Welcome to Watson's Rustybolt.info website.
For my blog, you can click here --> rustybolt.info/wordpress.
Watson's Web Page
NOTE: Mar 14, 2012 I had turned off comments in my blog for awhile due to comment spam. I have now installed Akismet and I haven't had any comment spam since, so I am now enabling comments in my latest blogs.
This is a replacement for watsonseblog.blogspot.com which was "Removed because of Spam" (or maybe because Blogger didn't like my lack of participation in 'monetizing' my blog - one article says "Google simply regards other people's creative material as free filler to sandwich in between its advertisements."). I don't spam. But their vague and evil Terms of Service allow them to remove any blog for spamming, even if the blogger just leaves a link to his/her blog anywhere, such as in a forum (which is most likely the reason mine got removed). Beware!! If you have a blog on blogspot, you had better back it up regularly and hope that it doesn't get deleted - and you don't get falsely accused of spamming. If you have any doubt about what I've just said, read this article, especially the last paragraph just before the asterisk.
This web page is about Electronics, and one of my favorite components, LEDs. I will have a lot of schematics and information about Joule Thiefs, other circuits used with LEDs and other electronic circuits. These will be in my blog, rustybolt.info/wordpress.
DISCLAIMER:
As with any information on the web, the information I've given comes with a standard disclaimer that it is without warranty, and by using it, you agree not to blame me for anything that might happen to you or your project. You must not complain to me that an error or omission caused harm to you or your project. However I'm grateful for telling me about any corrections that should be made.
All electric / electronic devices come with the danger of shock and/or fire hazard. You must take appropriate precautions when working with them. If you're unfamiliar with these precautions, then you should first learn these precautions before doing anything else. It could save you from losing a lot of money or save your life.
OTHER
I use the free software ExpressSCH which is a part of ExpressPCB to create my schematics. The ExpressPCB software allows one to design a circuit board and upload it to expresspcb.com, to be manufactured for about $65 USD for three miniboards. I have authored hundreds of schematics, all used to have watsonseblog in the title. I have changed that to rustybolt.info, but it looks like it will take a lotta time for those changes to replace the old ones.
Interesting fact: Your body has 70 to 100 trillion cells.
Interesting fact: 4 million tons per second of the Sun's mass is converted to energy, which illuminates the whole solar system. 
Some of my favorite websites are:
Bill Bowden's bowdenshobbycircuits.info (which used to be on the late Compuserve.com/homepages)
Wenzel's www.techlib.com which has many good projects and schematics. I really liked the ionization detectors he built soon after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.
Quantsuff's webpages mostly dealing with LEDs and Joule Thief circuits.
Bill Sherman's
http://robots.homeip.net dealing with artbots and various electronics, projects including Joule Thiefs.
Harry Lythall´s website dealing with amateur radio but has other good electronics stuff. The website has changed occasionally, so if this link doesn't work, search for SM0VPO (zero and letter O respectively).
Novotill's Interesting circuits has a lot of reverse engineered circuits; such as motor operated toys.
Torrens' website, 4QDTEC.com. Lots of interesting circuits, and has been around a long time.
National Institute of Standards and Technology - This explains that since the year 2000 the standards for describing kilobytes, megabytes, etc., have changed to.. Well read it and you will understand why almost all of the people involved with describing the size (of memory for instance) have ignored this standard. And it is an international standard, not an optional recommendation. In my old blog I used to say this was suggested reading, but I have changed that to required reading in the hope that people will change their ways and no longer use incorrect terms.
Redcircuits.com has been around for quite awhile, and has some very good electronics projects. The Italian webmaster, Flavio, is helpful, too.
A Japanese amateur radio enthusiast, JF1OZL, has a whole lotta projects on his website. Really.
If you find a website that is not on my list, and you have questions about the quality of its projects and the website itself, email me at my yahoo dot com address, acmefixer.
Warning!
There are many other websites out there with what looks like good electronics info, But I will warn you that many if not most of them fall into two categories:
The first category is those who blatantly plagiarize ('steal') the schematics from other sites and put them on their website, with no attribution, nothing about where the original came from. The problem is that as time goes on, the original author may make corrections or changes to his original schematic, but the changes never get updated on the thief's website. So you get outdated or incomplete information that may cause your project to end in failure.
The second category is the website where the author has put up his own designs and it seems his primary motivation is to get hits to earn money from advertising. These generally tall into two subcategories:
The author has a limited understanding of electronics and there are many errors and/or omissions that will cause the neophyte project builder to end in failure and cause him to be discouraged, maybe enough to never attempt to build another project. I see a very large amount of this on Youtube, where quite a number of self-proclaimed experts or 'wags' put up specious videos, with unverifiable claims. And that is in addition to the poor quality and incomplete content of the videos.
I have often attempted to help correct some of the errors in those websites. But probably due to the author's limited grasp of the concepts, my explanations fall on deaf ears, and the errors or omissions remain. Or worse yet, the author becomes angry and accuses me of not knowing what I'm talking about, and refuses to correspond any further about the errors or omissions. One author, recognized by his "handy dandy circuits" treated me very gruffly once.
The other subcategory is the author who redraws the schematics from other websites in the hope of hiding the fact that they were authored by someone else. I can easily recognize these because they have the same design deficiencies, or even the same errors or omissions in the copied schematic. Again, the same thing applies that I said above for the blatant plagiarists. The schematic may be much prettier and in color, but it's still a theft of the original author's intellectual property.
The primary reason for these websites is not for free information flow, it's to 'monetize' the website. The authors don't need to clean up errors or omissions on their website as long as it gets enough hits (eyeballs) to earn enough from the advertising. I've noticed that some go to lengths to 'certify' or 'approve' their content. "I approve my own content" doesn't mean anything when it comes to the quality of the content.
More later...