I’m just going to put this one out there: “zero crossing“. If you know a bit about AC, triacs, and opto-couplers, you’ll get it.
Otherwise 
it’s just that: a zero crossing.
115.Zero crossing
114.Stranded conductor
No cheap jokes about the Costa Concordia here, or how “drinks on Italian cruise ships are served… on the rocks”.
This is about a stranded conductor of sorts, thermally drifting off in the afternoon sun and thinking: “wire’d it have to be me?”
Ciao!!
Valentine’s Day has nothing on this father
Forget roses, chocolates, bling, marriage proposals on Valentine’s Day. This father’s love for his disabled kids – caring for them for 36 years – trumps all of that. A great and humbling story.
Check it out: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/6411853/Caring-for-these-kids-a-job-for-life
113.Soft Start
What better way for an IC to start the day in this busy AC world – than with a nice soft start? A lie-in, eggs, bacon, coffee, the morning edition of the ‘Zero Cross News‘ brought in by the maid, the sun shining gloriously bright electromagnetic radiation… mmm, coffee…
You know, it just doesn’t get any better than that.
112.Flasher Circuit
There’s nothing worse than when you stroll down to the park, y’know, got a pastrami and rye, thinking about whether to quit yer job, husband’s having a go at yer, kids are sick, bills piling up, how on earth are you going to meet that mortgage payment… yer sittin’ there minding yer own business and then some freak show has to go and … disgraceful. Don’t these ICs, like, have jobs to go to, really??
[This cartoon on OhmArt goodness...]
Finally! Hosters swapped.
Well, the new “all-singing, all-dancing” OhmArt.org site is up. What a pavlova it was getting that sorted out.
It’s right here in all of its goodness.
Swapping web hosters…
Apparently a successful transfer between web hosters needs the eight planets in our Solar System, the 14 in Aljrex-T55, and the three in Bener 932C to all line up perfectly, as well as a strong nor’westerly and two singing cats.
Should the above not happen as seamlessly as one might think and all would hope, please bear us for a day or so while we sort things out. Singing cats are quite hard to find.
Big waves, OhmArt.
111.Fast recovery diode
At the blink of an eye (or substantially less, in actual fact), a fast recovery diode will be up and at ‘em before you say “FRED – what an apt name for a flippin’ racy epitaxial daredevil”.
What is it with ships and captains?
You want to let off some testosterone, wave to your mates, play chicken with reefs? Do it on your own (half a billion dollar) ship, when no one else is on board. Muppet.
Rule 1: Women and children off first
Rule 0: Captain and rats off before women and children.
Let’s not also forget the Muck-a-Rena that’s still washing up on our shores. Hope jail’s not being too kind to you, boys.
2012 OhmArt calendar
Just finished making the OhmArt 2012 calendar – a “best of”, perhaps. February was created by my son Finn – he thought up the cartoon and got me to draw and colour it. Not sure where the humour is, but it’s pretty cool for a seven year old nonetheless!
Other months include “Ham Radio”, “I see a sine”, “The PICAXE inventor” and “Currency”.
Link to it is here…
(Happy NewYear)
110.Wideband Amplifier
If you consume too much too frequently, over time your waist is where it hertz. So sayeth the Wideband Amplifier. And it was so, verily.
109.Current Affairs
Well, goodbye 2011 with all of your crazy spills, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and Euro bailouts. What a year; full of news – and depending on what you’re drinking, the glass was half full or half empty.
In other news, let’s kick off 2012 with a cartoon – “Current Affairs”.
One of those crazy NY resolutions of mine? To produce a book of OhmArt cartoons by the end of the year. There, you heard it here first, on Channel OhmArt.
108.Buffer
If you’re looking for the ideal op-amp or just something a little buffer, head down to the beach. Nothing to lose, unity to gain.
107.SOA
Son of a… no, this SOA stands for Safe Operating Area. We don’t want too many volts, too many amps, too high a frequency, too much heat. Too much this, too little that, the wrong amount of the parameter in between.
Stay in the SOA at all times, please. It’s a life-saver.
Forget…
Forget the Hadron Collider. Forget Charlie Sheen. Forget everything, for the impossible, the unthinkable, the unbelievable has happened.
