Solar Storms Create Wondrous Auroras—But Dangerous Power Surges - The next potential space voltage could be on the horizon very soon, by Meg St-Esprit May 28, 2024
"...We are far from a time where we can predict solar weather with the accuracy of terrestrial weather, says Mike Bettwy, but it’s improving every day. “That’s why it’s really, really critical to have constant monitoring and imaging,” he says. “Now, if we see in a satellite image of a solar flare, we can actually run a model to try to predict how it is going to interact with the Earth’s atmosphere.” That wasn’t possible in the past, which meant solar storms were potentially much more dangerous before..."
Here's a fun signal processing challenge that we invented during a hiking trip through cornwall 10 years ago:
At Lands End, there's the "Lighthouse" which emits an acoustic beacon consisting of regular loud beeps, presumably bc. this can be caught by sailors even in thick fog. Now, the question that occurred to us immediately: How far away from Land's End can you capture this sound with a microphone by using very steep FFT filters and convolution methods? Miles? Further? #hamradio #electronics
Does anyone know of an Arduino-compatible board with two slave-capable I2C ports? Ideally 5V but I can make 3.3V work.
I'm trying to emulate two display controllers, sniff the output, and combine it on a single graphics VFD. #arduino#electronics
Hate those fake updates from USPS where their computer sees that nothing has happened for a couple of days and inserts some generic "oh, we've totally put it on a truck and it's heading to you!” It has been sitting there for 3 days! Definitely not arriving today. 😔
Grouped what I think is +5V regulation on secondary side. With my extremely limited understanding, seems anode side of opto D8 is managed by HA17431 IC8. If +5V voltage falls then opto turns on and asks for more juice. Too high or just right opto is off. But how is over current handled? Could IC8 be bad and that's causing the power supply to go into over current mode?
Doing some searching about how a diode in reverse can be used as a voltage regulator leads me to Zener diodes. Looking at D22-D26, D26 has a black stripe while the rest all have green stripes. D26 must be a zener diode.
If I lift D26, will that prevent the +5V rail from coming up? Will something else on the power supply blow up without it?
Remembered I had a big variac. I was able to get the power supply to start by slowly bringing up the AC voltage. It’s hard to repeat, but I was able to do it more than once.
Sometimes those impulse purchases turn out to be pretty handy. Bought this endoscope several months ago and it has just been sitting around. Can see the labels without having to tear all the components off. #electronics#electronicsrepair#RetroComputing#VintageComputing
#Malaysia has become a hotspot for global #electronics & #semiconductor investment, with country's electrical & electronics export seeing a sharp increase of 54.2%. However, the surge of electronics & semiconductor investment in Malaysia is sharply contrasted with low #unionization; only 6% of all #Malaysian#workers are #unionized, the majority in the public sector.
Flyback converter without and with RCD snubber. Without snubber, the primary voltage overshooted to 160 V with severe ringing (made worse due to bad probing), creating unnecessary stress on the switching transistor and more interference. After a (10 nF // 68 K) + diode snubber was installed across the primary coil, switching spike reduced to just 120 V, the ringing setting time has also significantly decreased. #electronics
Throwing out all the old stuff. 709 and 741 opamps bought before they knew about static electricity. But in ceramic and metal cases! You just don't see that kind of thing any more. Not for a really, really long time.
“This is a self-contained low-power computer with its own display and keyboard that you can program in uLisp, a version of the high-level language Lisp for microcontrollers”
Direct generation of radio waves using a special generator:
Next super long wave Grimeton #SAQ transmission on 17.2 kHz will be on Alexanderson Day July 6, tuning of the transmitter 8:30 UTC, transmission 9:00 UTC
Since it is in the audio spectrum, It can be received in Europe using merely a long wire and a sound card input! More specialized loop or active antennas are advisable. #hamradio #electronics
On Friday, I had pan-fried, left over, macaroni cheese for dinner. The START / STOP buttons on my microowave have stopped working, so I couldn't reheat it.
I'm trying to fix the buttons now. They are on a flat plastic panel and seem to have contacts that get better contact when pressed, and I think that they now longer "spring" open again.