20th November 2009.

A few days ago a newspaper ran an article on a young lady that had 'invented' a blue light  device to replace sleeping pills,  in getting people to get to sleep. In the 1800's it was purple light that was going to be the universal panacea for all ill's.  If you will excuse the pun it was the electromagnetic induction coil that 'sparked' it all off and every charlatan immediately latched on it as a money maker. It was found that if one partially evacuated a glass tube with a metal electrode inside it and connected it to an induction coil and the glass envelope brought close to the skin then it ionised the gas in the glass envelope and emitted a blue glow ( shades of the  Kirlian Camera !).  The blue glow was supposed to be efficacious for every complaint on the planet and tubes were made to fit any part of the body !. Some  of these still exist as antiques and may contain a cased set of up to 30 different shaped glass applicator tubes.  Two hundred years later purple light has slipped to blue light, but it still going to solve every problem on the planet, including getting a good nights sleep, without my dear freind alcohol !.  There are at least twenty companies out there manufacturing these wonderful devices, right now, which leads me to wonder if medical science is so wonderful ... why am I still getting old ?. 

Getting to sleep may seem as easy as falling off a log, but when you are laying there looking at the ceiling, even the most boring ceiling can distract one from sleep.  What we need is something really boring, which at the same time gets our wretched aged bodies into the best condition for sleep. In my case I would need a complete body transplant. They do suggest that the correct breathing rhythm helps induce sleep and some of the latest Violet / blue light devices pulsate in time with the perceived correct rate to induce sleep. Most old people don't know or care what that rate is because any breathing, or a gasping wheezing is better than a noisy death rattle, which is guaranteed to ruin ones day.  

Despite all of that, the idea of trying to follow pulsating blue lights on the ceiling has to be a slight improvement over also having to go to the trouble of imagining, that anyone could find sheep stupid enough to want to jump over fences all night. Sheep have better things to do !.

However if anyone wants a solution to a lack of popularity, smelly feet, bad breath, obnoxious neighbors, women who say no, itching hemorrhoids, or a bad hair day ... send me a lot of money in a plain brown envelope and it will at least make one of us happy !. 

4th November 2009

At the beginning of the year I had the chance to test the course on a 12 year old. His progress was so fast that within 24 hours he had outstripped the 50 code lines limitation of the compiler, I had based the course on. The full version of the compiler costs £100 so I decided to rewrite the whole course and based it on a free compiler, that was almost as good as Proton and in a lot of ways better. This meant that I also had to re-design all of the hardware used on the course and I have just finished that task. In addition to two new training boards, one for junior schools and one for secondary schools, I have also produced an ultra cheap USB to TTL download cable and also an ultra cheap serial LCD. The idea being to get the hardware and software package available to schools and children for under £10 !. 

About the middle of the year I talked to the head of science at one school and the administrator and business manager of another, about the children's project. Both said that the school would want to adopt the project. Of course neither individual had the authority to make that decision, so there was no surprise, when I heard nothing more about it. The Africans have a special name for people who act as if they have authority, when they have none ... so I recognised the 'happening' for what it was.  More recently I had just about wrapped up the Mark II version and was ready to get it tested, so I emailed five Andover headmasters, explaining what the project was about and offered a demonstration and the free loan of equipment for a trial. Not one headmaster had the good manners to reply to my offer ..... not even a drop dead email. I find that interesting ... but 'normal'. I wonder if the 'business manager' and administrator involved,  realises that it has cost the  school the free manufacturing and distribution rights for the whole of UK. 

The question of manufacturing PCB's raised some interesting questions because no-one could adopt the course until the hardware was made available for them to purchase. I did find one company who was prepared to get my designs manufactured and included in their educational product line .... for all of the profits Hi!. I was very tempted because it would have made the hardware available, but at what price  to the end user?. So I decided to have a look at producing the PCB's locally ... while everyone else looks to China for them.  Everyone thinks I am crazy. I think that if we want to regain our status as a manufacturing nation again, we have no choice but to learn to be competitive, however painful that will be. Will it ever happen ? ...... I think not, since apathy rules at every level. 

30th October 2008

Completed third set of hardware and software for the kids course.

21 October 2008

Apparently NTL have been installing new software .... and that means for the last month, I lost all contact with my webspace ... AGAIN !. 

Originally, for the kids project, I thought I only needed on set of hardware but then decided a better way would be to have one set of hardware per student. That would allow the student to do homework in between my visits.  So I am making up two more  sets of hardware at the moment. I need to take a look at funding pretty soon Hi!.

My Police 'criminal record check certificate' (CRC) arrived,,  so I am almost ready to start a trial run with a real family.  

A miniature PIR detector module has arrived. It is about an inch square, so I need to create another project for detection of humans and animals.

24th September 2008

Busy, busy, busy !.  For some time I have been assembling prototype PCB's on my desk, in the house, mainly because I could not get into my over-flowing workshop !.  So when I started the solar energy page I decided I need to tackle the problem and ordered a 3 metre square steel shed as an 'over flow' area and also to assemble the solar panels in.  After a million barrow loads of concrete .... the shed was finally completed today.  

I have been contacted by a family that wants to sign up for the kids PIC project !.  I started to panic because I plan on stopping the course after lesson 7 and based on what the child has leaned so far ... we attempt to save UK 2 billion pounds, off it's fuel bill !.  Originally I had planned to make the apparatus from cardboard and tape, but got a little carried away and ordered the materials to knock up a proper prototype. So once I get everything into the shed, that will be the next job.

