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Second Quarter, 2012
Previous Issues
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Let's drop in on Wily and
look over his shoulder at his latest project.... |
Illuminated Banister |
Wily was
reading a magazine when his phone rang. The call was coming from a
large building contractor in a major city. They were going to build some new
homes for a subdivision. The architect specified a touch activated
illuminated banister, which was to illuminate the stairs leading to a large
basement. At each end of the railing was a metal button. When the
button was touched with a finger, the light would turn on. When
touched again, the light would turn off. The LED light strip inside
the translucent plastic railing was to be powered by 12vac and would draw
about 25 watts. .... |
con't page
7 |
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Wily Widget,
the Lone Inventor
with Gadget & Gizmo |
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WHAT
THE WORLD NEEDS NOW is a....Big
Dial Wind Speed Indicator |
My new
home in Lubbock Texas is blessed, or cursed, with lots of wind. At
times the gusts can reach 60MPH. When the wind is about 40MPH, we have
found it impossible to do any work in the back yard. What I would like
to see is a wind speed indicator with an easy to read big dial, similar to
many outside temperature dials. Perhaps the dial would be about 12
inches in diameter with a clear plastic cover. With such a device can
look outside and determine if it is too windy..... |
story
con't on page 6 |
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AC Current
Test Source
By: David Johnson
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With that resistor I can easily get up to 20 Amps of current. So far, that
has been high enough for me. The shunt resistor allows me to use my
multimeter to accurately measure the AC voltage across the resistor, which is
then proportional to the AC current. In most of my tests, the AC current
is a loop..... |
story con't on page 4 |
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15 Minute
Timer Does Not Time Out
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I received a call from an
old client. They said that some infrared LEDs in a circuit I had
designed many years ago were fading. The light they emitted was no longer was
enough to do the job. I asked them to send me a working unit and all the
documentation. The system was designed to produce an intense flash of
880nm infrared light using an array of 27 LEDs. The LEDs were driven
hard but for only 100ms at a time. I had my doubts that even after 1000s
of flashes the LEDs would not be producing the same amount of light. After I
had received the documentation package, I discovered that extensive changes
had been made by someone else long after I was no longer involved with the
project. To my shock, I saw a 555 timer circuit being used as a 15
minute timer..... |
story
con't on page
3 |
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Bad
Chinese Lag Screws |
I’ve been
building some 4ft by 8ft cedar raised bed boxes for my wife’s garden in
Lubbock Texas. She wants a total of 20 boxes built. The design is pretty
simple. As shown below, each box is made of 6 cedar 2 x 8 boards screwed
into 4 x 4 cedar corner posts. The design called for two 5 inch long
5/16” galvanized lag screws to secure each board to the 4 x 4 post.
There are a total of 32 screws per box..... |
story con't on page 5
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