software creative
Winter is almost here. Bruce and I’s snow trip is only a month or two away. I pulled the pulk out from storage and fabricated stabilizing runners on the bottom from two inch aluminum that is available at Home Depot. Two bolts for each runner hold it in place nicely. I’m unsure if I want to locktite those or not. Being able to take them off could come in handy, but the chance of losing the bolts is pretty high.
The laces on my Meindl boots destructed over the summer. I’m trying out a new brand I found on Amazon called Iron Laces. The manufacturer warranties these laces for life. I’m really skeptical on this. To me this sounds like a calculated bet that the shoes won’t last as long as the laces.
Upon receipt, these look like normal laces–I almost expected to see steel or kevlar reinforcement. That would be suiting for the places I’ve taken these boots.
On a side note, I really like the Meindl boots. I’ve never had a pair that were so comfortable. I’ve treat them about every six months with Granger’s Paste Wax to protect the leather. I’ve read that Meindl will not warranty shoes unless you use Meindl brand care products or Granger’s Paste Wax.
My [coffee] burr grinder finally quit on me. I’ve lived without a button on the front for quite a while. I had hopes of fixing it and saving myself some big money. It took me quite a while to figure out how to open the case–turns out to be pretty simple if you know what to look for. Using a flat screwdriver, there are four detentes on the bottom. You have to know they are there to find them.
It turns out this driver circuitry is really old school. No fuses, no surface mount parts, and no isolation transformer. The driver circuit is a mix of analog and TTL logic. This thing is a fire hazard waiting to happen.
Replacing it with this Capresso model,
Continued installing parts. I’m finding the solder pads that are electrically connected to the ground plane to be hard to solder. The holes are only tinned in a few places. This makes it hard to put the correct amount of solder on it.
Ordered a Hammond 1591GSGY
I’m a little behind the times, but I just found out there is a new edition of Numerical Recipes. I grew up on the Red 2nd edition. This content is even more applicable now that commodity hardware (think Arduino and low end ARM) can run a lot of these algorithms in real time.
Spent more time this Saturday assembling the pigrig. Component soldering is easy, it’s the transformers that get me. I like and am good at winding toroids, but the bn transformers are a different breed of difficult.
Spent some of my down time cutting up fire wood. I’m slowly reducing the burn piles. I’ve had these piles for two years now. The burning season is really restrictive (my own standards).
The resistors are in. I’ve taken to enjoying the surface mount assembly. He surface amount work was easier than identifying the color bands on 1/8 watt resistors. I must be getting old.
I received my w8diz flying pig kit. It is the new version 2. For the money ($42), you can’t beat the value this radio provides. This design uses a single conversion receiver design, with a crystal filter before the mixer. This increases the performance with very little complexity, and cost.
I’ve been collecting goodies from China and adafruit to use during the holidays. Hooray for me time.
