08 May 2009

It's taken a while but at last, High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps are starting to appear in places other than just in car headlights.

06 May 2009

Looking for a digital clock that's always dead accurate? This one derives its time signals from the GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) system, so it never needs setting or adjusting. It features big, bright 58mm-high digits for the hours and minutes, plus smaller digits to indicate the seconds.

04 May 2009

This story is dedicated to those fearless men and women who, every day, brave dark and stormy phone calls from the unknown, un-named, ill-informed, querulous public; to those who, with no regard for their personal safety nor deep intrusions into their mental sanity, face hurt, shame and embarrassment in their quest to answer the challenging questions they are thrown.

02 May 2009

This full-range Motor Speed Controller will give smooth control from near zero to full speed on electric drills, routers, circular saws, lawn edgers, food mixers - in fact, any appliances with universal (brush-type) motors.

01 May 2009

Interesting circuit ideas which we have checked but not built and tested. Contributions from readers are welcome and will be paid for at standard rates.

18 April 2009

You might not be aware of it but your digital multimeter is unable to make accurate current measurements in low-voltage circuits because of its "burden voltage". This precision current adaptor solves that problem and greatly improves the measurement accuracy, as well.

16 April 2009

Our introductory second-generation UHF data transceiver article in October 2008 showed that using a PICAXE to drive HopeRF's HM-TR 433MHz programmable data transceivers works well. In subsequent months, these well-priced units have become very popular!

14 April 2009

This simple device allows two computers to share a single USB printer or some other USB device, such as an external flash drive, memory card reader or scanner. A rotary switch selects the PC that you wish to use with the USB device, while two LEDs indicate the selected PC.

12 April 2009

The Tektronix MS2024 is a compact mixed-signal oscilloscope that is suitable for a wide range of applications or educational use. It has four analog and 16 digital inputs, a sampling rate of 1Gs/s and an operating bandwidth up to 200MHz. It is very easy to use and does not take up a lot of valuable bench space.

08 April 2009

Have you been booked for driving through a school zone at well above the 40km/h limit? It's easy to do and can be a very expensive mistake. Here's a project to help you stay out of trouble. It keeps track of the time and flashes a warning LED during the morning or afternoon 40km/h time periods.