Recent content by Harlequin

Mine also has the port

I tested mine before putting it back, it was a CR2032 and measured 3.22V. That's of limited use though because I wasn't checking it under load, but it weakly suggests the cell is good and has a fair bit of life left. (A quick look online suggests 3.1V to 3.34V as the unloaded voltage people see...

Heh it's been 15 years since I last logged on here... THANK YOU cold_steel for so concisely describing both the problem and solution in one post such that a Google search just saved my ass. (I had replaced the PSU with no luck, reseated components and tried all the other low hanging fruit, so...

A trick that I expect would avoid this is to just use bigger diodes. If the current for the application fluctuates between virtually nothing all the way up to say, 300mA, and you're using diodes rated for 0.5A, then you'd expect the voltage drop to change significantly. But if you spend an extra...

For the record, 3v EL inverters are not difficult to come by, and if the inverter is designed for 3V, the EL will be just as bright. I have a few 3V ones, some I even picked up at a store a few years back for $7 that run on watch batteries. (They were little EL raver bracelets for $7 with a cool...

daragon: Maybe build a solar panel strip into the kb that charges an extra battery during the day, and turns on the backlight if it's dark and the kb is in use? That's how I'd do a wireless kb mod - it either wouldn't look as good, or would look as good but not last as long, as what you could...

An HC4017 is pretty simple to use if you have a regulated 5V power supply - which you do since it's a computer. It's just a box with a + and - pin for power (5V), ten output pins that it cycles between, (they are all negative, except the currently active one which is positive), a clock input pin...

Go to a PC recycling store (or a thrift store) and buy an old or busted printer for a couple of bucks. Inkjets and dot matrix printers have a precision belt system for moving the print head back and fourth all set up and ready to be extracted. Replace the stepper motor with a DC motor, and...

Why doesn't someone make an LED keyboard with visual feedback (via an extra USB plug), such that (once the necessary drivers are loaded) when you use a drop-down menu option that has a hot key (such as Cut, or Paste - CTRL-C / CTRL-V), the corresponding keys on the keyboard light up as if you'd...

An easier way to cycle through 100 LEDs (easier in the sense of far fewer components) would be to use ten banks of HC4017 chips, each wired to 10 LEDs, with an 11th HC4017 chip to enable the banks in sequence, creating a 100 LED sequence. That way, you should only need two resisters, one...

Sure I have, and if you think you've found Sony batteries that somehow offer 300% better performance than equivalent spec non-big-name batteries, more power to you. But I have never found such batteries, and so have stopped wasting my money on Sony accessories. I guess I should have been...

Like I said, you seem to have missed the difference between lowpass and highpass - the caps in inverters are in series with the cables, NOT across them. All of my inverters have these caps, I'm well aware of them. Also, your note that confer.pdf does not warn against capacitence is flat out...

Theshado27: I just did some homework, since my original assessment was my own, but it looks like if I'm wrong, I stand in excellant company alongside the engineers that build CCFL units, (among others). http://www.ergpower.com/pdf30/confer.pdf...

I don't think brand makes much (if any difference) to chemistry. They all operate on the same reaction. There are some differences in vent design, etc, but I think the only big concern between brands is that their method of obtaining the mAh rating may differ, and so a direct comparison is not...

Since the USB voltage is already regulated, you could just run it though a couple of diodes to get the necessary voltage drop instead of using another regulator. Check your specs on the PSP - you want to know that the 3.6V figure is the voltage of the input jack (in case the 3.6v refers to...