The Radiometer – also called lightmill – is an instructive, physical demonstration object that was invented about 100 years ago by the English physicist Crookes. This small physical-technical arrangement clearly shows how light is converted into mechanical energy.
The working princip of the solar radiometer:
Impeller inside the part evacuated glass ball
If warm light, ie sunlight, light of light bulbs or spotlights, meets with light in the spectrum of which the infrared component is present (but not cold light from fluorescent lamps) on the wing cross resting on a needle, this will turn depending on the intensity of the light source , In a particular method, a partial vacuum is generated in the glass ball, so that the air resistance is not stronger than the rotational force of the impeller generated by the light energy. The blackened surfaces of the wing cross absorb more light energy than the bright surfaces. Due to the warming of the air molecules, a much higher pressure is created on the dark areas than on the bright areas. This causes the constant rotation of the wing cross. (Brownian Molecular Theory). Depending on the light intensity, up to 3000 revolutions per minute should be achieved. (Source: Manufacturer of the Radiometer)
Again and again it happens to me that a USB memory stick loses its function and is suddenly no longer recognized. Often the stick is still registered as a drive in the system, but it lacks the disk, or even the system reports that the stick is not formatted. And even though he just recently, full of important data, has worked in another computer. 🙂 (Here would now be the story with the backups or backup copies …). All these problems are mostly due to operator errors or mechanical problems. For example, an operator error may be that the stick is being pulled while one more writing is in progress. The stick is then de-energized during a process. And depending on whether the controller or flash memory can handle it, the stick will survive or not. Often, mechanical defects are the cause of breakdowns. So it may be that the solder joints between the connector and the board break, or get the connecting pins of the quartz or oscillators contact problems.
In this case, I got a miniature stick from extrememory, which does not want to give away its stored data. It is displayed in the system administration, but if you want to access it, the message “no data carrier found” comes. The attempt to format or partition over diskpart from the commandline did not work. Also various tools like “SDFormatter” or “USBstick_Formattool” failed. Even with Linux or on MAC systems, no success was achieved. So a stick for the barrel … But I thought, even if the stick in its small design rather not close to a mechanical defect – why not take a look anyway 🙂 And at 16GB I will not give up so fast.
So I tried to gently open the case by first removing the metal case of the USB connector.
That works quite well. After I wanted to take a closer look at the appearing small printed circuit board with its tracks, there suddenly appeared something familiar.
That looks like an SD card. More specifically, like a microSD card.
That’s the way it was. The USB stick is nothing more than a MicroSD card reader, in which such a card is installed. Using tweezers, the SD card could be levered out.
Apparently here again the problem is with the contacts, or contact springs between card and card reader. It is the cause of the problem, because the SD card worked fine in another card reader and all the data was available. It pays to invest in front of the garbage bin for a few minutes and to inspect the innards of the device.
Some time has passed since the last blog entry. On the one hand, I put this down to a lot of work, both professionally and privately, so that a bit of the energy for blogging was missing. The last days is the beautiful weather to blame. I preferred to spend my time riding a motorcycle instead of sitting behind the PC … But I also got a little gimmick again.
FritzRoy storm glass
A colleague told me about it and at a large Internet mail-order company, I quickly found it. It is a so-called “FritzRoy storm glass“.
A storm glass is known for a long time from the seafaring. There it was used to predict weather changes. The storm glass is a glass cylinder filled with two liquids and hermetically sealed. The fluids are usually camphor and alcohol in saturated form, which do not mix but form small crystals. The formation of these crystals is related to the weather change. For a long time it was believed that the crystals react to changes in air pressure. Recent research allegedly suggests that the crystals react to electromagnetic fields called sferics. These sferics are preferably formed in low pressure areas. Thus, the storm glass shows the approach of a low pressure area and thus the bad weather.
Crystals as weather forecast
The table (from the CarloMilano user manual) shows the different crystal weather relationships.
