Category: DIY

Fixing Renault Scenic II fan controller block

Renault Scenic II fan fails quite often. In some cases you may notice that not all speeds selected from dashboard works, or works occasionally. But most often fan stops working at all. Of course first step to check is fuses. If fuses seem to be OK then the only way to look is at fan speed controller (sometimes called fan resistor). The easiest and most expensive way is to call service leave them to do repairs. But if you have some engineering blood, you can do it yourself by spending less than hour of your time and probably only couple bucks.

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Video tutorial on using voltage multiplier

Dave has made an excellent video tutorial on building and using Dickson voltage doubler made if diodes and capacitors. This appears to be a cheap and easy way of rising voltage for low power applications. For instance, if you microcontroller circuit is powered from the 3V power supply and you want to attach 5V LCD, it may be useful to consider a voltage double to increase supply voltage instead of designing additional power supply branch. In the tutorial, there are real measurements made with different loads attached. [source]  

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Nicer PC HDD activity indicator

Usually, computer hard drive activity is indicated with a single flashing LED when there is write or read operation performed. [Harvey Wilson] wanted something different than just a flashing LED and came out with an indicator. He replaced a single LED with 10 LEDs mounted in a circular shape. After digging some info from the Internet, he found the HDD signal nature and built the 4017 counter based circuit which accepts each incoming LED signal and then increments a counter. All 10 LEDs are connected to counter output pins, so each event lights makes the feeling of running lights.

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Do you know all features of your scope?

Probably you found yourself in the situation when you couldn’t get a clear view of a more complex signal on your scope. For instance, it is pretty hard to synchronize packet data waveform. All you get is a mess on your scope screen. With an analog scope it is almost impossible to get it while on Digital Storage Oscilloscope (DSO) you can store trace in memory and then analyze it. But this isn’t very handy. So there is a nice feature on most scopes which is called Trigger Holdoff. Check out this video tutorial from eevblog where Dave shares his thoughts about how this feature can be used in real life situations.

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Line sensing robot with no micros

We used to see more and more projects where microcontroller is a must part. This leaves of board those who like things to simple and understandable. This line following robot relies only on analog electronics which allows robot to sense dark line and follow it. Schematic relies on bunch transistors that act as switches when black color of line is sensed with phototransistors.

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The Amazing Pen Plotter

Some people love to involve themselves in art. If you’re one of them, then this Motori plotter might be the excellent choice for you! By the way, for those who didn’t know what plotter is, it actually a vector graphics printing device that being used to print graphical plots and connect to a computer. Basically, there are two main types of main plotters, which as: The pen plotters, and Electrostatic plotters. Technically, pen plotters print by moving a pen across the surface of a piece of paper. All the plotters are restricted to line art, rather than raster graphics. Normally, pen plotters can draw complex line art, but it’s very slow due to the mechanical movement of the pens. Believe it or not, a pen holder is able to hold a knife and turns into a cutting plotter to cut out signs and labels. Plus, it could also become a…

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Electronic Candle – You Can Blow Off the Flame By Simply a Pressing Between Your Fingers!

Before the invention of lights, people are normally using the candles to lights up the dark in the night. Talking about candles, the Egyptians and Cretans were the first who made candle from beeswax in about 5,000 years ago. Most of the early candle was made from various forms of natural fat and wax. Paraffin, the most common substance that being used for making candles was first distilled in 1830. Since then, the candle making is turning into a revolution, where over thousands of chandlers were built in between 1840 to 1860.

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