Weller

It’s a ‘Right Royal Blog’ today, as I had the most incredible opportunity to film for Blue Peter with HRH The Duchess of Cambridge. Along with a group of home-ed kids, BP presenter, Lindsey, Catherine (that’s what we were told to call her) and I pond dipped, planted, built dens and chatted; here’s the ‘behind […]

With strong ties to a distilling legacy that spans over 250 years, the Michter’s Distillery in Louisville, KY, has been producing a comprehensive range of award-winning American whiskies since the brand was resurrected by Company President Joseph Magliocco in the 1990’s. Now distilling in their own facility since August of 2015, the Michter’s brand has […]

The month of Juni is one of summer and a number of previous stars from the past are celebrating their birthdays, some of them are still doing a great job in football no longer as players but in other capacities. We are also looking at some of those who have passed away, and that we […]

The Global Bourbon Market Growth 2019-2024 presents detailed, beneficial, and completely broke down data in an efficient way about the Bourbon market. The report provides a complete report on changing market trends for this market. The entire data related to the market at the global dimension is obtained from different sources and validated by our experts. The assembled information includes the data about the product in the market, marketing patterns pursued by the business, top players, up and coming trends, technological innovation, and different opportunities.  In addition, drivers, challenges and influence factors, industry plans, geologies, a wide scope of applications, product types are analyzed in this report.

Prominent players along with their marketing strategy, key developments, and business overview are added in this report. It provides powerful vis

Drew Reed Introduction In the backdrop of the negotiations of our exit from the European Union, there have been leaks from within the government. This goes against, the principal of collective ministerial responsibility, whereby ministers shall keep all personal opinions, and information expressed or divulged confidential; and publicly collectively agree on one position.[1] This is […]

Those Welsh people don’t bandy that word “God” about too easily. They seem to prefer words like “man” and “myth.” Which, of course, still means that everyone in Wales loved the Conversation with Nick Cave that took place there last night. Even people who were as “far away as they could possibly be,” seat-wise, said […]

Well guys it’s been a while! I own a Chevy Volt now and I just cant wait to fiddle with it! LOL so I started a Group on Facebook for the project and I’ll be adding a website and forum at teamprometheus.org for the project. After starting the group one of the new member’s Matt […]

You could argue a case for the Blow Monkeys being one of the UK`s most clued-up 80s Pop bands. Right from their T-Rex-y, Bolan beginnings, of Wildflower and Limping For A Generation, they`ve always been left-leaning and politically outspoken. Lyrically articulate. Somewhere between contemporaries ABC and The Smiths. They were tight with Paul Weller. As […]

First soldering irons are often of the Radioshack or Maplin firestarter variety. They’re basically wall power shorted across a nichrome heater or similar with some inline resistance to make it harder to burn down the house. You plug them in, the current flows, and they get hot. Done. If you stick with the hobby for a while, these eventually get replaced with something like the venerable HAKKO FX-888D or that one Weller everyone likes with the analog knob. These are much improved; having temperature control leads to a more consistently heated tip and much improved soldering experience. Entering the electronics workplace one comes across the next level of quality soldering iron: high end HAKKOs, Metcals, JBCs, and the like. Using one of these irons is practically a religious experience; they heat in a flash and solder melts while you blink. They even turn off when you put the handpiece down! But they’re expensive to buy (hint: think used). What’s a hobbyist to do? [SergeyMax] seems to have had this problem. He bit the bullet, figured out how the Metcal works, and made his own base. This is no mean feat as a Metcal might look like a regular iron but it’s significantly more complex than ye olde firestarter. The Metcal magic is based on a oscillating magnetic fields (notice the handpiece is connected via BNC?) interacting with a tip bearing a special coating. In the presence of the changing field the tip heats up until it hits its Curie temperature, at which point it stops interacting with the magnetic field and thus stops heating. When the user solders, the tip cools by sinking its heat into the part and drops below the Curie temperature again, which starts the heating again. It’s like temperature control with the sensor placed absolutely as close to the part as possible and a nearly instant response time, without even a control loop! [SergeyMax] has a much more thorough description of how these irons work, which we definitely recommend reading. So what’s the hack? Based on old schematics and some clever reverse engineering from photos [SergeyMax] built a new base station! The published schematic is as rich with capacitors and inductors as one could hope. He didn’t post source or fab files but we suspect the schematic and photos of the bare board combined with some tinkering are enough for the enterprising hacker to replicate. The post contains a very thorough description of the reverse engineering process and related concerns in designing a cost efficient version of the RF circuitry. Hopefully this isn’t the last Metcal replacement build we see! Video “walkthrough” after the break. Thanks for the tip Freddie!

I’ve watched a total of 244 movies during this five-year-long project. Here are all the yearly winners!  BEST PICTURE 2018 – “Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte” (1964) 2017 – “Hair” (1979) 2016 – “The Lost Boys” (1987) 2015 – “The Sound of Music” (1965) 2014 – “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006) BEST DIRECTOR 2018 – Jonathan Lynn for “Clue” […]

COMPETITION  1st of June to 10th of August 1. “Collateral Beauty” (2016) / Drama:  / MVP: Keira Knightley 2. “Why Him?” (2016) / Comedy:  / MVP: Bryan Cranston 3. “A martfűi rém” (2016) / Crime:  / MVP: Gábor Jászberényi 4. “iBoy” (2017) / Sci-Fi; Drama:  / MVP: Bill Milner 5. “Hair” (1979) / Musical; Dramedy:  / MVP: Treat Williams 6. […]

Down The TBR Hole is a meme created by lost in a story that revolves around cleansing your TBR of all those books you’re never going to read and sort through it all to know what’s actually on there. The rules: Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf. Order on ascending date added. Take the first 5 (or […]

The 204th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo is upon us in a couple of days and realising this got me thinking about 2 things: The importance of this battle in kicking off my interest in Military History and my first visit to the Battlefield in Aug 2015, some 40 years after first reading about […]