Adventures of a Tech, avonturen van een techneut

 I ordered these things on a Wednesday and now 6 days later I can assemble my product. This is how fast the world moves today. I designed the things in Fusion360 exported the STL files and sent the data to the Shapeways website.  That was the whole proces. They are really nice and fit precisely. I am very happy with this. #oetelx ahead of the curve.

The model is being scanned in a 3d point cloud and transformed into Nurbs. The 3d model is CNC milled a KUKA robot at Supportec BV. Find content with hashtag : #oetelx

DuoTank version of new TiMO tank monitor unit, approx 53x32x12 mm total size. The new version is the same size as a 9 Volt battery. As you can clearly see this latest one matches the DuoTank logo. (contact Duotank for purchase / implementation details) Screenshot of #ABI dashboard Timo Tank monitor, showing levels declining, speed and date. 2 early TiMO units on table, this version used a separate light source. Previous versions were reliable but fairly large. This one is still in operation. TiMO unit on tank, still operational on location. This is an early model. TiMO dashboard as used by customer, showing locations and online status/levels of all tanks. This data is pushed to brewery ERP system to automatically optimize route planning of tanker vehicles. Currently installed in 23 location in the Netherlands with 100% uptime. Find more content using hashtag : #oetelx

This week has been a hacking week. I repaired an old charger for a small fork lift, and finally fixed instability of my Raspberry-PI board. First the battery charger, an old 30 Ampere 24 Volt charger for a small fork lift. After switching it on, the lights would light up, some clicks would follow (detecting the battery and voltage), and then a low hum (transformer overloading) followed by a flash of the fuse exploding (on the circuitboard in the charger). After some investigation I found out that the rectifier bridge was bad, just one diode had failed and was completely shorted out, I have no clue why this happened at that moment, maybe just a cosmic ray or a spike somewhere, nobody can tell. The diode was a BYD57-200 (that is a press-fit 200 Volt 35 Amp version). Going through the usual catalogs online (Farnell/RS/Reichelt/Conrad) it appeared that nobody was selling these anymore. I ended up buying one at Brigatti in Eindhoven (  http://www.brigatti.nl/  ) it is a ...

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year 2013 to date. Temperatures reached 36 degrees C. Normal value for this time of year is about 24 degrees (according to KNMI). My wife's car, a Hyundai Getz had a broken AC unit and I decided to fix it.  The AC light lit up just like normal but the clutch to the compressor did not kick in. After spending hours googling for schematics and diagrams, reading forums I found out why. The system is protected by a clever pressure switch, (conveniently located behind the glove compartment) It disables the clutch when pressure is too high or too low. After checking all things electrical, fuses, sensors, the clutch, the fans and switches I was out of options, I could not measure the pressure in the system. I visited a local car repair shop specialized in Airco systems, Rene van de Louw, st. Oedenrodeseweg 40, and he quickly noticed that I had a leak in my condenser. How? He put some pressure on the system with nitrogen and I could hear a hissing so...