12/25/2020

The virile copper miner

 Why is the statue in Bisbee called the "virile copper miner"?

See for your self.

I was told (back in college) that if you stood in the right place you would see why he got his name.

Here is the other side for reference.

The wife and I were there today and while I had tried to get these pictures before they never turned out right. This time I got them.



12/18/2020

How to un-hide a media server in windows media player

How to un-hide or restore a media server (that you accidentally hid or removed) in windows media player windows 7.
Open windows media player.
view library
Right click other libraries

Select Customize navigation pane.

at the top where is says "yourusername's Library"

click the down arrow on the right.

Select other libraries

put a check mark next to the library or libraries that are missing. 

click ok.


11/18/2020

13 Year Anniversary

 13 Year Anniversary of this blog... Yay.

11/13/2020

Pololu Micro Maestro 6 DIY Generator Governor

in 2017 I built a small 200 watt DC generator powered by an Echo GT-1000 string trimmer engine. Here is the playlist for that.

 

If you don't want to watch the whole thing you can watch a wrap up video here:

The biggest problem was that it did not have a governor and so is mostly useless. I could have made one with an arduino or something like that, but I kind of think that's like using a cray to balance your check book. Gensets were out of the question as being too expensive and way to big.

Recently I found a device called the Pololu Micro Maestro 6 It can control 6 servos or any combination of 6 buttons, sensors, and/or POT's. 

Here is the full build:

The most difficult part of this was the script. The script language is basically Fourth. I will provide a more detailed explanation of the program at a later date.

This is the most current script that works:

100 #this does nothing
top:
8800 0 servo # Move servo to middle position
begin
  button # is button on or off
    if #on proceed with program
      too_low # Check if throttle is too low
100 delay
      too_high # check if throttle is too high
    else #off keep checking for on and reset the servo if it was moved.
      goto top
    endif
repeat

sub too_low
  5 get_position 750 less_than #check the voltage is it below X
    if 0 get_position minus 10#if voltage is too low get position of servo and subtract 100
      over # not sure how this helps
      negate
      0 servo # move the servo to the new position
      10 delay # wait
    else  #if voltage is fine do nothing
      goto skip
    endif
swap # not sure why but the program won't
drop # work without these commands
skip:
return

sub too_high
  5 get_position 900 greater_than #check the voltage is it above X
    if 0 get_position plus 10 #if voltage is too high get position of servo and add 100
      over # not sure how this helps
      0 servo #move servo to new position
      10 delay #wait
    else #if voltage is fine do nothing
      goto skip2
    endif
swap # not sure why but the program won't
drop # work without these commands
skip2:
return

sub button
  2 get_position 500 less_than
return

-----------------------------

this video has the explanation of the script above

 

Bonus video

9/20/2020

Tunnels under Cochise College

When I attended Cochise college or as we called it "tumbleweed tech" back in the early to mid 80's the place was probably quite different than it is today. It seems that back then college students were a bit more rowdy then they are today. so much so that the furniture in the men's dorm lobby was replaced with rubber padded prison furniture. Furniture exactly like this:


I worked in the security office as a dispatcher and operator as no one had an outside line and we had to make and connect calls for people using their calling cards. This was annoying and changed when the phone system got hacked. After that they setup each dorm room so that they could have their own phone line and bill. sometimes at night I'd sit and watch horny students run back and forth sneaking in to dorm rooms through windows since men and women visiting each other dorm rooms was strictly monitored and controlled.

I also worked the front desk of the men's and women's dorms checking people in and out. To make sure people were'nt staying and screwing. It was pointless because there was constant parties and screwing going on in both dorms.

Tumbleweed tech is located 8 miles from Douglas, 16 miles from Bisbee, 2 miles from the border and 6 feet from hell.

Some of the things we did for fun were:

Go shooting at the shooting range behind the runway (it's still there). We were allowed to have firearms and they were kept in the security office.

We would also go across highway 80 and run around in the desert hunting and hiking. I spent many a weekend hiking in the desert there.

Exploring mines and hiking in the desert around Bisbee. Including the Easter Sunday Mine. Though we did not know the name at that time.

 Standing in front of part of the Higgins and Czar Mines

Exploring abandoned houses around Douglas. We found a house one time filled floor to ceiling with 1 gallon jugs of water. Probably a stop for illegals.

Running amok on the gunnery range at Ft. Huachuca.

Having keggers in the desert.

Sneak in to the the not very well locked up gym, and explore the tunnels under the college. There is one that goes from a man hole in front of the building where the cafeteria is to a utility room in the gym. On one of those occasions my roommate was running through the tunnel breaking the light bulbs as he went.


Hunt skunks, rabbits, and sonoran toads on campus at night with BB guns and wrist rockets.

Have all dorm water fights.

Launch rockets and fly model airplanes in and around the dorm rooms.


The security office was an interesting place I have long since forgotten the names of the guys who worked there, but one of them we gave the nickname "John Wayne" though he actually look more like Boss Hogg. He had a habit of wearing silvered sun glasses, and he claimed to be a former cop, he acted a lot like a very arrogant Barney Fife. He was very full of himself and full of shit.

There was another guy who was the epitome of the "dirty old man". On one occasion I went with him on his rounds and when we got to the women's locker room he stopped. made a great show of sniffing mightily and said "Smell that? Smells like PUSSY!" I thought it smelled like moldy towels. He would often point his walkie talkie at your crotch hit the transmit button and declare "now you're sterile".

