I am thinking about selling the old girl. We’ve been together for quite a while but she is not getting ridden much these days. At 207Kg wet weight (or 458lb) She is classed as a middle weight but I am finding her a bit heavy to move about, especially compared to the 97Kg (214lb) Address. Read more
An update to the Tiny Mixer Preamp to add Mic/instrument balance control Read more
As I have moved over (almost) completely from windows to a MacBook I think it’s time I consolidated my original post.
I am almost completely Appled. But I have an Android Tablet that gets used extensively for reading books with Readera, Web browsing with FireFox, and reading magazine with Readly.. Read more
Quite a few years ago I put a wordpress site together. It took a lot of effort and I could not get it to look the way I wanted it. Then updates to Wordpress and the plugins I used kept breaking the site and I finally went back to an html site. I have been using a html editor to maintain my sites for a long time. Then I went and bought a Macbook.
There is no decent html for a Macbook. Nothing comes anywhere close to Microsoft Expression Web 4 (MEW4 or EW4). But Wordpress sites can be created on any platform with a web browser… Read more
After years of Windows (from Windows 3.1 through to 10) I have finally bought a Macbook.
Why? My Lenovo was starting to have battery problems – only lasting a 2-3 hours. My Samsung never lasted long on battery and it’s really too big for a laptop. I use a lap top on my lap! Both are windows 7 machines and some of the newer apps are not supported… Read more
This is about a preamp I made for personal use with the Home Made Busking Amp. but it will work happily with any amp or PA system. It works fine with our Behringer B208D for example.
It is all contained in a 2″ x 4″ die-cast box which can be attached to the mic stand (I use a niece of an old motorcycle inner tube) or simply laid on the floor.
It is powered by a 9V PP3 battery.
It takes about 1.2mA from the battery when in use, slightly more if the clipping LED operates. Read more
I play in Tin Taxi, an acoustic duo
We do some busking and also the occasional spot in various locations. This is a description of the amp I made.
We had been using a VOX DA5 for busking. It wasn’t bad. It had a guitar input with tone control and lots of special effects which we didn’t use , a single mic input with a volume control and an aux input with no control at all. The sound was good, but it was not really ideal for an acoustic duo. But it had a nice enclosure and a nice speaker, so I used those. Read more
I have four old lead acid batteries stored in the garage.
All of these batteries have been retired for some time but I keep them in the garage and charge them up every 3-6 months.
This is the technique I used to measure the capacity of these batteries:-
Charge the battery fully on my Ctek charger
Connect a load across the battery designed to take around 25% of the battery over 4-5 hours (based on the C20 capacity of the battery)
Disconnect the load and leave the battery overnight.
Measure the open circuit voltage and use this to deduce the state of charge.
From the state of charge and the known drain, calculate the capacity of the battery.
To be honest, I don’t know if this is a sound method, but it seems logical to me. Read more
This is simply about how I tested a bunch of old AA rechargeables.
As it is quite possible we may get some power cuts this winter I decided I may want to make use of some old batteries we have. It actually adds up to quite a bit of energy storage.
Before retirement I was a professional photographer, and I did a lot of weddings and events. I used a Nikon SB800 flash units which take either 4 or 5 AA batteries. After some trial and error I settled on Panasonic Eneloop batteries. These hold their charge for a really long time in between charges, so after a shoot, I could recharge the batteries, and they were ready for the next time. Read more
Power cuts are quite possible this winter. Whatever the cause, we will have to deal with it. We are not badly placed. Our gas heating won’t work as the pump is electric, but we have a multifuel burner in the living room which should keep the chill off. We have stocked up with fuel just in case. Our cooker works from gas and all we need is a box of matches as the igniters won’t work.
Rather than being completely reliant on candles and torches on phones I thought it may be a good idea to have a couple of battery powered lights. But I wanted bright ones powered from 12V batteries. Read more