FWIS3

Neighborhood festival, beer & music festival, Georgia Ren Faire or maybe a movie. What to do today?

I could mow the backyard weeds, but I can't get the mower started. That's my excuse there.

I can relate, I am good at finding excuses not to do chores....

Last night I had a bunch of drunken astronomers dancing at my place until 4am. I am astounded the cops were not called.

Still in the process of trying to feel like a normal person with the aid of coffee, which will hopefully happen soon as I have an article due for Astronomy today. Man oh man I did not think that one through!

Rommie wrote:Last night I had a bunch of drunken astronomers dancing at my place until 4am. I am astounded the cops were not called.

Still in the process of trying to feel like a normal person with the aid of coffee, which will hopefully happen soon as I have an article due for Astronomy today. Man oh man I did not think that one through!

Coffee, yes. Maybe some brisk exercise.

Haha working better, but apparently there is such a thing as a hangover impulse purchase- I just bought an electronics kit on the Internet, one of those breadboards and build 300 different projects ones (I really liked building random crap like that in high school but I had no money so I'd just buy individual resistor bundles and wires etc at Radio Shack- I've now happily realized I have money and can just buy all the parts without scrounging).

Of course online means I've gotta wait a few days. But I wanna build a transistor radio now- this is gonna be worse than waiting for a decoder pin.

Rommie wrote:Haha working better, but apparently there is such a thing as a hangover impulse purchase- I just bought an electronics kit on the Internet, one of those breadboards and build 300 different projects ones (I really liked building random crap like that in high school but I had no money so I'd just buy individual resistor bundles and wires etc at Radio Shack- I've now happily realized I have money and can just buy all the parts without scrounging).

Of course online means I've gotta wait a few days. But I wanna build a transistor radio now- this is gonna be worse than waiting for a decoder pin.

Maybe I want one, too. What did you buy exactly?

geonuc wrote:

Rommie wrote:Haha working better, but apparently there is such a thing as a hangover impulse purchase- I just bought an electronics kit on the Internet, one of those breadboards and build 300 different projects ones (I really liked building random crap like that in high school but I had no money so I'd just buy individual resistor bundles and wires etc at Radio Shack- I've now happily realized I have money and can just buy all the parts without scrounging).

Of course online means I've gotta wait a few days. But I wanna build a transistor radio now- this is gonna be worse than waiting for a decoder pin.

Maybe I want one, too. What did you buy exactly?

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking. Maybe this impulse buying thing is contagious.

Probably is, probably is.

Well, I think I'll do the neighborhood festival and a movie. Either Fast & Furious or Now You See Me. I'm too lazy to drive to the Ren Faire today and besides, that's not much fun alone. Neither is the beer fest.

SciFi Chick wrote:

geonuc wrote:

Rommie wrote:Haha working better, but apparently there is such a thing as a hangover impulse purchase- I just bought an electronics kit on the Internet, one of those breadboards and build 300 different projects ones (I really liked building random crap like that in high school but I had no money so I'd just buy individual resistor bundles and wires etc at Radio Shack- I've now happily realized I have money and can just buy all the parts without scrounging).

Of course online means I've gotta wait a few days. But I wanna build a transistor radio now- this is gonna be worse than waiting for a decoder pin.

Maybe I want one, too. What did you buy exactly?

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking. Maybe this impulse buying thing is contagious.

This one- http://www.velleman.eu/products/view/?c ... &id=341829 I picked it up for around 100 Euro from a Dutch seller but I think the company does stuff with Radio Shack- they do a lot of smaller kits too, but for those you have to solder (and I think this'll keep me busy all summer ).

Of course it's occurred to me that I should probably finally learn how to solder properly after I bought it, but I can always buy one and some circuit boards and put together my favorites from the kit, right?

Oh my god! You will LOVE soldering. It's sooooo much fun! I know you well enough to know that you will love it. If you haven't learned by the next time we see each other, I'll get FZ to show you.

I learned for my job in Australia - the one we walked away from - and that was my favorite part about the job.

geonuc wrote:Probably is, probably is.

Well, I think I'll do the neighborhood festival and a movie. Either Fast & Furious or Now You See Me. I'm too lazy to drive to the Ren Faire today and besides, that's not much fun alone. Neither is the beer fest.

Wish I could join you for the beer fest, but I haven't worked out how to teleport yet, goddamnit!

geonuc wrote:Neighborhood festival, beer & music festival, Georgia Ren Faire or maybe a movie. What to do today?

I could mow the backyard weeds, but I can't get the mower started. That's my excuse there.

I just went through that.
Had a flat tire.
$60 for a tire or $60 for a tire and a rim but the rim wasn't the right type, needing two parallel faces ground on the axle shaft whereas the original was keyed.
Thought, screw this shit.
I can get the rim and tire for the same price at Lowes if I modify the axle shaft to fit it.
So an hour later using my new handy dandy digital calipers and a grinder the job was done.
Then I couldn't start the thing because the battery went dead over the winter.
So I jump start it and start mowing...till it runs out of fuel.
So drive to the petrol station with a jerry can and fuel up and restart mowing till it stalls and won't restart.
So jump start it again.
Then it stalls again.
So I get a new battery.
It stalls again, always when engaging the blades (its a 42inch ride on).
So I lift the mower and see that at some point during the mowing one blade got bent downwards and was hitting the ground every time I engaged it.
So I drive to TSC, no blades for my mower, drive to Lowes, no blades for my mower.
Drive home and drink beer because I figured I've done my best to mow this damned lawn but it does not want to be mowed today!
Still waiting on the blades...

So yeah, go have a beer and save yourself the frustration. Your mower wants you to drink beer.

