Even more Win

“Boss, can I borrow the miniature reflow oven we have lying around in the secondary (aka trash) stockroom?”

Boss looks quizzically, and says:

“Does R+D even know they have this?” (yes boss, it’s been sitting in plain sight around the workshop for four years since your partner bought it, and they have never started it…)

“go ahead then, at least it will do more than sitting here as dust trap”

So, everyone hail my (so to speak) new reflow oven!:

Yes, my job is a limitless box of wonders and surprises. Also, I finally fabbed the Memulator board. It will take weeks for it to arrive from china, but I can wait (blatant lie, I can’t wait!). Altium’s 3D view makes it look gorgeous:

Mine won’t have gold pads, but after soldering everything, that won’t matter at all. No, it doesn’t come with mounting holes because I plan to make a box for it with sliding rails. And yes, the pic goes in an IC socket, so I allowed myself to put the decoupling 100nF cap underneath.
Now that I made it and I’m a lot more relaxed as excitement fades, I would make some changes, as I forgot to add four resistors in series on the module paths to the trimpot array. (luckily, I will be able to put them as 1/8W resistors a la vertical post for the module itself). In the meantime, I already have tons of ideas to make new boards, can’t wait to develop them all!!!

Mmmkay…

This is just getting silly…

Yup, that’s my thumb, and those are v-scoring lines.

Client ordered 200 individual leds, to wich we have to solder cables, so they can prototype linear light sources without engineering fees. That’s 6x8mm aprox…grmfls…
I’ll have to devise some form of subjection for the poor soul ho gets the job of soldering them.

 

Bonus track.

Remember Mala Praxis 1, 2 & 3?

Well, good news everyone! Boss changed the cutting disc, for a mere 300€!
Oups! ^^U

And, of course, I got to keep the old disc, as a trophy of sorts:

Bearing barely rotates, and the surface is pretty dented and broken (XD!) It even has nicks I didn’t made, nor nottice. Still, I think I’ll give it a go at cleaning the bearing with solvent, and reshape the disc, altugh I do not expect to succeed, but it would be cool if possible!. Altough I’m worried that the decrease in diameter might bee too much to be compensable with cutting height adjuster only. But until I try, we won’t know.

Disc Status: Retired with possible rejuvenation.

Memulator

Go to Memulator 1.5

After many years, I’m doing circuits again! I have tons of stuff to remember about track placing and so on…meanwhile I try not to screw up in a big way, here’s a preview of what I’m doing.

This is a hardware, USB mouse emulator, with “macro” capabilities. This is an idea I have been toying about since I got in my actual job. As of now, we use some test software (programming has been easied with the “mouse tumor” mod) that requires various mouse clicks around, and it’s not counterproductive just by a hair width. I have the idea that a simple button pad with the click positions already in it, will make production easier, as you don’t have to mess around with the mouse. That’s the idea at least.

Since USB programming is waaay out of my league, I’m using a resistive touchscreen module, hacking it with potentiometers, to hardwire screen positions. Some relays that can be operated either by the pushbuttons or the pic, do the trick.

As I was on the idea, I thought I could use some relays and a PIC to automate processes, not that there is a real need for it, but it gave me an unavoidable excuse to also play with programming. (besides being a simple state machine, of course).

It will have 10 reprogramable slots, to record button presses, to make a “macro”, but of course, only with the avaliable hardwired positions. I don’t really believe there is a need for the whole complication at work, but it is fun!…and since I’ll have one for me, I might program fun macros for my computer XD!

I would like to add that this is purely an excuse for having the boards professionally made, just for the heck of it. XD

As fun point, since I have to have made a few boards of this, I will probably put some for sale, just for fun. XD!

van Gogh (Mala Praxis 3)

His missing ear would be proud of this board mayhem:

When the connector is slightly misaligned outward, no matter what you do, the blade will snap off one ear of the cable connector. Repair is simple, just peel the plastic cover, unsolder the actual metal plate, and solder a new one. Altough it’s a SMD conector, there is enough space at the front to solder normally, and then, with the connector still hot, surface solder the other extreme (apply heat to a tiny area, and let the solder flow underneath).

There is no need to even ad new solder if you are careful, altough a funny thing can happen if half of the lifted metal connector slips from your pliers while the pad is still hot. It will slap on the hot solder so forcefully, that there will be none left, just like a never used pad. ^^U

Max Pain-e (Mala Praxis 2)

Bad computer games jokes apart, this is the continuation from the Mala Praxis post, and will hurt your inner PCB board lover, I warn you:

We made jokes about this being NOT a destroyed board, but a sliced section to test led structure:

By the way, that is CEM3, not FR4.

Interneeeeets

Once again, here are some internet thingies I have collected:

Nice try, have seen better, have seen worst:

Kinda reminds me of Matrix’s spiders:

Deadbug or not deadbug, that is the question:

Cordwood construction board…yeah, easily repairable.

Random microchip photo:

8Gb against 64bit magnetic core section:

Mala Praxis

Electronics Commandment number 89571.3 says:

Thou shall not put connectors beside V-scoring paths.

Otherwise, this will happen, moron:

And this is only the beginning. Sad stories will come from this.

Epic Win

Everyone hail my new/old oscilloscope. Fully functioning, not too mangled, and with a recently replaced display:

This oscilloscope sat in the shelves for over two years. I can’t picture it being used prior to me entering this job, nor anyone using it for anything. We have newer and better ones around, and in case we (production) need more,  I go get the expensive one (1500€+) from R+D, just to mess with them (Mwahaha!).

So, I thought to ask for a price on this dusty equipment. It’s nice when your boss says: “ask the main engineer if he has any plans for it, if not, we’ll talk”. You go to said engineer, and he says he has to give it a thought, but you know he hasn’t even looked at the scope for more than two years. Also, he is a very busy man, who will forget to talk with boss about it, so, three days later, you subreptitiously communicate with aforementioned boss to tell him that the engineer will, given the correct alignment of planets,  someday talk with him, employing every puppy face avaliable to you, and then, boss says:

“you know, you’d have less of a mess* if you just picked it up”.
*(going back and forth between him and engineer)

E-PIC-WIN, you can’t beat this.

Before anyone asks, yes, boss is an experienced technician, and knows the value of that Oscilloscope. He also knows that:

a: It’s old and well depreciated.

b: It makes me happy, and a happy technician, works even better.

Laserholics anonymous

My name is Nixie, and I have been using my laser without limit switches for the past year. Yes I have a procrastination problem.

But no more. I am a rehabilitated technician and I have installed the limits on my machine. But lazyness is strong, I still must confront it, and get things done.

I don’t like mechanical end limits, and using dual optical end limits is troublesome, so I ended up using a single sensor for each axis (yup, because I’m cheap, I used the actual sensors that came with the machine), and worked the places where I could put the beam stoppers to work for all four limits. Of course, that means weird things like this:

I’ll be changing this with a spring loaded plunger near the sensor, so it travels alongside the X axis beam. But for now this will make-do.