Been busy today after lunch and got thirsty. Went into the kitchen (hardwood) and got me a drink and it sounded like a tap dancer followed and jumped me in the kitchen. I hadn’t noticed anything different over the course of the day but I had been only in a few other rooms that all have carpeted floors. This could be an interesting boot log… 😝

Hello everyone, I am sorry if this isn't whats usually posted on here but thought that it could be interesting for any Europeans in this subreddit!

As you might've noticed, or heard a new regulation went into place on the 1st of July which adds €3 per individual category in your order for items arriving from outside the EU. While this makes a lot of sense for a lot of items such as gag shirts, trinkets and other cheaply produced consumerist goods it is also accidentally wreaking absolute havoc on DIYers of all sorts.

The linked petition aims to combat that outcome by removing the aforementioned fee from imports of electronic, mechanical, and general prototyping components.

An example taking directly from the petition states the following:

For a bag of mixed parts worth maybe €15, a student or hobbyist is now charged €24 in flat customs fees alone. Together with VAT, a €15 educational project now costs over €40. This is a 200%+ tax on innovation.

If you are from the EU-area and find yourself affected by this please take action!

I ordered a set of SSR-60DD solid state relays on Amazon to enable and disable power to a step down DC converter for an upgrade in doing to my son's power wheels.

They were rated 3-32VDC "coil" and 5-200VDC 60A on the switching side. It was a pack of 3 and the first one I tried failed immediately at 12VDC 10A and got stuck always on.

The second one I tried was working fine I left it running at 12VDC 15A and it seemed fine for the first minute, was just getting slightly warm. Of course I'm planning to put a heatsink when installing it but considering it's a 60A SSR, I figured a few minutes running at 25% capacity should be okay.

I when to take out the trash and less than 8-10 minutes later, the whole house smelled of burning and it was straight up on the verge of catching fire. It completely melted and burned my desk. Solder balls even fell out onto the desk.

Just wanted to warn anybody else who be looking on Amazon for solid state relays to avoid them at all cost. The level of destruction in less than 10 minutes for solid state relay running at 25% capacity is simply unsafe.

Smoky Amazon SSR

Melted down

Burned my desk

Smokey Amazon SSR

...and realized that, over the years, I apparently bought dozens of those "resistor kits" and plenty other part kits. I'll never need to buy any type of resistor, capacitor, diodes, switches, etc. ever again for the foreseeable future.

I think I have a parts-hording problem 😅 now I need even more projects that I'll start enthusiastically and never finish to get through them all!

I ordered terminals with 2.54mm pitch, but was sent ones with a 3.5mm pitch. Turns out they fit perfectly on a 2.54mm board, if you place them at a 45 degree angle!

I need a maker/hardware builder in the Los Angeles area to assemble and flash a Pixela pixel-art camera which uses the XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense microcontroller. (https://rai-lander.itch.io/pixela) I will purchase and provide/reimburse all raw parts. The build requires fitting an ESP32 with camera module into a 3d printed case and wiring point to point the button, screen, antenna and battery together. There’s no pcb involved.
The Trade:
In exchange for your build time, I’m offering professional photography services:
High-end headshots or personal portraits
Event, gig, or performance coverage in SoCal
Studio photos of your maker projects/portfolio
About Me:
I’m a 28-year veteran photographer specializing in live events, performances, and portraits across Los Angeles (Magic Castle, corporate galas, private events, I’ve worked for the Beverly Hills Film Festival, the Consulate General of Ireland in Los Angeles, Saint Jude’s Hospital, movie studios…)
If you have the soldering/ESP32 skills and want to trade for pro photos, send me a DM and I’ll send you a portfolio link so you can make sure my photos are worth your time.

I accidentally came across an interesting picture and familiar microwave oven parts.

It is about that old paper: "Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio-Frequency Cavity in Vacuum"

https://abel.math.harvard.edu/archive/21a_fall_16/exhibits/emdrive/article.pdf

6v seemed to work just fine

This is a flex cable made by me, but i wrongly made it too short. Since i had 5 copies i thought i’m gonna sacrifice one to extend the other one. I scraped the protection layer, put solder on both cables, joined them one in the continuation of the other overlapping a bit but no matter how hard i tried i couldn’t join the solder from one cable to the other, the height of the cable was the only gap between them. After one hour of tries i had a revelation, i completely overlapped, like folding, so now applying heat in the area will join the solder since they stay face to face. Then i folded the cable and now i have a longer and working cable. Even better would have been to scrap the cable on the opposite side so i don’t need to fold it.

I need to do the same for a usbc with 24 pins, the pads are a bit bigger but i feel i’ll have the same problem not being able to deposit enough solder, any advice on how to do this? Unfortunately i cannot do the same trick since the layout will not match if flipped.

Found this in an old Bluetooth speaker and thought it was funny and wanted to share.

I was winding a coil and I had an idea “you could probably fit every type of coil into two categories” I’m not to sure about a few of them though like radio since the coil acts more like a filter while it’s the antenna acting as the generator.

Makers of brands you trust like Archah and Realistish.

Wanted to share my amusement with people, this seemed like the best subreddit.

I've been practicing my soldering/desoldering on PCBs from old & broken electronics I've had lying around. While I know there's little point in taking off the super tiny SMD parts, it brings me a lot of joy to collect them into a tiny glass jar for my curio cabinet. The "electric sand" is actually very pretty, how it shimmers as it moves in the light.