What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[AllTheGearNoIdea]

Well I bought a bottle of red wine and that’s how it started and not for the first time. I always fancied having a delta style 3D printer but don’t like the look of those nasty long rubber drive belts. So decided to go down the ball screw route and  yes and I do know about the problems accelerating ball screws but I’m going to be bloody minded and have ago anyway. So have three 750mm long ball screws and three big nema 23 stepper motors and 4 amp drivers boards on the way from eBay.  It will probably shake itself apart but it is going to be a giggle anyway and I fancy doing some construction this year.   I have gone into this project blind without any real research or understanding but that’s  half the fun.  I will keep you posted regarding impending failure.

Chris

[NottheDan]

Got me pair of Sony SS-70 bookshelf speakers for £5.

[Calambres]

Just received this WEP 858D cheap hot air station. It works very well! I have not opened it up yet but seems to be ESD safe.

That "CAL" button is not so... it is simply a plastic blob covering a hole in the front panel. Is it possible to calibrate the temperature in this thing?
Not a single word of calibration in the included "chingris" leaflet.

[glarsson]

Remove the "plastic blob" and stick a small screwdriver through the hole. Tweak the trimmer potentiometer until the displayed temperature is correct.

[Calambres]

Thanks, mate!   

[glarsson]

Before you start tweaking you have to decide at what distance from the nozzle the temperature should be measured.
Depending on what distance the manufacturer used, and the distance you use, the display can be correct or way off.

[Calambres]

Yes, that makes sense!

[tooki]

Just received this WEP 858D cheap hot air station. It works very well! I have not opened it up yet but seems to be ESD safe.

That "CAL" button is not so... it is simply a plastic blob covering a hole in the front panel. Is it possible to calibrate the temperature in this thing?
Not a single word of calibration in the included "chingris" leaflet.

You should open it and verify that the mains cord is actually attached correctly, since that seems to have been an issue on some variants of these things. (At least yours doesn’t have the fun suicide connector like mine! )

[gamalot]

My first 3D printer! 

[gnif]

My 121GW just arrived!
Serial No. 1

[gamalot]

My first 3D printer! 

Are those 5 freaking bench top DMMs???

33220A Function/Arbitrary Waveform Generator

34465A Multimeter

53132A Universal Counter

E3642A Power Supply

34970A Data Acquisition/Switch Unit

[Inverted18650]

My first 3D printer! 

I bought the CR-10 a couple months ago and I really like it. I’ve been using OnShape and have nothing but good things to say.

Also gambled on another Keithley 2000 DMM today, this time from “express_auctions”. Fingers crossed.

[VK5RC]

My 121GW arrived today as well.
A solid little bugger! If I forget a hammer,  it feels solid enough that I could bang in a few things with it!

[djos]

I got a couple of rather nice kits for my vintage computers in the mail today! 

On the left is an RGBi (aka CGA/EGA) to VGA converter powered by a Cyclone IV FPGA, and on the Right is an Adlib compatible OPL2 Sound card that plugs into the Parallel port on older computers.

<-- Image

Im rather looking forward to building them. 

[FrankBuss]

The images look a bit blurry, like if it was scaled from a lower resolution, and the white colored areas are bleeding. But still good for the price. With the motor you could do focus stacking with it.

[Halcyon]

... on the Right is an Adlib compatible OPL2 Sound card that plugs into the Parallel port on older computers.

Nice one! I ordered a few of these too. Waiting for them to arrive.

[djos]

... on the Right is an Adlib compatible OPL2 Sound card that plugs into the Parallel port on older computers.

Nice one! I ordered a few of these too. Waiting for them to arrive.

Cheers, I'm hoping I can find time to build them on the weekend

[BU508A]

The bleeding is from lens effect, and the camera doesn't have built in lens correction, not even dead pixel mapping. It basically captures data straight from sensor, doing minimal white balance processing and zooming and dumps it to HDMI.

The lens set is also crap, what do you expect from a lens set came for free from a $350 microscope?

It can't be controlled by computer, it has a USB port for a mouse, and that's how I can control it. Scripted focus stepping is not possible, but if I really want, I can manually step them and save each frame to TF card, it has a TF slot.

I think, I would go for one of these:
http://thesignalpath.com/blogs/2017/10/29/dino-lite-usb-digital-microscopes-review-and-experiments-2017-edition/

Yes, they are more expensive, but I'd go rather for quality than for cheapness.

[Mr. Scram]

I think, I would go for one of these:
http://thesignalpath.com/blogs/2017/10/29/dino-lite-usb-digital-microscopes-review-and-experiments-2017-edition/

Yes, they are more expensive, but I'd go rather for quality than for cheapness.

In that case, why not go for a proper microscope with camera attachment?

[paulca]

3x ATTinyy85
5x 3.3V regulators
5x 20MHz xtals

I always wonder if people packing the orders assume these things are going together and smile to themselves thinking the orderer has made a mistake.

In fact the xtals and tiny's are to go together but the 3.3 regs are for powering ESP8266s.

[McBryce]

Unless you ordered them from "Billy Bobs electronics corner shop", I doubt humans were much involved in the process.

McBryce.

[BU508A]

In that case, why not go for a proper microscope with camera attachment?

These are my reasons:

- most likely I'd buy the one with 1x - 70x magnifying because of the working distance:
            (quote from TSP) AM73115MTF – USB 3.0 with Dino-Lite’s longest working distance
            at 1X – 70X magnification. Capable of 20X at 10.5” working distance and 70X at 4.5” working distance.

- you can inspect "hidden" places, which cannot be seen directly
- easy change of viewing angle
- easy to transport (I am in the repair team of a so-called "Repair Bar", which is 40km far away from my home.)

[paulca]

I think farnell, rs, cpc have partially automated order systems.  It looks like some of the parts, jelly bean stuff off reels, have been individually bagged and labelled using pick and pack machines.  They also charge reeling fees for bulk orders that don't amount to a full reel etc.

Actually my last RS order they started using paper bags for some of the components, obviously inline with the current anti-plastic waste initiative.  But then in the same order where I ordered 10 5V regulators, they came (TO-20) individually in 10 anti-static bags.

That said I got an order from CPC where everything looked like it was pick&packed in individual pink antistatic bags, but there were handwritten order numbers on each individual one!

[Specmaster]

Yep, I noticed the same thing with CPC, at least this time I got everything. The last order was automated heat sealed bags and the terminal screws for the banana plugs were missing 

[neo]

Another interesting tale of shipping woe, Arrow seems to just randomly pick shipping containers and sends everything in anti static bags. Even the solder sucker i ordered from them.