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Difficulties

Posted Fri, 8th Mar '13 at 6:29am by Vorona

I guess this is going to be a little self-indulgent and whiny. I'm just really frustrated with my life right now. I know that being a first year teacher is hard work. I've recently heard from some more experienced teachers that they got fired their first year. I'm really worried about that. I'm doing my best, but it just doesn't seem like my best is ever good enough.

The first quarter, I didn't do so well, but I didn't really expect to. I knew I had a lot to learn, and so it...

Vorona

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Clock/Calendar Project: Component Population

Posted Sun, 3rd Mar '13 at 11:56pm by Blackthorne TA
Updated Mon, 4th Mar '13 at 4:08am by Blackthorne TA

Here are a few pictures of the PCBs (the main clock and the clock face) populated with the components prior to assembling the whole thing into an enclosure.

Here's a picture of the main clock PCB from what is the bottom. The receptacle in the upper right is for the 5 volt power connector. The two connectors on the bottom are where the clock face will connect.

The red wires aren't technically needed, but one was a mistake (forgot I had put a via underneath the through-hole...

Blackthorne TA

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Master in his Own Mind

Posted in Radio Controlled LED Display Clock and Calendar Project

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Clock/Calendar Project: The PCB Fabrication

Posted Sat, 23rd Feb '13 at 6:14pm by Blackthorne TA

Now that the designs were complete, it was time to fabricate it, starting with etching the PCB designs onto real copper-clad PCB boards.

As last time I used the PCB Fab in a Box toner transfer method.

The first step is to print the PCB designs using a laser printer onto special paper that has a water-soluble coating. Then use a laminator to fuse the exposed toner to the copper-clad board and dunk it into water to release the original paper, leaving just the toner image...

Blackthorne TA

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Master in his Own Mind

Posted in Radio Controlled LED Display Clock and Calendar Project

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Clock/Calendar Project: The PCB Design

Posted Sun, 17th Feb '13 at 9:54pm by Blackthorne TA

Once the circuit design is complete as seen in the last blog entry, the designs for the Printed Circuit Boards needs to be done. As before I used DipTrace to transform the schematics (also done in DipTrace) into PCB traces.

Again I was limited to two-sided PCBs since I wanted to make the boards myself. In fact, I wanted to use a single-sided board for the clock face since I had more unused single-sided available, but could not accomplish that (too many line crossing everywhere)....

Blackthorne TA

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Master in his Own Mind

Posted in Radio Controlled LED Display Clock and Calendar Project

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Two Fifty-four PM

Posted Tue, 12th Feb '13 at 10:54pm by Dice

Somebody noted to me recently that I haven't been doing a lot of writing lately or art. So I have a few minutes to write in the afternoon on a weekday.

I was probably just taking a creative break - or maybe I'm too involved with the alternative world of Skyrim where most problems can be solved with a bow and arrow and a lot of sneaking and a few health potions. This world on the other hand doesn't have such easy ways out so you can see why I prefer the other one.

Although...

Dice

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