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chrisr's non automotive Nixie, electrical and random stuff barrying thread


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Posted

Double post. 

I'm tempted to sell my other factory made speakers and make more now... 

I don't need more projects 

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Posted

Six ish years ago I bought a Analogue scope clock kit to do a crt clock. Have been too cheap to buy a crt so it's sat in my electronics barrying drawer for a while.

Figued I'd make a start on assembling the kit. 

I'd managed to loose the instrucions so had to use the newer instrucions with different component identification on the silkscreen and try to match them up that way. 

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Got that much figured out and emailed the seller on the off chance they still cheeked that email address the gc did and has replied with the correct instructions which is epic. 

Will continue assembling the board when I'm in the mood 

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Posted

A community program I volunteer at had a oscilloscope turn up. They plugged it in and nothing happened.

I had a quick poke around with the multimeter look at it and it looks like it's got a sad 24v regulator chip on the power supply side, no other signs or smells of sadness so I may replace it and see if it comes back to life. In saying that I'm leaning towards salvaging the tube out of it for the clock. 

Again the mega gc from https://oscilloscopeclocknixiecrt.com/AnalogScopeKit.htm (what a sick website BTW) has been helpful with a datasheet and will get back to me with pinouts for this tube with his board 

I can't find much information at all on this scope other than its made in India so finding a service manual or any information on it has hit a dead end 

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I'm figuring out what I want to do for a case for this one, don't want to reuse the scope body. Might do something similar to the Nixie clock with the copper and steel as I've still got some stuff leftover 

Posted
1 hour ago, h4nd said:

or, just make it go, and ...

You wouldn't have a L7824cv reg in your pile of bits? I could gamble on a aliexpress one but also cbf digging more to see if there are any other faults. I de soldered it and did a quick resistance check on output side and no shorts or super low resistance to earth but what caused the reg to die? 

I do have a known good working crt scope so another project to add to the list Screenshot_20260620_204436_Photos2.jpg.86f2e7eca0c70f8760e1b7145bc1e417.jpg

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Posted
On 20/06/2026 at 20:56, chris r said:

L7824cv reg

I thought I would, but no, sorry.

Wild arsed guess, Electros around it have gone dry, and it's oscillating then doing thermal shutdown?

SiCom here only have the 7824 1A version

Posted
4 hours ago, h4nd said:

I thought I would, but no, sorry.

Wild arsed guess, Electros around it have gone dry, and it's oscillating then doing thermal shutdown?

SiCom here only have the 7824 1A version

Caps looked okay haven't tested them. 

Could de solder it again and test it outside the circuit. 

Had 0v on input and output but when (7824) de soldered had a nice 30 something volt dc. 

No shorts to ground /0v rail on the output side (after I de soldered) 

So could be reg being dumb, rectifier circuit being dumb, or transformer winding somehow shit the bed 

I could just feed that part of the circuit with 24v and see if it comes alive... 

 

But i have to finish my power supply project 

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Posted

Of course, you could put a 12V Zener || 100nF  inline with the ref (Gnd) of a 7812, just check if the heatsink is insulated...

Posted

Ooh good idea, but heatsink unfortunately is grounded. 

I like the idea of fixing the scope but I've already got one that works and would rather spend that Barry time progressing the project 

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Posted

The repair guys at work had a spare 7824 in their stash so I grabbed it. 

Solderd some test leads on. 

Had ac going into the rectifier but no dc coming out of the circuit, de soldered the rectifier and it tested fine. 

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Tested the capacitor and that was also fine. 

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Decided I've spent enough time on it 

Started pulling knobs,shafts and buttons out. It's cold and I cbf getting a socket set so that's enough for tonight 

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Posted

So as someone who has too much shit and needs or organise it, do I A: actually sort it out or B: get a 350kg industrial vending machine? 

