Great Birthday Fun

/

Had a fantastic birthday today. We headed up town for a coffee and then took a walk around Hull Museum Quarter. The weather was excellent and the wonderful transport museum had even laid on a special exhibition of classic cars for us to look at. Then on to Berts for lunch. After that it was back home for cake and and fun and games. We spent the evening playing the excellent Point Salad and DownForce games. Great stuff.

Fan hunt

/

One of my biggest fans……

There’s a very popular program on the BBC called “The Repair Shop”. In it a bunch of highly skilled crafts folk mend the heirlooms of families that have fallen into disrepair (that’s the heirlooms - not the families). I felt a bit like one of the crafts folk as I surveyed the collection of fans that I’d just got down from the loft in preparation for the “Deadly Heat Wave” (tm) that is coming.

All the devices were a bit grubby. I took them to pieces, cleaned them up and put them back together. I also checked the mains plugs and re-seated the cord grip on one. At the end I had three fans that were good to go (although the bearings on one have to be heard to be believed).

Bring on the heat….

Found it!

/

“|t is a truth universally acknowledged that the best way to find a missing cable is to buy a replacement”.

Yesterday I lost a cable. So I bought a replacement. Today I thought I’d take a look at the original cable order. It turns out that I’d forgotten what the cable looked like, so for the last couple of days I’ve been searching for the wrong thing. A quick scan of the desktop and there it was. Oh well.

Bought an oven.....

/

My first thought when I ordered my printed circuit boards was that I’d solder them by hand. I’ve since had a look at what this involves and changed my mind. And bought an oven. I managed to get the one above for around thirty pounds from AliExpress (search for 110/220V UYUE 946C), plus vat but with free postage. Lots of companies are now charging for delivery, which is rather annoying, but I managed to find this one, which does not. The device is mains powered and gets very hot, so I’ll give it a good checking over when it comes.

I should be able to pop some solder paste on the pcb, drop the components on top and then heat the whole board up to 200 degrees, at which point soldering magic happens. I’m quite looking forward to when it arrives. The delivery date was given as around September (such s the price of free shipping) but with a bit of luck it might be sooner than that.

Printed PCBs

/

If you’ve ever thought about having printed circuit boards made for your projects: you should. I sent the designs off last Friday and and today I received five boards, beautifully made and packaged. Total cost of the whole thing - less than twenty pounds. I used a firm called NextPCB. I think I’ve taken advantage of some amazing introductory offer, but even so I’d be prepared to pay quite a bit more for service as good as this.

I wish I could say that the designs that I sent off were ones that I’d created but all the nice layout and sensible ground planes are down to the efforts of Brian. However, the quality and price of the work means that I’m even more determined to learn Kicad than before.

Cottingham Show

/

Had some great fun at Cottingham Day today. The Pie Bakery (aka Hull Pie) were there so we grabbed some pies in the morning, had them for lunch and then went back out for strawberries, scones and cream. They had a bike show as well, which included this beauty. The weather forecast was fairly horrid, but the weather turned out really nice, and the huge crowds that turned out seemed to be having a whale of a time. As were we.

and so to the dentist

/

Going to the dentist is starting to remind me of piano lessons from years ago. Then I used to turn up nervously hoping that the teacher wouldn’t notice that I’d done no practice. With the dentist I turn up hoping she won’t notice I’ve done no flossing. As if.

I’m not sure why I worry about this so much. After all, the dentist gets paid whether I floss or not. In fact you could argue that me letting my teeth get into a mess just means more paid work for her. In which context the filling I need could be counted as a win.

I’m really going to start flossing more…

Sneaking up on a problem

/

Not sure this will work every time, but I pass it on as a tip that has worked for me. If you are stuck trying to solve a problem it is sometimes a good idea to go off and try solving a totally different one for a while. I have a number of “background niggles” which are things that I would like to fix when I get round to it. I keep a list of these in my diary.

When I get stuck on a “foreground” problem in something I’m working on I will go off and have a look at one of my “niggles” for a while. If I’m lucky (and I have to be lucky) I’ll fix the niggle, come back to my original problem, take another look at it and then solve that too.

Forcing the brain to switch from one issue to another and back again sometimes allows it to pick up on something you didn’t spot first time around.

If you haven’t got any “background niggles” (lucky you) then you can do something different for a while and then come back.

Back on the road

/

Earlier this year I had a little surgical procedure which meant that I had to stop driving. When I got back from hospital I gathered up all the information, filled in a form and sent everything off to tell the authorities I was broken but had been mended. Then began the long wait for the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency to contact my surgeon, convince themselves that I was fixed and then decide to let me drive again.

They’ve just done this. I’m very pleased. I’ve spent the thick end of three months walking past my lovely little car but not being able to drive it anywhere. I’m not sure where I’m going to go just at the moment but I’m really looking forward to going there.