30 June 2008

Ever seen those video clips of car crash tests where the dummies are thrown about like rag dolls? The dummies are highly engineered to simulate the effect of crashes on human bodies and they carry lots of instrumentation to record the pain (forces & deflections) they suffer.

26 June 2008

A portable USB hard drive is a great way to back up data but what if your USB ports are unable to supply enough "juice" to power the drive? A modified version of the SILICON CHIP USB Power Injector is the answer.

20 June 2008

Do you have a large collection of slides which are deteriorating by the day? Are they growing mouldy or becoming discoloured? Then there is no time to waste. Get them onto your computer's hard drive before it is too late. This method is very quick, simple and does not require any electronics.

18 June 2008

16 June 2008

Some readers may be annoyed by the sight of a review of a valve amplifier in SILICON CHIP - but we often get requests to publish a modern design. So we thought it would be useful to put this model through our usual performance testing.

10 June 2008

Here's a new and enhanced version of a very popular project: an easily-programmed low-cost electronic timer module. It's compact, easy to build and offers a choice of either a single on period or continuous on/off cycling with independently programmable periods.

09 June 2008

If you work in the professional audio field, you need to use balanced lines for long signal runs to prevent hum and noise pick-up. This Balanced/Unbalanced Converter is really two projects in one. It can convert an unbalanced input to balanced outputs and vice versa.

05 June 2008

Did you know that it if you want to paint a wall and need to unscrew a power outlet or light switch, you cannot do it legally in any Australian state? Nor can you replace a light switch or power outlet, install a dimmer or ceiling fan. Nor anything else which involves any form of electrical installation, repair or modification. But you can in New Zealand!

03 June 2008

This DSP Musicolour accepts audio input signals and drives coloured lights "in tune" with the music. Its four output channels respond to different audio frequency bands and the brightness of the lights is in direct proportion to the amplitude of the frequency components. A dot-matrix LED menu display is featured on the front panel and this also functions as a spectrum analyser or VU meter.

26 May 2008

If you're a small manufacturer, design lab or college without in-house PC board prototyping facilities, who do you turn to? It's a problem a lot of organisations face - even SILICON CHIP - but there are answers out there . . .