Finally, my 10 turn pot has arrived from Element 14, I can complete my EEVBlog based active load! It was out of stock and had to be shipped from the US. Last week I got the rest of my stuff from Element 14 including a 0.1R 25W aluminium clad resistor, an LM3302 comparator to fix Dad's strobe tacho, some CMOS 4000 series to play with - 40106 (hex schmitt inverter), 4030 (quad xor), 4027 (dual J/K flipflop), 4081 (quad and).

I've got myself a freshly imported Rigol DS1052E! It's got a Chinese manual, but meh. There is a PDF version of the manual in English if I really want it. I guess watching Dave play with all his scopes over at EEVBlog convinced me to get one.

The thing is awesome! I love it. DSO is entirely new to me. I've currently got a Dick Smith 60MHz CRO. I think my favorite thing so far is the single shot triggering and the timebase zoom it has, where you can show a magnified (by time) view of the triggered waveform below the normal display.

I got lots done this weekend.

I bought a lot of 6 used power tools, two extension cords and an RCD (earth leakage safety switch) for $130. I'm pretty happy with that. It's not crap either. A mixture of Bosch, Makita and Ryobi with a GMC plunge router too. I vacuumed them all out and tested them. They are all good.

Sunday I went with my Dad to pick up 4 lengths of 50 x 200 x 2400 treated pine for the kids sandpit. Dad gave me some black PVC to put down. We also picked up the galvanised screws and washers that we'd need. While at Bunnings I also bought some supplies for the new tools, some sanding belts and sanding discs as well as a few jigsaw blades and quick-clamps.

So far it's just tooling up for woodwork. Sunday I also built a sawhorse and 3/7 of a saw horse. I had to make a tricky jig to cut the angle on the feet because I couldn't use the saw to directly cut the angle on the legs (70mm x 20mm) sideways. The max cut depth is about 50mm. I clamped each leg to my saw extension table at 14 degrees and cut it tat way. There are photos in my gallery under woodwork.