The good news is that this is just some more of my strange dreams. In fact I have three dreams to blog about at this time.
In one dream I climbed up to an area where some friends were sleeping. Then I noticed that one of the friends had lots of bruises. So I asked him if the bruises were from the first or from the second major natural disaster. Yipes? The area was devastated by something like a hurricane or an earthquake. It resembled New Orleans after the hurricane, except that I think it was New York City.
The second dream was that a train was rolling to a stop. When it stopped I was told that one of the train cars was for me, when I looked in the car it was full of gold! I scraped off the corner of one of the gold bricks with a knife and it was really solid gold. Then Fred and I started discussing how we could send all of this gold back to the United States.
My thoughts on the second dream is, how can we send the revival we have seen in Africa (and India, and the Philippines) back to the US? That is something to think about. What are the keys to those revivals? How can we bring it back here with us?
The third dream may be an extension of an old one about watering corn that was posted a while back. It might also be an extension of the second dream above. In the beginning of the dream I was watering some plants with an ordinary garden hose. It seemed fruitless as it was never enough water this went on for days. Then I came back one day to find out that someone had connected up a three inch fire hose! Is the answer on how to bring the revival home from Africa to use a bigger hose? I have felt God saying that 'I am going to give you a bigger hose!' What that means or how He will do that I do not yet know. Stay tuned for further developments.
Do you remember the Godzilla Taco Bell commercial? The little dog had a cardboard box that was held up on one end by a stick. He was saying 'Here lizard, here lizard'. Then Godzilla roared a loud roar. The little dog looked a little puzzled, then he says 'I need a bigger box.' I LOVED that commercial. Talk about the power of positive thinking. I just need a bigger hose!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Facts about this economic depression
I am so sick of the economic depression being blamed on former president Bush. First of all congress was being run by democrats ever since the 2006 election so they were already running up the deficit. But the big problem happened in October when the media announced that Obama was going to win the election, look at the stock market index picture below. The stock market plunged when the media announced that Obama would win in October, then it plunged again when he won the election in November, then it plunged when he took office in January. Then it continued down as he had his first three months in office. JUST LOOK! The facts speak for themselves!
What is going to happen next? Cap and trade. Take a look and you can see that since Cap and trade started winding its way through congress, the stock market has dropped about 300 points. If Federal health care goes through it will plunge again.
There is precedent for this. The stock market tanked three times during the great depression before the government could figure out the cause and effect. People are not going to invest their hard earned money in companies if they know the government is going to tax the companies to death. Companies are not going to invest, grow in size, and create jobs if they know the government is going to tax them to death. People will not have money to invest if the government taxes them to death.
The solution stop spending and cut taxes! It has worked before and it will work again.
What is going to happen next? Cap and trade. Take a look and you can see that since Cap and trade started winding its way through congress, the stock market has dropped about 300 points. If Federal health care goes through it will plunge again.There is precedent for this. The stock market tanked three times during the great depression before the government could figure out the cause and effect. People are not going to invest their hard earned money in companies if they know the government is going to tax the companies to death. Companies are not going to invest, grow in size, and create jobs if they know the government is going to tax them to death. People will not have money to invest if the government taxes them to death.
The solution stop spending and cut taxes! It has worked before and it will work again.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The second civil war
The other day I heard God saying that there will be a wave of righteousness sweeping across this land. Evil has really abounded here and it is making many sick as they see the fruits of evil and corruption that is turning this land into a barren wasteland of high taxes and no jobs. It is time to turn this country back to God, and to leave the evil people standing by themselves wondering where everyone else went. All around this world the wave of revival is building, and as it approaches the shore it gets bigger and bigger. At first you cannot see it because it is just a swelling but as it gets closer to land it takes shape and you can see it forming into a huge wave that will sweep over the mountains.
Sometimes I have posted some of my strange dreams in my blog, this is another one of those dreams. Last November 2008 as I was praying about the upcoming election I woke up startled one night because I was dreaming that I was a soldier in the second civil war. The next day I looked it up on the Internet and the only references I could find were some people that were saying that if Obama did not win the election and become president then there would be a second civil war.
In my dream we were far out numbered, out weaponed, and loosing the war. We were retreating before the enemy. Then there was a pause and many many civilians poured over to our side, in a mass exodus. But that was only one of these dreams. Since then I have had many of these 'second civil war' type dreams.
In any case there is a spiritual war going on. On their side you have the evolutionist, the abortionist, and the white-supremacist, but on this side you have the God fearing, the creationist, the pro-life, the 'all men are created equal' people. BTW the white supremest is part of evolution because it teaches that blacks evolved from monkeys and then whites evolved from blacks. The DNA evidence has long since proven this to be false but the false teaching goes on. They still teach evolution in public schools and claim to fail to realize that they are teaching white-supremacy!
Sometimes I have posted some of my strange dreams in my blog, this is another one of those dreams. Last November 2008 as I was praying about the upcoming election I woke up startled one night because I was dreaming that I was a soldier in the second civil war. The next day I looked it up on the Internet and the only references I could find were some people that were saying that if Obama did not win the election and become president then there would be a second civil war.
In my dream we were far out numbered, out weaponed, and loosing the war. We were retreating before the enemy. Then there was a pause and many many civilians poured over to our side, in a mass exodus. But that was only one of these dreams. Since then I have had many of these 'second civil war' type dreams.
In any case there is a spiritual war going on. On their side you have the evolutionist, the abortionist, and the white-supremacist, but on this side you have the God fearing, the creationist, the pro-life, the 'all men are created equal' people. BTW the white supremest is part of evolution because it teaches that blacks evolved from monkeys and then whites evolved from blacks. The DNA evidence has long since proven this to be false but the false teaching goes on. They still teach evolution in public schools and claim to fail to realize that they are teaching white-supremacy!
