Recent Posts

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 10 Next
1
Crowd Funded Projects / Re: Huhubol Cordless Portable Soldering Iron
« Last post by Halcyon on Today at 06:21:31 am »
... just with branding changed at the factory.

I don't think they even went that far. It looks like for the video, they just printed a paper label and stuck it over the existing one. It's even peeling in the corners where they probably used the crappiest glue stick.

2
the LED codes will be different or nonsensical.
Sorry, when I said diodes, I meant LED.
Can you explain to me why it is not possible to compile a working HEX from the project https://github.com/tinfever/open-dyson-battery
3

It seems like Bunnings (a hardware store owned by the Australian conglomerate, Wesfarmers) is more worried about offending certain manufacturers in their supply chain, rather than approving a blunt and honest consumer review, so I'll do so here...
...

I post my product reviews at https://www.productreview.com.au/

The OEM reps definitely monitor reviews there.

In one case, I was unhappy with an appliance OEM's telephone customer support, so I drafted a review and put it into mediation.
That gave the company a chance to respond to the draft review, before it was published.

Customer support then emailed me, and with with some back-and-forth I was able to resolve the matter. So I published an
updated review, acknowledging the follow-up support.
4
I haven't followed really what exactly you need to do with the GPIOs and other constraints, but to me, adapting to the new GPIO control interface would be time much better invested. It's also much faster.
5
When you have small room (or when you're too lazy to clean your bench), floor is bench!

Yes, I also sleep right next to this. Live Laugh Lead. This photo was taken a while back. I have since not improved much.

My back and neck hurt just looking at that.     :-\
Wire shelves on casters could really help reclaim all that space.  Push your work-surface in front of the shelves. Put the instruments at eye-level with component storage above and heavier stuff below.
I very much doubt that that workbench would hold the weight of even one of those Tek 7000 mainframes. It will require something considerably sturdier to hold even half of those instruments.

However, you have to be a pretty dedicated Tek fan to service one of those mainframes on the floor.
6
Metrology / Re: Affordable Useful AC & DC references
« Last post by thermistor-guy on Today at 05:59:45 am »
...
However, after trimming one of the 10V references 2 months ago and keeping it powered on, and after re-checking the SDM3055 vs DMM6500 readings weekly, the 10VDC reference STILL reads exactly 10.0000, spot on, if that's worth anything.
...

That is a good result for a reference in a plastic package, in Florida.

Your wet season is coming up (May-Oct). It would be interesting to check how well the unit performs over the next six months,
with elevated humidity.
7
Test Equipment / Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Last post by Vince on Today at 05:52:07 am »
Does anyone know if Brother Neomys is still around ?
Yep.
A reasonably regular on Discord TEA.
Last seen a week or 2 back.

Ah, strange, maybe his PM e-mail notification got lost and he didn't see my message.
Glad to hear he is still alive and well.
I will try contacting him on Discord then, well assuming I still have access to it that is.
8
The "driver" that can only work with v5 for now, is me.  ;D

I am following a workshop of 30+ lessons, with examples of how to write LKM (Loadable Kernel Module) drivers for Raspberry Pi.  Doing that to learn more about the Linux kernel in general, and hardware drivers in particular.  The classes are for v5 kernel, and they do not apply any more for v6 kernel.

The GPIO access has changed in the last year 2-3 times.  With the v6 kernel, there is now a different interface, with different function names, different functionality of the callback functions, and different mechanisms of requesting and handling hardware pins (GPIO, I2C, SPI, etc.).  If a driver was written using gpio pins the old style, there are zero chances for the same code to work in kernel v6, without rewriting the driver.

Quote
Due to the history of GPIO interfaces in the kernel, there are two different ways to obtain and use GPIOs:
        - The descriptor-based interface is the preferred way to manipulate GPIOs, and is described by all the files in this directory excepted Legacy GPIO Interfaces.
        - The legacy integer-based interface which is considered deprecated (but still usable for compatibility reasons) is documented in Legacy GPIO Interfaces.
The remainder of this document applies to the new descriptor-based interface. Legacy GPIO Interfaces contains the same information applied to the legacy integer-based interface.
Quote from:  https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/gpio/intro.html

They say the old style is still usable, but I've tried for my RPi and drivers that worked with kernel v5 do not work in v6.  Some examples do not even compile, other examples compile but give runtime errors.

