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| Let's drop in on Wily and
look over his shoulder at his latest project.... |
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Underground Gate Opener
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| Wily was watching the snow
come down when he got a call from a mining company. They needed his
help. They had a section of a deep underground salt mine that was
blocked by two swing type security gates. Vehicle access to the area was
tightly controlled. The area did not have any AC power available for the
gates. The mining company had been using a standard driveway swing
gate, controlled by a keypad, powered by a 12v motor and a 12v seal lead
acid battery. However, the batteries had to be replaced periodically and
taken up to the surface to be recharged. Could Wily come up with
something, so they would not have to swap out the batteries?
The two gates were at opposite ends of a
looping branch tunnel, off the main mine room. The area was used to house
special equipment and materials and was not used very often..... |
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7 |
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Wily Widget,
the Lone Inventor
with Gadget & Gizmo |
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WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW is a....Miniature AC to DC Power Supply |
| Electronic systems are
getting quite efficient these days. I seldom design a small product
that requires more than 100 milliwatts of power. Often, if the product
is not going to be powered by batteries, it requires a wall mounted AC to DC
power adapter or a small on-board power module..... |
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con't on page 6 |
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Optical Fiber
Pressure & Motion Test Circuit
By: Dave Johnson
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| Optical fibers have
been used for detecting motion and pressure for quite a few decades now.
If you would like to experiment with this interesting technique, you can use
the circuit below.... |
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story con't on page 4 |
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Reversed Battery Polarity
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I received a call
from a toy company. They were puzzled by some field failures they had
been having. The company manager said his engineers assured him that the
failures were not due to a design flaw but due to bad parts, a manufacturing
problem or customer abuse. But, the manager was not so sure. He
wanted a second opinion.
He sent me a few
good units, a documentation package and some defective units, which had been
returned by some customers..... |
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story
con't on page
3 |
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Bad
AC to DC Wall Power Adapters |
| I see a troubling
trend developing. AC to DC power adapters for various electronic devices
are failing at an alarming rate. I’ve had two die lately within a week
of each other. Both were just a few months old. I hear through the
technical “grapevine” that I’m not the only one who has experienced such
failures..... |
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story con't on page 5
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Solar Energy
Myth Busting I |
| I’m
sure you have heard this myth. “The average home roof
receives enough solar energy each day to provide all the
electrical, heat and air-conditioning needs inside the home.”
I always thought that such a statement was factual. But is
it really true? Let’s do some quick math and find out..... |
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