Monday, June 8, 2009
24 KV Power Supply
Years ago I wired up a quick 24 KV power supply. However I never got around to putting it into a nice little box. Well that finally is done, it is in a cabinet. However it did not work when I tested it out, I had to change out the Power FET to get it up and running again. So with it working, I wanted to see if I could get a spark to travel around in circles in the presence of a magnetic field.
After playing around with the magnets I also tested out a Rife tube that someone had given me. It was just sitting in a cardboard box while I tested it. Then I also tested out a big U shaped argon tube to finish up the latest experiments. The video is up YouTube somewhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19hcqKzOlBI
I drew up my schematic and posted it here on my blog. This schematic design was borrowed from one that I had found somewhere else on the Internet. You could easily use a 24 volt center tapped power transformer or a 12 volt transformer with a full wave bridge rectifier. I have used several power FET's with little change in the performance. They can be removed from a sick computer power supply.
After playing around with the magnets I also tested out a Rife tube that someone had given me. It was just sitting in a cardboard box while I tested it. Then I also tested out a big U shaped argon tube to finish up the latest experiments. The video is up YouTube somewhere.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19hcqKzOlBI
I drew up my schematic and posted it here on my blog. This schematic design was borrowed from one that I had found somewhere else on the Internet. You could easily use a 24 volt center tapped power transformer or a 12 volt transformer with a full wave bridge rectifier. I have used several power FET's with little change in the performance. They can be removed from a sick computer power supply.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Poloroid TDA-03211 3211 32 LCD TV Repair.
The Polaroid 32 inch LCD TVs sell on EBay for as little as $250! Why? Because they have lots of problems. I know, I bought one of them for that price. The first problem is that the built in DVD does not work or last very long. Remove two screws and the DVD player is out of there and without it the power supply might just last a little longer.
However eventually the power supply will die. Mine would shut down sometimes and need to be turned off and then back on to get it working again. When it was working there was a dim area in the middle of the screen that was very obvious on white scenes. Then it smoked and gave up the ghost. The first thing you need to know is that you only need to remove one screw, the big one in the middle on the back side to remove the access cover. Then three small screws and the metal cover comes off.
In the power supply there are two 10 uF 450 volt electrolytic capacitors. They sometimes die quietly and sometimes they will die with lots of smoke. In the picture below one of them is shown turned over so you can see the crud around the lead where the goo was oozing out. The circuit board was even damaged under the capacitor from all of the heat.
The best solution is to replace the capacitors with some non-electrolytic 'paper' types. I used some .47 uF at 400 volt capacitors. These capacitors are much more durable, they are used in Tesla coils because they can take a lot of abuse. If you look at the holes and the drawing on the board you will see that this was an option back when they designed the TV. The picture below shows the new caps soldered in place.
With the improvement the picture is back up and brighter than it had been. The dark area in the middle was caused by the lights being dim from the capacitors being bad. When the light bulbs are dim the light does not reach the center of the screen very well.
However eventually the power supply will die. Mine would shut down sometimes and need to be turned off and then back on to get it working again. When it was working there was a dim area in the middle of the screen that was very obvious on white scenes. Then it smoked and gave up the ghost. The first thing you need to know is that you only need to remove one screw, the big one in the middle on the back side to remove the access cover. Then three small screws and the metal cover comes off.
In the power supply there are two 10 uF 450 volt electrolytic capacitors. They sometimes die quietly and sometimes they will die with lots of smoke. In the picture below one of them is shown turned over so you can see the crud around the lead where the goo was oozing out. The circuit board was even damaged under the capacitor from all of the heat.The best solution is to replace the capacitors with some non-electrolytic 'paper' types. I used some .47 uF at 400 volt capacitors. These capacitors are much more durable, they are used in Tesla coils because they can take a lot of abuse. If you look at the holes and the drawing on the board you will see that this was an option back when they designed the TV. The picture below shows the new caps soldered in place. With the improvement the picture is back up and brighter than it had been. The dark area in the middle was caused by the lights being dim from the capacitors being bad. When the light bulbs are dim the light does not reach the center of the screen very well.Sunday, May 31, 2009
2009 Rochester NY HamFest
The 2009 Rochester NY Hamfest was in a new location this year, It is on the west side of Rochester instead of being South of Rochester. The admission price was reduced to only $5 and there was no extra charge if you wanted to sell things. As a result attendance was way up and there was lots of vendors. This is one of the vendors places inside of the building. 
This new location also featured a large outdoor cooking area. There was lots of food, mostly hamburgs and hot dogs for $2.50 each. There was almost never a line to get to the food.
This is my van, the picture was taken late in the day so the nearby van had left leaving me alone. Also most of my stuff had already sold. I would leave the van with a collection jar and wander around to look for things to buy.
This is an overview of the large yard sale selling area. It was not nearly as crowded as it was in the former location.
This is another one of the vendors. They used a truck to bring their stuff and are selling all kinds of computers and LCD screens.
This is some of the stuff I found. The signal generator was only $10, and it works. The output jacks are broken so I replaced them with ones that only cost me 50 cents. Under it is a rack mount PC case that was free. It is the older AT style cabinet but I have converted them to ATX many times before.
This is some more of the stuff I bought. The Dialogic card is a 12 port analog card that fits a PCI slot. The part number is D120JCT-LS and it sells for $200 used to $1000 new, I bought it for $1. I might use it to test my auto attendant/voice mail software on a newer card. In the box is a 8 port relay board for $1, a digital volt meter for $2. a de-soldering tool and a fuse block that I bought. The fuse block was to use the connectors to connect to an 833 tube to make a new bigger Vacuum Tube Tesla Coil.
This new location also featured a large outdoor cooking area. There was lots of food, mostly hamburgs and hot dogs for $2.50 each. There was almost never a line to get to the food.
