Procrastination, more than ever before! [a little update :) ]

This will be a little update on what I've been up to and what will be in the future. I've been putting this off for a while but whatever I'll do it now.
Basically I've been either too busy or too lazy to make a post. Being in a university is pretty cool but it sucks alot of time out and I study far away from home where my workshop is, so it makes it harder to work on projects.
So, first some updates...
The watercooled laptop might make a return but I'm not sure. I've already tested the MK2 waterblock and the results were interesting if a little underwhelming at the same time. Going by memory, the GPU temp dropped by about 15C, while CPU temp only dropped by 5C. The reason why the CPU temp didn't drop as much as the GPU was because my waterblock wasn't perfectly flat. It was actually pretty cool holding the coolant resrvoir and feeling it heat up. But to push the project further forward I would need to make a MK3 waterblock and making those is very tedious, which why i'm not sure whether I'll be continuing on with this project.

Next on the list is one of my oldest mentioned "up next" projects, which is the power steering pump to rotary vane vacuum pump conversion. I still have the pump and am still plannning to convert it to a vacuum pump as I am really eager to play around with some high vacuum.

I had another big project this summer, which was my homemade inverter MIG welder. It blew up more often than it welded but at least it welded once and I think that's pretty cool for a scrap built welder. I've already bought a proper MIG welder, though.

But so far the biggest project I think is my new lab, which has temporarily completely halted due to quarantine regarding the corona thing happening right now. But it's close to being finished and as soon as the hardware store opens I'll barging in with my money and a list of square metal tubing to buy!
I honestly can't wait for the new lab to be finished, because it means that I can get back to making new projects. It's not to say that I haven't been making projects all this time, in fact I have been more than ever, it's just that I've been too lazy to make a post for each and every one of them. :)

So......that's my excuse for not keeping up with my blog, more projects up to come as soon as new lab gets finished.

Komentarai

Rašyti komentarą

Populiarūs šio tinklaraščio įrašai

Playing with junk: the SN29764 (LM1017) 4-bit binary 7-segment display driver.

Vaizdas
    While digging through my parts bins looking for my spare arduino nano I came across a boart that I was keeping solely for the 7-segment display that was attached to it. I noticed that there also was an IC marked SN29764 on the board and got curious. After some googling I came up with a LM1017 datasheet, which states that it's an equivalent to the SN29764.      Basically what this IC does is it takes a 4-bit binary number through pins 2, 3, 4 and 5, and displays that number on a 7-segment display. Since this IC was made to display channels on a TV it doesn't display the number 0 but it displays numbers from 1 to 16. Pulling pin 1 down sets the display to full brightness.     I find it quite interesting that there would be a dedicated IC for this application but the world proves to be quite large and technology has sure advanced since the old days. There isn't a date code I can read on the IC but it might very well be older than me even, well I'm not even that old so
Skaityti daugiau

Infrared RGB LED controller using Digispark (Attiny85).

Vaizdas
    While building a PC I thought I'd toss in some RGB to see how it looks. Problem is I had lost the receiver. Bummer! But I still had the remote, so I decided to make my own RGB controller. For this project I chose to use the Digispark, which is like an arduino but is based on the Attiny85. A regular arduino like the arduino nano, or even any other microcontroller like the STM32 "blue pill" can be used for this project. In this case I wanted a small microcontroller, something like an atmega328p would have been a bit of an overkill.     Before I could make my microcontroller do anything I had to find out what my remote was transmitting. To do this I used my OWON VDS1022 USB oscilloscope, with which I saved the samples of the waveform in a .txt file. The bitrate of the signal transmitted by the remote is quite low so something like a DIY audiojack oscilloscope (look it up) would work also. The .txt file then was passed through a matlab script I quickly put togeth
Skaityti daugiau

Modding a laptop power brick into a lithium pack charger and some Manhattan style prototyping.

Vaizdas
      I've built a few 4S lithium battery packs but I didn't have a charger. So I decided to make one by modifying a switch-mode power supply. The power supply I used had a special plug on it with three pins. One of them being a sense pin to change the voltage. On this plug an adapter would connect, which would have a resistor in it that would change the voltage on the output. This power supply is nothing special, though. All this wire does is go straight to the REF pin on the TL431 reference IC inside. How do I know that? Because I accidentally blew the TL431 and had to pull the power supply apart to replace it. If you're willing to pull apart a laptop power supply you can add this wire to the TL431 reference and you'll have basically the same thing I have.     Opening them can be a pain. Mike from mikeselectricstuff shared in one of his youtube videos that whacking the weld/glue seam on the power supply will crack the joint and the power supply will come apart. But I&
Skaityti daugiau