Summary: 2018 – Aug 2020
First thanks for all the patrons, some money seems to have been left over by Patreon and ended up making around ~150EUR, which I spent on a headbump for a second-hand 13MHz RACAL-DANA Programmable Frequency Generator last year. I wanted one for a long time to help doing repair on radio equipment, and my first use was to measure speakers impedance at 1KHz, overkill, but it’s fun.
I haven’t made any news here since a long time and I’m sorry, I am going to force myself to post a summary at least one a month here and do more on my ‘tech’ blog at: https://squeaky.tech
Here are some status on the ‘older’ projects and newer ones, the blog will contains more regular content.
– The Elka Concorde piano.
I’ve made a new PCB for the audio output/amp/headphones because the previous one got dismembered in shipping and repairs hasn’t been a real success. Five new speakers have been ordered (old ones have foam nearly gone, repair kits, if even available would be from the US, cheaper to buy new 4ohms speakers), and full capacitor set (plus transistors) for the power supply (just to be on the safe side), and new capacitors for the crossover board which have leaky dried caps.
There is still work to do, all speakers have been replaced, caps where needed replaced, but the backplane continues to be an issue. I am looking slowly to get some to test if they can be a replacement, since it’s very old and pretty much ‘outside of standard’ parts.
– A 68K SBC
I’m tempted to fork and improve a bit https://hackaday.io/project/9439-t030 , a 68030 with socketted RAM, and IDE, and can run Linux, could be fun. For now I’m building a T030 without modifications.
– IV-9 clock
The numitrons are nice nixie-like tubes which runs off <5V instead of DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE, I’ve found my old box with a bunch of them from one billion years ago, and I will do a PCB with 4 of them, an ESP32, and make the thing do NTP over Wifi in standalone, because why not. Still thinking about that, getting some NodeMCU for another project so I will base this project on that MCU.
– Wow and Flutter metter
They ain’t cheap, if you can even find one… I am building a PCB in full thru-hole from an old schematic found in a magazine with some improvements. Schematic and PCB done, prototype needs to be made and tested.
– Cessna 172 SP Flight Simulator replica panel
It will be a 1:1 Cessna 172 SP panel, for uses with a simulator (X-Plane).
The panel has been ordered and received. I have started working on some parts: flaps lever + indicator, rocker switches for main avionics bus, indicators and GPS/NAV indicator, and a replica for the Davtron M803 clock.
A blog post will come soon with more infos, especially the parts designed and the working clock (sim version tethered through UDP, standalone for fun will be planned with a NodeMCU and RTC).
– Various
I am also building some EuroRack synth stuff, I’ve acquired an HP 8657A Signal Generator (working, 0.1-1040MHz) and an HP 8590A Spectrum Analyzer (with various issues, ~works for non-critical measurements). Also got some various radio equipment (military radio, marine one, etc.), and an heli radar antenna to be repurposed for antenna pointing (new X/Y driving hw, antenna removed, etc.).
Thanks again for your support, and more posts will follow on the blog !
Note: the sync between WP and Patreon seems only Patreon->WP so only summaries will be posted on patreon (and synced), maybe some extras if needed. I don’t plan on doing tiers and all that stuff so yolo.