This is my van, the picture was taken late in the day so the nearby van had left leaving me alone. Also most of my stuff had already sold. I would leave the van with a collection jar and wander around to look for things to buy.
This is an overview of the large yard sale selling area. It was not nearly as crowded as it was in the former location.
This is another one of the vendors. They used a truck to bring their stuff and are selling all kinds of computers and LCD screens.
This is some of the stuff I found. The signal generator was only $10, and it works. The output jacks are broken so I replaced them with ones that only cost me 50 cents. Under it is a rack mount PC case that was free. It is the older AT style cabinet but I have converted them to ATX many times before.This is some more of the stuff I bought. The Dialogic card is a 12 port analog card that fits a PCI slot. The part number is D120JCT-LS and it sells for $200 used to $1000 new, I bought it for $1. I might use it to test my auto attendant/voice mail software on a newer card. In the box is a 8 port relay board for $1, a digital volt meter for $2. a de-soldering tool and a fuse block that I bought. The fuse block was to use the connectors to connect to an 833 tube to make a new bigger Vacuum Tube Tesla Coil.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
My opinion on gay marriage.
I thought I would give my opinion on gay marriage once again. I hear that we are no longer allowed to have our own opinion on the matter.
First a brief history. About 5 years ago Florida started promoting gay rights. Pat Robertson warned that there would be Hurricanes, tornadoes, and fires as a result. Then for 2 years in a row 3 hurricanes per year criss-crossed Florida. That was followed by fires so bad that the highways had to be shut down.
Next New Orleans was espousing its 'Southern decadence days' with phrases like 'Be as decedent as you want'. Then Katrina hid and destroyed New Orleans. Need I say more.
Next California was going to make millions by legalizing gay marriage. Then over 800 DRY lightning strikes in ONE night lit most of the state of California on fire. The devastation cost them BILLIONS!
Now the North East wants to enjoy the devastation with the rest of the country. Two states have started promoting gay marriage and New York wants to join them. I could say I told you so time and time again but the facts and the truth is as obvious as they can be. This promotion of gay rights will bring devastation on the North East. Is that what you want?
A while back I quoted the Scripture that says that 'if you do these things the land will vomit you out'.
Leviticus 18:24-28 'Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.
First a brief history. About 5 years ago Florida started promoting gay rights. Pat Robertson warned that there would be Hurricanes, tornadoes, and fires as a result. Then for 2 years in a row 3 hurricanes per year criss-crossed Florida. That was followed by fires so bad that the highways had to be shut down.
Next New Orleans was espousing its 'Southern decadence days' with phrases like 'Be as decedent as you want'. Then Katrina hid and destroyed New Orleans. Need I say more.
Next California was going to make millions by legalizing gay marriage. Then over 800 DRY lightning strikes in ONE night lit most of the state of California on fire. The devastation cost them BILLIONS!
Now the North East wants to enjoy the devastation with the rest of the country. Two states have started promoting gay marriage and New York wants to join them. I could say I told you so time and time again but the facts and the truth is as obvious as they can be. This promotion of gay rights will bring devastation on the North East. Is that what you want?
A while back I quoted the Scripture that says that 'if you do these things the land will vomit you out'.
Leviticus 18:24-28 'Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Dell Latitude 1501 Dim screen problem
UPDATE - It was the cable to the screen that was bad. It cost $10 on EBay.
I need your help! I have this Dell 1501 laptop that has no light for the screen. Here is a picture with the bulb working fine with an external high voltage power supply. So then I bought a new inverter on EBay, straight from China, installed it and it still does not light up the screen. That narrows the problem down to something in the BIOS (I reset it to factory defaults) or perhaps the wiring harness? Maybe it is a fuse on the motherboard? Does anyone know the solution? I googled it and read about 100 posts of people complaining about the same problem but no one knows the solution, do you?
I need your help! I have this Dell 1501 laptop that has no light for the screen. Here is a picture with the bulb working fine with an external high voltage power supply. So then I bought a new inverter on EBay, straight from China, installed it and it still does not light up the screen. That narrows the problem down to something in the BIOS (I reset it to factory defaults) or perhaps the wiring harness? Maybe it is a fuse on the motherboard? Does anyone know the solution? I googled it and read about 100 posts of people complaining about the same problem but no one knows the solution, do you?
5 KV Soda Can Crusher
I purchased a defibrillator capacitor on EBay and have upgraded the old 2.4 KV can crusher to a 5 KV can crusher. I added a voltage doubler on the output of the Microwave Oven Transformer (MOT) to get almost 5 KV. The defibrillator capacitor is rated at 30 uF at about 5 or 6 KV. Can you imagine hooking that up to a person?
The video is now up on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbjXFbuCvqE
Here is the guts that are inside of the 5 KV Can crusher. The 1 uF 2 KV capacitor that was removed from a microwave oven is mounted on a piece of plastic to insulate it from the chassis.
Here is the schematic of the 5 KV can crusher's power supply. The 10 Meg resistor in the voltage divider fried because it could not handle 5 KV. So I replaced it with 10 x 1 Meg ohm resistors. Technically I think it should have been 9 x 1 Meg ohm. The defibrillator capacitor was only 30 uF, I wanted to get a 100 uF capacitor that was on sale on EBay for $150 but the price was a little high.
By the way, I do not know when I will have the time for it but I have a 833 tube that I won on EBay to build a really big Vacuum Tube Tesla Coil (VTTC) sometime. I cannot believe how big the 833 tube is!
The video is now up on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbjXFbuCvqE
Here is the guts that are inside of the 5 KV Can crusher. The 1 uF 2 KV capacitor that was removed from a microwave oven is mounted on a piece of plastic to insulate it from the chassis.
