News, Updates and Other Minutiae
September 2023 Long time between drinks, but not much happening on the tech front at the moment. Added another couple of rants to the rant page.
January 2023 Updated the AD9833 VFO code to use a 12F1840.
December 2022 Added rant about todays useless (internet) search engines.
November 2022 NEW Project An AD9833 Based Simple VFO. FT101ZD VFO project updated.
October 2022 A replacement internal DDS VFO for FT101Z/ZD rigs. Because the worlds postage system has gone totally bonkers and it is not possible to send a small pcb anywhere except at extreme cost, I am slowly making available the option to purchase pcb's from Pcbway. First up is the Simple DDS VFO 2017 project pcb. Others will be added over time. Noise Canceller kits available again- see Noise Canceller page.
Privacy Policy uploaded. GPDR and all that stuff In accordance with various bits of legislation around the world, either currently in force, about to come into force or proposed, you will now find that annoying "We use cookies" notice at the top of this website. The full Privacy Policy is available at the Privacy Policy link in the footer at the bottom of the page. (If you don't know what GPDR is, Google it. Real scary shit for ANYBODY with a web presence.)
Desk Lamp Bodge
"Bodge" - A bodge is an inelegant but workable “fix” applied to extend functionality or correct a problem. On my computer desk I have a small desk lamp with a 20w halogen globe and as per usual with these things, the globe always blows at the most inconvenient time, which, of course, it did the other night. This is the type of lamp where the voltage is fed up the two telescopic arms to the lamp at the top (some people seem to have all sorts of problems with these, I have two, no problem apart from excessive globe blowing). The switch had failed some time ago and has been replaced with a more substantial toggle style unit.
I decided to do a quick and dirty LED conversion (aka "bodge") using LED strip which runs off 12V (seeing as it was a 12v lamp anyway). Rather than go in to a long winded "first I did this, than that and blah, blah, blah", I'll just post the pic's and some one-liners.
Disassembly is just 4 screws (6 if you include the connections to the arms).
The original insert is used as a template to make a new plate from some scrap pcb material.
Not very neat, but then all it needs to do is work.
The two different styles of LED strip are, the black stuff - cool white and the other warm white. I find the glare of cool white LED's too much so I mix in warm white to tone it down a bit. Under the plate with the LED strip on is a bridge rectifier made up of 4 x 1N4007's (no smoothing cap yet), the DC voltage is ~11.7V. I fitted the rectifier at the top end so as to keep AC on the arms to avoid any possible problems with electrolysis from dust, dirt, humidity etc etc, plus it leaves all the wiring in the base original. While this isn't 'overbright', it's only purpose is to illuminate the keyboard so I can see the keys to type stuff/navigate the pc etc and works perfectly well for that. I have another one of these, along with some defunct GU10 12V LED units (halogen replacements) and I will see if one can be retrofitted in to the existing metal mount (they were cheapies with the usual problem of the bridge rectifier diodes dying because the manufacturers are cheapskates). Will post that one later if it works.
