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chrisr's nixie and electronic barrying thread


chris r

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On 19/08/2021 at 15:26, chris r said:

Wanged my amp into a wooden box and hooked up a alix battery controller to a laptop battery pack- Its been cranking away all day, Will have to see how long it lasts

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So battery life is about 4 days. I've been using it all day when I've been home and it hit the low battery cutout today. 

Tried charging it and realised I had wired the plug wrong 

Had to twist tape and barry everything together as I have next to no tools at home and everything is in the lockup 

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Charges now 

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  • 1 year later...

The makita/dewalt radios sound shit and I don't want to pay heaps for the Hitachi one to match the rest of my stuff. So I'm making one when I have energy (caught covid and isolating). 

Ordered some speakers and "100w" bluetooth amp from surplustronics. They turned up pretty quickly but it wasn't quite 100w when running on 18v and feeding the 8 ohm speakers. I should have read the data sheet first but it was $20 so I'm happy it works and doesn't sound too bad. 

You can use winisd if your on pc to work out enclosure size but because covid I had my phone only so used the app and to play with sizes etc https://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Calculator/SpeakerBoxVolume/

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I initially thought I'd gone a bit overkill on the teeters 

Tested the amp on a freshly charged battery and it's a bit on the quiet side I later found out the volume buttons on the board are not the same as when you change the volume on your phone, but it's still too quiet 

So time for this little amp to move onto its 3rd project. I started that amp like 16 years ago. I've got a voltage booster on the way and higher voltage components so I'll replace/redo the circuit board (strip board for msx barry spec) 

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Amp will now be running on 50v dc and according to the datasheet be about 20-30w per channel which should be plenty to drown out the other radios. I'm not usually a cunt like that but am being petty in this case. 

Worked out the box dimms and doubled the length for both speakers 

Cut the wood and needed a couple of days rest  roughly assembled it to see how square it isn't 

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Measured and marked the speaker cutouts

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Dear santa can I plz have a jigsaw 

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Gave the holes a quick rasp and everything fits flush

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I Wanged a bunch of no more nails on all the joins as that's what I had in stock, that and screws held my sub box together so should do the job on this as well. 

I've run out of mdf (only have enough to seal in the woofers) so will use some other timber for the rest/case. Plan is to have the amplifiers and voltage booster (hopefully it doesn't create a shit load of noise) up top under/around the tweeters. 

I've got a power supply on the way from aliexpress so ill make provision to mount that so it can also be plugged in. If I feel super fancy I'll work out a battery charge function. 

I'll also have to think about where to mount the heat sink for the amps and if I make a lid/compartment to store the 18v drill battery 

 

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Vero board amp didn't go according to plan. Didn't let the magic smoke out but its not 100% either. I'll have another look at it when I've got more mental capacity. 

Doug was inspecting my progress 

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I only had thinish mdf in stock and free hand cut it with a skilly so things aren't perfectly square and there were a few internal gaps. It's screwed and glued but not overkill it with some sound deadening 

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I probably should have made box bigger but I'll somehow make everything fit

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One idea is I'll make a hinged lid and have battery socket/slider thing there so it's easy to access but I'll need to work out how to not have it rattle and be annoying 

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Top side bits on and everything just fits. I'll mount the battery slider to the lid so it's easy to use 

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Found the hinges I knew I had hoarded when I was cleaning out the car 

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Wanged one grill cover on. I'll find and fit the other one tomorrow 

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I've found a quick release bumper faster thing I had hoarded which will work perfectly for the catch for the lid. 

I'll drill/mount that along with the handle tomorrow. Will also grind the screws down so they are less stabby.

I had to going all day on the drill battery and no sign of it going flat yet which is good. I'm happy just to get a day out of it tbh 

 

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Lid handles sorted. I found a quick release bumper thingy in the shed which turned out to be just what I needed. Bit of careful holesaw and chisel action and it was in

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Hopefully that little bracket is strong enough 

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It's as finished as it'll get for now. Need to varnish it and wait for the battery holder to arrive from aliexpress. I've got varnish at the lockup so will try and remember to grab it next time 

 

 

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I've had the speaker box thingy on site for the last two days and it's been going for a 9 hr shift and not drained the battery. Wasn't mega loud but the sound traveled surprisingly far.

I orderd another Bluetooth board off alix which has a different amp chip. 

It's the same Bluetooth receiver module/Id but doesn't have as loud of a Chinese voice saying Bluetooth has been activated. 

And more importantly its louder than the old one so I can win the site noise pissing contest. (I'm not that petty/a dick normally) 

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Will mount it in and test it out next week. 

It also has a volume control and aux in if I want to use it. 

Had it cranked up high and hit some safety/cut offs so it'll be set to a safe level and left that way 

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So in procrastinating cleaning the car/carport i found the other nixie clock I started/ put aside as I cbf with the wiring. 

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Had some multicore scrap with numbered cores which made the process significantly easier 

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Progressing

All the cathodes soldered in 

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Couple of anodes soldered in for testing and labled so I know/remember what's what next time I touch it 

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And test is a partial success. 

 

I'll solder the rest in and double check no shorts as it should be 10s and 1s of seconds so more investigation needed 

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Spend some time this morning. Turns out the rtc (timer/clock) module was faulty. Soldered another on and it's all good now. 

I had the anndoes the wrong way around so it was seconds minutes hours instead of the correct orientation. 

Quickly loomed and cable tied the wiring 

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I need to finish up the heat shrinking and mounting stuff and then it should be pretty much finished 

 

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Finished off the heat shrinking and soldered the rtc module on with the nice 90 deg pins. Ran out of caring getting the shrink identical lengths 

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Trimmed some bolts so the top plate fits. Screwed the back plate on so it's as done as it can be 

I'll order another tube when I have some spare project money and it'll actually display the time 

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