Here is the schematic of the 5 KV can crusher's power supply. The 10 Meg resistor in the voltage divider fried because it could not handle 5 KV. So I replaced it with 10 x 1 Meg ohm resistors. Technically I think it should have been 9 x 1 Meg ohm. The defibrillator capacitor was only 30 uF, I wanted to get a 100 uF capacitor that was on sale on EBay for $150 but the price was a little high.
By the way, I do not know when I will have the time for it but I have a 833 tube that I won on EBay to build a really big Vacuum Tube Tesla Coil (VTTC) sometime. I cannot believe how big the 833 tube is!Sunday, May 10, 2009
Elim's newer Nortel Option 11 telephone system
Last weekend we changed out the old Nortel SL1 telephone system for a newer Option 11 telephone system. This is the old system's cabinet. I am turning it into a high tech book shelf. I just need to get the covers for the back.
To be able to move the old system around we removed all of the old cards and piled them in the corner. I will be selling some of them on EBay soon. Let me know if you want to buy some of them. I plugged one of the old cards into 110 volts for a YouTube video years ago. It was very explosive ;-) Here is the link; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZDMrHY23JM
When I arrived they had already removed all the old wires. They were lined up in the hallway. The new system had punch down blocks with jacks on them and then cables to match to the telephone system. That reduced the amount of wires to be punched down by 1/2.
There is Barry and Jeremiah with the newer option 11 cabinets and the telephone patch panels on the left. Barry had a spool of interconnect wire in the ceiling that he is reaching for. They could have done it without me, so I took pictures while they worked.
To be able to move the old system around we removed all of the old cards and piled them in the corner. I will be selling some of them on EBay soon. Let me know if you want to buy some of them. I plugged one of the old cards into 110 volts for a YouTube video years ago. It was very explosive ;-) Here is the link; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZDMrHY23JM
When I arrived they had already removed all the old wires. They were lined up in the hallway. The new system had punch down blocks with jacks on them and then cables to match to the telephone system. That reduced the amount of wires to be punched down by 1/2.
There is Barry and Jeremiah with the newer option 11 cabinets and the telephone patch panels on the left. Barry had a spool of interconnect wire in the ceiling that he is reaching for. They could have done it without me, so I took pictures while they worked.Thursday, April 30, 2009
VP181 Viewsonic LCD monitor repair
Here are some Viewsonic VP181 LCD monitor repair tips. I picked up a lot of LCD screens on EBay a while back and one of the last ones to be fixed is a VP181. It did not work because it would not light up the screen. The problem was most likely the inverter. However this monitor takes a 6 output inverter that lists for around $100. After some digging around I found a universal 6 output inverter that sells for less than 1/3 of that price.
Also here is a strange point about the VP181. It will not work without the base. So if you apply power to the screen and expect it to work, it will not. Also it has an unusually large AC adapter jack. I cut into the power cable between the base and the screen and spliced in power from a universal 12 volt 5 amp AC adapter. The universal adapters are available for about $10 each on EBay.
Universal 6 output inverter to Viewsonic VG 181 LCD Screen adapter.
Wire colors are from the cable from the control board to the inverter board.
Purple - Enable to middle wire to inverter
Blue - Unknown
Green - Gnd to Blue striped wire to inverter
Yellow - Gnd
Orange - Gnd
Red - +12V to wire furthest from ground to inverter
Brown - +12V
Black - +12V
The replacement inverter only lines up with one of the mounting screws, the one in the middle. The ends of the inverter are held in place by rubber stoppers. The wires to the CCFL tubes need to be unhooked and stretched a little. The order they plug into the inverter may have to be changed as well.
Also here is a strange point about the VP181. It will not work without the base. So if you apply power to the screen and expect it to work, it will not. Also it has an unusually large AC adapter jack. I cut into the power cable between the base and the screen and spliced in power from a universal 12 volt 5 amp AC adapter. The universal adapters are available for about $10 each on EBay.
Universal 6 output inverter to Viewsonic VG 181 LCD Screen adapter.
Wire colors are from the cable from the control board to the inverter board.
Purple - Enable to middle wire to inverter
Blue - Unknown
Green - Gnd to Blue striped wire to inverter
Yellow - Gnd
Orange - Gnd
Red - +12V to wire furthest from ground to inverter
Brown - +12V
Black - +12V
The replacement inverter only lines up with one of the mounting screws, the one in the middle. The ends of the inverter are held in place by rubber stoppers. The wires to the CCFL tubes need to be unhooked and stretched a little. The order they plug into the inverter may have to be changed as well.
Friday, April 24, 2009
2400 Volt Can Crusher
The promised and much awaited 2400 volt power supply went through its first test run. The video is up on YouTube. It was a little disappointing it takes 4 firings to get the can into the hourglass shape. One of the capacitors might be bad. Anyway a Microwave Oven Transformer charges six 400 volt capacitors through a 500 ohm 250 watt resistor. The idea is to electronically crush the soda can into an hourglass shape.
The switch to connect the capacitors to the coil is made of two 1/2 inch bolts meeting head to head. They need to be filed off after every 5 to 10 operations as they will melt together if not cleaned up. A piece of plastic holds them apart and is removed by pulling on a string.
There are 6 turns of 10 gage wire wrapped around the soda can. The last time I tried this was at 800 volts and I used about 10 turns of 14 gage wire. The wire was turned into a jumbled mess and every solder connection melted. So this time everything is connected with two 10 gage wires in parallel and fastened together with bolts. The coil has been rewound into 2 layers totaling 5 turns and is now more effective at crushing the soda can.
The switch to connect the capacitors to the coil is made of two 1/2 inch bolts meeting head to head. They need to be filed off after every 5 to 10 operations as they will melt together if not cleaned up. A piece of plastic holds them apart and is removed by pulling on a string.
There are 6 turns of 10 gage wire wrapped around the soda can. The last time I tried this was at 800 volts and I used about 10 turns of 14 gage wire. The wire was turned into a jumbled mess and every solder connection melted. So this time everything is connected with two 10 gage wires in parallel and fastened together with bolts. The coil has been rewound into 2 layers totaling 5 turns and is now more effective at crushing the soda can.
Below is the updated schematic. The resistors are matched with a volt ohm meter for 10:1 correspondence so that the built in volt meter will read exactly 1/10 of the output voltage. The meter runs on a 9 volt battery, I could have used the filament winding of the MOT but the 9 volt battery was easier.
There are 2 Youtube videos;
Then it was improved with better results;
I have been thinking about the future of can crushing. It is hard to balance this many electrolytic capacitors when they are wired up in series. Some do not completely discharge and some reverse charge. The solution would be to use higher voltage capacitors. One easy source is microwave oven capacitors but they are only 1 uF each. So now I am searching for some capacitors in the range of 10 to 100 uF at 5 to 6 KV. I hope to find something at the Ham fests this summer.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Dodge Caravan air deflector repair
Sometimes it just makes sense to fix things yourself. The air deflector on my van was scraping on the road whenever I hit a bump. It would really catch on parking lot blocks and curbs. So I parked it on some bricks and crawled under there to see what was the matter. First there is a plastic piece that is missing. Second the bolts that are there do not line up to catch the holes in the plastic. To fix it I used two large three inch washers, two about six inch pieces of strap, and two 1/4 inch bolts with nuts and washers.
In the first picture you can see the over all view with the two white metal straps. Notice how rusty the oil pan is. It could have used something to hold up the center of the air deflector as well. I had used a plastic wire tie there at one point to hold it up and it has ripped a slot through the plastic over time.
In this close up picture you can see one of the straps and one of the 3 inch washers. To be honest the washer should have been made of a heavier metal and it should have had a smaller center hole. I was just using whatever I had already sitting around.
In the first picture you can see the over all view with the two white metal straps. Notice how rusty the oil pan is. It could have used something to hold up the center of the air deflector as well. I had used a plastic wire tie there at one point to hold it up and it has ripped a slot through the plastic over time.
In this close up picture you can see one of the straps and one of the 3 inch washers. To be honest the washer should have been made of a heavier metal and it should have had a smaller center hole. I was just using whatever I had already sitting around.Tuesday, April 14, 2009
VE170 LCD monitor repair of inverter
If you would like to donate your old LCD monitor and see how it was fixed here on my blog, please contact me. The same goes for P3 or newer laptops. I love to recycle these and donate them to pastors and missionaries.
Two of the LCD monitors that I purchased really cheaply on EBay had bad inverters. I had never successfully fixed a bad inverter before, even after trying to fix them a lot. But this time I was in luck, every one of the bad inverters had a little silver 22 uF capacitor that was bad. Replace that capacitor and the inverter works! You can optionally replace the power supply filter cap, it was bad but did not appear to affect the monitor. Below is a picture of the inverters with the capacitors replaced. You can use a 10 uF at 25 volts to replace the bad capacitor.
Two of the LCD monitors that I purchased really cheaply on EBay had bad inverters. I had never successfully fixed a bad inverter before, even after trying to fix them a lot. But this time I was in luck, every one of the bad inverters had a little silver 22 uF capacitor that was bad. Replace that capacitor and the inverter works! You can optionally replace the power supply filter cap, it was bad but did not appear to affect the monitor. Below is a picture of the inverters with the capacitors replaced. You can use a 10 uF at 25 volts to replace the bad capacitor.
Next I needed some 12 volt 4 or 5 amp power supplies for these monitors. They sell for around $25 on EBay. That is unless you look for universal LCD monitor AC adapters. They sell for $10, and the text says they support the VE170 screens!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Intro to the Basic Stamp - 7 segment displays
Interfacing the Basic Stamp to dual 7 Segment Displays
This requires two seven segment common anode displays and 16 x 470 ohm resistors.
Connections to the LA-6460 - Looking Down at the display from Above.
G F + A B
.___.
!___!
!___!
E D + C DP
It is wired up so that D0 goes to A, D1 goes to B, D2 goes to Dp, D3 goes to C, etc. Each segment connection is made with a 470 ohm resistor. The + goes to 5 volts to power up the display.
The first problem is to output the 8 bits to the I/O pins to light up the LED segments. For this we use the lookup command to find and then output a set of binary bits that set a 1 or 0 to each associated bit or segment position. A 0 will light up a segment a 1 will leave it unlit. However this outputs bit 7 first, on the left, and bit 0 last, on the right. So the 1's and 0's have to be encoded in the reverse of their segment order.
The 'OUT' command reverses the order so the segments order in software is;
F G E D C Dp B A - Segment order.
It could also be that I have them wired backwards?
Bit Segment
7 - F
6 - G
5 - E
4 - D
3 - C
2 - Dp
1 - B
0 - A
See it working on YouTube;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouc4odEDCVA
Here is the code to make it all work. Note that percent, zero, zero is missing from some of the lines of code. Somehow blogger takes it out every time.
--------------------------------------
This requires two seven segment common anode displays and 16 x 470 ohm resistors.
Connections to the LA-6460 - Looking Down at the display from Above.
G F + A B
.___.
!___!
!___!
E D + C DP
It is wired up so that D0 goes to A, D1 goes to B, D2 goes to Dp, D3 goes to C, etc. Each segment connection is made with a 470 ohm resistor. The + goes to 5 volts to power up the display.
The first problem is to output the 8 bits to the I/O pins to light up the LED segments. For this we use the lookup command to find and then output a set of binary bits that set a 1 or 0 to each associated bit or segment position. A 0 will light up a segment a 1 will leave it unlit. However this outputs bit 7 first, on the left, and bit 0 last, on the right. So the 1's and 0's have to be encoded in the reverse of their segment order.
The 'OUT' command reverses the order so the segments order in software is;
F G E D C Dp B A - Segment order.
