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_outlineThis episode covers one more PCB-failure (see previous episode for more fail), a LED that would still emit light at a rediculously low current, shortcomings of DIY lasercut stencils from a previous episode, my entry for the upcoming IFComp, disassembly of an old bread-toaster, the RC2018/04 Retro Challenge which will start tomorrow, and some more upcoming events.
- IFComp - Interactive Fiction Competition
- Retro Challenge RC2018/04 in April...
- ...and my entry for the RC2018/04
- Outline demo-party (10-13 May)
- Hackalot: upcoming hackerspace in NL
For the upcoming IFComp, I want to make an interactive cassette-tape, where the tape-reel is replaced by software driving a magnetic element to emit sound/speech, where the user interacts with the game by pressing fast-forward/rewind/play/stop on the tape-player.
The project will thus consist of a reworked cassette-tape adapter (fitted with electronics) implementing an adventure-game. Let's create the actual game within the IFComp contest-period, and make the hardware-platform in advance - as in, now.
Reed-switches and magnet forming a simple encoder, and the magnetic element to emit audio towards the tape-player's head:
Testing the tape inside a pretty tape-player:
Signals from both reeds-switches. By observing delays, frequency and phase-shift, the software can process game-input:
Tetris'ing electrical components within the tape's enclosure:
Testing the toaster. Cold-spray, stopwatch and 2 thermocouples:
The actual "circuit". No idea what the pink wire was for. "M" is the heater specifically for the bimetallic strip, and "H" is the main bread-heater:
