So, keeping up with my newly rekindled obsession with dimming my EL panel, I decided to try dimming with a TRIAC.
It didn’t work.
Method #1,571 For Not Dimming An EL Panel: TRIAC
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How Much Power Does an EL Panel Need?
I learned something valuable this week. Sometimes it’s best to “see how the other guys are doing it” before trying something yourself.
The ch00ftech Guide to Breadboarding
After posting my very tidy circuit on Reddit the other day, I got a few requests for a breadboarding guide. I came up with this:
I did this all in one take (with some editing), so sorry if it’s a little sloppy. Regardless, it’s chock-full of tips for breadboarding, and if your boards usually end up like a rat’s nest, it’s the best way you can spend 25 minutes.
The Laser Doodler
So I’ve got a project coming up (that may have something to do with this tweet) that will require a few LED matrix displays. I found a suitable candidate online and ordered one to play around with. Since I already had the display, I thought it’d be fun to run it through the paces and build a little circuit out of it using some parts I had lying around.
What I came up with is the “Laser Doodler.”
Are you sure about that 60Hz?
For the past few weeks, I’ve been blogging my assembly of the transistor clock which is now hanging on the wall of my new apartment. One of the most interesting aspects of that clock is how it keeps time.
Most clocks today use high precision crystal oscillators or dial out to some atomic clock somewhere (like your cellphone), but the transistor clock actually uses the 60Hz AC coming out of your wall socket to keep time. While this method was once common use, it’s certainly unconventional by today’s standards. I decided it would be fun to try to investigate exactly how accurate the 60Hz coming out of the wall is.
Continue reading
Transistor Clock Part 3: Binary Counter and 7-segment Decoder
Now for the third and final installment of the Transistor Clock saga.
Pretty isn’t it?
Transistor Clock Part 2: Prescaler
So we’re off to part two of my teardown of the transistor clock and things are getting complicated.
Really complicated…
Seattle or bust
So a few days ago I mentioned that I was moving to Seattle and that I wouldn’t be updating for a while. Well, it turns out that I’m most prolific when I spend two weeks unemployed as I’ve updated quite a bit. Unfortunately, now I’m at the point where all of my stuff will be in boxes, so I really won’t be able to update the blog for a while. Well, I might work on a few posts on the road (like finishing up the transistor clock), but other than that, don’t expect a lot for the next few months.
I’ve got a lot of ideas for when I return though, so please keep checking back (or subscribe to my twitter!).
Transistor Clock Part 1: Power and Time Base
So, if you have been following me on twitter, you might have noticed this tweet where I raved about a “Transistor Clock” kit that lets you build a wall clock using 194 discrete transistors and hundreds of other components. I’ve since purchased the kit and decided to blog my assembly of it.
Exciting!
Revisiting the EL Panel and the True Meaning of RMS
So, I’ve got a little time before I need to start packing, and I thought it would be well used investigating a theory I had about the EL panel. It turns out that my theory was wrong, but that might be a good thing.
So as you might recall, I specifically decided to use a 120V square wave to drive my EL panel instead of a 120V sine wave assuming that it wouldn’t make a difference. Well, there is a very important distinction to be made between these two types of waveforms, and I decided to investigate exactly if and how that disctinction affected my circuit.