The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Electronics Workbench

Electrical & Electronic gadgets

Mica Trimmer Capacitors

I picked up two sets of mica trimmer capacitors from eBay:

Mica trimmer capacitors

The big cap on the left goes from a bit under 1000 pF to just over 2500 pF, maybe a 50% range. I got four of the things, they can be disassembled, and I could reduce the total capacitance by maybe half; the tuning range would drop by even more, so it may not be worth it.

The smaller trimmer has different sections: 300-400 pF and 500-700 pF, with about 25% range. As nearly as I can tell, the 700 pF section has one more pair of plates than the 400 pF section.

Given that compression caps work by mashing a stack of mica sheets, I think more pressure makes them more stable and running near the high end of their range will be a Good Thing.

Soldering these New Old Stock relics may be challenging, as the stacked flat metal leads aren’t in pristine condition: properly wetting all the leaves will require plenty of flux.

Resonating the loop antenna requires an external capacitor around 1000 pF. Paralleling a 120 pF fixed cap with both sections of the dual-section cap should do the trick: 900 pF minimum, 1200 pF maximum. Putting the fixed cap on a jumper would reduce the total capacitance, which seems easy & sensible.

2016-11-21

Vacuum Tube Lights: Poughkeepsie Day School Mini Maker Faire 2016

Should you be around Poughkeepsie today, drop in on the Poughkeepsie Day School’s Mini Maker Faire, where I’ll be showing off some glowy LED goodness:

21HB5A on platter - orange green — 21HB5A on platter – orange green

The 5U4GB side lighted dual rectifier looks pretty good after I increased the phase between the two LEDs:

5U4GB Full-wave vacuum rectifier - cyan red phase — 5U4GB Full-wave vacuum rectifier – cyan red phase

A gaggle of glowing vacuum tubes makes for a rather static display, though, so I conjured a color mixer so folks could play with the colors:

Color mixer - overview — Color mixer – overview

Three analog potentiometers set the intensity of the pure RGB colors on the 8 mm Genuine Adafruit Neopixels. A closer look at the circuitry shows it’s assembled following a freehand “the bigger the blob, the better the job” soldering technique:

Color mixer - controls — Color mixer – controls

The blended RGB color from a fourth Neopixel backlights the bulb to project a shadow of the filament on the front surface:

Color mixer - bulb detail — Color mixer – bulb detail

It’s worth noting that the three Genuine Adafruit 8 mm Neopixels have a nonstandard RGB color layout, while the knockoff 5050 SMD Neopixel on the bulb has the usual GRB layout. You can’t mix-n-match layouts in a single Neopixel string, so a few lines of hackage rearrange the R and G values to make the mixed colors come out right.

An IR proximity sensor lets you invert the colors with the wave of a fingertip to send Morse code in response to (some of) the vacuum tubes on display nearby. The sensor glows brightly in pure IR, with all the other LEDs going dark:

Color mixer - controls - IR image — Color mixer – controls – IR image

The switch sits in a little printed bezel to make it big enough to see. The slight purple glow in the visible-light picture comes from the camera’s IR sensitivity; you can’t see anything with your (well, my) unaided eyes.

The “chassis” emerged from the wood pile: a slab of laminate flooring and two strips of countertop, with a slab of bronze-tint acrylic from a Genuine IBM PC Printer Stand that had fallen on hard times quite a while ago. Bandsaw to size, belt-sand to smooth; nothing particularly precise, although I did use the Sherline for coordinate drilling:

Color mixer panel - drill setup — Color mixer panel – drill setup

That’s laying it all out by hand to get a feel for what it’ll look like and drilling the holes at actual coordinates to make everything line up neatly.

Hot melt glue and epoxy hold everything together, with foam tape securing the two PCBs. Those cap screws go into 10-32 brass inserts hammered into the laminate flooring strip.

There’s no schematic. Connect the pots to A0 through A2, wire the Neopixels in series from D8 with the bulb LED last in the string, wire the prox sensor to D9, and away you go.

It’s fun to play with colors!

