MightyOhm » Electronics

Soldering is Easy Comic Book turns 1

Jeff — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:09:44 +0000

Today marks one year since Mitch Altman, Andie Nordgren and I released our Soldering is Easy comic book.

Since then it has been translated into 15 other languages (not including Morse Code) and has been downloaded more times than we can count (40,000 times in the first week alone).

I would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of the translators and to everyone else who has helped spread our comic book around the world. I’ve seen it at hacker conferences and Maker Faires, referenced in university electronics courses, and posted at hackerspaces in very far away places.

Thanks for making our comic book such a huge success, we couldn’t have done it without you!

An Analog Life: My pilgrimage to the workbench of analog guru Jim Williams

Jeff — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:03:49 +0000

Last week, while visiting the San Francisco Bay Area, I had a chance to visit the Computer History Museum.

Surprisingly, I didn’t go there to see their impressive collection of vintage computers, although I highly recommend checking out the PDP-1, Babbage Engine, and Revolution, a tour of the first 2000 years of computing.

Instead, I went there to check out An Analog Life, a temporary exhibit at the museum. There, I got to see first-hand the famously cluttered workbench of the late analog guru Jim Williams.

Jim’s workbench holds an impressive collection of vintage test equipment, but Jim particularly loved old Tek scopes, and his 547 is on display:

There’s also a Tek 454 and a 576(?) curve tracer on the bench:

Jim worked on making efficient laptop backlight power supplies for many years, and there are a lot of artifacts from this long term project on his desk, including God’s Own Backlite Current Calibrator:

I’m not sure what’s going on with his desk phone, but it appears to be the recipient of some sort of hack:

There is so much stuff on the bench that it takes a while just to take it all in. Yes, there is a soldering iron somewhere in this photo:

Jim’s workbench (more photos) is impressive, and reason enough to visit the museum. But the freshly-remodeled museum is really breathtaking, and the new exhibits are excellent. Plan to spend a day here, or you’ll discover (as I did) that 3 or 4 hours isn’t enough time to see everything.

The Computer History Museum is located in Mountain View, California. An Analog Life runs through April 15th.

For more on Jim Williams, I recommend checking out Reading Jim Williams, a blog about Jim’s famously well-written (and sometimes humorous) app notes.

Wifi Radio project mention in Nuts and Volts

Jeff — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:24:19 +0000

The March issue of Nuts and Volts features an article by Craig Lindley about how to Build Your Own Wi-Fi Internet Radio.

In the article, Craig mentions that my Wifi Radio project gave him the inspiration to build his project. Thanks for the shoutout, Craig!

Wifi Radio project mention in Popular Science

Surplus Summit 2012 Part Two: San Diego

Jeff — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:19:36 +0000

Continued from Surplus Summit Part One: Los Angeles.

After visiting Los Angeles for the weekend, I spent the next couple days in San Diego. I had a chance to visit some old San Diego landmarks as well as one newcomer to the surplus electronics scene.

Surplus Depot, San Diego, CA

Surplus Depot used to be located around the corner from their present location, back when they were called Industrial Liquidators. The store has shrunk a bit but still has some good deals and interesting parts.

More pics!

SD Electronic Supply, San Diego, CA

SD Electronic Supply opened last year(?) and recently moved to a new location just down the street from where Gateway Electronics used to be. I think a lot of the inventory is from the old Gateway store. The owner is friendly and there are a LOT of components available.

More pics!

California Electronic and Industrial Supply, El Cajon, CA

California Electronic Supply has been around for years and is still selling components and surplus stuff. I usually stop by on the way to Murphy’s, below.

More pics!

Murphy’s Surplus Warehouse, El Cajon, CA

Murphy’s has also been an El Cajon landmark for many years. They specialize in surplus military radios but have piles of test equipment, motors, switches, and other stuff. I came here at least once a month when I lived in San Diego.

More pics!

Fun fact: Jerry Mouser of Mouser Electronics started Mouser while he was teaching high school physics in El Cajon! Apparently Murphy was one of his students.

As I mentioned in my last post, these and many more surplus electronics stores are listed on the Surplus Electronics wiki page. If you know of a surplus store in your area, please add it to the list and let’s help keep electronics surplus alive!

Surplus Summit 2012 Part One: Los Angeles

Jeff — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:35:40 +0000

(Photo: Tony KC6QHP testing out his 47GHz amateur radio. Remember this post? All that work paid off, the radio works!)

Last month I cashed in some airline miles and finally got to visit some old friends and spend some time in beautiful Southern California. Some long-time readers of the blog may remember the last time I did something like this in 2009.

While I was there I visited my good friend Tony in Los Angeles, and we went on a tour of surplus electronics and swap meets that we called Surplus Summit 2012.

All of the surplus stores mentioned here are listed on the Surplus Electronics wiki page, which is continually being updated and expanded. (Do you know of a place to find surplus electronics in your area? Add it to the wiki!)

If you want to see more scenes from Surplus Summit 2012, there are lots more photos from my trip on flickr.

Here are a few highlights from our tour:

C&H Surplus, Duarte, CA

C&H is the best surplus electronics store I have visited since The Black Hole in Los Alamos. Test equipment, weird scientific stuff, motors, gears, components, the works. The owner, Rick, is a nice guy with a good sense of humor. This place is awesome and a well worth a visit.

(Note: C&H is only open Thursday-Saturday.)

More pics!

W6TRW Swap Meet, Redondo Beach, CA

This swap meet has been around forever is held on the last Saturday of every month, rain or shine, even if that Saturday falls on Christmas, etc. Get there early, the swap was hopping by 8AM.

