M Simon
I Love The Sound Of Hetrodyne Whistles
December 7, 2011 5:57 am | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsAs I promised in Engineering Power Adventures I have evaluated a kit for budding engineers from age 8 and up. The kit was kindly provided by the fine folks at Elenco. It is their Snap Circuits 300 Experiments kit. Actually you can probably do more than 300 experiments with the kit.
Some More Tools I Like
December 5, 2011 4:23 am | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsI was discussing my ECN article Some Tools I Use with the guys on the TinyCAD list and they suggested that I look into FreePCB for PCB layout. I did and it looks like a wonderful tool (I have just downloaded it and haven't had a chance to use it yet).
Engineering Power Adventures
December 1, 2011 4:56 am | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsFirst let me say that the design of the XP15K power supply kit by Elenco is a very functional design. It does what it is supposed to do. It is the engineer behind the soldering iron (me) that needs some adjustment.
Solid State Radio
November 29, 2011 5:16 am | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsI belong to a vast underground of secret parts lovers. To wit the 365 pF air variable capacitor. Singles and duals. With ball bearing shafts and vernier control dials. I get all jiggy thinking about them and the smell of newly machined phenolic.
Some Tools I Use
November 22, 2011 6:02 am | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsOperating an engineering shop on an extreme budget isn't easy. I have to watch my pennies. Let alone nickels. So here is what I use for schematic capture. TinyCAD. They don't have a lot of parts in their library but, making parts is easy. And the price is right.
Testing The GA144 Eval Board
November 16, 2011 8:14 am | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsThe folks from GreenArrays were kind enough to send me a GA144 evaluation board. I have had it for about a month. I have taken my time because I was also rebuilding my shop while evaluating the board. And building a little gadget for testing. So now down to work.
Smart Grid Security?
November 14, 2011 3:57 am | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsCan some one please tell me the point of making our electrical grid more hackable than it already is? And please. Don't tell me about "security". Security is only a delaying tactic. Some one who wants to can figure out how to defeat it.
Fast Start With GreenArrays Software
October 17, 2011 9:01 am | Blogs | CommentsThere are no doubt some diehards (like me) out there who have been playing around with the GreenArrays Software Suite (free download), but with all the things you need to learn (it seems like all at once) it is pretty tough sledding.
GreenArrays Is Having A Contest
October 6, 2011 5:50 am | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsGreen Arrays in conjunction with Schmart Board announced a hobbyist board for the Green Arrays GA144 chip. Things have progressed some since that announcement was made. You can now buy the mounting PC board and the GreenArrays GA144 chip together...
GreenArrays and SchmartBoard Make the GA144 Chip Accessible to Experimenters
September 29, 2011 4:46 am | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsGreenArrays, the makers of the GA144 chip, announces an OEM partnership with Schmart Board that will allow hobbyists and experimenters to get in on the fun provided by playing around with a chip with 144 cores that can do around 90 billion instructions per second...
The Perfect Divider
May 24, 2011 9:41 am | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsVoltage dividers that divide by 10, or 100, or 1,000 are tough with standard resistors. The numbers do not come out exactly with standard resistors. By adding one resistor to the divider it is possible to get the division ratio exact (not counting resistor tolerances).
A Biofuels Revolution
January 24, 2011 6:03 am | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsBiotechnology firm Joule Unlimited may have come up with a game changer in the quest for economically viable biofuels. Joule Unlimited received a patent for “a proprietary organism” – a genetically engineered cyanobacterium that produces liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline.
Speeding Things Along
February 9, 2010 3:59 am | by M Simon | Blogs | CommentsIBM has announced a really fast power transistor. Of course power is a relative thing. At the frequencies involved power is a relative thing. I'd say they would be doing good if they could get between 1 and 10 watts out of the device.
Fusion: the power source of the future
December 29, 2009 12:09 pm | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsFusion is the power source of the future, goes the old saw. And for fifty years, it has always been "fifty years in the future." That may be changing with a number of new small fusion projects in the works or doing actual experiments.
Engines of Prosperity
December 29, 2009 12:07 pm | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsIn my last post I discussed Forth as a language. A language that is based on a virtual machine. What if that virtual machine was turned into a real machine? Good things. For one operations can be done in parallel. Returns can be automatically initiated at the end of an instruction cycle.
Neighborhood Development Package Revisited
December 29, 2009 12:03 pm | by M. Simon | Blogs | CommentsSince I wrote Neighborhood Development Package on November 11, 2006, I have been thinking about the pieces needed to make the system work 24/7. The full article is below but let me give you a short review. My idea was to electrify a neighborhood in order to educate, communicate, and pump water.
