It was a type of weeks final week at Hackaday’s house workplace. My mother-in-law handed me her favourite energy financial institution and mentioned “it’s not charging”. She had each expectation that I’ll open it up, desolder the weary pouch inside, scrounge a LiPo out of some nook of the basement, and have it again up and working earlier than the weekend. And naturally that’s what occurred, though possibly it seems a bit of worse for put on as a result of it was onerous to open the sealed case with out extreme pressure. Sorry about that!
Then on the weekend, I lastly received fed up with the decomposing foam on the face seal on my FPV goggles. It was leaking gentle all over. After all I might have purchased a brand new seal, however then I’d have to attend per week or so for supply. So I pulled the velcro backing off, tossed it within the mattress scanner, pulled the picture up in Inkscape, transformed it to Gcode, and reduce out a pair seals out of EVA foam on the laser. Not solely are they basically indestructible, however I used to be capable of customise them a bit of bit, and the match is now higher than ever.
After which, one in all our neighbors purchased a brand new storage door fob, flipped the DIP switches into the precise configuration, and couldn’t work out why it wouldn’t open the storage door. Knock knock knock. Utilizing the tried-and-true RF probe that everybody with a scope probe has sitting round, specifically hooking the bottom pin to the tip and placing the radio machine within the loop, it was clear that the sense of the DIP switches was inverted from what it mentioned within the directions. That was a enjoyable little puzzle.
It was the storage door opener that triggered me to consider how regular folks would deal with any of those conditions. “How do the normies even get by?” had been the precise phrases that went by way of my head. And let’s face it: we’re not totally regular. Regular folks don’t have a soldering setup simply sitting round able to get sizzling 24/7, or a scope to diagnose a storage door RF transmitter on the drop of a hat. However this stuff appear to occur to me on a regular basis. How do the traditional folks survive? Possibly all of them know somebody with a scope?
I take it as my service to the world to be “that man” for many of our family and friends, and I just about do it with out grievance. “With nice energy” and all that. My spouse is nearly as gracious when she’s caught debugging a guardian’s Home windows setup, so I’m not saying I’m the one saint on the earth, both. Certainly you’ve gotten comparable tales.
However final week it made me replicate on how good we’ve received it, and that does make me need to pay it ahead a bit of bit. If you happen to’re one of many individuals who can, attempt to assist out those that can’t.
