Join other Raspberry Pi enthusiasts at the new Splatspace location in downtown durham this Thursday night starting at 6:30. Meetup details here. More info about Splatspace and their new 800 N Mangum location in Durham is available here.
All posts by Pete Soper
Graphene
Here’s an in-depth New Yorker article about Graphene for those who might wonder what the hype is about or how to make it yourself (Zhiwei Peng’s work described near the end of the article).
Dr. Dobbs RIP
It is with great sadness that I pass this farewell notice along:
http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/farewell-dr-dobbs/240169421
At least one Radio Shack is upgrading itself with “Fix It Here!”
The Radioshack at Cary/Crossroads has set up a cellphone and tablet repair station in the corner of their store. It’s called “Fix It Here!”. My eyes nearly popped out at the site of state of the art SMT rework tools right there, with a very sharp guy named Matt who knows how to use them. He’s there and ready to fix your broken glass, failed connectors, etc. The phone number is 919 851 0332.
And this particular Radioshack now has a wall full of Little Bits as well as a scrupulously maintained inventory of the other gadgets and gizmos embedded hobby enthusiasts need. I was encouraged that maybe they will adapt and pull out of their spiral.
(I have no connection to Radioshack, but I’ve been buying stuff mostly here since this store was opened. )
Why Indeed?
At a recent meeting Scott Hall told us about a $4 Cypress ARM system that his work group intends to use with a port of an ultra-lightweight Linux called uClinux. Coincidentally there was a recent blurb on Slashdot about uClinux on a Motorola 68k and here is the article, the related Youtube page, and one of the subsequent (in my opinion, classic) /. comments about this subject. The Slashdot article is here.
PCB Carolina Show @ NCSU McKimmon Center
The TriEmbed community is encouraged to visit the PCB Carolina 2014 web sit. The conference is all day Wednesday. You’ll see fellow TriEmbed enthusiasts there.
Soldering Ventilation System
Some time ago I got one of the cheapo T-962 reflow ovens. It requires good ventilation. After running it in the garage, propped in a doorway and other kludge settings I implemented an effective ventilation system. It actually came out a bit more “enthusiastic” than I intended.
I built a high performance, 8″ axial fan into the basement’s flue vent that had been used with a wood stove. The original goal was to tie this into a simple hood over the oven.
But I got a fantastic lead to an old but still active Craigslist item with a new low price (thanks, Steven Hausman of Splatspace!). I was able to buy a ductless fume hood with a huge carbon filter, squirrel cage fan and large adjustable enclosure for $100. Apart from the side with doors, two other sides are adjustable to create a “window” to suck air away from hand-soldering operations on a work bench.
The one small detail I hit when the hood was sitting in the back of my beater pickup was that it would not fit through any door into the basement. I had to take it completely apart:
But it’s all together now and tied into the flue/fan system and working well.
The Amp Hour Redeems Itself Again
The Amp Hour has been terrible for the past couple of weeks. I’ve seriously wished for a refund of the few minutes of attention I paid them while listening and doing other things. ‘Nuff said.
However this week Chris and Dave have added one more data point to the curve suggesting that when they get somebody else into the conversation their podcast shines. This week’s episode is an interview of Eric Van Wyk, an engineer with amazing credentials. The specific Amp Hour web page for this episode contains many interesting details suggesting Van Wyk and company’s “Mooshimeter” will create immediate salivation if you’re part of the TriEmbed crowd.
Something Fun at IEEE Spectrum
IEEE Spectrum has a short blurb about a very creative application of quadcopters. The videos are worth a look.
October @ NCSU: The View Over an Engineer’s Shoulder
Join Fred Ebeling at the NCSU Triembed meeting on the 13th as he shares a short pictorial history of breadboarding and gives us an overview of his workbench and prototyping tools. Details here.