By Mike, on July 11th, 2010
I bought a new oscilloscope off of eBay the other day. I’ve always had good luck with eBay and this purchase was no different. I ended up with a Tektronix 2246A; It’s a 100MHz analog scope from the late 80s.
My last scope was an old 2 channel 20MHz scope made by Brunnel Instruments. Not sure when it was made, but it’s old. It works just fine though. Actually, It works really well. So why do I need a new scope? Well, need doesn’t wander into my vocab very often, it’s more about want 
The 2246A has 4 channels, it’s 100MHz, and just look at all those buttons! Had to have it But the added complexity of this machine means that I have no idea how to use it. Well, the ‘standard’ ops I can figure out… a scope is a scope when it comes to basics. But this one has menus, and soft keys, and all sorts of things that require a manual.
Since this scope was only in production for 1 year, and was end-of-life in 1999, Tektronix does not support it, repair it, or have any manuals for it. But the very helpful lady at the Tektronix help center recommended a number of places to find/buy manuals for it. EBay topped the list, but they were selling for $50… She also recommended the Boat Anchor Manual Archive (BAMA)… apparently it’s a place for people to dump scans of old docs and it’s all free… Cool, but no luck finding my scope’s manual. My scope didn’t get a lot of sales apparenlty and was not one of the most popular products. So not a lot of people out there who have a manual for it.
In the end, I found a site called qservice… it’s a very sketchy and old skool site. Actually they own a number of domains and one of them plays an awesome techo dance beat as when you hit the front page. lol. So my ‘run away’ spidey senses are in full alert, but I _need_ (yes need) the manual and they have it. They have an instant download for pdf feature and had the operation, service, and quick reference manual for about $12… sweet. Unfortunately, their unencrypted order page requires my full address, phone, and credit card info.. NOT going to happen… so I use my thow away email, and obviously fake home address, and select they PayPal payment option. Gotta love Paypal.
So I hit purchase, and paypal the guy $12, and wait for my download instructions. Turns out someone actually uploads the files to a server, and sets a unique username/password to a directory on the server. Wow… but, it works and I get my files. I also get a reply thru paypal from the site owner chiding me for giving a fake email/personal info. (How can he email me the download info if the email is fake he says, props to him for sending the info via paypal though, as he would have known I would have to have a real email address for that.)
I email him back, and we ended up having a bit of a discussion about how unsecured his site is, and that the email I gave him was real, and that it wasn’t him I didn’t trust, just his web site is very hackable… and I’m not about to put it all out there for someone to get. I also told him I got the files, and they looked awesome (and they are really good scans), and that if I needed any others I would buy from him again.
If you are looking for old manuals, it’s the place to go… just don’t use a credit card, and don’t give out any personal information. (I’d even suggest getting a throw away email) … the site is not to be trusted.
So, now I’ve got some great pdf manuals for my scope. It’s just going to take some time to read and learn all the advanced features and functions.
By Mike, on June 30th, 2010
I got another shipment of electronic components from Digikey.ca the other day.
Their ordering interface is crap. I spent many frustrating hours setting up order lists only to be confronted with the inability to combine them. Searching for parts is difficult, and all in all just a bad experience. But, they have a deal with Canada Customs, and shipping (including any customs charges) is $8 for UPS. I usually get the parts in 2 days. That is why I continue to use them.
Conversely, Mouser has an awesome UI. Save projects, share them, searching is quick and easy… it’s all very easy and almost fun to use. BUT the big downside is that the shipping is slower, and they don’t have a deal with customs, so the last order I had to pay $20 COD for those costs on top of their shipping charge (which was also only about $8 but for slower USPS)
Now that I’m familiar with Digikey’s new BOM manager, it’s major limitations, and how to work around them, it will be easier to reorder more parts as required. I’ll keep using Digikey because of the order fulfilment side of the process. I just hope they ’2.0′ their site some day soon.
With this last shipment, I have all the parts to build the remaining SSRs and the Ren-C for my display. Those links go to ChristmasInShirley’s wiki for all things automated display… it’s the best site I’ve found… tons of maintained info. So now I just need to wait for the remaining boards to arrive, and I’ll be able to finish up the electronics side of things.
The Ren-C is a board that allows my Grinch controller to work over the serial port rather than the parallel port, and adds dimming capabilities. It’s run by a PICMicro chip that needs to be programmed. It’s all out there (source files, howtos, etc) but I need to have the hardware and software to program the PIC chip.
Luckily, I was into PIC programming before… I used the PIC16F84s for a few things, so I am familiar with what needs to happen for programming the chips. Unfortunately, that was many years ago and my memory, and chip programmer did not stand the test of time. So, off to Microchip’s site to grab MPLap, and then find WinPic to program the chips, and I needed to build a new programmer.
