Apple iPad uses a MicroSIM instead of normal SIM card. And many operators can just give you a normal SIM. So what’s the solution? How To Convert a SIM to a MicroSIM with a Meat Cleaver! article tells that you can do the conversion from normal SIM to MicroSIM with a chopping board, a meat →
I just saw Slashdot posting mentioning Open Hardware Journal. Open Hardware Journal is a new open technical journal on designs for physical or electronic objects that are shared as if they were Open Source software. It’s an open journal under a Creative Commons license. You can download the magazine in pdf file format and redistribute →
Unless you add a measurement instrument to your computer, you have only the sound card as an analog I/O port. You can use the sound card to digitize ac analog voltages but only within a limited range. You can, however, add some signal processing and measure a wider variety of signals, even those that produce →
One day I had an old flashlight that had burned light bulb on it. It was a small cheap model powered with two AA batteries. I could fix it with new light bulb, but going through the trouble of trying to find exactly suitable replacement light bulb felt like more than the value of the →
The whole world seems to be going in ARM’s direction. ARM has practically taken the mobile phone and tablet markets. The latest version of Windows 8 will also run on ARM processors, Raspberry Pi is a $25 ARM based machine etc.. Slashdot tells that now the open source Arduino platform has a new member — →
What else can you do with our ubiquitous PC-board material? We’re all familiar with printed circuit board material, also called PC board or PCB. The most common type is FR-4, with glass-epoxy substrate (see here), but there are other materials available, such as low-cost, easily punchable phenolic. FR4 is a strong, stiff, hard-to cut, tool-dulling, →
There are many Arduino-compatible microcontroller boards nowadays. The Ruggeduino is a ruggedized Arduino-compatible microcontroller board. Features include overcurrent and overvoltage protection on all I/O pins and 5V/3.3V outputs, ESD protection on all I/O pins and USB port, total microcontroller overcurrent protection, and operation at up to 24V. There are some things a regular Arduino will →
Why modern high tech electronics fail? Too often the reason for that is electrolytic capacitor failure. I have had a quite high number of electronics that has failed by this reason after few years of service. I have had a quite number of devices failed by capacitor: PC motherboard, PC graphics card, set-top-box, DVD player. →
I have participated in Free Product Road Testing program by Farnell. Farnell indentified my blog to road test some of their products. I was willing to participate, because what’s more fun than free high tech products to test. The first product i got was Arduino UNO. Arduino Uno is a a microcontroller board based on →
It seems as though nearly everything “high performance” these days boasts some amount of carbon fiber in its construction. Originally used in aerospace, carbon fiber has moved into the mainstream. Technique: Carbon Fiber Primer article from MAKE Magazine discusses some of the basics of carbon fiber construction and explains how to create a carbon fiber →