gary – Page 11 – Tog Hackerspace

15/01/201712/05/2018

Ultra Reliable Electronics?

sanyo tv Once upon a time, TV repair shops were everywhere. Now there are hardly any left. There are reasons for that, probably based on a mix of cost, reliability of electronics, and a throw-away culture. Even in the few TV repair shops that are left, would anyone actually take a scope, schematic and a soldering iron to a TV these days? Maybe they would just replace the circuit board or display.

This is a tale of a Sanyo TV, made in the UK in ~1992, based on the date codes of the components inside. It has worked continuously since then. Lately the picture has gone a bit red-ish. The TV was recently replaced by a new flat screen TV, so we’ve had a chance to take a look inside. This is the first time that the back has been off since manufacture….. ~25 years ago. Depending on your point of view, you might think that 25 years isn’t that long, but it’s not too bad either for a CRT-type TV, considering also that it has never needed a repair. If you have some other electronics that has been working without repair for a very long time, we’d be interested to hear.

Inside it is remarkably clean. Apart from the one on the tube, everything else is on a single circuit board. If the tube is not the cause of the reddish picture, then this TV is probably repairable. Some further investigation is pending. If you’d like to take a look, drop into our regular Electronics, Microcontroller and IOT evening which takes place every 2nd Monday.

23/12/2016

2016 End of Year Review

Well the world has turned and another year has almost passed. What a year it has been for TOG. We started 2016 with our doors closed to the public. We had just made our big move from Chancery Lane. Blackpitts was a blank canvas for us. It was a completely open-plan space and we had to decide what to do with it. It wasn’t long before we had a proposed layout and we started building rooms. We built ourselves a fantastic common room, a classroom, a make-room to house our laser cutter and electronic stuff, and a general workshop. We decided that our traditional January birthday party and Open Social would be our grand re-opening to the public . We billed it as a monster bash, and it didn’t disappoint. It was our biggest social event ever. We invited just about everyone that we could think of, and most of them came.

It wasn’t long before we started all of our regular evenings again….. CAD and Electronics, Coding, Lockpicking, Crafting as well as some Movie and Games nights. What else have we been up to in 2016? Well let’s see…..there was making Christmas baubles, projection mapping workshop, DIY vacuum former, DIY CNC router, Science Hackday Dublin, tinkering with batteries and bikes, undersea and space talks, CoderGirl Hackday, Science Week 2016, supercollider workshop, metalwork and machining antics, games nights, building works in the space, Electric Picnic, mega fly traps, build-it workshops, Arduino fun, EMF camp, bridge building competitions, skull radios, Dublin Maker, Inspirefest, Duck shoot’em up, Coolest Projects, OSM jams, variac fun, green video screens, boat building, coder forge, Makerfaire UK, brewdays (woooo beer!), motorbike madness, Big Day Out, hacking IKEA furniture, VR motorbikes, 100-year old mangles. Did we miss anything there? Probably!

Everything at TOG happens because our members and visitors are so generous with their time and effort. Everyone volunteers for free. If you’re looking for a 2017 New Years resolution, why not drop in and see us. If you’ve never been in before, we’ll give you the grand tour of the space. Talk to members and visitors about projects or things you’d like to do. Ask about our plans for 2017. If you like what you see, ask about joining as a full member. What a great New Years resolution that would be!

13/12/201606/12/2016

December Open Social

Our regular Open Social evening for December, will take place on Saturday 17th December at 7PM.

If you’ve never been to our Social, you’ll find it a great alternative Saturday evening in town. Think of the break from the Christmas shopping! Come in and look around. If you’ve never been in before, we’ll give you the grand tour of the space. Talk to members and visitors about projects or things you’d like to do. Ask about our plans for 2017. If you like what you see, ask about joining as a full member. What a great New Years resolution that would be!

Hopefully there’ll be, caint, ceol agus craic as usual. The space stays open until the last member is left……usually the small hours of Sunday morning. The evening is free to attend for members and visitors alike. No need to book…. just turn up. You can drop in for 10 minutes, or stay the whole night. We have parking available. Bring beer, food, gadgets! Our doors are open from 7PM. Hope to see you there.

https://www.tog.ie/
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https://twitter.com/TOG_Dublin
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16/11/201605/11/2016

November Open Social….with a twist!

mind-web By now, you’ll probably know that we hold a regular Open Social evening on a Saturday in the middle of each month. November will be no different. We’ll be doing it on Saturday 19th November. This month however, there’ll be a bit of a twist!

We’ll also be hosting Science Hackday Dublin that weekend, so the space will be very busy. You’ll get to see up to 100 makers, up to all sorts of making antics, just for the pure hell of it!

If you’ve never been to our Social, you’ll find it a great alternative Saturday evening in town. Come in and look around. If you’ve never been in before, we’ll give you the grand tour of the space. Talk to members and visitors about projects or things you’d like to do. Ask about our regular craft evening, which has just restarted. See what the Science Hackday participants are up to. If you like what you see, ask about joining as a full member. Either way, we’re always interested to know what has drawn you to our door.

Visit the Science Hack Day website too, for more information about the event.
http://sciencehackdaydublin.com/

28/10/201612/05/2018

Rebuilding an Ebike Battery

ebike-battery A few of our members and visitors use Ebikes. We were presented with an Ebike battery which had a dead cell. The plan was to replace the cell with a new one. This is not ideal, since you end up with a mix of old and new cells, but the balance circuit should make it usable. On further investigation we found that there were a number of dead cells. So we set about rebuilding the whole battery with new 10Ah cells.

The cells are 10Ah LiFePO4 type…. 12 of them in all. The new ones are a little bigger than the old ones, so we will have to modify the case a bit, but that won’t be a show stopper. Drop in during our fortnightly electronics night to see the build in action.

26/10/201626/10/2016

One Year in Blackpitts

tog-location This October bank holiday weekend brings an important milestone for us. It will be one year since we did the big move from Chancery Lane to Blackpitts. Over the bank holiday of 2015, we cleared out our old space and moved the lot to 22 Blackpitts, just a short distance away.

In the year since then, we’ve done incredible work. TOG continues to grow. All of our old favourite theme evenings are up and running. We’ve built a fine common room, set up our kitchen, built classroom, electronics/laser cutter room and a general workshop. We’ve welcomed new members, each of whom bring their own unique skills and interests.

November will also be an important month for us as it will mark one year since we set up of our new organisation Tog Hackerspace Designated Activity Company.