got the Fuzzy DJ booth audio brain working again. now with real time 2048bin FFT that updates the LED strips _and_ the LCD about 40 FPS. a little assembly goes a long way……
and here’s a video clip, you can hear the music light in the background it is playing to. https://youtu.be/hatnmEjQj_I
so that upper level cold low that moved through and brought super cu-nims to CA, has re-gathered itself after clearing the midwest with 30+ tornadoes, and today it brings one near where i graduated high school in FL.
above image swiped from http://aviationweather.gov/satellite
here’s a nice tornado and storm weather page, the NEXLab
that’s right kiddies, this front stretches from mexico to north of canada, with storms and fun all along the shear line. another one is right behind it, knocking down trees and powerlines in WA.
starting to think about some sort of tie-down system for my house…..
finally got enough wind on my old AIR403 wind generator to see if it still works. it does, but the regulator did not engage, and battery went up to 16v on gusts. i’ve learned about machines, love them a little a lot, or love them a lot a little.
maintenance. here the problem is the seal gasket let moisture in that corroded all the fun metal combinations inside. one of those things that if replaced before it fails, like every 2 or 3 years, the rest will be ok. but if the cheap gasket fails, so will every other bit inside. $2 gasket vs $200 regulator, or worse.
the generator part seems fine, but i’ll replace the bearings anyways since i’m in here.
when time permits, i’ll take the brush ring assembly apart, so to remove the regulator board and diodes. considering just removing the regulator as it appears the diode out goes straight to the brush. the controller has aluminium oxide dust all over it, and all the contacts are moderately corroded. i can just remove the controller board as it just shorts-out the windings at over-V or over-speed and i’ll make my own MPPT type controller with diversion instead of short.
i guess half the state of washington had power outage today. worse case i can just close it up and jumper the reg and not worry about pgne.
so the theory goes, as the temps rise, the upper-level cold lows will come later in fall and later in spring (response to southern hemi fall going later too). global warming? i dunno. climate change? likely. global turbulence? ah, that’s the rub of it…
here’s the likely hooky culprit from yesterday pic i took. green square is a rotating cu-nim, yellow cross is my ground station.
good pics and video at modesto bee.
from NOAA yesterday…..
It was an active afternoon and evening over NorCal with a tornadic mini-supercell over southern Stanislaus county several damage reports to structures have been received in and around Denair...which is just east of Turlock. After examination of radar imagery...video and eye witness accounts our office has determined that a tornado struck Denair between 1:45 and 2:00 pm this afternoon. A Survey team will travel to the city Monday to determine the damage rating, path length and duration of the tornado.
well, a good soaking, bit more than an inch. now if this happens once a week for the next 3 months we might be ok.
here’s some pics i took of the storm. sorry for the unusually bad quality, there’s a large grow-op nearby radiating on the grid close to my station. see previous post on cheating the UL/CE and those damn digital grow light ballasts…….
incoming,
NOAA 15 northbound 89W at 15 Nov 2015 01:19:17 GMT on 137.62MHz, MCIR enhancement, Normal projection, Channel A: 3/3B (mid infrared), Channel B: 4 (thermal infrared)
last night as the cold line moved over,
NOAA 18 southbound 43E at 15 Nov 2015 13:27:22 GMT on 137.9125MHz, MCIR enhancement, Normal projection, Channel A: 3/3B (mid infrared), Channel B: 4 (thermal infrared)
and today in the post-frontal thunderstorm fun.
NOAA 19 northbound 36E at 15 Nov 2015 21:15:23 GMT on 137.10MHz, contrast enhancement, Normal projection, Channel A: 2 (near infrared), Channel B: 4 (thermal infrared)
NOAA 18 northbound 72E at 16 Nov 2015 00:52:23 GMT on 137.9125MHz, contrast enhancement, Normal projection, Channel A: 3/3B (mid infrared), Channel B: 4 (thermal infrared)
i do a lot of parts salvaging from discarded electronics. occasionally, i harvest some organ from a corpse that was weak or diseased and i did not know. it’s kinda fun when the smoke gets out of these bad parts. i’ve replaced the cap now with a new stock one, and it boots and runs. the button however is not working, likely popped the input line to the brain.
oh well, at least i can repair what i make…..
i’ve seen this a LOT. products are UL or CE approved, then when they actually go to market, parts are left out to save money. This 12vdc power supply is a perfect example, they left out the upstream line filter, a choke, and two capacitors. i’m going to start a new category for these things when i find them.
you can see here the AC power cord, the fuse, and a single filter capacitor (red). MIssing is the bifilar choke, and two large capacitors. these are usually expensive (compared to other components) and often have to be hand installed. leaving these out likely reduced the cost of parts 5 to 10%.
also missing are two capacitors likely to filter the main chopper transistor to the right.
what does this mean? it means this power supply when running under load made all sorts of very strong radio signals that can interfere with other nearby electronics. these missing components kept the unit “clean”, which is what the UL and CE inspections look for. this unit for sure was in violation of FCC part 15, messed up all my satellite reception (UHF) and birdied all over the HF. it was sold with a nice 12v peltier refrigerator so was expected to be used in the garage or in the field i suppose?
they passed these inspections, then took out the parts that made them pass.
very much like the factory taking out the catalytic converter in your car after passing smog.
or VW jacking the computer in diesels?
ANNABELL, the first neural network simulation (on a hacked GPU no less) to be “taught” how to “think”. neural networks where mostly philosophy and math back in 1989 when i started. who would have thought that gamers drove a hardware chip design (1500 cores on a off-the-shelf GPU card) that now gives enough wide-and-tall grid to do these fun things? happy i still understand this technology now that the hardware can keep up to the dreaming. some day, we will look back, and know ANNABELL was HAL’s mother.
i’ve uploaded a Sea Surface Temp animation up to youtubez for test. from EMC/NCEP runs from 2000 to 2015 monthly. watch the seasons breathe. spot the ninas and ninos if you can. let me know how it plays on your end. ive updated my collection, and if this goes ok will post the big ones.
some notable bits about the sky lately. i saw the “UFO“, it was indeed blue. not red, or orange, or yellow, like fire in a rocket usually is, but blue. and moving what i thought to be pretty slow for a military rocket. i hoped that maybe it was a cloud seeder, a rocket that has smoke that is such fine particles that it stays airborne and forms start nuclei for rain drops to form. silver iodide is used a lot, that could be blue maybe?
sure enough, we got a bit of rain, more than the models had predicted for this incoming system. we also got HEAPS of lightning, more than ive seen total since ive been 20 years on the west coast. and why did said launch go from south to north along the CA coast rather than out to sea?
coincidence?
here’s a pic i took today of the post-frontal, can you spot the UFO smoke drift lines? HINT: they look like rain clouds :)
NOAA 19 northbound 56W at 09 Nov 2015 22:22:39 GMT on 137.10MHz, contrast enhancement, Normal projection, Channel A: 2 (near infrared), Channel B: 4 (thermal infrared)