Age is just a number. It's written on the back of my hand in case I forget.

[hirez]

Since I pay as little attention to the polis as possible, I've not noticed them getting younger.

What is a sign of increasing age is that electronic components are getting smaller.

Microphone elements used to be about the same diameter as an AA battery. Now that most of them seem to be used in mobile phones, they're about the same size as a vitamin-D tab.

Since I had to order £20 quid of bits from Farnell, I also ended up with an Arduino Mini. Which is, unsurprisingly, quite small.

I should probably go fiddle with EF86s and 2N3055s in TO3 packages.

Comments

[quercus.livejournal.com]

You can't get 2N3055s any more.

There's an excellent IEEE paper on the history of the 2N3055 (I keep meaning to turn it into a wiki article). Full of stuff about how the originals were practically hand made. How the wafers used to stick together after the oven and had to be prised apart with a prybar or lever. With a quick dunk in hydrofluoric acid if they were being sticky. How they don't make them any more (real ones are called 2N3055H, if you can find them) and the modern sort aren't as bulletproof, even though they have the same ratings. How there's a knock-off trade in fake ones, made by paralleling up a couple of other bipolars inside that big roomy can - which works fine until there's any sort of thermal runaway kicking off with current hogging.

About £8 each, if you can find them.

[reddragdiva]

Oh wow. I want to read this. Please do.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just further away.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yes. I have strangely long arms controlled by sticks and wires like a Vic & Bob sketch.

[dj walker-morgan (from livejournal.com)]

I'd have thought this http://www.phenoptix.com/products/bare-bones-breadboard-arduino-compatible-kit-shrinkify-your-projects would be more your kind of Arduino. :)

I knew I was getting on when the tools for fiddling with all these embedded boards had to include a nice magnifying glass.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Gah. Curse your toyshop-finding skills.

Still, circuit works as breadboarded, so now it's out with the veroboard...

... I wonder if there's a CAD package?

[dj walker-morgan (from livejournal.com)]

For Veroboard?

http://veecad.com
http://www.heyrick.co.uk/software/verodes/
http://www.marlwifi.org.nz/other/stripboard-magic

and most promising from a hacking pov

https://code.google.com/p/diy-layout-creator/

I have to get https://plus.google.com/110944853355774677851/posts/FSEsGtZnodd onto a board and innabox sometime.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Verodes expires wanting an .ocx control. Was that visual basic or something 90s like that?

Mind, the other thing I can't immediately find is more stripboard that's been pre-cut to look a lot like a breadboard.

I know yon shop above will sell (or would, had they any stock) the Adafruit version, but...

And a pony, please. A robot one with an owl.

[dj walker-morgan (from livejournal.com)]

Oh most probably VB of old. Looking round there's been a historical trail of vero designers many of which have hobbled from geocity page to archive page with patient curators nailing missing bits back in.

Prolly why I'll grab diy-layout-creator... looks like a non-injured project.

The box I need for the day-of-week clock may be something that will see me summon up the spirit of Dremel (or similar higher-quality alternatives I have seen mention)... Need it to sit on a desk and not offend nomine's tastes or patience.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Ha. Back of an envelope FTW.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, those guys are very cheap for a UK source

[dj walker-morgan (from livejournal.com)]

Well, that is a minimal duino... You'll still need to prep the chip in a real Arduino board but if you've already done the work, its a nice option. I get a variety of bits from them.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

I was looking at the mounted LEDs really. Too much of a PITA to solder that much SMD

Most of my 'duinos are very similar to this, but on stripboard not breadboard, and they cost me about a fiver too (temperature stable clocks that don't break cost money - the cheap ones are useless enough to make servos drift). You can solder the chip in easily enough, just put a serial header on there too and use a pluggable serial-USB cable with the FTDI chipset.

[dj walker-morgan (from livejournal.com)]

Oh the mounted LEDs... lovely things....

I'm waiting for a 32x32 array (pre-soldered :) ) from this fine Kickstarter project http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/311408456/rgb-123-led-matrices