The other day I noticed with a cold-device connection cable that the cable sheath has come loose in the area of the strain relief. The wires came out. By itself, this is nothing special, if not here, apart from the unusual colors, the unusually small diameter of the wires in the eye would sting.
left: cable without CE marking right: standard cablePlug without any test marks.
Normally, such a jacket cable with 16A / 250V and a CE mark is marked on the plug. The cross section of the stranded wires is 1.5mm². The cable here on the photo but an indication of 10A / 250V was printed and NO CE sign available. The strands have a cross section of less than 0.5mm² !! Who uses such a cable and for example operates a heater with it, then may not be surprised if a quick fire breaks out … Unfortunately, I can not understand with what device I got this cable included. But it does not conform to the valid standards and represents a danger in the enterprise. In any case: Keep away from such products!
If you wanted to save your Blogposts from WordPress, you will definitely know the XML export function in the Dashboard of WordPress itself. Here you can create and save an XML file in the menu “Tools” under “Export data” , This XML file can be used in a – for example – server error again to create the blog.
But what to do if you want to save your blog content in a Word file, or as a PDF, or even print? There are several possibilities to realize this. I will briefly list these variants here.
The latter tool I find personally very convenient and convenient, since it is very easy here to export his entire blog, including images in a Word document and postprocessing. All you have to do is export the XML file from wordpress.
chooese XML-file
After specifying the XML file, the blog posts are displayed directly in a list. Now you can choose which blog post should be converted and whether it should be a Word or PDF document.
window with exportable posts
Now you can start exporting …
Depending on the number of posts and their length, the corresponding document is quickly available and can be edited as needed …
Now it is already two years, in which I feed the “technology and retro blog” with contributions. Who would have thought that … By now some readers have strayed here and asked if I could introduce one or the other device here. Of course I will try to realize it if possible. Unfortunately, the rubric with the computers of the 80s is still empty. Here I still lack the “thread”, as I should process the whole – it floats me to every device before a small video in which the devices are to be shown in the living state. If someone has ideas for that … like.
I would like to say a big thank you to my colleague Mario Wehr, who provides me with the WordPress environment and thus offers excellent service!
In this sense: Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
This time, I’m not going to talk about a project or an “old equipment concept”, but would like to introduce some interesting users or their contributions from the YouTube portal. These are contributions from the field of computer, technology and science, which I personally like to look at.
First and foremost, I would like to mention the legend of modern computer history, which has fascinated me since my youth. The ComputerClub from WDR times with Wolfgang Rudolph and Wolfgang Back. The two moderators moderated the program Computerclub from the beginning of the 80’s to 2003 at Westdeutscher Rundfunk. In the topics, the two men are generally concerned with computers and peripherals, new developments in the field of electronics and present all sorts of things here. Many broadcast recordings are archived on YouTube, including by user janbras.
On 22 February 2003, the last broadcast was broadcast on WDR.
But the two protagonists have not given up the computer club and let him resurrect on July 24, 2007 on a German private broadcaster (NRW-TV).
However, the private broadcaster NRW-TV had to cease its operation in 2016 and so the program was Nr.186 recorded as the last in the studios of NRW.
But Wolfgang Rudolph has managed by fundraising to set up his own studio and now produces the CC2 from his private studio on his own.
In the background, a lot has changed, which confused the viewers and freaks a bit. Parallel to the broadcasts existed the page cczwei.de which was filled by both gentlemen. After 13.12.2016 suddenly a new page appeared. The new domain cc2.tv has been created. The now operates Rudolph alone. The domain cczwei.de continues to be operated by Mr. Back. He is assisted by Heinz Schmitz, who is now producing YouTube broadcasts with Mr. Back. Apparently, there were sufficient reasons for the gentlemen to part with years of community work. There never was an official explanation.
