Clear Silicone seal does wonders when it comes to weatherproofing and sealing against moisture. I used it to cover up and protect the Joule Thief parts on this nearly disposable flashlight. Components I wound two six inch lengths of 20 AWG (0.25mm) solid enameled magnet wire (bifilar wound) onto a 0.25 inch outside diameter ferrite
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Another Hangar at the former Marine Corps Air Station, Tustin, California, has gone to the scrap heap of history this week. The demolition ‘dozer ripped the steel beams out from the walls, twisting them like pretzels. Every time the ‘dozer pulled out a beam, the whole hangar lurched and loudly popped, banged and groaned as
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Note (from yesterday’s blog): I have seen many good Joule Thief projects mistakenly use the 1N4003 series rectifier, which is made for 50 or 60 Hz, and has a slow recovery time. I have put a 1N4003 in parallel with a 1N4148, and found that the Joule Thief’s performance often drops. This is because it
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I got a link from Quantsuff, about making jewelry out of Nixie tubes. Bill ‘Botronics‘ Sherman replied that Nixie tubes need 140 to 170 volts at 2 milliamps. Meanwhile, I’ve got ten thousand or more of the Dionics DTN-205 transistors in my parts bins that were made for driving Nixies and VFDs. I liked Bill’s
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I ordered some books from Amazon, most of them being Cy Tymony’s “Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things” series. So far I’ve received three books, and one is three times thicker than the others. It turned out that this book is really three books under the same cover. It’s ISBN: 978-0-7407-8424-8. From what I’ve read, it
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Perhaps this is the reason why things aren’t the way they should be. The media is totally filled with ‘news’ of Trayvon Martin, a single unjustified death, while thousands are being killed in Syria and it hardly makes the news. It may also be the reason why elections turn out the way they do.
I finally received the books I ordered from Amazon, one of which is Cy Tymony’s Sneakiest Uses For Everyday Things. In the section Sneaky Energy Projects and Simulations he gives some interesting information. One such tidbit: currently in the U.S. less than 4 percent of the car market is diesel, while in Europe over 50
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I got a bunch of BC337-40 transistors; I don’t know why since I already have hundreds of BC338s and I haven’t really used a lot of them in years (see note). I have been using the BC337-25s because I felt that it was more representative of what the average transistor is going to be when
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