2015 was a busy year. The project that I had the most fun with was a bit off the beaten path compared to what I normally do. This started off as a fun project for a friend. It started off with, \”I have this LEGO project I need to put LEDs in, can you help me?\” Sure…Continue reading
A quick note on \”ATX\” Power Supplies
After our recent activity making the emergency ATX power supplies, I got a call one evening from one of the hams who couldn\’t get their salvaged 24-pin power supplies to work. It turns out that many of the larger computer manufacturers use their own proprietary pinouts. In this case, he got bit by a Compaq power supply. A good place to check to see if you can make a proprietary power supply work is pinouts.ru (yes, I know it is in Russia, but to my best knowledge it is not crawling with malicious software).
A Valentine Example for Blinking Lights
For Valentine\’s Day my son needed to make a \”mailbox\” for his kindergarten class. He & his mother made a rocket out of an old oat container. Since this was a family project, I decided that my contribution would be lighting it up. My son was quite excited when I told him that I was putting lights on it and it would have a computer to control them. Being sharp as a tack, he quickly asked, \”Daddy, where will the keyboard go?\” I had to explain that it would be a little computer without a keyboard, just a button. He was still excited.
Preventing Accidental Shorts on Prototypes
Many of the boards that we make never end up in an enclosure. Whether for prototyping at the office or projects for home, it is just extra work we don\’t want to mess with. If the board ends up needing a little more protection due to lots of loose wires or it is given to someone that doesn\’t understand what magic smoke is, protection is required. The three easy ways are:
- Through-hole standoffs – These are either ones that go through the PCB (putting the holes in there before fabrication or finding a place to drill them yourself later. The standoffs used in a computer case between the motherboard and its mounting surface are an example of this. These can be either conductive or non-conductive.
- Adhesive standoffs – There are usually some type of plastic with an adhesive that attaches to the board
- Encapsulation – The easiest way to do this is with a hot-melt glue gun. It won\’t be hot enough to melt solder, but will allow you to protect just what you want. This is also great if you need to put a few parts inline with a wire. I\’ve used this to stiffen some diodes that were used to drop the voltage for a DC charging cable.