I'm Back

Hello all, I'm back after a long time not posting. Finally finished my course at Fitchburg University, Thanks Dr. Jim! learned alot! Well I'm going to try to back post. I've got a ton of projects backed up on my phone and in my grey organic hard-drive. 

Mini China

Some of my students assembly on the LM324 Blink Kit. This is the same project I did back in July 2011 http://www.n1ir.com/2011/07/10000-lm324-donated.html . So far we have 100 kits assembled in about 2 hours, milling the PCB take considerably longer, about 18 hours. Total cost of each kit is about $0.50 a big cost savings. Way cheaper that the $3.00 kits we were getting.

Skills USA RUBE GOLDBERG MACHINE CONTEST

Here is our Skill USA display. We won 3rd place, total time spend about 18 hours. a vacuum pushes a golf ball up and it goes down the ramp until the end. The balls are painted with glow in the dark paint and black lights are placed on the top and bottom. On the bottom we also have a water fountain. We also placed servo and figurens and a 16X2 LCD displaying the school name.  

Water Saver using a dime

Here is a simple cheap way to reduce water and lengthen our hot water, in our camper we have a propane fired 6 gallon hot water heater. The original shower head had a flow rate of 2.5 GPM (measured it with a bucket) the flow was way to high compared to my regular home everyday shower. With a just dime and a 1/8 inch drill bit I drilled a hole in the center, it reduced the flow rate to about 1.5 GPM. As a result I can now take a 10 min shower before loosing hot water.

This is why we prototype

Well this is why I prototype first, this is a spin off of the spark-fun electronic
Bright Bunny Kit. Unfortunately the led placement in not the best place, it should be up a bit more. Oh well version 2 should be better. Electrically it works great, but do need to switch from a glass reed switch to a epoxy potted covered one for durability and saftey.

Switch Replacement on Trainer

I had a student assemble this heathkit trainer, but the switch failed. It was a cheap "one hung low" made in china switch. I contacted Cherry Switch and got a couple of samples and it works great. It was a great teaching point I had all my students follow the process of requested sample online. A+ for Cherry Switch and company's that give samples to students and schools.

IQ4 Smart Charger