This would have been quite a daunting task but since I’ve got all the equipment it’s relatively easy to build a board. I’m no electrical engineer, but there are a lot of schematics for simple PIC programmers out there… I found PICPROGv5 by illumicon. Unfortunately, he’s out of stock, and not building any more or I would have just ordered the board… so I used his schematic and parts list to design my own board.
I grabbed ExpressPCB and started building a design… a few hours later, I had a workable single sided solution… I’m sure the EEs out there will point out many problems with it, but I’ve built it and it works… Here’s the pcb file (myPicProg5v2) but be warned, that I have only tested it once, and not sure that’s it’s 100% right… also, it’s built off the PICPROGv5… so it’s their hard work that went into my crappy ‘redesign’. Note: the top layer traces are just jumpers… it’s a single sided board. Also, not all the values are correct/entered, so take a look at the original PICPROG site for the schematic and component values. Component IDs are the same.
So after building the board, I went for the tried and true toner transfer method of getting the design on the board… In a nutshell, you print the traces using a laser printer on a glossy magazine cover(the toner doesn’t stick to glossy as well and transfers better than if you used regular paper), then place that on a very clean copper clad board, iron it down then soak in water and peel away the paper. I had good luck with very thin paper rather than super glossy paper… pages from my Mouser catalogue work great If you want more detail, there is a myriad of sites out there that have full instructions… check YouTube as well.
Since coper oxidizes quite rapidly, I decided to spray paint the bottom of the board to protect it… lol.
So the programmer is built and tested with a simple flashing LED program for the old 16F84s I had laying around. Haven’t tried it on the PIC I’ll be using for the Ren-C… Perhaps this weekend I’ll try to bang something together. Now it’s just waiting on the boards to finish this all up. I’ve got plenty of work to do around the house to keep me busy, oh… and a bunch of mini and mid trees to build
By Mike, on June 27th, 2010
Opened up the laptop this evening and that’s what I was greeted with. No boot device… nice. A reboot, and all appears well, but that’s not what I want with a new lappy. Hope it was an isolated incident and will not be happening again.
Being that it’s the end of June, it’s time for me to start thinking about Christmas. I know, I know… it’s nuts… but I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. This weekend started out with me building up the boards I got last winter. I have 7 SSR (Solid State Relay) boards, and enough parts to build up 6 of them… My supplier sent me an extra one because a shipment got lost in the mail and I had to wait for a while.
I started a little assembly line, one group of components at a time for all boards… I hooked up a fan in some silver flex duct line (think it’s for a dryer) to keep the noxious flux fumes out of my face… it worked pretty good and I was done in no time.
Here’s the days work… still missing a few parts so not all are done, but I’ve got a lot of components on the way, so I should be back at it for the weekend.
I’m still waiting for another 9 SSR boards and all the components to fill ‘em up… I’ve also ordered the parts to add dimming capabilities to the display. Currently I can only turn the lights off and on, so it will be nice to be able to dim rather than shut off abruptly. So, 10 more boards, and 300 components to solder in… that’s why I’m starting in June
And that doesn’t even count the display parts… I’m running all LED lights, so I’m not too worried about power requirements, but giving the history of wiring I’ve fixed in this house, I’m not taking any chances… I wired up 2 20amp, GFCI protected circuits, dedicated for the lights. That should be more than enough for my ‘year one’ display.
I picked up another 26 tomato cages from the Despot today… 6 4′ cages to round out the 4 mid-trees I already have. I wanted 10 total so I can do a pyramid setup of the mid-trees. Pretty standard stuff as far as displays go, so it’s an easy one to start with.
The other 20 cages will be mini-trees. They’re 3′ but I’m cutting the bottom ring off, and they will end up being 2′ tall. I’ll prolly ring the flower bed or run them down the drive. Not 100% sure yet.
So, I’ve got 10 mid-trees (4 already built) and 20 mini-trees, and the house lights. Gonna add icicle lights this year to have some lighting options and variety. I’ve got the capability for 64 channels, and I think I’m going to have about 40 channels this year, if everything goes as planned… and if I can get enough strings of lights. If all goes well, I’ll be adding a mega-tree next year… I’ve got another 24 channels before I need to buy/build more controller gear so that’s almost enough for a mega-tree… or perhaps I’ll do a ‘star of David’… we’ll see 
Oh, and I have to program the sequences to make the lights dance… That’s prolly going to take more time than building the trees. I’m not planning any musical display (no FM transmitter), and I think that’s going to be a bit of a reach for the amount of work I need to get done in the time I have… between renos
Speaking of renos, here’s some ‘done for now’ shots of the bar.
… and no, the taps are not hooked up.
By Mike, on June 16th, 2010
I got fired up about doing some more work on the basement, so I thought I would start on the bar area. We are trying to save a bit of cash, so we’re going to reuse the existing bar, and paint out the bead-board, or wainscoting, or whatever it’s called.
I really don’t want to be spending a lot of time on this right now; It’s summer and I’ve got plenty of work to do outside, but I need to do something to get that space usable. We’ve decided just to get it working with plumbing, electrical, drywall done.
