Electronics Hobby - My shop, hidden in the basement of an old farmhouse.
I have a little shop in my basement to build electronics things. A lot of the instruments are old except the oscilloscope which is modern and performs well beyond my capabilities. I build clocks, traditional as well as electronic. Mostly I just like to see things work that I dream up and few of the ideas make it to a final product.
Then there are my Nixie clocks - and these things are wonderful. My favorite is called Snorkel (below) and it uses a 40+ year old (sounds autobiographical, doesn't it?) Nixie tube and an advanced PIC controller. The case (see below) is my absolute favorite, and is made of a bronze tube which I turned on my lathe and cut to look like a snorkel. The base is cherry. The machining was quite challenging and there are far more parts to this clock than meets the eye.
If you look carefully at the right, you can see the bronze knobs on the Tektronix power supply, which I made on my lathe when the old knobs broke and no replacements were available. Who does this sort of thing? The old dude to the far left is an HP signal generator which uses tubes and still works well. There is a signal generator in the Tektronix mainframe, which is newer but more cranky.
Then there are my Nixie clocks - and these things are wonderful. My favorite is called Snorkel (below) and it uses a 40+ year old (sounds autobiographical, doesn't it?) Nixie tube and an advanced PIC controller. The case (see below) is my absolute favorite, and is made of a bronze tube which I turned on my lathe and cut to look like a snorkel. The base is cherry. The machining was quite challenging and there are far more parts to this clock than meets the eye.
If you look carefully at the right, you can see the bronze knobs on the Tektronix power supply, which I made on my lathe when the old knobs broke and no replacements were available. Who does this sort of thing? The old dude to the far left is an HP signal generator which uses tubes and still works well. There is a signal generator in the Tektronix mainframe, which is newer but more cranky.
I am a nut about vintage power supplies from Hewlett Packard and Tektronix. I have a Tek PS280, a Tek PS503A, HP 6237B, and an HP 6236B. All are triple output supplies with 5V for logic circuits and +/- 30 volts (variable) for analogue components such as op amps. The HP 6237B has a 0-18V variable, Vs the 0-6V for the HP 6236B. Each has their advantages and I would not give up any of them. The Tek PS280 has a fixed 5V output, but packs in at a whopping 3 amps. For my little breadboarding, this is more than enough. This wonderful supply boasts digital voltage and current meters and constant voltage and constant current modes. It can be set up to track the +/- sides or vary independently, and the outputs are all floating, so one can have quite a few options on where ground is. The downside to this supply is its fan which bugs me to no end when I first turn it on.
The Tek PS503A has a set of floating +/- supplies, but the 5V is grounded, limiting it to some degree. Mine is housed in a TM501 mainframe which limits the +/- supplies to only 400mA. Not a big problem for anything I have worked up, but it is worth mentioning. If housed in the Tek TM504 mainframe, and in the high power bay, it can handle an amp. This is a nice supply, especially as it is so cute.
The HP 6236B supply also lacks a fan and is limited to 500mA on the +/- supplies. It has a goofy tracking knob which allows the + and - sides to vary proportionally. In locked mode, it tracks... quietly. The neat feature of the 6236B is its variable lower voltage supply, which can vary from way less than a volt to a tad more than 6 volts at 2.5 amps. Both of the +/- outputs on the 6236B are floating, but the 6V side is referenced to the common on the +/- sides, which limits it configuration a bit. When I got my 6236B, it worked well,but had about 10mV ripple. Here is the great thing about the 6236B; it can be repaired. I scrounged around in my shop and found some replacement capacitors (this is a mid 70s vintage supply) and started replacing electrolytics. There are only seven electrolytics, so that went well and now the supply has a respectable <1mV ripple. This supply only cost me $80 delivered from ebay, so even if I had needed to purchase new components, it would have been less than $100.
The Tektronix supplies are much more difficult to repair. I am lucky as mine are all working well, and after looking over the schematics for the two Tek supplies, I am not confident that I can repair them. The HP is a piece of cake so to speak.
Here are the supplies: Tektronix PS280, HP 6236, HP 6237 and the Tektronix PS503A in a single mainframe cabinet.
The Tek PS503A has a set of floating +/- supplies, but the 5V is grounded, limiting it to some degree. Mine is housed in a TM501 mainframe which limits the +/- supplies to only 400mA. Not a big problem for anything I have worked up, but it is worth mentioning. If housed in the Tek TM504 mainframe, and in the high power bay, it can handle an amp. This is a nice supply, especially as it is so cute.
The HP 6236B supply also lacks a fan and is limited to 500mA on the +/- supplies. It has a goofy tracking knob which allows the + and - sides to vary proportionally. In locked mode, it tracks... quietly. The neat feature of the 6236B is its variable lower voltage supply, which can vary from way less than a volt to a tad more than 6 volts at 2.5 amps. Both of the +/- outputs on the 6236B are floating, but the 6V side is referenced to the common on the +/- sides, which limits it configuration a bit. When I got my 6236B, it worked well,but had about 10mV ripple. Here is the great thing about the 6236B; it can be repaired. I scrounged around in my shop and found some replacement capacitors (this is a mid 70s vintage supply) and started replacing electrolytics. There are only seven electrolytics, so that went well and now the supply has a respectable <1mV ripple. This supply only cost me $80 delivered from ebay, so even if I had needed to purchase new components, it would have been less than $100.
The Tektronix supplies are much more difficult to repair. I am lucky as mine are all working well, and after looking over the schematics for the two Tek supplies, I am not confident that I can repair them. The HP is a piece of cake so to speak.
Here are the supplies: Tektronix PS280, HP 6236, HP 6237 and the Tektronix PS503A in a single mainframe cabinet.
Its' official. I'm a geek... Although not strictly electronics, it has some, so I put it on this page. Twenty years ago, before all those crummy plastic lightsabers came on the market, I really wanted my own, so into the shop I went. This is not scaled perfectly to any movie prop, but it has a nice powerful laser pointer built into the end and makes a great laser pointer. It's very heavy since I used aircraft aluminum, bronze from an old propeller shaft, and pieces of model railroad track for the fins.
The little control box here is just scraps of brass I had around and cut and soldered together. It has red and green blinking LEDs which blink at slightly different rates making a cool display. I spent quite a bit of time on the fins which makes them unrecognizable form their model railroad track roots.
If I ever build another of these, and I think I shall, I plan to anodize the body clear with black grooves. This make the body tough and better looking over the long haul.
A detail point - the fins are press fitted into grooves in the aluminum body so the base is smooth and the fins appear to grow out of the body.
If I ever build another of these, and I think I shall, I plan to anodize the body clear with black grooves. This make the body tough and better looking over the long haul.
A detail point - the fins are press fitted into grooves in the aluminum body so the base is smooth and the fins appear to grow out of the body.