It could also be that I have them wired backwards?
Bit Segment
7 - F
6 - G
5 - E
4 - D
3 - C
2 - Dp
1 - B
0 - A
See it working on YouTube;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouc4odEDCVA
Here is the code to make it all work. Note that percent, zero, zero is missing from some of the lines of code. Somehow blogger takes it out every time.
--------------------------------------
' {$STAMP BS2e}
delay CON 1000
upnum VAR Nib
lownum VAR Nib
DIRH = %11111111
DIRL = %11111111
n0 CON %01000100
n1 CON %11110101
n2 CON %10001100
n3 CON %10100100
n4 CON 110101
n5 CON 100110
n6 CON 000110
n7 CON %11110100
n8 CON 000100
n9 CON 100100
DO
FOR upnum = 0 TO 9
LOOKUP upnum, [n0,n1,n2,n3,n4,n5,n6,n7,n8,n9], OUTL
FOR lownum = 0 TO 9
LOOKUP lownum, [n0,n1,n2,n3,n4,n5,n6,n7,n8,n9], OUTH
PAUSE delay
NEXT
NEXT
LOOP
END
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Intro to the Basic Stamp
My interest in the Basic Stamp started as an upgrade for several of my inventions. Many years ago I designed several devices and several of them were published in electronics magazines. They included things like an LED sign, an O'Scope, an Audio analyzer, a video grabber, an energy management system, and even a heart monitor. The problem is that all of them used the printer port to connect to the computer and all of them used GW Basic as their programming language. However finding a laptop that has a printer port or that could run the old version of GW Basic is nearly impossible these days.
I had played with an 8052 Basic processor as a possible solution but even that processor is out of date. I also had some 68HC11's laying around but they are programmed in Assembler and I wanted this to be something an average person could work with. So I concluded that the best option available is the Basic Stamp.
Once I decided on the Basic Stamp I went on EBay and started looking for a simple proto board and processor that is cheap. On eBay I found a cheap circuit board from www.pcboard.ca called the Proto 24. I bought the blank version because I have lots of parts around to populate it with and I like to solder things together. I did not have a right angle 9 pin serial plug so I cut the plug off a serial cable and glued it onto the board. Then I soldered the wires into the correct holes.
When I first started working with the Proto 24 board and a Basic Stamp 2e processor I could not even do something as simple as getting an LED to turn on and off. It turns out that this circuit board has the pins labeled in reverse order! Output 0 is on the left where it says C7 and output 15 is on the right where it says A0.
Proto 24 board web site - http://www.pcboard.ca/kits/proto24/
Steps to get the Basic Stamp up and running;
1. Download and Install the Basic Stamp Editor program.
2. Plug in the AC adapter, the LED should light.
3. Connect the serial cable, must be a 1:1 cable not a null modem.
4. Start the 'Basic Stamp Editor' communication program.
5. Hit F6 to find the Basic Stamps serial port.
Steps to get the Basic Stamp up and running;
1. Download and Install the Basic Stamp Editor program.
2. Plug in the AC adapter, the LED should light.
3. Connect the serial cable, must be a 1:1 cable not a null modem.
4. Start the 'Basic Stamp Editor' communication program.
5. Hit F6 to find the Basic Stamps serial port.
(It should say 'COM1 Basic Stamp 2e')
6. Select 'directive' 'stamp' and 'BS2e' to identify the stamp chip.
7. Press enter and then type 'debug "I am here"'
8. Select 'Run', 'Run'
A window should pop up and say 'I am here'
That's it, you are now up and running!
6. Select 'directive' 'stamp' and 'BS2e' to identify the stamp chip.
7. Press enter and then type 'debug "I am here"'
8. Select 'Run', 'Run'
A window should pop up and say 'I am here'
That's it, you are now up and running!
In the next article I will tell you how to set up a 2 digit counter using 7 segment LED displays. Then I hope to show you how to set up an 8 x 8 LED array.
Friday, April 10, 2009
VE175 LCD monitor repair
I sold something on eBay and had some money to spare. I also needed a LCD monitor for a friend so I placed a minimum bid on some LCD screens that needed repair. To my surprise I won several auctions! So hopefully I will be posting repair tips for several of these monitors over the next few days.
Up first is a Viewsonic VE175. The picture comes on for a second and then goes out. I opened up the monitor expecting that the power supply had bad caps in it but that was not the case. The bad caps were on the control board. There are 5 of them that needed to be replaced. They are the bigger ones that are bulging at the top. One of them even has stuff oozing out of it. Most of them can be replaced with 1000 uF 16 volt capacitors, you will need some 470 uF 25 volt caps too. You can almost always use a slightly larger value or higher voltage capacitor.
Up first is a Viewsonic VE175. The picture comes on for a second and then goes out. I opened up the monitor expecting that the power supply had bad caps in it but that was not the case. The bad caps were on the control board. There are 5 of them that needed to be replaced. They are the bigger ones that are bulging at the top. One of them even has stuff oozing out of it. Most of them can be replaced with 1000 uF 16 volt capacitors, you will need some 470 uF 25 volt caps too. You can almost always use a slightly larger value or higher voltage capacitor.
If you have never replaced motherboard or power supply capacitors before you will need to know some tricks. First you need to add fresh solder to get the heat to travel through the board to remove the old capacitor. Second use a tiny screwdriver to clean out the holes for the new capacitor.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Write protecting USB memory sticks
Have you ever plugged in your USB memory stick and then get a warning message saying that a virus has been found on it? The anti virus program will remove the virus but how did it get there to begin with? The signs that your memory stick is infected may include an executable found in each directory on the memory stick. For instance a utilities directory might have a file called utilities.exe that is the virus. Also look for a hidden system directory in the root directory called zpharaoh. The problem with virus' on memory sticks is so serious that the Pentagon recently banned all USB memory sticks.
