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Let's drop in
on Wily and look over his shoulder at his latest project.... |
Hidden
Panic Switch |
Wily was eating lunch when he got a call from an alarm
company. They were installing more and more home alarm systems.
Business was good. But, a customer of theirs had an unusual request.
The homeowner wanted an invisible panic button.
The alarm company owner
described the device as an electronic switch which would be positioned
behind a wall and activated when an adult human hand was pressed against the
wall at that position. Several such switches would be installed at key
locations around the house. The caller wanted to know if Wily could
design something like that for them.
Wily had some ideas how
he might do this so he agreed to take on the project..... |
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....Garage Door Closer |
Have you
ever had this happen to you? You open your garage door late in the
afternoon. Perhaps you are working on the front lawn or getting something
out of the trunk of your car. Then, the phone rings.... |
story
con't on page 6 |
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Solar
Alkaline Battery Charger
By: David Johnson
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I received an email the other day from a guy who was tired of replacing
alkaline batteries every 2 months in his wireless weather station. He
wanted some way to draw energy from the sun, so he could keep the station
running for a much longer time before the batteries had to be replaced.... |
story con't on page 4 |
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CFL Lamps with Day Night
Switch |
I received
an email from a man with a classic problem. The guy indicated that he
could not seem to get compact fluorescent lamps to last more than a few weeks
in an outside porch light. He wondered if I had a solution. I
asked a simple question. Did the porch light have a day/night switch?
The answer was yes, it did. Bingo! I told him that standard day/night
switches will quickly kill standard CFL lamps. The killer is the nature
of the conventional day/night switches.... |
story
con't on page
3 |
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Bad Chinese Steel Products |
I was
shopping at a local home improvement store a while back. I was in the
hardware aisle when I eavesdropped on a heated conversation between two men.
Each was a general building contractor and had their company’s name on their
individual t-shirts. They were discussing the decline of the quality of the
hardware in the store. They were especially angry at the very poor
products made of steel. They said that the store was gradually replacing
American made steel products with cheaper ones from China..... |
story con't on page 5
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Solar Powered
Laptop Computer
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A while back I got an email from a writer who
likes to work most of the day out in a large shed, some distance
from his house. According to the email, the shed has no
power and the distance is so great that the guy said that
running a long extension cord all the way out there was
impractical. So, the guy wanted to know what it would take
to power his laptop computer and a small fluorescent lamp for 8
hours each day using solar power.... |
story con't on page 2 |
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