Solar USB Charger

Here are some pics of a solar charger I put together about a month or two ago.

 Parts bought from BrownDogGadgets.com

 Finished Soldering..

 Mmm mints

 Finished product

Yep, ABBA.



Due to the small size of the solar cell, it takes quite awhile to charge the internal 2x AA batteries. Overall I've found this device to be more practical as a portable battery source for my phone (i.e. charge the batteries with a charger a home, and then take this altoids tin if I'm going out somewhere).

NES Teardown

Here are some pictures of my beloved NES (first console) torndown:

Why'd I take it apart? Well...because I can.

I tried earlier on connecting a NES controller directly to my ArduinoMEGA to read controller inputs, but couldn't quite get that to work. Didn't really feel like troubleshooting it, so I'll perhaps return to it at a later date.

Fin

After about a day's worth of effort (not including time spent getting parts, tools etc.), I've completed my initial CMOY amp build. Below are a couple pictures showing the results:

A few remarks:

- The amplifying caps (orange) that I got from DigiKey were quite a bit larger than I expected them to be. As a result, I had to adjust the layout slightly, and I wasn't able to fit a pot in my enclosure.

- The hardest part of this project was soldering on the prototype board, as the components and terminals were quite small and close together, while the soldering iron I bought was large and clunky.

- The amp definitely makes music louder (amplifier gain is 11), but its difficult to say for certain that it sounds better. In the future, I'll probably play around with higher capacitance capacitors to see what effect they have on the sound.

Overall it was an interesting, rewarding, and inexpensive project (that is, the materials required for the actual amp were cheap, however the tools needed were a bit costly).

In progress...

An assortment of pictures showing various stages of my build:

1.) Testing out the power component of the circuit:

2.) Shot of my crappy soldering:

 3.) Added amplification stage (used OPA2132PA op-amp)

 4.) Testing overall functionality of amp:

 5.) Case-work for LED, I/O  jacks, & ON/OFF switch:

Voila

Some components that I'll be using for a headphone/speaker amp build, based on the CMOY amp by Chu Moy (http://gilmore2.chem.northwestern.edu/projects/showfile.php?file=cmoy2_prj.htm).

Parts (including above, and not shown) were purchased from:

-DigiKey Corporation
-Mouser Electronics
-The Source By Circuit City

A shipment arrives!

A parcel from DigiKey. Hmmm....what could it be?

Hello World

Greetings!

My name is Jason Lum, a recent graduate of Electrical Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

I'm not entirely sure why I've created this blog (asides from extreme boredom), but for now and the near future I intend to post progress on various things that I'm working on (e.g. programming things, diy electronics), primarily as a way for me to reflect on my skill development.

Looking back at my undergrad education, I have to say that I wasn't really provided the time or opportunity to tryout certain things. Now that I have finally graduated and am free of commitment for the time being, I am going venture out and try some of those things (and hopefully pick up a few useful skills along the way).

-Jason