My brother suggested that I try using camera memory sticks, because some of them have write protection built into them. First I tried using a SD memory card and a USB adapter. However thought matter what position the write protect switch was in the memory can always be written to. As it turns out the SD card depends on the device it is plugged into to prevent writing to the memory. No USB adapter bothers to read the status of the SD cards write protect switch and so they allow you to write to the SD cards memory either way. Most of the newer SD cards do not even have the write protection switch on them.
After a while I found the infected computer that had put the virus onto my memory stick. Every time I plug in the memory stick the virus infected it and disabled the anti virus program on the memory stick from being installed in order to fix the computer. There are two possible solutions, one is to boot from a CD and then reformat the hard drive, just reinstalling Windows will not remove the virus. The other solution is to remove the hard drive and set it up as an external USB drive with an IDE to USB adapter. Then you can either scan the drive and remove the virus or you can at least copy all of your important files off the drive before you reformat it. Below is a picture from scanning the hard drive as an external USB device. Make sure your anti virus software is up to date before doing this or your computer will be instantly infected.
If you remove the virus from the drive with an anti virus program make sure that the virus infected files are actually deleted. Some anti virus programs will see that they are critical system files and will not remove them unless you tell it to remove them. Once the hard drive is cleaned you can reinstall it into the computer and then you will need to reinstall Windows, but be sure to do a clean install of Windows or there will still be several programs that will not work such as notepad, paint, etc.
Another solution would be to write protect the USB memory stick, right? Well doing that is not as simple as you might think. The computer has to be able to send things to the memory stick in order for the memory stick to know what you are looking for on it. So you would have to write protect the memory on the memory stick but you can not disable writing to the memory sticks controller.
My brother suggested that I try using camera memory sticks, because some of them have write protection built into them. First I tried using a SD memory card and a USB adapter. However thought matter what position the write protect switch was in the memory can always be written to. As it turns out the SD card depends on the device it is plugged into to prevent writing to the memory. No USB adapter bothers to read the status of the SD cards write protect switch and so they allow you to write to the SD cards memory either way. Most of the newer SD cards do not even have the write protection switch on them.
Next I tried using a Sony memory stick. I happened to have one of them in my older Sony camera. It worked perfectly allowing you to read from the memory stick but when you try to write to it a message comes up saying that it is write protected. However like the newer SD cards the newer Sony memory cards no longer have a write protection switch on them. The older memory sticks are called 'Memory stick' and 'memory stick pro' and they have the write protect switch but not the newer ones that are called 'memory stick pro duo'.
The size of the ones with the write protect switch goes up to 512 MB and there are some 1GB memory sticks with a write protect switch but not all of them. Many of the imitation Sony memory sticks also have the write protect switch as well. However 512 MB is usually enough memory to put all of the necessary utilities on it. The older Sony memory sticks do not fit inside of the USB adapter, they stick out of the end and prevent putting the cover back on.
I would recommend that you have the following programs on the protected memory stick;
AVG - Free anti virus program
Startup - Removes programs that are starting automatically
MRT - Microsoft malicious software removal tool program
Stinger - McAfee's free program to scan and remove virus's
AVG - Free anti virus program
Startup - Removes programs that are starting automatically
MRT - Microsoft malicious software removal tool program
Stinger - McAfee's free program to scan and remove virus's
Friday, April 3, 2009
Dodge Caravan/Voyager Strut tower repair
I know that I do not blog much about car problems. There was a day when I fixed most of my own car problems. However this repair was a bit over my head. My drivers side strut mount had rotted out as you can see in the picture below. If it is not fixed the strut can come up through and the car will then fall down and be totally disabled.
This problem would send most cars to the junk yard. But I thought I would research the problem first. It turns out that most places will charge you around $1000 and they will weld in a replacement strut mount from another car.
Well it turns out that if you will go to the car dealer, they have what is essentially an upgrade to the strut mount. I got it done on my van for $450 and taxes. There is a place in Ohio that says they will do it for $300. However I did not think my car could be driven that far.
This is what the repair looks like. They did both sides. As I understand it, the repair piece is also glued in place besides the several bolts that you can see.
Well it turns out that if you will go to the car dealer, they have what is essentially an upgrade to the strut mount. I got it done on my van for $450 and taxes. There is a place in Ohio that says they will do it for $300. However I did not think my car could be driven that far.This is what the repair looks like. They did both sides. As I understand it, the repair piece is also glued in place besides the several bolts that you can see.
Here is a link to the guy who fixes them in Ohio for $300. He uses rivets instead of bolts and that should be a better fix IMO.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Another virus thwarted
It seems like every few months I get a virus that I have to deal with. My favorite thing is to switch to another hard drive with a clean install and then copy my files back off the old hard drive via an IDE to USB adapter. However I did not have a spare laptop hard drive available and the first two I won on eBay did not work!
The last two virus' on my computer both came from searching the web. I remember when it was safe to search the web. In one case I was looking for help in fixing a LCD TV that just has a blue screen. The second time was from searching for how to remove the password from a laptop hard drive. It seems like there has to be a way to remove the password short of tossing the whole hard drive. I had Windows XP SP3 installed with all the updates, AVG running and telling me what sites are safe to visit, you name it I was protected, but it all failed to protect me.
The symptoms of the infection included lots of pop ups so I installed Spybot Search and Destroy. It found 38 problems including something that had shut down the Windows firewall. Upon restarting the computer, the virus was still there, so next I ran AVG in safe mode. It found two files and removed them. They were some sort of Trojan Horse Generic, but the virus was still there.
So then I went into manual virus removal mode. The first weapon was startup.exe, there were two strange programs running so I shut them down. That did not work, they came right back, as can be seen in the picture below. I found the files in the windows\system32 directory after I had turned back on the ability to view hidden system files in file manager. Then I tried to delete them or even to rename them all to no avail. Next I restated the computer in safe mode and was able to delete the files and also disable them using startup.