The New Zealand Cricket Team has won a test against Australia in the Lucky Country. We call that “Winning”.
That’s rarer than Charlie Sheen pimping a Hadron Collider so it can produce hen’s teeth.
106.Trans-plant
When young folks start out on electronics, or even those on budgets, we love to scavenge and strip old components from unwanted circuit boards. Usually the resistors are more trouble than they’re worth and some of those electrolytic caps can be a bit suspect, but sometimes the occasional transistor is suitable for a trans-plant.
Sound like you’re on familiar soil?
Cricketing thought of the day
If you were Michael Clarke, would you rather be seeing Bingle, or being single?
- Cricinfo.com
Thought of the day…
More than 28g of truth to this:
“Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?”
Robert Orben
A slight tweak
You’ll notice that the cartoon galleries have been split into three sub-pages, with 40 cartoons on each. One hundred plus cartoons for the one slideshow were a bit too many.
The revised galleries are quite easy to click around, and over the coming few weeks I’ll “pretty” up the pages a little. Cheers!
105.Dimmer Circuit
Sometimes you come across circuits that are so simple, they… they… er… it’s like, you know, the light’s on but there’s nobody home, you know what I’m saying? Or maybe there’s someone home, but the lights aren’t on full-beam, huh? Kind of, like, a bit dipped… duh… not very bright, like.
Election and dejection
Well, it’s election time in New Zealand again, and we get a reminder of why voters despair. First of all, the only time you hear from politicians is when they want to renew their job. Somewhat along the lines of the famous saying about bankers: folk who’ll lend you their umbrella but want it back when it starts to rain. Politicans promise anything, kiss babies, hug grandmothers, and spout rhetoric until they’re plain out of spittle. Then their spin doctors will take over in their mission to create holier-than-thou leaders while scouring the streets for dirt on the opposition. Policies? Not really necessary if you can spin it right, or just go hard on condemning the incumbent government.
To be fair, it’s hard to please most people some of the time and nigh on impossible to please everyone, even part of the time – despite our population topping a modest 4.5 million. And, we’re still in a tough recession and have had devasting mining disasters and earthquakes over the past three years, so the incumbent government – while they haven’t performed outstandingly – have made a reasonable fist of it, at least according to the recent polls (around 54% would vote them back in).
All of the major parties’ ideals boil down quite simply though, and it makes for depressing reading:
National – want to flog off the National assets, strip the fat out of Govt departments – then into the flesh
Labour – tax from middle incomes up – then spend – then hope, tall poppy syndromists
Greens – no policies except pollution is evil, “can’t we just all get along?”
ACT – extreme right wing joke
Mana – extreme left wing racist joke, who enjoys labelling 90% of the population “white motherf*ckers”
NZ First – reasonable ideas, run by a liar who’s been caught out over and over again – great at fooling the elderly
Maori – a party mostly campaigning in seats set aside exclusively for Maori. If that’s not racist, what is?
United Future – an old guy (just one) in a party that does whatever he’s told.
The worst part is under MMP there’s a strong chance one or more will get in, and be making policy concessions that many of their voters didn’t want. The result – half-baked, watered-down legislation and direction. MPP is definitely more representative, but the flaws are too substantial.
New Zealand needs a better style of government and voter representation. It needs one that is fair. Where everyone is on the same level playing field.
It is my goal in the next 10 years to document how that might be achieved.
I’m going to do this because our country can’t keep going on this way. Without a decent change New Zealand will implode within the next 20 – 30 years. And I don’t want to have been one of the ones who sat back and did nothing.
104.Transcribe
This one is dedicated to the humble BC547 and his twin sister BC557, just quietly beavering round handling their small signals, dreaming of the day when they might be asked to carry over an amp of current, or take their place against the mighty MOSFETs as serious semi-conductors.
This lil’ guy is putting down his thoughts:
“Dear Mum, by the time you read this I will have left. I know you think that the world is a big scary place for small signal transistors like us, but as it turns out, I got a job…”
(Footnote – Zazzle is playing up at the time of posting, so if you are after a T-shirt etc of 104, check here).
103. VF on CafePress
True to my word, only about… ooh… five days later… “Voltage Follower” appears on CafePress.
Get your VF-CP fix here.
