My Cassette Radio To Iphone Conversion

Here is an old Radio Shack cassette tape recorder that has been lying around my house. 

 The back information says it uses a six "C" cell batteries.

 

 

 Exposing the circuit.

 

 I removed the unwanted cassette mchanism.

 

 I then soldered the speaker cable to a low impedance circuit. 

 Using the touch method, locate the input circuit. This should be somewhere near the cassette head connector. When touched, it should not create a loud humming sound than the rest of the circuit. You can series a capacitor to be safe.

 Short together the main power and the motor power.

 

 Add an on/off power switch.

Just like the simple toggle switch above which I super glued from the inside.

 

And presto! There goes my Iphone radio.

 

Pedal Exerciser Generator

After building the mini pedal exerciser, I decided to go further. I added a motor to act as a generator to charge my batteries. Stepper motors can be found almost anywhere, specially in printers. Cut a 10 inch diameter wood, added a rubber shaft to the servo motor, reconfigured the wirings, and attached to the exerciser.

 





 Putting the generator into operation. Recharging the 12 volts nickel cadmium batteries. The more you pedal the more you sweat, and the more output you give off to your batteries.

 

 Different looks of stepper motors.

 

Diagram of the 6 pole motor with added 4 each 1N4004 diodes and 1000uf capacitor

Solar LED Garden Light Exposed

This is by far the simplest and the cheapest solar garden light I encountered courtesy of 99Cents Store nearby. Components are cheaply made. The amorphous solar cell measures only 1 3/16in X 1 3/16in. Even the 1.2 volt metal hydride battery is tiny button cell type 40mA.
 

 

 



I was able to cracked and redraw the schematic diagram. The circuit is simple enough which composed of the main ic chip, inductor, battery, solar cell, LED and on off switch. It seemed like it uses one of those ASIC chip, not familiar with the number etched on it. This chip is acting like a pulser multiplier. I measured that the LED is giving off approximately 3mA at frequency of 460 khz. Adding another battery equal ~2.6 volts, the LED went on its brightest and current jumped to 36mA.

 

 

Below is another cheap solar LED light selling in a decorative Halloween look. New item from 99 Cents Store. The ic chip type is different and the white LED consumes 1.3 mA. A little larger solar cell at 1 7/16in X 17/16in.

 

 

 

 

A Simple LED Light

         We are now seeing the benefit of LED bulbs which are commonly seen at home contributing to our quests in saving energy. If I could recall,  back in my boyhood village, I did have experienced back the lamp cycle starting from kerosene lamp, to so called coleman, then to incandescent bulb, to flourescent lamps and now LED's.

 Recently I started tinkering on this products.The circuit above was traced from one of the commercial night light sold under brand GE Etched Art Night Light which came out of the market in 2011. You can also add an on off switch.

Bicycle Exerciser Generator

 I was able to salvaged the dynamo from an exerciser bicycle and installed it on a 20 inch bicycle. With this configuration, I was able to pedalled with less effort outputting 2.5 amps, 14 volts to my 10 ampere sla battery.

 Another modification, less gear ratio but outputting less ampe rating.

 

Let's Beat The Heat

A neighbor was on his way of trashing his old ice cooler. Although it is quite small for the idea, I managed to cramped the fan and battery in the cooler. After stocking a couple of frozen water bottles in the cooler, it was an added relief on one hot summer.
And it really works!

 It is much easier to bore a hole using the Dremel tool.

 First test on the cooler with the fancy fan.

 Here comes the modified one with a more efficient fan. The fan specification: dc brushless, 12V, 0.30 Amp, model D12SH-12.

 A look on the battery arrangement.

 The oposite side of the fan, outgoing flow.

Now add that frozen bottles and you will be blowing that cool air.

Angle Grinder Stand

Here are some snap shots of my homemade angle grinder stand. This tool aid gives a lot of benefits on different applications in optimizing the use of angle grinder.

 Plate from scrap metal.

 Taken from the rear.

 Now we see how the angle grinder is inserted to the pipe.

 Putting to a test the homebuilt stand.

 Here is one model on the market.

...and here is another made.

Cut-Off Grinder Exposed

Lately, I've been having a problem with my grinder. It seems that that normal whining sound has been replaced by a low growling with a combination of of a crakling sound sound. I decided to open it and exposed the mechanism.

An old cut-off grinder salvage from flea market retrofitted with a different ac plug.

Other than the regular specs shown of 115v, 1.5 amps.

Inside mechanism exposed. Brushes are still in good shape.

This culprit with the dirty bearing as shown. Commutators seemed smooth and clean.

Most grinders have this so called straight shot wiring, single phase commutator motor. This small capacity series motor can also be operated on dc (direct current) or single phase alternating supply of same voltage with the same characteristics, called universal motors.