From the computer area, the guys from VirtualDimension report. They call their channel VD Hurrican and produce the formats: Virtual Worlds, Back in Time, Retroplay and On Site. The contributions are absolutely professional and mainly deal with home computers. With a lot of background information the old 8 and 16 Bit’er are presented here. Gameplay as well as fair reports and contributions from community events are also part of their repertoire. As an example here a link to the unboxing of an Amiga500 and its history. On the occasion of their 1000th subscriber on YouTube, they have published a 1000-subscriber special with a studio tour.
From the Australian continent, Dave Jones, also an inveterate technician, blogs. On his YouTube channel EEVblog, He also introduces electronic devices, explains their structure and operation. A special category in his channel are the so-called Mailbags. Here, Dave receives packages from people in the community who he opens in front of the camera and presents their content. This can be old computers and boards, or even new developments and prototypes of startups that are presented here.
A slightly different channel is that of an Englishman. He calls himself Photonicinduction and shows experiments with high performances. All sorts of appliances, such as vacuum cleaners, heating lamps, washing machines, loudspeakers, etc. are operated to the limit of their maximum performance data – and far beyond. The end of the device through destruction is the goal here.
It is a miniature quadrocopter, the size of the palm of your hand, which turns out to be a real powerhouse. It is controlled via a 2.4GHz handheld transmitter in six axes. The transmitter can be configured in Mode1 and Mode2 (throttle on the left lever). An LC display on the transmitter provides information about the current settings and a multi-color LED shows the switch-on status and also whether there is a radio connection to the drone.
The drone is built on a very light (crash-proof) chassis that also has “recursive predetermined breaking points”. This means that in the event of a crash, part of the affected engine boom unhooks instead of breaking off. You can then simply click it back in. There is also the option of installing the training frame supplied to protect the propellers.
The power supply in the transmitter is provided by four AAA batteries. The drone itself is powered by a LiPo battery that is charged using the USB adapter supplied. You only need a USB power adapter (mobile phone charging plug) or a PC / laptop as a voltage source.
When fully charged and with moderate flight, you can achieve a flight time of just under seven minutes. Before the end of the flight you will be warned by blinking LEDs, so that you can still land safely without any problems. Recharging the battery takes just under 30-45 minutes.
As a further special feature, the drone has a small camera on board. It offers a resolution of 480p. But there is also a version with a 720p camera. The camera data can be saved directly on a microSD card. The recording is started before the start of the flight by pressing a button on the drone and should be stopped again before switching off. The result is an “.avi” container file that can be played on any PC. The image section is not very wide-angled and is just acceptable for indoor use. You also need plenty of light to get reasonably sharp images. However, this works very well outdoors.
The controls can be learned quickly with a little practice and it is a lot of fun to use.
In the last two days we received a visit from two young gentlemen from the fourth year of the Villach High School Sankt Martin. Mr. Martin Ungermanns and Mr. Fabian Treu came to us as part of a “taster program” of the middle schools. The two students can participate in the “world of work” and get some insights into the technology.
deepened in the soldering work
The program included work such as assembling and soldering of electronic kits (the well-known shaker cube), a small series work (flashing of PIC microcontrollers), exposure and etching of circuit boards, milling of aluminum plates.
As conclusion of the two taster days both high school students were allowed to build up a complete “device”.
Martin Ungermanns and Fabian Treu
It was a “clap switch kit” that detects a loud sound event via an acoustic sensor and then turns on a relay contact. So that this circuit can also be used meaningfully, the circuit has been extended by a self-made power supply, all installed in a plastic housing and equipped with power cable and Schuko coupling. So any consumer (eg a floor lamp, TV) can be switched on and off with this switchgear by simply “clapping” …
… or in short words, too much current flows through a too thin wire, then it can get very hot. How that looks then, you can see very well in the picture. The insulation of the 1.5 mm² stranded wire has completely dissolved in smoke here in the area of the terminal …
So you should not use this plug-in connection;)
The Radiometer – also called lightmill – is an instructive, physical demonstration object that was invented about 100 years ago by the English physicist Crookes. This small physical-technical arrangement clearly shows how light is converted into mechanical energy.
