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Month: January 2009

Free From Chemical Whitening Agents

Published January 31, 2009

"Al Nahkal" Excellent Tahina, made by Halwani Bros. of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Normally my support of Wahhabism comes from purchasing things made of petroleum, but today’s oily Saudi acquisition is a 1kg jar of “Al Nahkal” Excellent Tahina from the local Middle Eastern-ish market. Danielle acquired this along with two bags of pita and some yerba maté. The first two will be used to make some hummus which we plan to take to a Super Bowl party tomorrow while the latter will be used to keep Danielle awake at work.

Actually, since the container is made of plastic I guess this is actually a Saudi two-fer. Thankfully, as the side of the container tells is, this product is FREE FROM CHEMICAL WHITENING AGENTS. There’s also something I really enjoy about seeing the ink jet printed manufacture and expiration date up at the top in a non-Latin character set.

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Atari SIO Connector Footprint in CadSoft EAGLE

Published January 30, 2009

Atari SIO connector footprint drawn in CadSoft EAGLE. Modeled connector was salvaged from an Okidata printer.

Not wanting to sit in traffic I decided to stay at work late and poke around with the Atari SIO connectors from an Okidata printer which sent last week. These parts were desoldered earlier in the week and I think I’ve captured their footprint properly. I just hope that the other SIO connectors out there also fit.

Because this footprint was done in CadSoft EAGLE I can’t easily dimension it, so that might make it a little difficult for other people to reuse. Maybe I’ll try and do a DXF of it or something. While measuring it I came across a couple unexpected (for me) things which lead me to believe that it was hand-designed way back when. For example, the overall footprint seems to be 2:1 width:height ratio (1.86″ x .93″), and the pins have a .14″ spacing between each other, with the pins forming equilateral triangles.

(And yes, I will be CC licensing this footprint once I’ve tuned it to fit all the SIO connector variants that I can find.)

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AMB γ1 Is Complete

Published January 29, 2009

The completed AMB γ1 is a bit smaller than a business card.

An order arrived from Mouser today, which means that I was able to complete the AMB γ1 Modular Miniature DAC that I’ve been building. Complete it’s a bit smaller than a standard business card and feels very solid. The board assembly slides forward and back ever so slightly in the case when inserting or removing the USB cable, but it’s nothing that’s a problem. (A/B this photo and this photo to see the shift.)

Tonight I’m using it connected it to to the Millett Hybrid Maxed that I built last year, my most-favorite Sennheiser HD570 headphones, and each of my computers, and this sounds darn good. Now I’m realizing just how low quality some of the audio recordings on my computer actually are, but better than that I can now† listen to high quality audio at reasonable levels while Danielle sleeps in the next room. Yay!

I’m really enjoying this.

† Yes, I realize that I could have just used the high quality line out in my Mac Pro with the amp, but I’m also expecting to use this when at work or with computers with crap audio (eg: Dell D620).

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Atari SIO Connectors

Published January 26, 2009

Controller board from an old Atari / Okidata printer. This was sent to me so that I may reuse the SIO connectors on it.

A few months ago I mentioned that I’d like to build an Atari SDrive as an electronics project. Well, one difficulty in doing that was obtaining SIO connectors. Well, thanks to I now possess a controller board from an Okidata printer bearing two SIO ports. Yay! I’ve heard that the Atarimax guy will be selling connectors-only soon, but I’m not sure how true this is, so this will have to do for now.

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AMF Threadworks / Trail’s Edge Moose Mitts

Published January 25, 2009

AMF Threadworks / Trail's Edge Moose Mitts on my Specialized bike. These work very well in lower Michigan winters.

Quite often when riding in below-freezing temperatures just gloves aren’t enough to keep your hands warm. While the Pearl Izumi Gavia Gloves are quite windproof, they don’t do a very good job of keeping icy wind from chilling my hands. I haven’t had much luck with other gloves either, as my hands still tended to get cold pretty quick. So, on recommendation from a number of friends I went ahead and ordered a set of AMF Threadworks / Trail’s Edge Moose Mitts. I received them this evening and went for a reasonably quick (for snow) test ride on my single speed (the D.I.S.S.) through Clinton River Park with some friends of mine.

While these moose mitts look like the sort of thing which would tie one to a bike, I found that I never really felt as if I was stuck to the bike. Even as I took a fall (tires slid out as I rounded a corner) that hand was just suddenly out of the mitt without any problems.

