Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

HEAT solder ! not great solder :S

Do you have a limited time to edit a post ?
I wrote it on my phone, but can't edit it on my PC an hour or so later....?

once someone reads it... thats it

I prefer solder wick to solder sucker, unless there is heaps of solder to remove.
Mainly because I get sick of cleaning out the sucker all the time when you can just cut the excess off the solder wick and continue.

Yeah, depends on the application.
I was making the assumption that most people here will be replacing through hole parts, in which case its very easy to heat from the top side and put the part leg actually inside the tip of the sucker. Works very well.
I like using the wick for surface mount stuff. Its great to clean up surface mount pads.

Doh!

Of course!

The other side of the board!!!!

Thanks

Thanks guys for all the great info! Keep it coming.

Steve S tell us about the other 101 your referring to, please?

What do folks use for drawing schematics? Current drawings are really cool!

SuperVeg - I'm sure if you show how to do an H controller someone one will think of a use.

Maybe BW could use one to reverse his feeder, just in case it gets jammed I'm a firm believer that if I need to build an outhouse-make it a brick one!

Ah yes color codes, still remember what Uncle Sam's Male Chauvinists taught me. The one about: Bad Boys and a girl named Violet. The Corps has changed a lot since then. They've got women commanding the training depots at 29 Palms and Paris Island now. Imagine that. And of all places Paris Island, the old fortress of testosterone logic! I'll bet some of of the old timers there resent taking orders from a BAM. BTW the one commanding PI isn't that bad looking!

I better learn SuperVeg's versions of the mnemonics and fast! Before the women here take issue.

My resistor colour code one was
Bye
Bye
Ruth
Off
You
Go
But
Via
Great
Western

I remember it because when my Yr8 electronics teacher mentioned it to me I thought it was the stupidest bloody mnemonic I had ever heard because it made no sense whatsoever... but somehow it stuck.

Funny thing is though, whenever I am working around electronics now I always have my multimeter near me, so its easier just to measure them than read them!
Back when I was servicing I could look at it a resistor and read it without really thinking about it, that doesnt last long!

I wrote a circuit a couple of months ago with a 13.8v plugpack running a battery standby circuit that lit an LED when it had been triggered, and when not triggered it trickle charged the battery through an LM317 current limiter.
I'll see if I can find it...

It’s one of the Yahoo forums Electronics_101

Thanks for the link Steve.

Wow 10 years of stuff!

So much info here AND there, so little time!

Kinda sucks having to work for a living.

I seemed to to recall something somewhere on this forum about how someone used a laptop in the greenhouse. Also how it was ruined in about a year.

We have a local hobby robot group that has a couple of guys that used to work for Cray Supercomputers. So I popped the question about submersing a computer in a fluid to keep it clean and cool.

Jeff came back and suggested Googling "pc aquarium oil"

And BINGO up came:

http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

@ about $10 a gallon from a Veterinarian, seems pretty reasonable.

Sunday I'll begetting a stripped down desktop computer for free so I'm thinking..........

Have a chop! I considered doing this many years ago for cooling purposes, when I was a big computer geek (now I'm just a general purpose geek
Looking forward to the photos
The oil would certainly keep out the moisture, I wonder if anyone here can comment on whether mineral oil would absorb water over time ? I'm guessing not being petroleum based but i really have no idea.

My mum bought me a $10 flexible water proof silicone keyboard the other day.

You can use it under water

it looks like this http://www.wetkeys.com/Washable-and-Wat ... s-s/23.htm

but thats not the one.

$10!

usb plug and play

When I had my clear grow house (new one is white) I was planning on just building a box outside the grow house, and putting the screen against the wall so I could see it. Then running my water proof keyboard inside. I figured I'd just get by without a mouse.

I have washed many mother boards and computer parts in water. Just be sure there is no electricity going through them at the time. And dry well.
I do this if I find a dirty, faulty mobo. have had a lot of success doing this.
Bet the average chicken couldn't do that.

Picked up my free computer from Jason. It is a 2001 desktop box stripped down to run Linux. Never used Linux so just the thought is a little intimidating! But what the hay cold weather is almost here so I'll have no option but to stay inside with some warm Bailey's or Merry's, right?

BTW I was thinking someone out there might be interested in some flavor of Linux. So...maybe someone might be interested in the following message from Jason after I picked it earlier today:

"Bob,

Enjoy using Linux on the computer. I have instructions on getting started with Puppy Linux and antiX Linux at http://www.jasonhsu.com/linux.html .

I upgraded the CD-ROM to a CD burner because I had an extra IDE CD burner that wouldn't work with the newer computer I recently bought, not even with an IDE/SATA adapter.

There's a Linux user group in the Twin Cities that meets once per month. You can find out more at http://www.penguinsunbound.com/ and http://www.mn-linux.org/. You can subscribe to the mailing list at http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list . "

On last thing, after work tomorrow I'm going to stop by some place and see if I can find some mineral oil and try it with an LED and limiting resistor.