Author Archives: Jim

Led Tester

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Jim

I put a couple of minimalist LED testers together out of junk parts for the space.  9V snaps harvested from dead 9V batteries, old but not dead 9V batteries, some female headers and resistors.  The header and resistor are soldered … Continue reading →

Posted in Workshop 88 Stuff | 3 Comments

Chewed soaker feed hose

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Jim

(This is the first of what will presumably be an ongoing series of small repairs and improvements around the house.  I’m not sure how to manage it:  individual posts per event?  One post for say watering system, one for sump … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Repair | 2 Comments

UPS battery monitor started!

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Jim

My UPS is a big old sine wave clunker retired from work many years ago.  It works fine, but the only “management” info it provides is a dry contact closure when it’s on battery – not very useful to know … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Automation | Leave a comment

AC supply for time lapse with Canon SD600

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Jim

Since it seems likely I’ll end up doing more time lapse photography with CHDK and my little Canon SD600 it seemed appropriate to make a dedicated supply for it rather than hauling the unholy hack of a battery directly in … Continue reading →

Posted in Li-ion camera battery, Time-lapse photography | 3 Comments

Home automation reporting system

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Jim

This is a work in progress! Overview The system starts with several small “sensor nodes” that monitor things (like temperature) or control things (like sprinklers).  They’re connected via an RS-485 network at 56Kb/sec on Cat 5 cable.  That cable also … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Automation | Leave a comment

HDR lets me photograph LEDs!

Posted on July 2, 2011 by Jim

After I suffered a couple of the standard dismal failures anyone trying to photograph lit LEDs encounters, Google quickly provided the relevant buzz term: High Dynamic Range.  Initial browsing showed lots of pretty pictures, but to the inexperienced eye they … Continue reading →

Posted in HDR | Leave a comment

Skinny LED flashlight

Posted on July 2, 2011 by Jim

I needed to see who was connected to what in the amplifier board of the Hilton repair project, but the traces were on the bottom of the circuit board.  I tried shining a flashlight between the board and the surface … Continue reading →

Posted in HDR, Hilton repair | 1 Comment

LED tester

Posted on July 2, 2011 by Jim

One of the very useful tools that has earned a permanent installation on my bench is an LED tester.  It’s just an old 9V battery, a 560Ω resistor and a socket I can slip LED leads into. The battery was … Continue reading →

Posted in Electronics workbench revamp, HDR | Leave a comment

Hilton repair

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Jim

I took in an old non-working Hilton 75 square dance caller’s turntable/amp of Ray’s to see if I could fix it.  The first time I tried to work on it was before I cleaned a space on the bench, so … Continue reading →

Posted in Hilton repair | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Scrolling LED Display

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Jim

Russ’ post of a link to a one-wire serial-parallel latch to drive 16 LEDs from one pin on a micro reminded me I had an old LED display we might rebuild into something useful.  It was from work maybe 25 … Continue reading →

Posted in Scrolling LED, Workshop 88 Stuff | 1 Comment