The Arduino source code as a GitHub Gist:

	// Color mixing demo for Mini Maker Faire
	// Ed Nisley – KE4ANU – November 2016

	#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>

	//———-
	// Pin assignments

	#define PIN_NEO 8 // DO – data out to first Neopixel
	#define PIN_HEARTBEAT 13 // DO – Arduino LED

	#define PIN_FLASH 9 // DI – flash button

	#define PIN_POTRED A0 // AI – red potentiometer
	#define PIN_POTGREEN A1 // AI – green potentiometer
	#define PIN_POTBLUE A2 // AI – blue potentiometer

	//———-
	// Constants

	#define PIXELS 4 // number of pixels

	#define PIXEL_RED 2 // physical channel layout
	#define PIXEL_GREEN 1
	#define PIXEL_BLUE 0

	#define PIXEL_MIX (PIXELS – 1) // pixel with mixed color

	#define PIXEL_FLASH (PIXELS – 1) // pixel that flashes

	// update LEDs only this many ms apart (minus loop() overhead)
	#define UPDATEINTERVAL 25ul
	#define UPDATEMS (UPDATEINTERVAL – 1ul)

	//———-
	// Globals

	// instantiate the Neopixel buffer array
	// color order is RGB for 8 mm diffuse LEDs, GRB for mixed 5050 LED at end

	Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(PIXELS, PIN_NEO, NEO_RGB + NEO_KHZ800);

	uint32_t FullWhite = strip.Color(255,255,255);
	uint32_t FullOff = strip.Color(0,0,0);

	// colors in each LED
	enum pixcolors {RED, GREEN, BLUE, PIXELSIZE};

	uint32_t PotColors[PIXELSIZE];

	uint32_t UniColor;

	unsigned long MillisNow;
	unsigned long MillisThen;

	//– Helper routine for printf()

	int s_putc(char c, FILE *t) {
	Serial.write(c);
	}

	//——————
	// Set the mood

	void setup() {

	pinMode(PIN_HEARTBEAT,OUTPUT);
	digitalWrite(PIN_HEARTBEAT,LOW); // show we arrived

	Serial.begin(57600);
	fdevopen(&s_putc,0); // set up serial output for printf()

	printf("Color Mixer Demo for Mini Maker Faire\r\nEd Nisley – KE4ZNU – November 2016\r\n");

	// set up pixels

	strip.begin();
	strip.show();

	// lamp test: a brilliant white flash on all pixels
	// pixel color layout doesn't matter for a white flash

	printf("Lamp test: flash white\r\n");

	for (byte i=0; i<5 ; i++) {
	for (int j=0; j < strip.numPixels(); j++) { // fill LEDs with white
	strip.setPixelColor(j,FullWhite);
	}
	strip.show();
	delay(500);

	for (int j=0; j < strip.numPixels(); j++) { // fill LEDs with black
	strip.setPixelColor(j,FullOff);
	}
	strip.show();
	delay(500);
	}

	// lamp test: walk a white flash along the string

	printf("Lamp test: walking white\r\n");

	strip.setPixelColor(0,FullWhite);
	strip.show();
	delay(500);

	for (int i=1; i<strip.numPixels(); i++) {
	digitalWrite(PIN_HEARTBEAT,HIGH);
	strip.setPixelColor(i-1,FullOff);
	strip.setPixelColor(i,FullWhite);
	strip.show();
	digitalWrite(PIN_HEARTBEAT,LOW);
	delay(500);
	}

	strip.setPixelColor(strip.numPixels() – 1,FullOff);
	strip.show();
	delay(500);

	MillisNow = MillisThen = millis();

	}

	//——————
	// Run the mood

	void loop() {

	MillisNow = millis();
	if ((MillisNow – MillisThen) >= UPDATEMS) { // time for color change?

	digitalWrite(PIN_HEARTBEAT,HIGH);

	PotColors[RED] = strip.Color(analogRead(PIN_POTRED) >> 2,0,0);
	PotColors[GREEN] = strip.Color(0,analogRead(PIN_POTGREEN) >> 2,0);
	PotColors[BLUE] = strip.Color(0,0,analogRead(PIN_POTBLUE) >> 2);

	strip.setPixelColor(PIXEL_RED,PotColors[RED]); // load up pot indicators
	strip.setPixelColor(PIXEL_GREEN,PotColors[GREEN]);
	strip.setPixelColor(PIXEL_BLUE,PotColors[BLUE]);

	strip.setPixelColor(PIXEL_MIX,strip.getPixelColor(PIXEL_RED) \|
	strip.getPixelColor(PIXEL_GREEN) \|
	strip.getPixelColor(PIXEL_BLUE));
	if (PIXEL_FLASH != PIXEL_MIX) {
	strip.setPixelColor(PIXEL_FLASH,strip.getPixelColor(PIXEL_MIX));
	}

	if (LOW == digitalRead(PIN_FLASH)) { // if flash input active, overlay flash
	strip.setPixelColor(PIXEL_FLASH,0x00FFFFFF ^ strip.getPixelColor(PIXEL_FLASH));
	strip.setPixelColor(PIXEL_RED, 0x00FF0000 ^ strip.getPixelColor(PIXEL_RED));
	strip.setPixelColor(PIXEL_GREEN,0x0000FF00 ^ strip.getPixelColor(PIXEL_GREEN));
	strip.setPixelColor(PIXEL_BLUE, 0x000000FF ^ strip.getPixelColor(PIXEL_BLUE));
	}

