Category Archives: tech

“Electronics & Music Maker” – archiving a demo cassette from 1982

“Electronics & Music Maker” (E&MM) was a magazine aimed at home/hobby music makers that started in the early 1980s and was produced as an offshoot of the mighty Maplin electronic component distribution empire. The idea was that it would promote more sales and engagement with Maplin’s component business through projects & DIY features based aroundContinue reading ““Electronics & Music Maker” – archiving a demo cassette from 1982″

A Life-long Love Affair with “Compact Cassette”

I was saddened to learn of the passing of Lou Ottens, a Dutch Engineer credited with inventing the humble cassette tape format whilst working at Philips in the 1960s. Crucially Philips had the foresight to licence the format and it quickly became the de-facto standard for consumer audio recording. It made me reflect on justContinue reading “A Life-long Love Affair with “Compact Cassette””

Tiny Oscilloscope kit based on STM32F103 ARM microcontroller

I discovered this tiny oscilloscope kit the other week. It’s a DSO138 by JYE Tech – £30 from Amazon(UK) or less than £20 if you can wait for delivery from China 🙂It took me less than 2 hours to build and worked first time! I’ve still got some soldering skills lol. It comes in twoContinue reading “Tiny Oscilloscope kit based on STM32F103 ARM microcontroller”

Bosch-Worcester 35CDi Fan Failure

It was a cold start to 2021, outside temps well below freezing, I guess that was the final straw for the ~20yr old fan in my combi boiler. On New Year’s Day I’d noticed it was making more noise that usual as I was putting some rubbish in the wheelie bin, nothing more than aContinue reading “Bosch-Worcester 35CDi Fan Failure”

Grafana, Influxdb & telegraf based home temperature monitoring with Raspberry Pi and the humble DS18B20

Creating a temperature monitoring dashboard in Grafana to display temps from sensors all around the house. Running on Raspberry Pis and using the venerable DS18B20 one-wire sensor.

Flashing LEDs with a 555 timer – and not a lot else

Just dug this out of storage – some electronics I made in the late 80s/early 90s. Most of it is old/scrap components that were lying around on my desk – only the (socketed) 555 and MC14526 counter/divider actually do anything; flashing the LEDs along the edge. I can remember making it at work during quietContinue reading “Flashing LEDs with a 555 timer – and not a lot else”