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Bryan Bergeron
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Vern Graner
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EVERYTHING FOR ELECTRONICS
advantage of moving to LED lighting is that the light is nearly pure white as
opposed to yellow. You can find LED bulbs at Amazon, 100bulbs.com, and, of
course, homedepot.com.
Replacing frayed power cords can be a challenge — especially when the
appliance is designed for a non-polarized two-pronged connection to the
mains. Arbitrarily connecting a three-pronged plug can be a hazard — especially
on an appliance with a metal chassis. Unless you’re familiar with electrical code
— as well as how your house is wired — I’d stick with the original wiring
diagram. Do replace the brittle plastic cord with modern flexible cord. I’ve had
good luck with non-polarized cords from both Amazon and Walmart.
Switches — especially power switches — are the most problematic
components in a vintage repair. It’s usually easy enough to replace a toggle
switch with a garden variety version, but it’s at the cost of destroying the
“vintage” feel of the appliance. Take the Singer sewing machine switch. The
toggle is a distinctive white Bakelite, and the mechanical aspect of the switch is
almost two inches long. I was lucky enough to find a new old stock (NOS)
replacement on eBay. Otherwise, I would have been forced to substitute a
miniature toggle switch for the classic Bakelite toggle. I’ve found a great source
of old fashioned switches is guitar supply houses and local music stores —
especially stores that cater to the tube amp crowd.
So, next time you walk past a yard sale, check out the vintage electrical
items. There’s always something to learn from a teardown, even if you have no
need for the actual item. NV
Weather Website
In one of Bryan Bergeron’s past
editorials, he mentioned purchasing a
weather station. I've often thought of
building or buying my own weather
station, but I never seem to find the
time to do it.
Living in southern CA, I wanted
to add seismic sensors, in addition to
the standard array of sensors (wind
speed, direction, temp, humidity,
barometric pressure, rainfall, etc.). It'd
be cool to be able to set up a
weather website, so my neighbors
could see the conditions. I wonder
what make/model system Bergeron
finally settled on.
I emailed both Davis and
AcuRite, and they have told me — in
no uncertain terms — that neither of
their systems can be made to work
with "homebrew" sensors. So, maybe
the easiest way to go would be to
start with a standard model weather
station — from either Davis or
AcuRite — and have it upload the
weather data to a website.
Then, I could design my seismic
sensors and upload the data to that
website as a separate process, using
a microcontroller (sort of in parallel
to the weather station).
Any thoughts on this would
certainly be appreciated. It might be
doable, but I'm no expert on this.
Jeff Kerner
I ended up modifying an ancient
but workable Heathkit weather
station that a friend was about to toss
out. It was a fun project, going from
analog to digital. You have an
ambitious project; really data fusion.
I like the idea of parallel
treatment of data. You get more than
the simple sum of the parts.
You could write a simple data
feed from an Arduino to process on
your Mac/PC and do some nifty
graphics/analysis in real time.
Bryan Bergeron
School of Hard Shocks
When I received my May 2015
Nuts & Volts, I read it cover to cover.
August 2015 7
Continued on page 33
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