Today, while I was tweaking the microscope that I use for surface mount soldering, I realized that I have collected quite a bit of hard to find information about this circa~1975 model 569 American Optical StereoStar Stereoscopic Zoom Microscope (say that three times fast!).
So, I made a wiki page and put it all online. StereoStar owners, rejoice!
While I was visiting Portland last month, I made a quick stop at SurplusGizmos in Hillsboro.
SurplusGizmos is what an electronics store should be, and it’s the kind of place that I love to visit. It’s also the kind of electronics store that is completely nonexistant in Austin (oh, my beloved HSC, how I miss you), but I digress…
You can usually tell a good surplus electronics store by the pile of junk outside the door (usually with a sign on it that says “Make Offer.” I’m not kidding:
Inside SurplusGizmos, you’ll find aisles full of electronic components like resistors, capacitors, connectors, random semiconductors, fans, motors, and miscellaneous surplus stuff. Paradise!
AVR microcontrollers! Forrest Mims books!
They have cabinets with drawers full of electrolytic capacitors! Yes! This is what a real electronics store is like!
This way, resistors by the foot!! This ain’t no Radio Shack!
Aluminum by the pound!
Interesting pieces of surplus equipment sold for pennies on the dollar!
They have a huge selection of “solder samples”, printed circuit boards that are used to…
Actually, I’m sure what they are for. I think they are used by the PCB manufacturer to test their process, but can someone comment about what solder samples are for, and why you always get one or two when you order a full panel of PCBs?
Anyway, there were LOTS of them. Hundreds. Looking at these panels reminded me of Dave Jones’ PCB Design for Manufacture video. Lots of examples of v-scoring, tab-routing, fiducials, etc.
I picked up a few to use as coasters/wall art/whatever.
Apparently SurplusGizmos has some deal with Oregon Scientific and gets customer returns of their weather monitoring equipment. It seemed like if you spent the time to collect all the right parts, you could build a complete indoor/outdoor wireless weather station for a fraction of the new cost.
I wish I could have spent more time there, but my time was limited and my luggage space was small. Next time!
If you’re ever in the Portland area and want to see what a “real” electronics store is like – check this place out.
I took lots more photos, many of which are available on Flickr.
Oh, and SurplusGizmos is listed on the surplus electronics wiki. If there’s a good electronics store in your area and it’s not on the wiki, add it! Help keep these small, independently-owned electronics shops alive!
With any luck, I’ll be migrating the site to a new web hosting provider this week.
At some point I’ll be disabling comments and posts on the blog, forums, and wiki so I can be sure we don’t lose any data during the migration. There will likely be a couple days during which the site will be down for brief periods as I sort out the configuration on the new server and the new DNS records propagate. Hopefully the disruptions will be brief and I’ll have things up and running 100% again by the end of the week.
The details and timing of the migration are still being worked out, so stay tuned for updates.
Update: Order processing should still function normally during the transition. As long as the product pages are up, you should be able to place an order.
Update 2: I’m going to start the migration tonight, if the site behaves strangely – that’s why.
Update 3: If you see this message, migration is complete and you are looking at the new site!
Update 4: Some suspicious activity on the blog forced me to upgrade WordPress today (and do a bunch of other cleanup), so the site has been up and down today. It should be mostly working now, but I’ll probably be tweaking things off and on for the next few days.
Update 5: Yes, the oscilloscope is upside down. It’s that way on purpose. Really.
While I was visiting Portland last month, I had a chance to check out a DorkbotPDX meeting.
This meeting was unlike any other Dorkbot I have seen before (in San Francisco and Austin). Instead of formal presentations, everyone shows up at a cafe/coffee shop called Backspace (that serves beer!) and brings a project to work on or show and tell. And, instead of meeting once a month, they meet every other week!
It was awesome.
I didn’t get to take very many pictures, but I just uploaded a few photos to Flickr.
I’m happy to announce that I have again been given the privilege of co-hosting The Amp Hour, this time with Dave Jones of the EEVblog! Chris Gammell is away this week recruiting bright young engineers into slavery to join his company, so I was given the guest spot. This is my third time on the show.
If you haven’t heard of it before, The Amp Hour is “an off-the-cuff radio show and podcast for electronics enthusiasts and professionals.” I listen most every week and would recommend it to anyone who wants to hear a humorous and off-beat take on electronics engineering.
Check out Episode 29 – DJ and Jazzy Jeff and all the rest of the episodes at The Amp Hour.