T&L Publications

The circuit seems to be built around 150 Degrees F. I would venture a guess, looking at the circuit that the Cal Pot is to set it for 150 Deg. F. and am not sure how much either way it would go. Also wondering what is the "Hot" point for a battery? There are other op-amp based designs out ...

Maybe something like this? Personally I would lean towards using a uC because they offer more options but the link would run for a long time on a single 3 Volt lithium battery. Likely any 100K thermistor would work and the circuit could be adapted for what you want. The small buzzer could be replace...

The first ones. I have a friend in RI who has a business doing high level encryption. Years ago they developed a system that used a PC case or was housed in a PC case. His best deal when he needed like a few hundred was to buy 600 of the things. I guess you could buy 600 direct from China for what 2...

This thread in another forum has the beginnings of the HD custom case mod. Also this thread in another forum has threads with all sorts of case mods and builds. One of the more recent wood cases is pretty cool. There really is no limit depending on imagination as to what a case can be or how it get...

I caught that smoke test of a case. Generally they use fog from a theater fog machine but the results are interesting. Many of those case demos are done by case manufacturers. Smoke or fog aside many videos of cases, PSUs and other hardware marketed remind me of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Scrooge...

I have used a few of the varieties that Janitor Tzap linked to and they all seem to work fine. However, if the drives fit into a cage the cage will typically hold 3 hard drives. When using cooling that sinks on top of the HDD this may limit the number of hard drives that can be placed in the cage. A...

For computer enthusiast modifying (modding) the cases has been a long time tradition which has included adding fans to the case side panels. Any number of the methods mentioned here work just fine depending on the tools one has available. Some cases come with side fans as well as a recent addition o...

I remember that chip and I also remembered it was featured in the old Radio Shack Engineer's Notebook written by Forrest M. Mimms III. Pages 124 & 125 Forrest did a nice little write up and a few circuits. I went on a hunt and found the book. Well if anyone remembers the Engineer's Notebook 1&am...

Hi Ya MrAl A good point I have seen you make numerous times is when considering how to get to a low voltage from a higher voltage, the higher the voltage we can start with the lower the current draw. Considering what the wire and connectors are rated for I think that is why we beat up 12 Volts prett...

This is going to be mostly speculation on my part. Looking at motherboard main power connectors (home computer systems) going back to the early 80s the first ones used a pair of 6 pin connectors. There were four pins dedicated to 5 Volts, a single -5 and -12 Volt, a single 12 Volt, four commons and ...

Hi Ya MrAl Home computer power supplies are a funny lot. I don't think there are any actual rules that govern their design and build. I frequently reference the ATX12V Power Supply Design Guide but in reality it is just what the name implies, it's a guide with nothing really binding. Anyway as to th...

The minus 5 volt requirement was dropped from the ATX PSU Design Guide starting back with around Version 1.2 January 92. Nothing in the system uses it anymore that I know of. I expect to see the -12 volt requirement go away soon too. I am not sure though. On a standard PCI slot B1 is a -12 Volt pin,...

I found an old Power Spec machine in the junk pile. Uses an Allied 450 Watt generic PSU with what looks to be a pair of 80 fans both inside. Then I found an old PSU labeled Codegen which is a 400 Watt generic PSU that uses 2 80mm fans one mounted outside and one inside but the outside just hangs out...

I would check the voltage out of the wall wart. A 6 Volt wall wart in most (not all) cases is an unregulated DC out and most put out much more than their rated voltage. I like the idea of using a 7805 with a resistor in the common leg so you can adjust for 6 volts but you will need likely about 8 vo...

When I get home today I'll look in my PSU boneyard as I may have something. I know I have an Emachine in the junk pile too. I'll look at that.

Ron