So I got all the rough ins done
(Yes, I know the sink is not properly vented, but I have to leave a surprise or two for the next owner don’t I? …mind you, I can fix that really easily with an AAV (Air Admittance Vent) or ‘cheater vent’)
and I got all the drywall up
But not before finding another present from the previous remodeller…
Seems it was too hard to run the power in the wall, so they just ran it along the baseboards. Awesome.  I fixed as much as I can, but I am not ripping out the rest of that wall. I did remove another 2 feet of drywall, but there’s another 15 feet or so of wall I’m not touching. I wired it properly to a new plug that I placed in a better spot, and I’ll be building a bulkhead to cover in the HVAC and some more of the wire… from that point, I may be able to run the power through the sub-basement and fish it up to the rest of the outlets and fix it right. But for now, it’s staying as is. Oh, and they also walled in a clean-out for the plumbing stack. Nice.
We poured some floor leveller. $45 a bag… stuff is not cheap. I was surprised by how fast it went from really, really runny to not flowing at all… way sooner than I was expecting, and subsequently, I’m not totally happy with the results. Next time I’m adding more than the recommended amount of water. Sure, it will weaken the final product, but not sure by how much… I’ll let you know. Mind you, I was pouring a very thin layer, so perhaps that’s why it didn’t flow right. Any tips for next time would be appreciated!
Once I had the rough counter top in, I hooked up all the plumbing… was just planning to cut in the sink, but figured I better check if my poorly vented sink actually drained (it’s about 7′ away from the vented stack) … and it works pretty good… no backup/slowness at all.
I was going to get oak plywood, to match the rest of the oaky-ness of the bar, but at $80 a sheet, I thought it would be cheaper to go with rough 3/4 then get some veneer…. but adding up that cost (after the fact) it would actually be more expensive. lol nice. Soooo we are just going to sand down the rough plywood and stain/finish that… or put on tiles or something else… Apparently I’ll spend a dime to save a nickel… or however that saying goes.
Wifey got tired of hearing my bitch about not having a table saw, so she bought me one for my b-day! It’s awesome. The stand that it came with folds up into a wheeled cart, so it’s a breeze to set up, tear down, and move that saw around. All of the accessories (rip fence, blade guard, etc) have a spot to clip into and stow securely during transport. It’s got a port for dust collection, so I plugged the shop vac hose in the back of it, and there was almost no dust from the cuts. Awesome awesome.
So ‘part one’ of the bar is wrapping up… we’re just going to put a finish on the counter top, add some flooring, and move in the fridge. It’s a bit ‘out of sequence’ but I really don’t want to start mudding and taping now… especially since I don’t have the ceiling done, nor do I have the bulkheads done… and that is far more work than I’m willing to do now. We’ll use it as is, then once I can’t work outdoors anymore, I’ll get back into the drywalling and finish up the basement.
By Mike, on June 8th, 2010
I just hate their keyboards…
I recently bought a new laptop. It’s just a web surfin’ and email kinda machine, but I needed something other than my work laptop. It’s been forever since I’ve actually bought a new computer, and I didn’t really want to spend a lot of time researching, so I just picked one.
It’s . . . → Read More: I don’t hate the French
By Mike, on May 18th, 2010
The struggle of life and death is on display in my back yard…
As I’m strolling in my back yard having a smoke, I hear a rustle at my feet and I glance down to see a snake (hopefully of the relatively harmless ‘garden’ variety lol) having a toad/frog for lunch.
I’m pretty sure I stepped on . . . → Read More: The reclusive Toad-snake spotted!
By Mike, on May 14th, 2010
Maggie’s taken over. She won’t even share the couch any more…
That couch is 6′ long… and she’s not full . . . → Read More: My couch now.
By Mike, on April 26th, 2010
Seven to ten days have passed since Maggie’s surgery and she’s almost healed up completely. It was tough to keep her quiet and not running/jumping around, but I think she’s well enough to start chasing her rope around the yard again.
She’ll be happy to get rid of the lampshade; We ended up putting it on . . . → Read More: Healing fine
By Mike, on April 16th, 2010
Big day for Maggie yesterday; She went in for major surgery.
Since she’s almost 6 months old, it was time to get her in to be spayed. I really don’t think there’s a decision point for fixing dogs other than ‘do you want to breed your dog?’. I’ve heard(read) some arguments that people want to leave the . . . → Read More: Spayed, Tacked, and Chipped
By Mike, on March 16th, 2010
This is why you don’t bury junction boxes in walls and ceilings…
…and also why you should follow the recommended procedure for hooking up more than one baseboard heater to a single thermostat. Hint: this is the wrong way.
We’re doing major renos… we’ve added a furnace/AC and now I’m pulling all the electric heat out. I’m also . . . → Read More: Well, there’s your problem!
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