Warmth-wise, wearing those Gavia Gloves beneath the Moose Mitts proved to be a bit too much as my hands were sweaty after riding. For the next ride I think I’ll try going back to my normal fingerless, clearance bin gloves from REI. If the wind blocking / insulating isn’t enough, inside of each mitt are small pockets for chemical hand warmers and loops for hooking them to the ends of the bars and keeping them solidly in place when inserting one’s hands. One could also store gels in there so they remain liquid and easily edible.

All in all, I’m really glad that I bought these. They kept my hands properly warm, didn’t get in the way when I fell, and were overall comfortable. Being made out of a really heavy nylon I also suspect that they’ll last quite a while. Here is a photo of me with my hands in the Moose Mitts, standing over the bike.

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Hastily Assembled Veggies

Published January 25, 2009

Hastily assembled (and photographed) veggie stir fry, roasted garlic and butter on toast, and Bell's Two Hearted.

Tonight’s dinner is a hastily purchased, prepared, and photographed mix of things of vegetable origin. On the left is home-made bread, toasted and topped with the roasted garlic left over from a few days ago and melted butter. The bowl of veggies is Birds Eye® Freshlike® Broccoli Stir Fry cooked in a bit of soybean oil and some leftover Hormel, House of Tsang-brand Korean Teriyaki stir fry sauce. The beer in the back is Bell’s Two Hearted, a favorite of mine.

The hastiness of the photo is evident by the crap DOF.

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Smallest Part Soldered Yet

Published January 24, 2009

U1D, a Texas Instruments TPS2115APW compared to a US dime. This TSSOP-8 part is the finest pitched part on the board.

Since I’m in a posty mood tonight, have a photo of the smallest thing I’ve soldered to date. It’s nowhere near as small as what some folks I know have done, but I’m pretty happy with it. This part, U1D, is a Texas Instruments TPS2115APW, which handles automatically switching the AMB γ1 between wall and USB power, giving priority to USB whenever it is plugged in.

The package of this part is TSSOP-8, which has 0.65mm between centers of the pins, with the pins being 0.19mm – 0.30mm wide. I soldered it with a Weller WES51 with an ETO tip. Kester 24-6337-6417 (Water Soluble 331 Solder Wire, .025″ dia., Core Size-66 Sn63Pb37) solder was used along with a 2331-zx flux pen. Chemtronics Soder-Wick Rosin SD desoldering braid, in size 3, was used for cleanup.

Soldering was done with the iron set at 700°F. The area was coated with flux, a pad was tinned, more flux was added to that pad, then the part was placed. The iron was then touched to the edge of the pad and the part settled into place. Any slight adjustment would be performed by reheating the pad and moving the part slightly with fingers or a pin, but this wasn’t needed. I then fluxed the legs of the part and very quickly tacked each leg with a bit of solder.

The solder braid was then quickly run across the legs to pull off any extra solder. When washing the PCB after assembly the rosin flux from the desoldering braid was first removed with 99% isopropyl alcohol, then while the board was still wet it was washed with hot water.

(Click here or on the image above for a full res copy of that image.)

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Empty Bag from Digi-Key

Published January 24, 2009

Digi-Key mis-shipped me a part. This bag was supposed to contain a small Kemet capacitor.

I’m building an AMB γ1 Modular Miniature DAC and as part of this I had to order a number of components from Digi-Key. Unfortunately, one part was missed. As can be seen above the bag was sent, but there was no part in it. At least it was only a $0.21, 0.1μF ceramic cap.

Even if I had received this cap I wouldn’t be done. It seems that I forgot to order some connectors for mating the two boards and screwed up a tiny SOT23 AND gate, so there’s now a couple other parts which I have to (re)order as well. Missing cap (C3U) and AND gate (U2U) can be seen here and the missing pin receptacles here.

On the upside, I had no problems soldering any of the SMT parts. I just put that aforementioned one in the wrong place and didn’t have any facilities for safely desoldering it. At least it only cost $0.40 or so.

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NEWSFLASH: Competant Comcast Employee!

Published January 23, 2009

After last night’s terrible experience with Comcast I decided to call and get verbal confirmation that the bill I received should be ignored and that I am to receive a credit. After sitting on hold for 40-some minutes I spoke with someone who informed me that my account has a credit of US$64.98, which I will be receiving 30-45 days from disconnection. This person was actually able to understand what I was asking and clearly and quickly answered my questions.

Upon asking why I received the bill, I was informed that while my service was terminated on 29-Dec, the physical disconnection hadn’t occurred until after the bill was generated. Because of this Comcast had not completely closed out the account, prompting the generation of the bill. I don’t agree with this timeline for account termination, but at least it’s a reasonable explanation.

Now I just have to keep an eye out for the refund from Comcast. Once I receive that (and no more bills) I will be content.

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