Hello World

[bumba000]

Hi All,
       I'm working on my first project. I plan to build an E-Cig! I've received some pointers from some folks through the eevblog chat IRC over the past few weeks. I've also watched a ton of videos by Dave on youtube some I've watched many times just trying to wrap my head around this stuff. It's nuts. I really don't know much about electronics but have dealt with 12V stuff for a while. Not that I'm a 12v expert , but I do know a little bit about power and a little bit about how things work.

I figured I'd create an account here and post my first success. It's taken me all day to work out a single problem / question but I did it on my own with help from one of Daves youtube videos. Earlier today I posted a question on another forum and it got me nowhere though in their defense they have been helpful in the past week or so. You can pickup on my conversation with myself here http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/lipo-charger-and-usb-detect.116538/

OK. enough about me. So, what are you wearing?? Kidding of course.

Also, I ordered an FTDI cable from ebay from china yesterday after trying to source parts from around the house to make my own. Figuring that wasn't going to happen - I bought one. Thinking about it now, I sure hope it can't be ruined by this driver situation. Caught another of Daves videos regarding the FTDI chips and am now a bit concerned...

Anyways, this is my hello - HELLO!

Thanks for having me, JohnJohn 

[Simon]

Also, I ordered an FTDI cable from ebay from china yesterday after trying to source parts from around the house to make my own.

Oh hear  since when do FTDI chips just hang around the house 

[crispy_tofu]

Anyways, this is my hello - HELLO!

Hello and welcome!

[bumba000]

I had never heard of an FTDI chip before last night. Figured between all the extra computers, hdd's, cd roms, external roms and cables Id be able to source one "locally". No.

[ataradov]

So yesterday you did not know about FTDI and now you want to build E-Cig? Sounds ambitious.

I'll have a go at it, and for my first mechanical project I'm gonna build a car. I could not source windshield wiper motors locally, so I've ordered some from ebay.

Why not start from something simpler for a first project?

[bumba000]

I've been working on the ecig for three weeks. I decided on an FTDI cable because since I've started the ecig I found that an oscilloscope was a good idea and built one from a tutorial. Then found that I needed to get my ecig inductor up to 100kHz or so which was too much for the sound card type oscope and was told that reading the data by serial would be my next best bet. Short of one appearing magically I figured I'd make one of them too.

Hello, my name is John. I don't really think "can i swim". I think "i'm gonna do this shit" and I jump in worrying about sinking later. I learn best by jumping in head first. Sometimes there are rocks there and it hurts, but I learn. You can help or move but I'm going for swim now just as soon as I finish this beer. Thank you.

Also, really the first project was making an LED blink. then blink faster. 

[Simon]

  welcome aboard, even if you will swim around.

[Mechatrommer]

I've been working on the ecig for three weeks. I decided on an FTDI cable because since I've started the ecig I found that an oscilloscope was a good idea and built one from a tutorial. Then found that I needed to get my ecig inductor up to 100kHz or so which was too much for the sound card type oscope and was told that reading the data by serial would be my next best bet. Short of one appearing magically I figured I'd make one of them too.

are you on pot?

Hello, my name is John...just as soon as I finish this beer. Thank you.

now that make some sense.

[bumba000]

welcome aboard, even if you will swim around.

Thank you Sir. I plan to become a permanent fixture here. Funny thing is I broke a cable tv remote control a week or so ago and spotted a neat looking chip in there. I've researched it. It's a dragonchip. Not sure what I can do with it yet but I'll put up some ID numbers soon and see what you all think. I'm sure we can come up with something cool to make from a busted remote control. Ahh hell, DC6683FL48X,, AB105D,, C4W533.00  . It has 28 pins and it's black (lol). I don't have the specs page handy, but I remember that it's a Dragon Chip. Never heard of it. That should go without saying since I've already stated not even knowing about FTDI before yesterday. Now what I do recall from researching is that I'd need a dragon chip programming interface connector board contraption thing. Any other way to hook this thing up and load some code?! So what can we do with it?!

[bumba000]

nope, quit smoking pot yesterday. got on the cracks for a while but I couldn't surface solder so went back to beer.

[Mechatrommer]

nope, quit smoking pot yesterday. got on the cracks for a while but I couldn't surface solder so went back to beer.

ok, we have an entertainer here... just dont try to make too much of a joke here. the admins are not that joking as you'd think they'd be...

[Falcon69]

nope, quit smoking pot yesterday. got on the cracks for a while but I couldn't surface solder so went back to beer.

ok, we have an entertainer here... just dont try to make too much of a joke here. the admins are not that joking as you'd think they'd be...

Nothing Wrong with Beer or Pot (though, it's legal here, I can't stand the smell of the crap myself), but saying you do crack, that's nothing to be proud of.

Although, it was once believed that Cocaine was a medicinal product (i guess in some ways it still is), that is why Coca-Cola put it in it's drinks way back when.

