episode 45: glucometer, fuel consumption and vacuum cleaner
CBA Podcast
(Michai is too lazy to make shownotes now, check again later. :-)
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episode 44: DMX512, ground reference and LED decoration stuff
CBA Podcast
Hi, and an extremely good 2021 to all of you.
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episode 43: DMM probes, laundry fix and light-hangout
CBA Podcast
Prepare yourself for epic or less epic talk about a mains test jig that proved very useful, some awesome Probe Master DMM probes well worth the money, and both me and occasional cohost Domen fixing household stuff, and the subtle psychology of starting a repair.
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episode 42: exploding cap, 3D-printing and planet decoration
CBA Podcast
The thrilling tale of 4 months of doing pretty much nothing interesting is coming to a podcast near you today!
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episode 41: oversized test-jig, spiky LED ball and knowing your equipment
CBA Podcast
In this time of global turmoil, the CBA Podcast once again proves to be your one-stop source of distraction and meh-grade information.
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episode 40: xmas smoothness, deadlifts and resistive load
CBA Podcast
Welcome to the first and so far best episode of 2020, the third year of this podcast. Thanks for sticking around and making this happen, or alternatively, thanks for just tuning in - hope you like it.
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episode 39: crossing borders, intensity curves and anti-theft socks
CBA Podcast
Another mixed bag as usual. 2 meetups with the CBA Quality Team for some Quality Time.
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episode 38: LEDstrip fun, rand, and voltage drops
CBA Podcast
Hi there! Thanks for tuning in (or reading this text and then deciding not to tune in at all). Another episode with a mixed bag of semi-interesting topics. Thanks for the feedback - the inter-segment jingle will be a bit less loud from now on. Poor ears. We start off by counting pass & fail on this year's new year's resolutions, followed by mentioning a small inline PCB for driving LED-strips and so on. The PCB was used for 2 light effects so far - links to videos of both are given below. Ran into a "gotcha" when dealing with LED-effects: intelligent LEDs stuck in "full brightness"...
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episode 37: past events, lasercutting and fear of breaking the rope
CBA Podcast
You thought that we finally learned from our mistakes and abandoned this podcast, and you thought wrong. Once again it's time to lower your standards, and enjoy a new episode of the CBA Podcast. We start with some PCB failures and flaws, followed by a very brief review of the Hackalot lasercutter & vinylcutter workshop. We attended T-DOSE, which is a Dutch open source event hosted in Eindhoven. Then for something slightly out of the ordinary, we talk about back-of-envelope calculations about whether a climbing-rope can actually break if I fall. (Spoiler alert: it cannot.) Some...
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episode 36: triple screw-up, LED lamp biopsy and bodyfat measurement
CBA Podcast
After more than 1 month of laziness, let's kickstart this episode with some failures and apologies. Next up is a summary of Hackalot's part in the Open Hackerspace Day 2019, and a teardown of a cheap and somewhat boring Aldi 230 Vac LED lamp. Finally, some very-voodoo and somewhat-less-voodoo methods of measuring the percentage of bodyfat in humans are briefly discussed.
info_outlineThe thrilling tale of 4 months of doing pretty much nothing interesting is coming to a podcast near you today!
After hearing about the hilarious exploding electrolytic, we continue with some lame or slightly-less-lame tools one can just buy off-the-shelf: using H-field probes for injecting magnetic fields into a PCB, the Aim-TTi I-prober 520 for measuring magnetic fields and current, and a simple but superhandy USB power meter.
(I guess it's just a matter of time before all this deteriorates into an unboxing-podcast...)
Various IRL events were canceled, so a YT livestream from a friend of mine got me thinking about 3D printing again. I settled on using a commercial 3D printing-service instead of DIY, and that suits me fine for now. This episode lists some criteria that may help you trying to decide between using a printing-service or getting your own printer, and if so, which printing-method suits you best.
Lo and behold, I actually made something as well: a LED planet decoration thing using 3D printed "planet" and acrylic rings around it, that light up when LEDs shine onto them. For simulating visual effects, I tried and liked the Cairo 2D graphics library (for C).
Links in order of appearance:
- product page about Beehive EMC probes
- Aim-TTi I-prober 520: product page and reviews on EEVblog or Mike's Electric Stuff (YT)
- one minute of PCB reflow inside my vapour phase oven
And some fluffy pics:
QCAD: 2D cross section of planet decoration's "planet sphere". The shape itself, and dimensions therein ("A", "B" etc.) can be read and used by OpenSCAD (3D) for extrusion. Pretty cool.
OpenSCAD: extruded 3D shape, resulting from rotating the 2D cross section 360 degrees.
A transparent engraved disk of acrylic fits between the 2 halves of the sphere.
Planet decoration in action.
(laptop shown, to get an impression of the size of the decoration)
A piece of LEDstrip sitting snugly inside the bottom half of the planet-sphere in the center, shining outwards into the transparent acrylic sheet.
LED driver, old board with flaws...
...and new version, with fewer flaws.
You DESERVE one of these if you make USB-powered crap.
Shoot your zapper at uranus! A dirty mind is a joy forever, and so is having a NES.