Stamp Example

David had the good fortune to receive an unexpected and exceptionally generous gift last night from Jim, brother of a good friend, of a Stamp Micro controller kit. He has been very busy coding away to control a servo motor, LEDs, button switches, seven segment displays, stepper motors, and more.

Santa Brought a Brazing Torch

To no surprise, my offspring, on his very first attempt at brazing with a torch did a better job than I did!

Exceptional Christmas Sorbet

Home made tangerine sorbet, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, apricot, pineapple, pomegranate ariels, red currents, and blood orange.

Components Oracle Data Base

Now with over 200 entries, David is building an Oracle 10g database, called ICSS, running on an Ubuntu server itemizing integrated circuits and other components extracted from all sorts of equipment found at the swap shed and elsewhere with associated datatsheets....an unformatted snapshot of one page below:

Part Number Description Qty

TEA2025B STEREO AUDIO AMPLIFIER
TIP120 POWER TRANSISTORS(5.0A,60-100V,65W) 1
TL074CN LOW NOISE QUAD JFET OP-AMPS
TL082CP Wide Bandwidth Dual JFET Input Operational Amplifier
TL084CN GENERAL PURPOSE QUAD JFET OP-AMPS 1
TL7705CP SUPPLY VOLTAGE SUPERVISORS
U1615 PNP Epitaxial Silicon Transistor 20V 10A 1
UDN2916B Dual Full-Bridge PWM Motor Driver 1
ULN2003AN High-Voltage, High-Current Darlington Transistor Arrays 1

The client browser runs on Koppix, Back Track or Slax booted from an iPod!

Happy Holidays

First snow of the season...over a foot last night....more starting tomorrow morning!

Laser Printer Corona Transformer

This arc is produced by a corona transformer out of a laser printer. A 555 timer running at 200 Hz feeds a 5 amp NPN transistor to drive the primary (yellow clips) from a 12v battery: approximately a 7 mm arc-our guess about 23,000 volts based on the dielectric breakdown of air at STP of 33kv/cm.

Frugal

My Grandparents came from very modest means. Both were frugal and careful with spending. For example, my Grandmother's kitchen knives had a nearly limitless lifespan as they could be sharpened by hand many, many times without need to buy a new one!

Gyroscope

Our first generation mechanical gyroscope.

Printer Modification

This is a control board added to a small HP printer that controls the x and y axis motors plus a solenoid that lifts and drops a pen. The control board is attached to a joy stick for etch-a-sketch like drawing on paper in the printer.

USS Freedom

Newest Navy Ship....on board just 30 days after launch!