Thursday, April 28, 2011

Gadget Wish List

I'm dying to have this baby....:D


Rotacraft Mini Drill

 

Rotacraft Mini Drill with Variable Transformer and 60 Accessories


A comprehensive and versatile Mini drill set that is ideal for model making, electronics, engraving and small DIY jobs. 


It comprises:  
 
RC18 Pen-like 12v Mini Drill with variable speed - 8000 - 18000rpm with 4 collet chucks (1.00, 2.35, 3.00 & 3.10mm) 220/240v Mains to 12v transformer with 3 pin plug.

Accessories including drill bits, polishing wheel shank,  2 x Big Fleece polishing wheels, 2 x Small Fleece Polishing Wheels, 20 x diamond points, 10 x grinding stones, 1 x mandrel with screw top, 5 x carborundum cutting discs, 2 x sanding drum mandrels, 3 x sanding drums, 2 x wire wheel brushes and 1 x nylon pencil brush.

All contained in a smart metal case with clear lid.

Do Energy Savers Really Work?

 

One example of the so called "Power Saver."

So what's inside of this high-tech device?

A fancy LED's with big AC capacitor...:D

Add don't be surprised if only ONE wire is connected...
that's what we call "BLACK MATTER"


Soaring electric bills may entice your interest toward plug-in energy saver devices. But be aware that you may spend a lot of money for nothing because these energy savers cannot change your appliance’s power consumption- or lower your electric bill.   

Reducing Current Consumption Does Not Reduce Power Bills

Electric power savers for the home have in the recent past become quite popular (through some brute advertising). The companies who are busy promoting them claim that by just plugging one in to any mains socket or near your energy meter, you can reduce your home electric bill by as much as 40 to 50%.

That seems too good to be true, doesn't it? Let’s analyze their claims through a step-wise discussion.

Companies promoting and boasting their power saving equipment claim that their products are able to save domestic residential power consumption by employing an "active power factor correction" method on the supply line. The concept seems pretty impressive as the concept is true and legally accepted. But practically, you will find that it’s not feasible. A thorough technical discussion perhaps won’t be required as it can be proved through the following simple verifications:

There are basically two kinds of load that exists in every house: one that’s resistive like incandescent lamps, heaters etc.; and the other that’s capacitive or inductive like ACs, refrigerators, computers, etc. PF, or power factor, may be defined as the ratio of the real power that’s being consumed by the load to the apparent power that’s being actually used by the load.

It’s given by the formula:

PF = Real Power (Watts) /Apparent Power (VA),

Therefore, Real Power (Watts) = Apparent Power × PF = Voltage × Ampere × PF

Ideally a PF = 1, or unity, for an appliance defines a clean and a desired power consumption, because then the dissipated output power becomes equal to the applied input power.

In the above formula you can find that if PF is less than 1, the amperes (current consumption) of the appliances increases, and vice versa.

With AC resistive loads, the voltage is always in phase with the current and constitutes an ideal power factor equal to 1. However, with inductive or capacitive loads, the current waveform lags behind the voltage waveform and is not in tandem. This happens due to the inherent properties of these devices to store and release energy with the changing AC waveform, and this causes an overall distorted wave form, lowering the net PF of the appliance.

The above problem may be solved by installing a well-calculated inductor/capacitor network and switching it automatically and appropriately to correct these fluctuations. A power saver unit is designed exactly for this purpose, and to an extent may successfully do so. This correction is able to bring the level of PF very close to unity, thus improving the apparent power to a great extent. An improved apparent power would mean less CURRENT consumption by all the domestic appliances.

So far everything looks fine, but what’s the use of the above correction? The utility bill that we pay is never for the Apparent Power- it’s for the Real Power. The below given example will prove this statement:

Consider a refrigerator having a rated Real Power of 100 watts at 220 V AC has a PF = 0.6. The expression explained above becomes:

100 = 220 × A × 0.6

Therefore, A = 0.75 Ampere

Now suppose after appropriate power corrections, if the PF is brought to about 0.9, the above result will now show as:

100 = 220 × A × 0.9

And A = 0.5 Ampere

In the second expression we clearly witness a reduced current consumption by the refrigerator, but interestingly in both the above cases, the Real Power remains the same, i.e. the refrigerator continues to consume 100 watts, and therefore the utility bill remains the same. This simply proves that although the PF correction done by an energy saver unit may decrease the Amperage of the appliances, it can never bring down their power consumption and the electric bill amount.

