More than a year ago I was approached by an independent filmmaker about light dimmers. The problem fo them was how to get affordable light dimmers to control the film lighting. I was told that many independent non-commmercial filmmakers use a HarborFreight router speed control to dim the lights used for moviemaking. The reason is →
Resistance soldering is a soldering method that sometimes useful for hobby work. In this soldering methid an electrical current is flowed through one work piece, the joint and then the other work piece. Current through a resistances on the way generates heat. Most heat is normally generated on the joint because the resistance there is →
EDN blog articlwe HDMI cables for $2 or $600? mentions article Why are HDMI cables so expensive?. In this article product researchers find little difference between a $10 and a $140 HDMI cable. The result was that the expensive cables may be made with better materials, but they don�t perform digital transmission any better than →
Coldheat is an American company that develops and markets special soldering iron called ColdHeat. ColdHeat iron product was review at ePanorama.net eariler. The secret of that product is a proprietary graphite-like compound called Athalite. The tip of this apparatus is split into two sections that completes an electrical circuit when something of low resistance is →
The topic of site support for IE6 has had a lot of discussion on the web recently. Enough is enough. IE6 is an ancient browser released in late 2001. Why would anyone run an eight-year old browser? Should sites continue to support it? What more can anyone do to get IE6 users to upgrade? IE6 →
John Huntington’s Control Systems for Live Entertainment, 3rd Edition book offers an in-depth examination of control for lighting, lasers, sound, stage machinery, animatronics, special effects, and pyrotechnics for concerts, theme parks, theatre, themed-retail, cruise ships, museums, special and other events. This is an excellent reference concerning what’s going on in audio control as well as →
I have seen all kinds of strange USB gadgets, but this might even be more useless than USB coffee cup warmer. World’s Smallest Microwave Is USB Powered article tells that there is now an USB powered microwave oven. Beanzawave is said to be the world’s smallest microwave. Because of the limitations of the power available →
I had some stepper motors from old disk drives and other electronics devices lying around. Those were typically designed to be driven with 12V voltage and take few hundred mA of current per phase and had five or six wires (four phase). I thought that it would be a good idea to turn them to →
DealExtreme says they have cool gadgets at the Right Price. And they are right on this. DealExtreme (DX) is a Hong Kong-based online shopping site which specialises in a wide range of inexpensive electronic goods and other related items. Products range from useful and potentially useful to completely useless. Some of the most popular gadgets →
Do need real strength in your DIY fixes? This is definetly for you. Addition to those nice post-its 3M has nuclear grade duck tape. Check details at 3M product page. You can buy this killer product from Amazon.com. Price of 33.99$ is bit stiff compared to usual stuff, but you will get real stuff →