I recently found a great old Westinghouse AC Ammeter at Goodwill for a few bucks.  I love the look of these old meters but this one had a cracked lens and a 50 year accumulation of cigarette smoke and grim on the case.  I didn't take ant "before" pictures but here's how it looks cleaned up, minus a lens.

The meter face was almost brown from the accumulation of grime and cigarette smoke.  I took the front cover off the meter and scrubbed it.  It looks pretty good after cleaning as the above picture shows.

This article will show a great method of producing a life-size drawing of oddly shaped parts and document the less-than-successful process of replacing the lens.

Dave has posted another excellent video blog, this one a hack he did on a Hakko FX-880 soldering iron.  The hack is interesting because he solves a design problem  and explains in detail the circuit he uses.  It's a worthwhile watch to see his methodology in problem solving.  It's good to note that his solutions don't always work out, but he analyzes the results and adapts.

View the blog

From Geoff's Projects Blog comes the Maximite BASIC computer.  It looks like an interesting bit of kit and the table of contents at the blog has some other interesting topics.

The Maximite is a small and versatile computer running a full featured BASIC interpreter with 128K of working memory.

It will work with a standard VGA monitor and PC compatible keyboard and because the Maximite has its own built in SD memory card and BASIC language you need nothing more to start writing and running BASIC programs.

The Maximite also has also 20 input/output lines which can be independently configured as analog inputs, digital inputs or digital outputs.  You can measure voltage, frequencies, detect switch closure, etc and respond by turning on lights, closing relays, etc - all under control of your BASIC program.

The design and the firmware including the BASIC interpreter is free to download and use.   And all this is powered by a single chip which costs just US$8.44.



The Maximite was described in the March, April and May 2011 issues of Silicon Chip magazine. 

The mini Maximite was described in the November 2011 issue of Silicon Chip magazine. 

If you have not read the articles you can find out all you need to know by clicking on the links below:

• Maximite Features and Capabilities
• Maximite Design and Construction
• Maximite BASIC
• The mini Maximite

Check out the rest of the article at Geoff's Projects.

Since I first saw Mikal Harts Reverse Geocache Puzzle I knew I needed to build one. My best mate and his wife are avid GeoCachers (is that a word?) and I decided to make a special gift for his 30th birthday. Well, I missed that particular deadline, but never mind, better late than never eh buddy!?

Having seen lots of other people try their hand at it in their own unique interpretations I had a few ideas of my own in mind. At the top of the list I wanted my Geocache to be more flexible than most.

There are a lot of useful tools on-line.  I got busy and organized some of the ones I use often.  Perhaps you'll find these useful.  Please share others that you use.

I installed these in the bookmark toolbar in Firefox. 

Save to Parts List

Bookmark for Arena PartSaver to organize components in a Google Docs spreadsheet

DigChip IC Database
Datasheet, cross-reference and functional listing of integrated circuits

FindChips
Locate integrated circuits

Resistor Value Table
Table of standard values