This is an amateur radio swap meet but there is lots of computer stuff (too much!) and general electronics.

More pics!

All Electronics, Van Nuys, CA

Not that many people realize that All Electronics has an actual retail store in Van Nuys. It’s small but fun to visit. Not everything in the catalog is out on the shelves, but there are also some big things that probably won’t ever make it in the catalog.

More pics!

APEX Electronics, Sun Valley, CA

I visited Apex in 2009. Lots of stuff, much of it junk, but there a few interesting odds and ends. I hear that these guys supply the film industry with a lot of props.

More pics!

That’s it for LA. Stay tuned for Surplus Summit Part Two: San Diego next week!

Adventures with EPROMs

Jeff — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:05:42 +0000

In December I received a strange request from Franci, S57FK. He had a sick Fluke 8842A digital multimeter with a bad processor and was in desperate need of some EPROM images. He noticed that I had an identical Fluke sitting on my bench and was hoping that I could read the contents of the EPROMs inside my unit and send them to him so that he could get his meter running again.

I said sure, but I had a problem – I didn’t own an EPROM programmer.

Well, I had been looking for an excuse to buy one for a while, so I went on eBay and bought one of the cheapest EPROM programmers I could find (for $15).

The programmer, which is a Willem clone, arrived some weeks later:

As an aside, the Fluke 8842A uses a weird Z80 processor with stacked external EPROM storage (I think EMSL has shown pictures of these in the past):

Weird.

The next problem I ran into was that the “old” (circa 2004) Windows XP laptop I use in the lab didn’t have a parallel port, so I had to find a way to run the klunky old Willem software on my new desktop PC, which runs Windows 7 64-bit (but surprisingly does have a parallel port). The Willem software is written for Windows XP and won’t run on Windows 7, at least not the 64-bit version.

Thanks to this tutorial I was able to replace the io.dll that comes with the Willem software with a new one that works with Windows 7 64-bit. I was shocked at how easy this was (and that it worked at all), but 10 minutes later I was able to launch the Willem software without errors:

Actually reading the EPROMs was pretty simple:

Remove EPROMs U202B and U222 from the Fluke 8842A (U222 required some work to dig it out, it’s located under the AC line EMI suppressor)
Connect Willem programmer to PC (parallel and USB ports) and launch EPROM50 software.
Select EPROM type through the Device menu (2732 in this case)
Adjust the DIP switch and jumper settings on the programmer to match the diagrams in the software. I had to move one jumper from the factory position and change a few of the DIP switches.
Insert one EPROM at a time into the ZIF socket on the programmer, following the diagram shown in the software to align the chip.
Click the Read Chip button (the one with the green arrow) and specify a file, click OK.

It is probably a good idea to look at the contents of the resulting BIN files to make sure they aren’t all zeroes (that happened to me once) and contain something that looks like valid data. You’ll need a hex editor for this. I used HxD.

I sent the files to Franci, and he was able to get his meter working again. Success!

Note: If you came here looking for EPROM images for the Fluke 8842A, I added them to the Test Equipment page on the wiki.

I was a little bit nervous to put everything back together again, fearing that I might have accidentally ‘zapped’ one of the EPROMs while I was learning how to use the programmer. Fortunately, the meter still works just fine:

Whew!

A glimpse at Electronics Workbenches around the world…

Jeff — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:45:00 +0000

Since creating the Electronics Workbench Flickr group last November, I have received lots and lots of really amazing submissions from electronics hobbyists and professionals around the world.

My two biggest takeaways so far? I do not own nearly enough test equipment, and my shop is not nearly as well-organized or space-efficient as it could be (I need to use all available wall space and build up).

Here are a few of my favorite images from the group:

Click any of these images for a larger version!

Joe Grand (of Prototype This! and Grand Idea Studio) and his awesome electronics workshop:

(Nice scope, Joe!)

blalor turned his BMW into a temporary workshop, and his passenger seat is the electronics workbench (note the laptop perched on the dash):

eschlaep (Eric Schlaepfer of tubetime.us) submitted this moody shot of a CRT project in progress:

Senke2 has a nice home lab with a lofty feel:

Looks like *someone* has a Tektronix fetish. Beautiful setup by Alan (W2AEW):

More scope envy, of both the oscillo- and micro- kinds (Thanks Mgburr!):

embeddederic sent in this picture of his workbench. Note the Tek 491 spectrum analyzer up top, 10MHz – 12GHz with 1950s(?) technology:

And lastly, check out this awesome workbench panorama by anachrocomputer (best viewed large):

See if you can spot the Tektronix 575 curve tracer!

There are lots more great photos in the group photo pool.

Do you have an electronics workbench that you’re proud of? Snap a photo and share it with the group!

New Flickr Group for your Electronics Workbench

Att Löda Är Lätt! (Soldering is Easy – Swedish (Svensk) Translation)

Jeff — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:07:31 +0000

Christopher Eriksson sent in this Swedish translation of the Soldering is Easy comic book. Thanks, Christopher!

Soldering is Easy Comic Book now available for the Kindle

Jeff — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:38:29 +0000

bloo just posted a Kindle version of the Soldering is Easy Comic Book on the forums. You can upload this file to your kindle with the send to kindle application or by e-mailing it to your Kindle’s e-mail address (unverified).

Cool! Thanks bloo!

Edit: Direct link to the Kindle version.

Saldare E’ Semplice (Soldering is Easy: Italian Translation)

Jeff — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 04:13:31 +0000

Michele Maffucci sent in this Italian translation of the Soldering is Easy comic book. Thanks, Michele!