Engineer In Wonderland

Field oriented control is a mystery here – Park and Clarke transforms, plus other complicated stuff. Working though an example might clear things up a bit, but where to get a simple one. Enter the YouTube channel ‘I got distracted’, whose owner has published a lovely video that works through a practical FOC example based on some easily-obtainable hardware and ...

I have a couple of Windows 10 PCs at home – with legitimate software licences. They are too old to be ‘Windows 11 compatible’, but are good computers with quad-core processors. Windows 10 security updates are ending very soon, and not wanting to bin these computers, a way to put Windows 11 onto them was sought. Rufus was the answer ...

Chiplet technology is developing at bewildering rate. And if you feel the need to be de-bewildered, YouTube channel ‘High Yield’ has just published a delightfully clear and concise run through of AMD’s state-of-the-art Strix Halo triple-die processor IC. The video is called How AMD is re-thinking chiplet design, is 24 minutes long, and is well worth viewing.

Many have been waiting to see how the spare component placements on the the Raspberry Pi 500 keyboard computer were going to be used, and now we know – the Raspberry Pi 500+ was announced this morning. I am a great fan of this format and frequently use my Raspberry Pi 400 – although only for web-based activity and never ...

A friend of mine has bought a second hand vehicle with a lot of added wiring installed behind panels that are glued in, some of which are behaving mysteriously. Due to high input impedance, a multimeter is not necessarily the best thing to trace around such a system, as corroded contacts can  appear to be functional, and sometimes a bit ...

Wurth has a handy EMC filter kit which includes: common-mode chokes, X capacitors, Y capacitors, ten prototyping PCBs and even discharge resistors for the X capacitors. There might be several types of PCB in there, but the kit’s web page is not the most helpful in describing them. What is helpful, is an associated app note on filtering dc-dc converters.

Wonderland’s cnc lathe was bought for the fun of discovering how cnc electronics work, and then how CAM software works. But it arrived with a couple of mechanical faults which, after dismantling the whole thing, turn out to be  faulty irreplaceable ballscrews – both of them – so scrapping looked likely. More Engineer in Wonderland cnc stuff However, it got ...

I have been looking at the electrical installation of a retired ambulance, and am impressed with the interface that Mercedes optionally provides for those wishing to add things to its Sprinter vans. This is a CAN bus vehicle, so it is not full of separate wires that can be spliced into. Instead, for ‘upfitters’ (companies that convert plain vans into ...

Oh dear It might be time to put the 1980s cnc lathe project into the skip. It is a shame, as the basic lathe parts are of excellent quality (Photo right, lathe bed upside-down with the main ballscrew removed). Find other Engineer in Wonderland cnc stuff here What I was not expecting, was for the irreplaceable ballscrews to be faulty ...

There are all sorts of amateur chemical rust removing techniques, and some electrochemical ones, many of which eat away lots of good metal as well as rust – all the dip-it-in-acid types, for example. Even ‘safe’ acids like vinegar and citric eat metal as well as rust. Commercial rust eaters have a mixture of chemicals (some well-guarded secrets) to dissolve ...