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News - A Good Ol' Fashioned Capt… | about 3 months ago

I am YAR, God of ESD! Behold my spark! Cower tiny chips in the corner of your miserable hovel!

News - New Product Friday: Just … | about 5 months ago

Just don’t name the cylinders after Santa’s Reindeer.

News - New Product Friday: Just … | about 5 months ago

Nate’s not riding in on a V8 snowblower today?

http://v8snowblowers.ca/

In other news, those RN-XV’s look good. I don’t know if a breakout is actually a good idea as your cost difference between those and the raw module is only $5.

News - Home Heating From Afar | about 6 months ago

From the chips and the writeup a TI Sitara running a Cortex A8 CPU (not sure of the clock speed, but capable of 300Mhz up to 1GHz), 32MB RAM, 256MB NAND, Zigbee, and Wifi. The Sitara doesn’t have a PowerVR GPU, so no 3D gaming, but I’ve seen low end smartphones with less horsepower.

News - It's Time Again - Caption… | about 7 months ago

Hi, I’m smokey, the magic smoke from inside your ICs. Today, we’re going to demonstrate what a short circuit in a microwave can do to all the electronics in your house.

Tutorial - Laser Tape Measure Hacking | about 7 months ago

Sounds almost like a test suite/bootloader command line even.

Tutorial - Laser Tape Measure Hacking | about 7 months ago

It would be nice. The Revo will be capable of significantly higher repetition than this is designed for due to the CCD triangulation they are doing. Achieving the accuracy this tape measure does means they’re probably averaging multiple events to produce an average to remove odd glitches in the measurement.

Tutorial - Laser Tape Measure Hacking | about 7 months ago

I’m not going to chase the serial. Look for connections coming to/from that largeish metal shield by the Renesas H8 CPU. That should contain the high frequency oscillators or sensitive phase measurement circuits. 100ft range (30m) signifies an oscillation frequency of 40Mhz IIRC (¼ wavelength at 300x10⁶ m/s over 30m). Accuracy is approximately 1/10000, and I suspect they’re using either a capacitor or a downmixed phase comparator to produce a PWM signal, maybe through those hex inverters. Check pins 13, 15, and 17 per the datasheet.

Product TOL-10951 | about 7 months ago

Plastic coloration is usually done via adding 1-2% by weight of a high colorant granule, then mixing (via a double screw system), extruding, and chopping that extrusion back into little granules. Dyeing may be possible, but you’re going to figure out a way to mix it in while melted very very thoroughly.

Product TOL-10951 | about 7 months ago

I believe it is. It’s often compared to nylon, and mechanical properties are very similar to generic ABS strength values from the few sources I’ve found. Just don’t put down your coffee cup or leave it in a car on a hot day!