For Nick Nolte who was asking about the dimensions of the 2-pin micro USB connector I used on the prototype LED coaster.
When I have a component like this I tend to lay it on a 1/10" grid (a standard grid size in electronics) to get a feel for general size and pin/pad spacing. I'll th...
2019-02-25 05:58:16 +0000 UTC View Post
In the last OBD video I mentioned that I had ordered another unit based on the picture of the PCB in the listing. Well here it is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB810U7j77k
This one is pleasi...
2019-02-24 04:33:47 +0000 UTC View Post
This is actually quite a neat little nightlight purely because of the technology it uses to create the light.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmaqagBNsMQ
I think these are discontinued now, so if you w...
2019-02-22 21:06:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Just a short video showing typical fruit machines (slot machines) in a British pub going through their advertising sequence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A87IKqrf1U
There's more info in the video d...
2019-02-22 06:20:03 +0000 UTC View Post
The quiet hiss of water escaping from my plumbing wasn't a good thing to return home to. A bit of floorboard lifting to narrow down the source of the noise revealed a tiny pinhole in a copper pipe spraying water liberally under the floor.
This video sounds a bit boomy because of where I filmed it, and I was trying to be quiet as it was late at night and my neighbours were probably in bed. I can hear their voices, so I'm sure they can hear mine.
This "single Derby" light is one of the simplest disco lights of all. It just projects a flat line of coloured light.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60uGMBp0seg
If it is sequenced to the music i...
2019-02-18 23:05:35 +0000 UTC View Post
It's a while since I've checked out one of the cheap LED floodlights on eBay so I thought I'd get one and see if they're still using a low voltage array inside or of they've switched to a mains voltage COB with onboard driver.
This seems like a huge threshold that I never even considered reaching.
2019-02-13 04:26:28 +0000 UTC View Post
Building the second version of the LED coaster thing with the corner pillars nudged in a little bit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaoeKX1DHa4
Quite a nice PCB to build and it looks pretty good too.<...
2019-02-13 03:05:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Just to avoid confusion with the other PCB. This one is the teleport beacon intended to indicate safe materialisation zones.
2019-02-10 06:25:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Slight track loss during processing. Fine for a prototype though as it's mainly to get a feel for spacing and ease of building. I always prefer to make a physical prototype or two before getting PCBs manufactured.
China is having its main holiday at the moment, so there's no rus...
2019-02-10 05:28:09 +0000 UTC View Post
This looks like one of the little penlights doctors use to peer into your orifices.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XqxQsWgxv4
It's actually very neat inside. Much better than I was ...
2019-02-07 20:24:12 +0000 UTC View Post
This device is called a hand grip dynamometer and to all intents and purposes it's a weighing scale with a hand grip. It works quite well, although I can't vouch for its accuracy without a suitable test setup. (A 100 pound weight).
A failed attempt to blow up a jelly baby. I need some better explodey stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jzrf_lljkc
2019-02-06 00:45:45 +0000 UTC View Post
This fairly standard looking COB array was very interesting to explore.
I specifically bought a blue one (no phosphor) so I could take a closer look at the chips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpF5O0W8Bd...
2019-02-05 20:21:24 +0000 UTC View Post
This is an attempt to adapt the channel logo to a PCB compatible format by replicating it as tracks. It looks a bit weird when you can see all the nodes and arc centre points.
2019-02-03 05:05:31 +0000 UTC View Post
A nice down to earth video showing the super-simple heating system in a hot melt glue gun. An absolutely cost optimised device due to the high volume used in hobbies and industrial applications.
2019-02-03 02:43:28 +0000 UTC View PostWell that's made a mess. Tonight's lab (kitchen) incident involved quite a loud bang, broken glass and a mixture of water and wax loaded with solvent spreading itself over quite a large area.
Can you guess what I was making? (I really shouldn't get distracted while "accelerated"...
2019-02-02 02:27:32 +0000 UTC View PostDid I go too far by dropping the Family Guy inspired "period joke" (since seeing that episode I can't say "period furniture" without thinking of it.) and relating my mummy story on the stove fan video? It was one of lots of similar weird things that happened while me and my brother nursed m...
2019-01-31 14:51:26 +0000 UTC View Post
This unit is designed to derive its power from a heat gradient and blow the hot air surrounding the stove into the room.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H7SZO4okXk
Since making the video earlier today...
2019-01-31 05:09:33 +0000 UTC View Post
When I got this I was expecting it to just have a 1W or 3W LED firing into the side of the plastic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X--Y-pvRgRo
But it turns out it's really quite cleverly designed insi...
2019-01-30 16:59:26 +0000 UTC View Post
There are two interesting things about this rather stylish combined work-light and power bank.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAoISQaA5jY
The first is the polarity protection and the second is the way...
2019-01-29 20:30:42 +0000 UTC View Post
I try not to rant much, nut some things really get on my wick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqOzWunmKdE
This is a nicely designed socket. I wonder how many seasons it would last in a location ...
2019-01-28 03:49:23 +0000 UTC View Post
I've featured one of these before, but this time I'm wiser to the stuff going on with the OBD2 port in cars. (You should find yours. They're great.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx8fywphQp0 2019-01-27 04:07:15 +0000 UTC View Post
It turns out that the video wall panel supplied in the Project MC2 "handbag" is a standard module.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dB1w99AwGE
I amused myself by reverse engineering it and then writing...
2019-01-24 03:29:14 +0000 UTC View Post
It's a while since I've built a kit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOgddrIXNkY
This kit is reported to have timekeeping issues, which is odd, since it uses a real time clock chip. I'll get a ba...
2019-01-22 16:18:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Just a bit of fun to see what sort of refresh rate I could achieve using a low end processor generating a pattern in real time as the display is multiplexed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRZ2ECHl5FQ
Sometimes I get some really rabid comments on my quack product debunking videos. Do you remember the one where you put your feet in a tub of water with an electrode and it "detoxified" your body by drawing impurities out of you into the water? It was actually just accelerated corrosio...
2019-01-18 05:49:48 +0000 UTC View Post
There are real versions of this and there are fakes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujio2shR7Lg
The best way to tell is that the fakes are really bright out of the box, whereas the real ones often nee...
2019-01-18 02:37:10 +0000 UTC View Post