →

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Super PID first light

Posted on January 13, 2013 by jimbo

All’s well that ends well. I had a long day out in the shop today, and it was filled with a lot of trials. First, I spent a little time working on the foot for the NJP mount. I’m kind … Continue reading →

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Super-PID installed

Posted on January 12, 2013 by jimbo

I finally got the Super-PID installed today. A good friend of mine brought over some 1/4″ acrylic so I could finish off the Super-PID case. I spent the day figuring out how to make it work. I cut off a … Continue reading →

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Bathroom scale v1.2

Posted on January 12, 2013 by jimbo

I’ve been using the XBee-enabled bathroom scale for almost a year now, and it works a treat. Every morning, I hop on, the weight goes to the computer, and the computer dumps the weight reading into a logfile. The server … Continue reading →

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Sidereal seconds hand

Posted on January 10, 2013 by jimbo

I spent some time thrashing about trying to make sure that the circuit was producing the correct output. I decided to try the Hz counter on my DMM, to see whether it could give me an accurate enough reading. Hooked … Continue reading →

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Sidereal clock, baby!

Posted on January 8, 2013 by jimbo

…well, I’d need an oscilloscope to confirm, of course. But I converted the Bresenham/Black algorithm to Arduino code, mixed in code from a Timer Interrupts tutorial from the web (I should link to that here), and loaded it up. Worked … Continue reading →

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Sidereal clock circuit — progress!

Posted on January 8, 2013 by jimbo

I’ve been kicking around the idea of making an accurate sidereal clock circuit for years now. I’ve discussed it all before, but the basic idea is that I want to be able to create a circuit that oscillates at 32857.715Hz … Continue reading →

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