24 October 2017 | Do-It-Yourself, Gizmos, Programming, Video |
If you have a fuel or water tank that is either metal or colored plastic, you may have run into the same problem I had: How do you know when it’s empty?
Mechanical level gauges are nice, but not always practical or even possible. So, I went on the hunt for an ultrasonic level sensor for my fuel tank.
Alas, what’s available on the market is too expensive, not very reliable, and often goofy in terms of features. So I decided to build my own!
This ultrasound fuel gauge can be built for around $33 using a breadboard, Arduino Uno, and one of 2 different ultrasonic transceiver modules designed for use with Arduino or Raspberry Pi boards.
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10 October 2017 | Computers, How Does it Work?, Video |
USB is totally awesome, and USB 3.0+ is even more awesome.
With real-world data transfer rates of 400MB/s or more, copying files to external USB sticks and drives has never been more fun.
Only one problem, and I’ve noticed this A LOT: People are using USB3, but they’re sitting there putting up with relatively slow copy speeds from, say, a USB3 key.
It’s often rather difficult to achieve copy speeds in excess of a measley 40MB/s…
What gives?
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27 September 2017 | Do-It-Yourself, Gizmos, Video |
There are many ways to trace a bunch of wires from point A to point B. Most of them kinda suck for one reason or another.
Enter the Voltcraft LZG-1 / Extech CT40!
With this gizmo, you can trace up to 16 wires at once. The system uses a remote unit with 17 alligator clips (16 + one for the common/return conductor).
The remote unit sends a 5V pulse width modulated “square” wave to the main unit. Clip 1 is a ~52% duty cycle wave, and Clip 16 is about 98% duty cycle – at 32 Hz. This allows the main unit to distinguish between each wire reliably – as long as the resistance of each wire is less than 30kohms (which is pretty high).
The main unit also doubles as a DMM. Although it’s not the greatest digitial multimeter, it’s good enough for most applications.
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15 September 2017 | Do-It-Yourself, Video |
Everyone likes to throw things away.
But nobody likes the sight of an overflowing trash or recycling bin, and even fewer people like to take out the trash.
What if I were to tell you that with a simple Life Hack, you could save bin space and time?
What would you pay for such a hack? $19.99? $49.99? $199.99? $1,999,999.99?
Well, watch this vid for FREE… and BE AMAZED!
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5 September 2017 | Energy, How Does it Work?, Video |
Extension cord reels, or rolly cords as I like to call them, are seriously handy.
Nobody likes spending 30 minutes untangling a 50m extension cord.
Trouble is, usually we use them incorrectly!
It turns out you have to read the fine print: You can only use the full capacity of the reel if you fully unwind the rolly cord.
Oops!
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29 August 2017 | Do-It-Yourself, Energy, Video |
First, remain calm. Second, watch this video!
A tripping circuit breaker or GFCI/RCD/differential breaker can be really annoying. It normally doesn’t happen.
When it does, the end result can be that you run around the room with your undies on your head, screaming like a wildperson.
Obviously, if your vacuum cleaner is charred and black and there’s a funny smell in the room, you’ve just figured out why the breaker tripped. But usually, the problem is a bit more subtle than that…
It turns out that with a bit of work, you can often cleverly narrow down the problem to one gizmo and save yourself some money – without setting anything on fire!
Yay!
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22 August 2017 | EEK!, How Does it Work?, Video |
I usually see people freak out when they open the door of their circuit breaker panel. No more!
Note that I’m using European breakers and EU-type panel design as my example, so if you’re in North America or certain other countries, you’re not gonna see the same thing. Still, the general principles are the same.
Also keep in mind that there are far more gizmos that you might find in your panel: combined GFCI/circuit breakers, timers, and even a nifty gizmo that turns off circuit B when circuit A is energized.
Having said all that, if you just need a basic intro to breaker panels of all types, this is a good place to start! Then follow up with a book or an internet search for your specific location, and Bob’s your uncle.
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7 August 2017 | EEK!, Energy, Video |
Power factor is one of those things that sounds really complicated, but it’s pretty simple when you boil it down. And every now and then, knowing a little something about power factor comes in handy.
In short, power factor is the ratio of the real power consumed by a gizmo to the apparent power needed to be generated and delivered by the power company.
The reason for this “extra power” from the power company is the inductance and capacitance in your gizmo that results in shifting the AC current sine wave away from being perfectly in sync with the voltage sine wave.
You don’t really need to understand how all that works; just watch the vid to see why it matters!
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29 July 2017 | Computers, How Does it Work?, Video |
You’d think that connecting an LCD screen to your puter would be straightforward. You’d be wrong! It all gets pretty confusing.
There are several types of connectors and cables, and it’s difficult to know which one to use.
Often, you can even use an adapter cable to connect one type of connector to another, like HDMI → DVI.
This video is a summary of the various details of the most popular current cable types.
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26 July 2017 | How Does it Work?, Spare Me!, Video |
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are the wave of the future, right?
So why is all the latest news about their value in US dollars? Isn’t that kind of backwards?
Obviously, these new digital currencies have a ways to go…
It doesn’t help that the systems in place are less than stellar, and we’re still seeing hacking resulting in people losing money.
But what about the future of blockchain technologies as a whole? Those are pretty awesome, right?
Well, yes and no. If you cut out the hype, you’ll have a much better idea about where all of this stuff is heading.
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If you have a fuel or water tank that is either metal or colored plastic, you may have run into the same problem I had: How do you know when it’s empty?
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