 

 

 

No points for guessing the answer there 

Posted

May I present the latest in procrastination. The autocrib, 2 meters tall weighing in at 350kg. It is(was) a automated vending machine (automated and vending does not apply at this point in time) 

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Slightly sketchy unload with lots of puckering 

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Me to myself. "it'll fit in the carport" 

Yeah just 

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Posted

I'm a qualified personnel Messenger_creation_77A3BBDD-3008-438B-974B-49B721A6A1AE.thumb.jpeg.d0d9b547358830738b7235ee0ed606d3.jpeg

Took the side off 

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Look at all the storage possibilities 

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I'd wondered how it knew the positions of the bins/stacks. Got a wheel on the bottom with various holes for the positioning Messenger_creation_E48ED337-8C6D-4704-9233-66F123306AB2.jpeg.e0979908e098164cca4971d4f3b5576c.jpeg

The seller advised me that the hard drive had died. I extracted the pc out of it and the hard drive was indeed dead and buried 

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A friend has a old hard drive I can have so I'll collect that at some point, reinstall windows and see if I can track down the software for it 

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Posted

Awesome, it will run a POS (in every sense of the acronym) XP build

You might be able to recovery some of the data on the drive even if its mostly dead?

 

It would be cool to set those trays up with all the sizes of nuts and bolts, and just dial in the ones you need and BING they pop out hot and fresh

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Posted
5 minutes ago, tortron said:

Awesome, it will run a POS (in every sense of the acronym) XP build

You might be able to recovery some of the data on the drive even if its mostly dead?

 

It would be cool to set those trays up with all the sizes of nuts and bolts, and just dial in the ones you need and BING they pop out hot and fresh

Hard drive is totally missing unfortunately my hope was some attempt at data recovery. It has a windows 7 sticker on the side of the pc so might a replacement pc from the og xp machine who knows 

Will plug my laptop in and see if it recognises any of the usb devices and go from there 

8 minutes ago, Thousand Dollar Supercar said:

Once you get it working, you can fit it into your daily life as a high-security pantry with inventory management and automated online reordering, while you work your way up to building a Rube Goldberg breakfast machine.

Why limit it to just the pantry! 

One stop automated password controlled vending machine. 

Shitty nuts and bolts, beers, rums and snacks at the push of a button 

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Posted

It looks like the software was a fancy Excel sheet that could run a macro and pop a solenoid. You can probably get Claude to vibecode something similar if you can figure out the signals

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Posted

It's the interfacing with the rs232 port on the vending machine side that'll be the fun part 

Plugged it in again and smoke came out of the fan hole

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Yup that'll do it 

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Wacked a spare slightly smaller 24v power supply in

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It was flashing on and off like it was hitting overload. Hopefully when the smoke came out of the old power supply it didn't take anything else out with it. 

Had a go at the thin client that came out of it. Yup it's dead. Full fan noise and nothing happening 

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Only thing I have with a vga port is the old xp laptop 

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Touch screen works 

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It is now being used to hold its own parts 

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Posted

Current state of affairsMessenger_creation_9A878229-3A76-4C20-80F6-2DCC011ABA81.thumb.jpeg.f8d0eac7c2ccca83174caf19497e5456.jpeg

It's about to get 24v from a couple of car batteries with a headlight bulb in series to hopefully stop the smoke coming out and I'll see if I can get any sort of communication out of the usb - rs232 converter and will see if the manual controls work 

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Posted

I decided to use two car batteries to power the robocrib 24v stuff today Messenger_creation_D42467C4-7E08-4028-B5BD-8DDF47ACF267.thumb.jpeg.dd3be12ac5560423bb15d3ed53b24a54.jpeg

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Initially had a headlight bulb in series but it popped. Thought I'd try a 10a fuse but it's pretty angry. Maybe when the smoke came out of the power supply it cooked something else 

Marked up the connectors and removed the board 

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No obvious skid marks or stinky components 

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Might be able to learn then do some nerd shit with that micro controller, or even watch the rs 232 comms stuff when I manually activate it

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