	UniColor = 0x000000ff & strip.getPixelColor(PIXELS – 1); // hack to rearrange colors for 5050 LED
	UniColor \|= 0x00ff0000 & (strip.getPixelColor(PIXELS – 1) << 8);
	UniColor \|= 0x0000ff00 & (strip.getPixelColor(PIXELS – 1) >> 8);
	strip.setPixelColor(PIXELS – 1,UniColor);

	strip.show(); // send out colors

	MillisThen = MillisNow;
	digitalWrite(PIN_HEARTBEAT,LOW);
	}

	}

view raw ColorMixer.ino hosted with ❤ by GitHub

2016-11-12

Vacuum Tube LEDs: Mogul Socket With Platters

Adding two hard drive platters draws attention away from the printed puck holding the microcontroller:

500 W Incandescent – Mogul socket with platters

Granted, it looks odd. I think it’s a step in the right direction, if there is any right direction at all.

2016-11-11
Silver-Mica Capacitor Assortment

With RF projects looming on the horizon, now seemed like a good time to restock the silver-mica capacitor supply:

Silver-mica capacitor – assortment

That’s 150-ish little brown envelopes, found on eBay in the lowest-entropy state I can imagine, with about 11 pounds of caps delivered for a bit under $5/pound.

The envelopes bear date stamps from the mid- to late-60s:

Silver-mica capacitor – 188 pF 0.5 pct – envelope

I think these came directly from the Electro-Motive Mfg Co production line or QC lab, because some of the envelopes have notes about “WE”, “Bell Labs”, and suchlike. They seem to be special-production items, not the usual caps from your usual distributor.

The values and tolerances are weird beyond belief:

Silver-mica capacitor – 6160 pF 0.5 pct – on envelope

If you’re taking notes, 6160 pF lies halfway between the 6120 and 6190 values in the E192 series.

And, yes, that’s a cap with ½% tolerance (forgive the bright-red color imbalance):

Silver-mica capacitor – 6160 pF 0.5 pct – detail

Most of the caps are 1%, which is kinda-sorta typical for silver-mica. Then you find something unbelievable:

Silver-mica capacitor – 22.8 pF 0.1 pct

Stipulated, I’ve lived a sheltered existence. Have you ever seen a 0.1% tolerance cap? The assortment has more of those, scattered throughout the range.

Regrettably, the entire decade from just over 300 pF to just under 3000 pF has gone missing: somewhere out there, someone has another box from the room that housed this collection. So it goes; given the plethora of values, I can always make series-parallel combinations to get what’s needed.

2016-11-10
Discrete LED Aging After Two Decades

While at another Vassar concert, I noticed a manufacturing date stamp on one of the LED exit signs in Skinner Hall:

Exit Sign – Manufacturing date

I like the “Replacement lamp not applicable” line. I wonder how recently they’ve tested the battery for the projected 90 minutes of backup time…

These old LEDs show the expected brightness variations:

Exit Sign – LED aging

So, now you know what your discrete LEDs will look like after two decades of continuous use. That’s if anybody (else) still uses discrete LEDs, of course.

2016-11-06
Monthly Science: CR2032 Lithium Cell Life

One of the Hobo dataloggers asked for a new battery during its most recent data dump. The old battery dates back to January 2015:

Maxell CR2032 lithium cell – 22 month life

That was when a batch of Energizer cells failed in quick succession: it wasn’t the datalogger’s fault. I’ve been handling the cells a bit more carefully, too, although that certainly doesn’t account for the much longer life.

With batteries, particularly from eBay, you definitely can’t tell what you’re going to get or how long it’ll last; that’s true of many things in life.

2016-11-01
Inside Another 9 V Battery

A long time ago, I discovered some quasi-AAAA cells inside 9 V batteries:

Inside a batteries.com 9V battery

It occurred to me that I should dismantle a defunct Rayovac Maximum 9 V alkaline battery from the most recent batch (*) to see what it looked like:

Rayovac Maximum 9V battery – interior

Surprise!

A closer look at those pancake cells:

Rayovac Maximum 9V battery – detail

They look like separate cells bonded into a stack, although there’s no easy way to probe the inter-cell contacts; the leftmost cell probably died first.

(*) Which has apparently outlived the Rayovac Maximum brand, as they don’t appear on the Rayovac site.

2016-10-31