The last two virus' on my computer both came from searching the web. I remember when it was safe to search the web. In one case I was looking for help in fixing a LCD TV that just has a blue screen. The second time was from searching for how to remove the password from a laptop hard drive. It seems like there has to be a way to remove the password short of tossing the whole hard drive. I had Windows XP SP3 installed with all the updates, AVG running and telling me what sites are safe to visit, you name it I was protected, but it all failed to protect me.
The symptoms of the infection included lots of pop ups so I installed Spybot Search and Destroy. It found 38 problems including something that had shut down the Windows firewall. Upon restarting the computer, the virus was still there, so next I ran AVG in safe mode. It found two files and removed them. They were some sort of Trojan Horse Generic, but the virus was still there.
So then I went into manual virus removal mode. The first weapon was startup.exe, there were two strange programs running so I shut them down. That did not work, they came right back, as can be seen in the picture below. I found the files in the windows\system32 directory after I had turned back on the ability to view hidden system files in file manager. Then I tried to delete them or even to rename them all to no avail. Next I restated the computer in safe mode and was able to delete the files and also disable them using startup.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Earthquakes, rumblings, and volcanoes
This is an ongoing story and I thought I would update it. Below is the seismometer located on Redoubt Alaska. Needless to say it was going crazy Sunday March 15th. It has since calmed down once again. Here are some links of interest;
This is a picture of the smoke starting to rise over Redoubt.
Pictures from the small eruption at Redoubt;
Article about earthquakes in Richland Washington;
Article about earthquakes in Geyser California;
This is a picture of the smoke starting to rise over Redoubt. Now for the big catch. According to their seismometers there are other volcanoes about ready to do something. Unfortunately I cannot get web cams to capture pictures from the other volcanoes.
A while back I commented on the strange rumblings that are going on. Well, they continue but after being quiet for a few weeks the number of earthquakes is on the rise once again. This picture below shows that there were 1003 earthquakes in the US in the last 7 days. That number is like off the chart! When I first started watching there were about 700 earthquakes a week in the US.
They were worried about Yellowstone. Now they are worried about Alaska. Alaska is really a rumbling. Note the cluster of earthquakes just to the left of the upper blue box. Is that a likely volcano site or what?
Then there is California. Need I say anything about that? You cannot even read 'Los Angles' for all of the earthquakes that are happening around there. There is also a hot spot in Geyser California, north of San Francisco.
They were worried about Yellowstone. Now they are worried about Alaska. Alaska is really a rumbling. Note the cluster of earthquakes just to the left of the upper blue box. Is that a likely volcano site or what?
Then there is California. Need I say anything about that? You cannot even read 'Los Angles' for all of the earthquakes that are happening around there. There is also a hot spot in Geyser California, north of San Francisco.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Hp Laptop Motherboards
Is it just me or are there a lot of HP motherboards with a broken power jack? Replacing the jack will not fix it as the board is damaged around the back, center connector.
The real solution is to run a 24 gage jumper wire from the shiny pad to the left just behind the power jack and just in front of the modem plug to the center connector of the power jack on the bottom side of the circuit board. That will replace the burned out traces on the top side of the circuit board. You might just be able to solder the jack on the top side if the run is not totally destroyed already. In most cases there is nothing left to solder it to on the top side of the board.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Africa March 2009
We are back in Accra Africa. We already received a testimony from the equipment that we brought over with us;
"Please Dad [Fred] tell uncle Robert that last Sunday we where on the campus for projection and 115 students gave their lives to Christ, Priase the Lord!"
This shows the van packed full. We had three suitcases and a carry on suitcase for each of the three of us. So there are a total of 12 suitcases for the three of us all stuffed into the van. Why is the background all white?
On this trip we brought;
9 Video Bible Schools
6 DVD players
6 Laptops
3 Printers
3 Projectors
1 Desktop Computer
1 Photocopier
1 Music Keyboard
1 Video Camera
On our first day we purchased a 17 inch computer monitor for $35 and a 25 inch Sony TV for $100. Both were purchased used at pawn shops.
This is Aldous with his new desktop computer. We dropped him off in Tamale to start a new Video Bible school there. He has everything he needs to make the teaching materials except for a stapler. Oops.
Young Albert with the computer we gave him.
Fred meeting with pastors in Accra.Sunday we headed off on a trip to Tamale. We had to fix several problems with the van. Here is the list of needed repairs;
Growling sound from rear end? Not fixed yet.
Shows no oil pressure - was working, started working again.
Right headlight out - Type 9004 but no 9004 types fit it!!
Drivers side mirror - taped together.
Rear seat adjuster - taped together.
We spent about 2 hours trying to find a headlight that fits. Every 9004 light we tried did not fit the van. So it must be a special 9004 for a 92 Ford Econoline van.
We made it back to Accra with most of the driving done during the day because of the bad headlight problem. We did get one warning for speeding but it is hard to tell if you are in town or out of a town as there is sometimes little difference. LOL.
Fred speaking at the new Bible School in Tamale. We had 16 students interested in attending the Video Bible School. Aldous and Fred spoke and we saw a sample video from the school.
The students at the Tamale VBS watching a ISOM video on the TV
The sound guy at Cotonou Benin, with one of the donated laptops being used to record the message. They had been hauling around and using a desktop computer.Do you remember VW bug stuffing? They used to see how many people you could fit in a VW Bug. We took that a step further. How many people can you fit in a bug and still drive on African roads? We could not make it over a cement bump at the top of one hill until Fred got out.
Marie-Louise found this little kitten at one place where Fred was teaching. It is so young that its eyes were not even open yet.
Well that's it for my part in this trip to Africa. Now I am working on stuff to send back over to them.
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