Power Saving with Resistive Loads

Since a resistive load does not carry a PF issue, we can formulate and express their power as:

P = UI, where P is the power, U is the applied input mains voltage, and I is the resultant consumed current.

The above expression simply proves that as long as the voltage and the current are constant, the consumed power will also be constant. However, if there’s any rise in the input voltage because of a fluctuation, then as explained above your appliances will be forced to consume a proportionate amount of power. This becomes more apparent because current, being a function of voltage, also rises proportionately. However, this rise in the power consumption will be negligibly small; the following simple math will prove this.
Consider a bulb consuming 100 watts of power at 220 volts. This simply means at 240 volts it will use up about 109 watts of power. The rise is just of around 9% and since such fluctuations are pretty seldom, this value may be furthermore reduced to less than 1%, and that is negligible.

Thus the above discussions convincingly prove that energy savers can never work and the concept is not practically feasible. Energy savers are a scam.

 

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

BA1404 Stereo FM Transmitter WITHOUT the 38khz Crystal!

Here is the initial part and schematic of the project....


PCB layout and details to follow soon...:D

Sunday, April 24, 2011

PIC16F84 Based Video Pattern Generator



Here's the project was to construct a Composite Video Pattern Generator, which can be used as a teaching tool in the video field as well as a laboratory instrument, useful for repairing and adjusting TV receivers.

This video generator instrument is in no way intended to be a commercial set, because I cannot guarantee all the specifications that a professional tool must have. However, the result is a high quality video equipment.


The Bright Ideas Behind LED’s


 

 This article investigate the practical and theoretical fundamentals of electronics. It examines how electrons move and how we measure them; how circuits work and what happens when they fail. You will also learn a bit about LED’s.

The Bright Ideas Behind LED’s – [Link]

 

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Open Programmer v0.7.x

Open Programmer v0.7.x 

Main Programmer.


Here is my version of Open Programmer v0.7.x originally located HERE.

An open source USB programmer for PIC micros, I2C-SPI-MicroWire EEPROMs, some ATMEL micros, generic I2C/SPI devices and (soon) other devices..

Quick facts
  • Completely free and Open Source (including firmware)
  • Programs PIC10-12-16-18-24, dsPIC30-33, EEPROMs type 24xxxx (I2C), 25xxx (SPI), 93xx6 (MicroWire), some ATMEL micros, communicates with generic I2C & SPI devices (see supported devices)
  • Can work as ICD debugger
  • USB 2.0 Full Speed interface, HID class (same as keyboards, mice, etc.)
  • Self powered
  • Doesn't need drivers
  • Built from easy to find components (estimated cost ~10€)
  • Hardware generated timings for maximum speed and reliability (writes a 18F2550 in 15s, 8s under Linux)
  • Doesn't saturate your CPU and doesn't suffer when other programs are running
  • Open source control programs for Linux and Windows


Preparing the blank PCB for image transfer:





BTW ito yung paper na ginagamit ko...

Sticker paper for iron-on.


After iron-on soak the PCB on warm water to peel-off the paper..






Now the PCB is ready for etching..:D





PCB now on my DIY etching solution:






Here is the etch PCB now ready for drilling:
 Drilling time:







Drilled PCB ready for stuffing:



Oopsss....Don't forget the PARTS PLACEMENT GUIDE before stuffing the parts :D









Stuffing some IC sockets....





Almost finish..:D




Finished Product!



First run...let see if gagana nga...:D



Yes!! It's working!!



Some hardware test and initial testing...








Test programming 16F628A





28 and 40 pin PIC adapter construction:



Adapter PCB

Adding IC socket and headers


Soldering

Programmer base

Trial fit..:D


Here is the final look of adapter mounted on Base Programmer:








Here is another adapter for ATMEL Devices


Top of the ATMEL adapter board.

the copper side.






Atmel adapter board installed on main Programmer board.

installed on main programmer.




ATMega8 installed ready for programming.


ATMega8 on board..


Closed-up view of ATMega8 chip.

ATMega8 read successfully.

Success!! waiting for some device to test....