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Showing posts from March, 2020

PCB Mill

PCB Mill Kit My latest toy is a small PCB Mill, a CNC 3018 Pro, there are many available from Ali Express for the enormous sum of 285 Dirhams or so, which is about 70 Euro.  I thought that even if it didn't work at all, it would not be a big loss. Assembled CNC 3018 Kit It will help if you have a little previous workshop experience, but these machines are so simple and relatively slow moving, that any radio-geek can safely experiment. Carving With a V-bit in a Puddle of Oil Of course I can have boards made in China by Dirty PCBs , but what is the fun in that? The problem with making PCB antennas, is that you need to experiment to change the design 1 mm this way or that, to tune it just so and just such and having to wait 2 weeks for each experiment doesn't work.  A few hours playing with a router is more practical. It turned out to be a pretty nice little kit, made from aluminium and 1/4 inch Bakelite (paper reinforced phenol formaldehyde).  This Prehistor

Analogue Meter

A few years ago, I noticed an analogue meter with an amusing front panel.  Since it is very old, I expected that it may not work right, so I bought two.  They have been sulking in a dark corner of my Junque Bochs for a long time, but I found them again when rummaging for something else and decided that I have to find a use for the poor things.  One turned out to be intermittent, the other is perfectly fine. Et Voila! A super inaccurate Volt-Amp Meter: Volt-Amp Meter It doesn't look too bad mounted inside a Perspex cube that I got at Daiso some weeks ago. Now the old movement is actually useful again and it has measurement ranges for 2V, 20V and 200V DC and AC, plus 20mA DC. It is a 20mA movement, so I used 1k, 10k and 100k resistors and a couple diodes to give it a 2V, 20V and 200V scale. Which is more accurate: My uncalibrated 4 digit digital meter, or my uncalibrated analogue meter? Component Tester BTW, I found a very nifty little component tester on AliExpres