Saturday, 01st October 2005

Chip

Saturday. Yay.

Started work on a video distribution amplifier for work. Should mean prudy pictures on all the screens. DVD players don't like having 10 TVs connected to them! TVs also don't like having a piss-weak signal. Some TVs just go dull, others roll vertically or flicker. Some display the blue screen of 'no signal'...

I used my new toy to take these photos. I couldn't be bothered dragging out my D60.

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There is still work to be done on the power supply side of things. The IEC + Fuseholder needs to be wired to the switch and then to the transformer. An earth wire will also need to be run from the IECs earth terminal to the steel body of the transformer for safety. The leads on the transformer will be shortened and cable tied to make them look prudy. l33t!

I also need to grab a few metres of cable, some sidecutters, a DVD, a Drink and my wire stripppers. Why? So I can make the 12 coax flyleads I need to make to join the 8 RCA outputs to the amp and the 1 RCA input to the 4 inputs on the amp (while I have a drink and watch a dvd...)

I also discovered that one of my drill kits had some 'Spur Point' type bits in it. Excellent! Perfect actually. It meant that I didn't end up with the eliptical holes that you would get in thin plastic from a standard twist drill. Hence, all the holes that the RCA sockets poke through are beautiful and centred.

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"Also known as a wood or dowel bit, they have a central point and two raised spurs that help keep the bit drilling straight. The bit cuts timber very fast when used in a power drill and leaves a clean sided hole. They are ideal for drilling holes for dowels as the sides of the holes are clean and parallel. Sizes range from 3 to 10mm. Spur point bits should only be used for drilling wood or some plastics."

I used a trick to drill the holes in the back panel. It involved printing a 1:1 drawing of the front panel holes, locating it on the panel with a rule to make sure that it was in the right place and then sticking it to the panel.

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I am rather pleased with how neat and tidy the panels turned out! Naturally I knocked up a design in Inventor before I started. This helps immensly. It only took like 5 minutes to knock up a set of working drawings from the model. I love inventor!

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More images / work in progress shots: http://www.zagadka.org/gallery/vidamp

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