Recent content by californiaHank

Castorama (French chain of stores a lot like Home Depot) sells a lot of homeowner tools, like Asian made Stanley, but some stores have a decent selection of Facom and other European tools. Check out their on-line ads for specials when you're there. The prices are sometimes really good. You'll...

I've got 'disposable quality' Westcott flat acrylic rulers at work. They meet your 'transparent & (somewhat) flexible & waterproof' requirements. My home stuff is Staedtler - rulers are similar in design to the Westcott, but much better quality. They make plexiglass (acrylic) ones, and also...

Alan Steel & Supply, Redwood City Haven't been there in a while, but it used to be my first choice for odds and ends - stuff like small quantities of stainless rod and plate cut to order for my DIY projects. Guy at the front desk never seemed cheerful, but always got me what I wanted pretty...

The satisfaction of diagnosing and fixing a problem you've never seen before is worth a million bucks, even if the thing you're fixing is not quite that valuable.

I also think that some of the discussion has the collector and emittter reversed. Some transistors in that package style have the C and E leads reversed, so you need to be careful when you're not sure of the part number. I'm guessing that it's an NPN connected as a common emitter amplifier...

Yes, trace the circuit. Where's the speaker connected? Where's the battery connected? Is one side of the speaker connected to negative power? Is pin 1 of the transistor connected to the other side of the speaker (probably through a capacitor)? If that's all true, it's likely an NPN with the...

It's more complicated than that. Voltages on a transistor datasheet are usually maximum voltages for various operating parameters. My (wild assed) guess is that the transistor was used as an amplifier rather than as a switch, and that the generator of of the 'music' is U1, which is some some...

It would be fun to start from scratch with a big budget. But I'd be buying my favorite tools from 10 different good quality brands. There's no way any one maker would get my full bankroll.

It took me a bit of trial and error to find LED bulbs to replace my 3-way (50/100/150W incandescent equivalent) bulbs. Some older LED designs are taller and fatter than the (A21 size) incandescents. I ended up with an oddball brand called 'Scheinendo' from Amazon that fits fine. I think it's...

I agree that ones designed for jewelers are a good starting point. They typically accommodate a 5 or 6 inch buffer and have built in fans and filters. Ones from Foredom and other premium manufacturers are great, but there are much cheaper Asian imports that you might find to be good enough.

I agree with the others who suggest that it's likely a bad solder joint between the transistor lead and the board. You should be able to fix it with a bit of fresh rosin core solder and a bit of heat. As the others have said, use enough heat to allow the solder to flow freely into the joint to...

Resistors can have 3, 4, 5, or 6 bands. Three band ones are mainly obsolete - they're 20% tolerance which isn't found much anymore. For these, the last band is the multiplier and the first two are the first two significant digits, read left to right. For modern resistors, with 4 or 5 bands -...

Different industries/trades have different terms for the same thing. Clockmakers traditionally call small tapered reamers 'broaches' and ones with straight sides 'reamers'. To add to the confusion, they also use various shapes of broaches for cutting non-round holes, like keyways. Broaching...

Yes. Choose the reamer size necessary to get a reasonable percentage of thread engagement for the tap size you are using. Choose a twist drill size slightly smaller than the reamer size. Then drill, ream, and tap. My limited experience is with 'one off' small projects and not with quantity...

The screwdrivers look like rebranded made-in-France Facoms. If that's what they are, that's a huge step up in quality.