To make things even more confusing, while the old style of accessing gpio pins was already removed from v6, there is still in place a mocking interface with the old function names, but they do not work, the mocking old style function names are there only to emit compilation warnings.  :o


TL;DR would like to use kernel v5 during the workshop, to avoid any doubt when eventual errors appear.  Once I get a better understanding of how the kernel interacts with the rest of the hardware and software, I will rewrite the workshop examples for the new gpio style, as an exercise.  Or, at least that's the plan.  :)
9
It was both. They just didn't like my comment about their Chinese junk. I maintain it's a fair comment to make.
It might be a fair comment on buying philosophy, but for a product review, I disagree.  Stick to points about the product you're reviewing.

Quote
I also think promoting local manufacturing is a good thing, even if it does cost a few dollars more.
I'm with you 100% on that one.
10
RF, Microwave, Ham Radio / Re: Dipole Antenna Length
« Last post by Fried Chicken on Today at 05:21:49 am »
Fried Chicken: unfortunately, this thread has diverged from your quite reasonable beginner's questions about antenna theory, into an argument between experts seeking to demonstrate who among them is the bigger expert. Perhaps said experts could take their dispute elsewhere?

Let's come back to your questions.

I still want to know what's going on with the dipole antenna length.  If I have a dipole antenna at full wavelength, wouldn't it pick up exactly nothing in a theoretical perfect world?  Would it cancel out?  If that guy's video is to be believed this is exactly the case....

That video is, quite simply, wrong.

The argument it presents is that in a full wavelength dipole, you would need to have currents travelling in opposite directions within each element, and that those opposing currents would have to cancel each other out, resulting in nothing being radiated from or received in the antenna.

But the whole idea of those opposite currents cancelling out is false in the first place. The narrator seems to think that either you can't have two currents flowing in opposite directions within the same piece of wire, or that if you do, their effect will somehow cancel out such that there is no radiation from the antenna.

But when talking about AC, it is perfectly normal to have different currents flowing at different points along a wire. In fact it's impossible not to. Whenever you have an AC current flowing in a wire, then the current in that wire will vary, all the way from one direction to the other and back again, at intervals of one wavelength all the way along the length of the wire.

Those "opposite" currents at different points do not cancel out, because they are not in the same places. In fact, they are all part of the same AC current. An AC current does not just vary over time: it also varies over space.

And their conclusion, that a full-wave dipole could not radiate, is also false. In reality a full wave dipole will radiate or receive just fine.

The reasons that half-wave dipoles are preferred are practical, rather than fundamental:

- A resonant antenna acts as a filter that preferentially receives or transmits a particular frequency.
- A half-wave dipole is the shortest resonant antenna for a given frequency, and therefore the smallest and cheapest to build.
- The impedance at the centre of a half-wave dipole is one that is easy to work with.

These properties are of great concern when e.g. building a transmitting station at long wavelengths, but in your case, none of them are critical:

- Your receiver is very capable of selecting what frequency to listen to and filtering out others; a resonant antenna can help, but isn't essential.
- In the case of your rabbit-ears antenna, you're free to vary its length to whatever works best within its range; there's no cost to extend it fully.
- Your receiver has more than enough variable gain to compensate for loss due to the antenna impedance not matching that of the radio.

As such, you're quite likely to find that a different configuration - e.g. extending the rabbit ears fully to get a larger antenna which can collect more of the available signal - will get you better results than trying to achieve a half-wave dipole configuration.

But is a radio measuring across the two sides of the dipole, or is it measuring across the two sides of the dipole and then the ground?  Maybe I should ask this in a physics forum.  I really want an ideal theoretical answer, not a practical one.  I believe it's a simple question and there should thus be a simple answer no?

Simple answer: it is measuring across the two sides of the dipole. There doesn't need to be any "ground" involved. A dipole antenna works just fine floating in space. Having a planet nearby is a complication, rather than a requirement, for this type of antenna.

More correct answer: it is not really measuring across the two "sides", but rather measuring at the feed point. By the feed point, I mean the point in the middle where the antenna has been split. Usually for a half-wave dipole this is in the middle, but you can place the feed point anywhere. The position of the feed point will determine the impedance seen by a radio connected at that point.

This offers a lot of clarity, and explains how I can pick up frequencies my antenna theoretically shouldn't pick up.  The radio picks up FM stations without any antenna attached at all!   I tried finding Walter Lewin's lecture where he explains and builds a working radio antenna (and trolls Harvard by making an illegal broadcast in their name).
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 10 Next