I have finished off the last PCB for the data logger (SD card breakout PCB) and need to test it so that I can start writing the software when I recover !.

11th June 2008

No web site would be complete without a "Save the world" project. Added "Owned"  page. PIC DVD updated.

6th March 2008

During this period I lost FTP contact with all of my websites and decided it would be a wonderful opportunity to do something else .... like save youth from itself ... and then to go on to save the world. If that sounds a little ambitious, I would remind you that I do have a sense of humour  ... even if you don't !.   My 'save the world project'  is covered under the PIC- DVD title, where you can find some photo's of the project hardware.  It is getting very close to testing time for the project ... so stay tuned and you can find out if you have a future or not !

16th October 2007

Added page on Capacity testing of AA and AAA cells. Added notes page for PMR 446. Added extra page for PIC's.

14th September 2007

Added lost child alarm homer and locator details to the 'Losing it' page.

13th September 2007

Added quasi sine wave generation to electronics page.  Added Ultrasonic page for youth control.  Added Kirlian Effect page and a page on parabolic reflectors. 

Moved the goal posts on the pain suppression project and have introduced an improved high voltage generator.  Have also decided to change existing output stage to generate sine waves instead of square waves. 

Have designed and produced proto-type for TSE waveforms. 

9th July 2007

Added  a page for metal detector search coil construction.

8th July 2007

Several new pages have been added on various topics. I have added some pages on metal detectors and am producing a design for a phase angle detector.  Zakynthos got me thinking about modular floating accommodation and I have added a page on that. I have added two new pages, one on life casting and  an other on vacuum forming as related to life casting.  I recently noticed that there are quite a few videos on You tube concerning hydrogen generators, so I have added a page on my experiences with Meyer hydrogen fuel cell. I have added a page on flock spraying, but really need to find a decent drawing program with which to illustrate items and produce working plans. Some things are easier to do than to talk about. 

6th June 2007

Just returned from two weeks on Zakynthos Island.  I have become interested in life casting and associated problems.

14th April 2007

For some reason or other I lost interest in the pain suppression project. No, let me be honest about it, I think I considered the problems I was looking at,  beyond my ability to solve. Reality was that I wanted to put a 100 volt electrode into someone's mouth which is not a good environment for placing electrodes. I came up with a solution for that in the form of a revised dental canal procedure, but was still left with a positive way of stabilising the high frequency, high voltage  AC  waveforms under  widely varying load conditions. So I put the idea back on the shelf while I thought about it. Recently I decided to have another go at the problem and have now solved the stabilisation problem. So the project now continues. New PCB's have been made up and various bits redesigned ... and the old software works nicely on the new hardware. 

The milling machine has not progressed since my last posting because I came to the conclusion that milling PCB's was too slow and crude compared with possible alternatives such as the direct printing of PCB layouts onto copper clad board. However to follow that idea would take me away from the pain suppression project so I relearned how to make PCB's using the photographic method. I now have this cracked, and the end results impress even me Hi!.  That permitted me to make the pain suppression PCB's.  The milling machine now requires modification for drilling PCB's from NC files Hi!.  

I cleaned the workshop out yesterday, found all manner of forgotten things and it is now like living in another dimension !. 

27th September 2006

I have been /playing with the idea of a CNC engraver cum milling machine for making PCB's for quite some time now. The end result is the Mark IV machine I am building at the moment. There are also hidden pages for kids on this web site ... if you can find them on the Menu page !.

27th September 2004  

I will be updating this site during the next few days.

12th October 2003

Zapper progresses and I have almost finished the clinical trials version of the equipment.  I then have quite a bit of lab work to do testing it out on myself, before handing it over to 'who-ever'.  Once I have formally established the application parameters for my own body, these will be used as a yard stick for the development of the pocket sized, user version, which will be much simpler. In fact most of the effort will be in making it as simple and cheap as possible to produce. My big problem is that I no longer have any TN pain and will have to base the experiments on the perceived depth of electro- anesthesia. I am currently considering a method to actually measure this. I am also going to add a page concerning my thoughts about a TN pain simulator intended to educate the medical fraternity!.

Summer holiday's over and back to the grindstone, specifically finalising the high voltage output stages for the Zapper.

20th August 2003

After a long, hard and somewhat painful struggle with my one remaining brain cell, The backbone of the Zapper software is now working.  I would not have achieved this without the very generous help of Johnathan Walker, who expertly  walked me through the data logger part and patiently stayed with me until I finally got it right. Thanks a lot Johnathan.

More photographs have been added to the site, mainly illustrating home brewed PIC development boards, ICSP adaptor cables etc..

I have also added a page for my completed cannon project.

25th July 2003

Photographs added to the CNC pages of work done so far on the  milling/engraving machine. Also photographs added to PIC page for mini 16F628 development board.

4th July 2003

Some pages are now being updated on a daily basis.

1st July 2003

Addition of links.

28th June 2003

All of the tubes now cut for X and Y Frames.  Trawled the local scrap yards this morning for bearings, complete failure !. Lots of bearings and Plummer blocks for sale on Ebay!.

25th June 2003

Started cutting metal for the CNC engraving machine.

24th June 2003