[tron9000]

I'm confused by this train of thought:

E-cig -> scope: I get this bit, you need to measure the signal your driving your inductor with and your soundcard can't handle signals that fast to use on a PC base scope.
E-cig -> FTDI cable: erm, ok? so your wanting to "roll your own" (no pun intended) serial interface scope probe? <<<--- THIS IS YOUR PROJECT YOU SHOULD START WITH

Also: Beer - Good; pot - nothing against it, tried it, no likely much, won't do much for your learning; Crack - leave that stuff alone if your serious about taking up electronics!

[tec5c]

Ahh yes, the old Dragon Chip DC6683FL48X,, AB105D,, C4W533.00 28pin black variant.

You'll be needing one of these in order to program that chip...



IMO, you'd want to get the FTDI compatible version of the above.

[Wim_L]

Although, it was once believed that Cocaine was a medicinal product (i guess in some ways it still is), that is why Coca-Cola put it in it's drinks way back when.

Cocaine is used as a topical anaesthetic drug for certain procedures. I never heard of crack being used for this purpose though.

Now, about the vape project... Danger everywhere. High current spikes to heat the coil (risk of battery damage and overheating), parts that might get hot enough to set something on fire if proper materials aren't selected, and you're going to use it to vaporise a rather poisonous material (nicotine). This project will require some thorough safety testing.

[bumba000]

wow this really went out there a ways guys. No I do Not smoke pot or crack. I drink beer. I have smoked cigarettes for 28 years and finally quit 3 months ago.

I do not plan to power an ecig from my sound card and I am going to sleep now.

John

[SteveLy]

wow this really went out there a ways guys. No I do Not smoke pot or crack. I drink beer. I have smoked cigarettes for 28 years and finally quit 3 months ago.

Onya for kicking the habit. Re the pot & crack, I guess the sarcasm and humour got lost over the wireless.

Re your project, to "build an e-cig", you'll have to assume you're talking to non-vapers. Hand-held variable wattage power supply?

[crispy_tofu]

I do not plan to power an ecig from my sound card and I am going to sleep now.

 

[Simon]

Onya for kicking the habit. Re the pot & crack, I guess the sarcasm and humour got lost over the wireless.

I think that was more a case of natural assumptions due to eratic and near lunatic posts. This might be a fun oe to deal with.

[zapta]

Onya for kicking the habit. Re the pot & crack, I guess the sarcasm and humour got lost over the wireless.

I think that was more a case of natural assumptions due to eratic and near lunatic posts. This might be a fun oe to deal with.

Lunatic to a point that an orange color strip looks red?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100x-10K-ohm-1-8W-0-125W-resistors-axial-through-hole-/181287715252?hash=item2a359701b4

;-)

[Simon]

Do you know how many hours it takes to produce those 3D models and pull the reulting JPG off it, you think i put one up for every value ?

[SteveLy]

Well, spending all that time on 3D models is a bit nuts when you can use a plain old photo.
FWIW here you go 10k (adds 20 seconds on top of the many hours to produce the dubious 3D):

[Simon]

Still looks pretty red to me. The story is a long and old one if you must. Some time ago eBay who are the absolute experts in everything and know more about my products than I do decided that an image 50 pixels wide was no longer big enough to illustrate a product that many of us in the know do not need a picture to identify as often the simple package code is enough such as T0220. But no these tiny items some of them only a few millimetres long now needed representing in images that were at least 500 pixels wide. Most available images are around about 50 pixels maybe 100 and you can easily pilfer them from people like Farnell. But with the requirement for 500 pixels this became a problem. At first I thought I will photograph the components and I also thought I don't want everyone else to be using my pictures as I want commercial advantage having gone to all this trouble. Having dabbled in photography I was well aware of how difficult it could actually be to get a decent 500 pixel image of a 1206 surface mount resistor. And in fact my initial attempts at taking detailed photos failed miserably.

But I had been for a year or more working in 3-D CAD I was quite acquainted with how to produce 3-D models. And items such as resistors and other electronic components are at the end of the day fairly trivial to model. However just the same as taking a picture of each and every type of my components and then editing them and then uploading them would have taken hours so did the process of modelling my components which in itself does not take long but then extracting an image and uploading it to all my listings which already had perfectly good images. So having being moved into extreme inconvenience by eBay I took the plunge and did it my way. Obviously the images are only representations for example your TO220 package may not be the exact type news for the product I said as I'm sure we are all aware some have sharper corners some have a little notch out of the sides of the tab some have a nice rounded plastic body somehow sharp edged plastic bodies they are so many small variations. It also means that I can write my trade name on the images.

I hope that satisfies your curiosity

[zapta]

Do you know how many hours it takes to produce those 3D models and pull the reulting JPG off it, you think i put one up for every value ?

Anyway, I like your other resistor posting with selectable values and amounts and combined shipping costs.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SparkyLabs-0-25W-1-4W-1-resistors-various-E12-values-10K-10M-/181288258879?var=&hash=item6fd4bace1b

[Simon]

Yes and they can take an hour to do without the photo and i ran out of multi variation allowance and had to do them in two lots, it's almost faster to list every value individually.