TLDW wrapup for the small DC generator

Followup video for the dc generator build.

Starter Circuit and Charge Controller for a small DC generator or solar panel

For about 3 weeks I have been working on building a box for a small DC generator I am building out of an old weed eater engine and a motor from an electric wheel chair.

This is the basic schematic:

These are the videos of the process of making it. They are rather long.

Little White DOT

See that white dot in the picture above?
That’s a picture of Earth taken from Saturn.
Now tell me again how important your problem is?

Looks about due for hard times.

Hard times create strong minds.
Strong minds create good times.
Good times create weak minds.
Weak minds create hard times.

Droid Turbo XT1254 no sound from external speaker

Droid Turbo XT1254 no sound from external speaker.
My Droid Turbo recently stopped playing sound from the external speaker, and starting about 1 or 2 months ago the flash light stopped working.

Some googling produced an article that mentioned that someone had a similar problem and they found that if they pressed on the back of the case near the camera the external speaker would start working. I found that mine exhibits the same behavior. I opened up my phone to see if I could possibly fix the problem, and found the cause The battery is swelling up. It appears that the swelling is separating some connections. This may be the cause of the back lights not working as well.

The problem might be fixable but my phone is eligible for an upgrade and I don't want to mess with it.

Hackaday Write up

I submitted a post from my blog to Hackaday and they liked it, read about it here.

Read the comments.

General Electric 3-5251A Boom Box adding mp3 and bluetooth

I got this from ebay:

 I was looking for a boom box that I might be able to add bluetooth and maybe mp3 player abilities. It seemed it might be a good candidate for the addition of an internal or maybe an external device on the back.

 Although you cannot tell from the picture above there is only 2 possible locations to install something, one at the top behind the tape buttons, and a small location below the 2 inputs on the back (lower middle).

After looking on ebay for possibilities it became clear that it would be too complicated (and destructive?).

I did some research and found these 2 items on ebay:
a bluetooth adapter in a tape cassette.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/322385616259?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT
and an mp3 player (with remote) in a cassette.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/252509649751?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

The next problem was when I tried to play a tape (it would not move). If it would not move the mp3 and bluetooth player would not work. I found that the source capstan was almost frozen and the take up was stiff. Some judicious applications of light oil and some moving things back and forth freed it up enough that it played a tape just fine. Pretty good for a 32 year old boom box.

The next issue was that when you pressed play on the tape there was a loud crashing static sound and one of the channels (usually the left one) would not work or fade out after a while. I was worried that there was a problem with the amplifier or maybe the play head on the tape recorder. I opened the unit up and was surprised at how easy it can be worked on. 7 screws hold on the back, the power supply is in the back panel and is plugged in to the mainboard, and there is a connector for the speakers.

4 screws hold the chassis in the unit, then a handful of screws hold the mainboard to the frame. the tuner wheel can be disconnected and then I secured it with a bread tie so I would not have to restring it. I cleaned all the pots and switches including the switch hidden near the play button. I checked a random electrolytic capacitor and found it was at it's rated capacity and had low ESR so I left them all alone.

I reassembled it, and tried the mp3 and bluetooth players and now there is no crash when I hit play and neither channel fades.

She sound great.