Rommie wrote:This one- http://www.velleman.eu/products/view/?c ... &id=341829 I picked it up for around 100 Euro from a Dutch seller but I think the company does stuff with Radio Shack- they do a lot of smaller kits too, but for those you have to solder (and I think this'll keep me busy all summer ).

Of course it's occurred to me that I should probably finally learn how to solder properly after I bought it, but I can always buy one and some circuit boards and put together my favorites from the kit, right?

Soldering is definitely something you'd like, I think. I'm fairly proficient, if a bit rusty, from my Navy electronics technician training.

FZR1KG wrote:I just went through that.
Had a flat tire.
$60 for a tire or $60 for a tire and a rim but the rim wasn't the right type, needing two parallel faces ground on the axle shaft whereas the original was keyed.
Thought, screw this shit.
I can get the rim and tire for the same price at Lowes if I modify the axle shaft to fit it.
So an hour later using my new handy dandy digital calipers and a grinder the job was done.
Then I couldn't start the thing because the battery went dead over the winter.
So I jump start it and start mowing...till it runs out of fuel.
So drive to the petrol station with a jerry can and fuel up and restart mowing till it stalls and won't restart.
So jump start it again.
Then it stalls again.
So I get a new battery.
It stalls again, always when engaging the blades (its a 42inch ride on).
So I lift the mower and see that at some point during the mowing one blade got bent downwards and was hitting the ground every time I engaged it.
So I drive to TSC, no blades for my mower, drive to Lowes, no blades for my mower.
Drive home and drink beer because I figured I've done my best to mow this damned lawn but it does not want to be mowed today!
Still waiting on the blades...

So yeah, go have a beer and save yourself the frustration. Your mower wants you to drink beer.

LOL. I haven't put quite that much effort into it. I've only tried adding fuel stabilizer, emptying the tank and refreshing with new fuel and pulling the damn cord about twenty zillion times. I think it might not be getting spark, so I need to look into that. Or buy a cordless electric. I don't have a lot of mowable yard.

geonuc wrote:

Rommie wrote:This one- http://www.velleman.eu/products/view/?c ... &id=341829 I picked it up for around 100 Euro from a Dutch seller but I think the company does stuff with Radio Shack- they do a lot of smaller kits too, but for those you have to solder (and I think this'll keep me busy all summer ).

Of course it's occurred to me that I should probably finally learn how to solder properly after I bought it, but I can always buy one and some circuit boards and put together my favorites from the kit, right?

Soldering is definitely something you'd like, I think. I'm fairly proficient, if a bit rusty, from my Navy electronics technician training.

I have done soldering actually but not in an electronics sense- when I was in 9th grade art class we did it to fuse pieces of metal together for artwork.

One of those things that somehow I hadn't done since.

Soldering is pretty easy when you're shown the right way to do it.
There is always something to learn as it turns out.
I've been soldering since I was about 15 years old.
A few years ago I had to do it in a production setting.
Soldering thousands of connections a day.
I think I peaked at close to 4000 per hour on some jobs.

I know that figure sounds ridiculous but it can be done but its highly dependent on the board layout.
I wouldn't have thought it possible till I did it.
It requires a really top end soldering iron, solder and environment and careful settings of temperature and selection of tips.
When doing hand soldering of SMD devices with a wave tip you can actually get higher than that figure but its only for a minute or so.

To do standard stuff (thru hole) you can get by with a simple and good soldering iron and good quality multicore solder.
If everything is clean its almost effortless.

Apply heat using a pre-wetted tip and feed the solder into the junction of both the pad/part and iron.
It then just does its job like magic.


On a totally different issue, my mower blades arrived but the wife is gone with the MIL in my truck (MIL's had a dead battery which I just replaced under warranty) but all my tools are in the truck. So I can't fit the blades and mow the lawn.
Looks to be beer day again. Well, as soon as I cook dinner for when they get back anyway.

Rommie wrote:Haha working better, but apparently there is such a thing as a hangover impulse purchase- I just bought an electronics kit on the Internet, one of those breadboards and build 300 different projects ones (I really liked building random crap like that in high school but I had no money so I'd just buy individual resistor bundles and wires etc at Radio Shack- I've now happily realized I have money and can just buy all the parts without scrounging).

Of course online means I've gotta wait a few days. But I wanna build a transistor radio now- this is gonna be worse than waiting for a decoder pin.

Okay, once you get your feet rehydrated in the hobby, next step is a QRP transceiver or two...like these... oh yeah, almost forgot...they're morse code only...

cid wrote:

Rommie wrote:Haha working better, but apparently there is such a thing as a hangover impulse purchase- I just bought an electronics kit on the Internet, one of those breadboards and build 300 different projects ones (I really liked building random crap like that in high school but I had no money so I'd just buy individual resistor bundles and wires etc at Radio Shack- I've now happily realized I have money and can just buy all the parts without scrounging).

Of course online means I've gotta wait a few days. But I wanna build a transistor radio now- this is gonna be worse than waiting for a decoder pin.

Okay, once you get your feet rehydrated in the hobby, next step is a QRP transceiver or two...like these... oh yeah, almost forgot...they're morse code only...

Never did CW sorry- I'm definitely more of a voice person, especially in contests, and I like to think I'm good at it also not just cause I'm a YL.

I've actually thought about setting up a Ham radio rig in my apartment cause I'm on the 4th floor of the house and have a roof terrace above... but then I realized living in the historic area means there's no way in hell they'd let me put up an antenna to use it.

Should probably redouble efforts to just find a club and use their stuff now that DX should be good; frankly the only Ham radio thing I've done since moving here is renew my license.