Thursday, 1st October 2015 - 23:44:14

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Scored a HP EVA SAN rack. Now all I need to do is get it into the shed. The roller door is too low.

Friday, 18th September 2015 - 20:57:14

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Cleaned out and tested my mates tropical fish tank light. These are really nice. You can adjust blue / white proportions of lights.

Friday, 21st August 2015 - 20:16:32

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eBay score - direct from China of course. Got a bunch of jumpers and also matching 2,3,4 and 5 way connectors.

Sunday, 16th August 2015 - 16:01:21

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I bought a few of these cheap ESP8266-12 modules from eBay. I'm pretty impressed so far with how easy it is to get a simple web server up and running.

Key learnings:

  • The module has a number of IO pins which must have set state to run and another state to flash. GPIO0 needs to be tied low to flash.
  • Needs hundreds of mA - can't run from USB->RS232 converter power.
  • minicom (linux) doesn't send the required CRLF to the module. Have to manually use CTRL+M, CTRL+J
  • Needs to be flashed with NodeMCU firmware to use LUA
python esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 write_flash 0x00000 ../Downloads/nodemcu_integer_0.9.6-dev_20150704.bin

Monday, 27th July 2015 - 07:53:09

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The log and is in and the Anubias are moved onto it. Looks OK I reckon. The tank was looking barron after all the Giant Ambulias died (how?!) and the amazon sword is entirely gone so I put some fake plants in. If those fake plants die then I know I should definitely stop.

Sunday, 26th July 2015 - 19:13:13

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Mini Sausage Rolls! =)

Saturday, 20th June 2015 - 15:36:16

Philips DLS10 Delay Tube 01

I was given this interesting tube. The Philips DLS10. It's a thermal delay tube designed to delay the switch on of the HT (High Tension) section so that tubes are at temperature before HT is applied. This one is operational.

Saturday, 13th June 2015 - 13:39:20

Bluetooth FM Transmitter

I created this Bluetooth FM tranmitter thingy from two cheap eBay items. Combining them reduces the crap hanging around in the car and means just one cord freeing the USB socket for charging.

Monday, 8th June 2015 - 22:46:59

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Cleaned off the last of the cloth insulation on the secondaries. I also scraped back the enamel and tinned all the leads. I am poking 6.3V AC down the high current secondaries on this Ferguson PF181 transformer that I am working on to try and determine where the HT and Primaries are. This is going to be a great transformer to use once I've made it safe. 5V @2A, 12.6V centre tapped @2A. 6.3V @2A. 770V centre tapped HT (385V).

Monday, 8th June 2015 - 15:51:46

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Trying to clean off my work area. Lots of bench scapings to sort out.

Tuesday, 2nd June 2015 - 20:48:56

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The PCBs I ordered came back today. These are a prototype TSP-14 socket for GR-211 nixie tubes. They make use of Mill Max solder-in ferrules. This is part of a group nixie clock project.

Sunday, 31st May 2015 - 14:11:41

Yamaha A-760 Cleanup

Got the old Yamaha A-760 out of storage. Dusted out with brush / compressed air. Lubed all the pots - they were crackling. Ran it up pretty hard on some PA speakers. Can smell electrolyte =( One of the caps is definitely leaking, just no spills or pushed out vents yet. Will have to see how we go... I probably should just re-cap...

Saturday, 30th May 2015 - 14:11:24

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Cleaned out the throttle body. It's pretty gross. The crankcase breather behind the butterfly was totally clogged.

Sunday, 19th April 2015 - 19:49:17

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Finished the air compressor manifold bracked. It's much better now that the manifold is not floating around. Click the image for more images.

Thursday, 9th April 2015 - 13:59:25

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Yup. Thanks again Australia Post. These are United Electric UE-468 triodes.

Friday, 3rd April 2015 - 17:55:47

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I started pulling apart this Ferguson PF181 transformer in preparation for use. It has old material based sheathing on the flyleads which I plan to replace with spagetti (PVC though). Unfortunately I didn't finish this off. I will have to continue later. It also looks like some kind of bug has made a house at some point in there.

Wednesday, 1st April 2015 - 18:53:41

RCA 813 Beam Pentode

I fired up the filaments on the two 813 Beam Pentodes that I scored. They both work. One 813 is RCA, the other is Radiotron. I'm going to have to track down a microwave transformer to feed the plate on this thing. It wants ~2kV. Will have to rethink a project now, because the 304T is dead. I'm pretty sure people have built amps with 813s.

Tuesday, 31st March 2015 - 10:51:57

Eimac 304T - I may Cry

Well that sucks =( I can't see myself getting hold of another one of them in Aus any time soon...

The tube was actually packed very very well, so I'm not sure what went wrong. Thanks Australia Post. 

Sunday, 22nd March 2015 - 18:51:38

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Spicey Baked Sausages (not my recipe). Normally you'd do this in the oven. I was a little bored of sausages. You cut the sausages down the middle once they are cooked a little and put in a BBQ / Tomato / Worcestershire / brown sugar sauce with onions in there too. They work a little better in the oven because the sauce caramelises. Still tasty though!

Saturday, 21st March 2015 - 10:26:29

How to Correctly Do Breakfast

This is how you do breakfast correctly =) (This was not all for me btw =P )