Algemeen's Electronics and Bicycle Tinker Blog

One or two weeks ago, during the day, the RCCD (residual-current circuit breaker) tripped. The root cause was very unclear at first since no equipment was switched on or off during the event. Also the weather was quite humid and sticky after a thunderstorm, so that could be a factor as well. By unplugging some usual suspects one at a time, we could trace it to the culprit. First I unplugged the coffee maker from the mains, but again the RCCD tripped after some minutes. Next the electric kettle was unplugged, and bingo! The RCCD did not trip again. This Kettle, a Tristar HL-108B, has a base piece. This base did have my suspicion, since the inner wires became visible from where there should be a cable strain relief. Opening the base required special spanner or ‘fork’ style screws. Somehow they want to discourage repair, but they are wrong. With a suitable long bit style drivers it was fairly easy to get access to the wire terminals. The multimeter did not show any problems, but these kin

During lock-down it became impossible to perform my regular routine of ‘Reverse Shopping’, bringing unused items to the local thrift shops or bring old tools to the Gered Gereedschap https://www.geredgereedschap.nl/ collection bin. (Tools for Self Reliance https://www.tfsr.org/ ). Only online sales via our local Ebay variant Marktplaats.nl were possible to some extent. The Thrift shop around the corner actually closed down and did not reopen after lock down. They seem to have consolidated to having only one shop in the city center. Also the bins for Gered Gereedschap probably could not handle the clean-up and DIY craze of the last months. So they closed them temporarily, but luckily recently they opened again! For unsold books, I found another nice way to ‘Reverse Shop’. A system of small libraries called MiniBieb https://minibieb.nl/ Just leave your book in one of those! (but please don’t dump totally useless books like readers digest there...) This MiniBieb along the cycle path I c

Loading my e-reader for some travels ahead! One of those books on my want-to-read list, Critical Path by Richard Buckminster Fuller And another one I should be reading is Surreal Numbers by Donald E. Knuth

Recently my eye caught a modular and easy to repair (and opensource) laptop.  The MNT Reform, by MNT Research GmbH, Berlin. This totally would fit my other gadget, the Fairphone 2! Not sure though if it would be powerful enough for the tools I'd like to run. Might give up my idea for a higher spec laptop for FPGA work, since one can just hire some cloud computing for that when it's really needed. This project is using crowdfunding MNT Reform, latest news update  

We live in Apocalyptic times, where we are facing large challenges for the future. Some counter the problems of our wasteful society e.g. by restoring some great finds from the local scrap yards and posting very well narrated repair videos about those finds on YouTube. (Cheers to TPAI! ;)) Some react and cry where to find such gems, but the point is: those are usually right under your nose! What I usually find on my bicycle ride work are empty half liter PET bottles or empty energy drink cans of a certain unnamed Austrian brand sponsoring a Formula 1 team with a Dutch rookie driver (or half empty cans of similar undrinkable liquids). Occasionally, there is the odd tossed-out-of-car-window CD-R with some downloaded whatever music. I tend to archive those in the correct litter bin, and surely not bother to try and play them. However, last week there was clearly a real music CD shining between the roadside grass, in a very nice state. On closer inspection this seemed to be a BBC music

And Now for Something Completely Different: the kruishout (Dutch), or you might know it as a marking or scratch gauge. This is an essential measurement tool in woodworking! Note the sharp needle or point on the left side of the beam. This is used to scratch a line in the wood. This specific one was from my grandfather. He was a carpenter specialised in making ship interiors. Carpenters can own multiple of these gauges on a project, so they only need to set them to a specific size and have less work re-adjusting constantly. Some variations may even use the tip of a knifeblade to actually cut a deeper line, e.g. when the grain is too strong to make a proper straight line. Or to actually cut very even widths of veneer. The Japanese or Chinese variants seem to use the knife tips. I’m not so much into woodworking at the moment, but this surely is a keeper! It’s also fairly easy to make some of your own. If you know a special use of this tool other than most uses shown on youtube, please