Then there was the young mexican guy who had a thing for really fat chicks. He would bring in chubby chaser mags and look at them when not out on rounds. Then show them to me. Huge fat naked chicks. He was quite weird. We sometimes would sit out at the entrance to the campus with a radar gun and light up passing cars to watch the ones with radar detectors slam on the brakes.

Then there was the security guard that painted his car lemon yellow with flat exterior house paint and a roller brush. He was very proud of it.

At one time there was a room in the men's dorm that they put in a bunch of video and pinball games, it was great until someone figured out how to jimmy the games open and get free games.

On Fridays when the A&P class got out early we'd head in to Aqua Prieta to a place we called the Corona factory. For $2.25 you could get a 6 pack of Corona in a bag on ice, for .10 more you could get a bag of limes. You never asked the price of the beer if you did they would tell you $5 but you just walked up and gave them $2.25. Then we went around back and sat on the dock getting drunk (highly illegal there) while watching people walk illegally across the border which was only 100 feet away. Then you took the bottles back and they gave you $1. So in today's money 6 beers cost $2.81.

Yeah Cochise college was an absolute blast in the 80's I wonder what it is like now.

9/15/2020

Things that give me migraines

I have found these 2 things will give me a migraine either within a day or 2 of taking.

Niacin within a couple of hours of taking 125mg of it. 2 days in a row.

Flaxseed oil. I started taking this since fish oil makes me sick. I was taking it for 2 days and got a migraine, then on the 3rd day got another. 4th day no migraine, fifth day another migraine. stopped taking the flaxseed oil and no more migraine. I had not had a migraine prior to this for almost 3 years.

8/26/2020

Panelization in EasyEDA

The instructions for panelizing a board in EasyEDA are absolutely terrible and confusing, they lack any useful information. 

In easyeda select tools then panelization.

Select the number of rows and columns BUT keep in mind that their machine can only accept a minimum size board of 7x7 Centimeters. So you will need to select a minimum number of rows and columns that meets or exceeds this number. as an example I have a board they is 18.75x8.5 millimeters. in order to meet the minimum requirements of panel size my board needs to be 4 columns by 10 rows high. The minimum column and row spacing is 1.6mm. I do not need boarders.

Originally based on the instructions (I found) I thought I had to account for the board size when selecting the spacing and put in 18.750 for columns and 8.5 for rows which got me very strange results.

There is still some confusion on whether you need to copy and fix the circuit to each board. it appears that you do not (JLCPCB will supposedly do this for you), but there is conflicting information about this on line.

7/30/2020

Panasonic RE-7700 Automatic Tuning Stereo

picked this up from goodwill today for very little as it did not power on.
The reason it did not power on was that a small tab of copper or copper plated steel that actuated the power switch had been knocked off the switch.
in order to get the top of this unit off remove the screws circled in red, to get the bottom plate off remove the red and the green circled screws.
You will also need to remove this screw from the top side. I ended up drilling a hole through the plastic in order to get to it. You will definitely have to do it to put the screw back in.
The schematic is inside the stereo under the top cover. If yours is missing here is a very high resolution scan. Dial string instructions included.
Or you can download a pdf that contains it, and better printable copies.

When it asks you to login or create an account click "no Thanks, Continue to View"
Then Click Download in the upper right corner.

6/15/2020

Philips 800Lumens 8.5w 2700k LED light bulb failure mode

We purchased several Philips 800Lumens 8.5w 2700k LED light bulbs in January of 2017 from Ace Hardware the bulbs have a UL number of 3PM5. About a month ago one of them stopped working and I took it apart. I was hoping to repair it, but found that it was not possible due to how it was put together and because the small transformer on the circuit board had broken apart and fallen off the board.

Today another one started going out. it started blinking on and off. I replaced it and opened it up, I found that same issue the small transformer had fallen off the circuit board, and there was the smell of burned components, and an electrolytic capacitor on the circuit board had overheated and popped.

The bulbs were mounted in a ceiling fan light fixture that is open and pointing down at about a 45° angle. The bulbs are supposed to last 22 years at the ridiculous usage of 3 hours per day. The warranty was 3 years.

3/15/2020

Everyone Was Kung Flu Frightened!

Today the wife and Mother-in-law decided we should go out for a drive. We headed to the north scottsdale/Phoenix area. On the way back we headed down Cave Creek rd. and since we were in need of some items we had forgotten to get on previous trips to the grocery store we stopped at a Fry's on north Cave Creek rd.

Here what it was like:
it goes without saying that there was no hand sanitizer or medical alcohol.
No bottled water
 No Bread
 No Canned Foods
No Pasta
 No Rice and Beans
 Not much in the way of soap
 and of course the one item that makes you invulnerable to viruses...
NO Toilet Paper!
Now the rest of the aisles were mostly normal. I figured that rich people would just order their stuff from Zanzibar and not worry about it.

2/02/2020

LG's Scare mongering


Watch this video of Louis Rossman's evaluation of the scare mongering campaign by LG regarding 18650 batteries
#LithiumionBatteryCells, #18650, #StaySafeBattery

Way to blame the consumer LG!

How is not selling legit good batteries going to prevent this LG?

It is apparent from the video that LG thinks the average consumer is a complete moron.

It's too late there are tons of products on the market with consumer replaceable 18650 batteries. The cat is out of the bag. So instead of throwing gasoline on the fire how about finding ways to make LION batteries safer?

Rossman is right again.