Brass Nozzle - Exit Orifice

I got my 0.5" Brass Nozzle from my manufacturer today. They look great! I'm very impressed with the quality. The internal diameter is 0.5" the external diameter is 1". The thickness is .177"

The internal edge is very sharp and could cut your finger. I'm sure that this will do perform well. I can't wait to test it, but I'm still waiting on some other parts.

PMMA Optical Fiber

I received my PMMA Optical Fiber yesterday. It only took 4 days to get halfway around the world to my secret laboratory!




The fiber optics is PMMA or plastic. It is 3mm thick with no PVC coating on it. I couldn't afford the PVC coating. I was surprised at how rigid the cable is, granted I understand that is it SOLID, but it still took me off guard. If I let go of the reel the 3 or 4 loops would spring off.

I can't wait to play with it!

Question:

Do anyone know how to polish the ends? Can I just use the buffing pad for my dremel?

In Circuit Serial Programming

So, I learned a very valuable lesson this week with the PIC microcontrollers from Microchip. In Circuit Serial Programming, or ICSP. I don't know if this is available with other uCs or not, but I'm sure that they would have something similar to this. Please comment and let me know otherwise!!!!!

ICSP is where you can install your chip into your circuit but still be able to program it by using 5 wires (2 wires actually program it, but 3 others support it, Power, Gnd, etc). It's really cool because you can put the uC in the circuit you are ACTUALLY going to use and work with it instead of working with a breadboard, prototyping board etc. Below is a picture of exactly all that is needed in order to program any PIC microcontroller.

SETUP

In this setup I am using the PICKIT 2 programmer. I am using the standard software that comes with the PICKIT 2 to load the hex file into the chip. The chip is the PIC16F690. I am writing code in the Proton+ Development Suite.

The wiring is really simple. You just need a pin 5 header, a PIC microcontroller, and a breadboard. The wiring is specific to this microcontroller, but probably will work for a number of different microcontrollers. See your specific datasheet for details on how to wire up your own microcontroller.

Wiring:
PICKIT2 - PIC16F690
Pin 1 - Pin 4
Pin 2 - Pin 1
Pin 3 - Pin 20
Pin 4 - Pin 19
Pin 5 - Pin 18

**IMPORTANT NOTE**
It took me a number of hours to realize that the pinout on the PICKIT2 starts pin 1 position on the right and goes to the left. In the picture above note the arrow. That designates pin 1.

Results

After hooking up the PIC16F690 correctly it was really simple to load the hex files onto the microchip.

Conclusion

Using the ICSP is really simple, once the wiring is hooked up properly. I plan on including ICSP in all of my own circuits in order to update the software without needing to remove the uC.

It has been suggested that if you are giong to use the specified pins for ICSP to not use them for any other purpose even though it is possible.

Off the Deep End/Underwater Exploration

I know this is my project blog, but this guy, Karl Stanley, is so amazing that I have to post about him. Karl Stanley IS a MAD GENIUS and therefore gets to be heard on today's blog. Karl has built his own personal submarine! He did it without any formal engineering school or training. That's definitely genius! He has also logged in over 1000 personal dives in his submarine, and he did it all for about $20,000 dollars.

That makes me want to build my own submarine! It's a pretty long article, but WELL worth the read!

Make Magazine

AS you can tell I love to make things! Projects are so fun and you get to learn so much. That's how I've learned all about electronics. Sure I had a course in college on electronics, but that essentially taught me one thing. V=IR Great, now you know as much as I do about electronics. Luckily you can learn a great deal of information from working on projects.

I've added some videos from Make Magazine to the side bar on the right. I love make magazine! It is sooooo informative and the projects are really fun! I love watching the videos because they teach you a lot about everything. They just aren't electronic projects, they have a wide range of project ranging from silk screening your own T-Shirts to building your own treubuchet.

So if you have a minute take a gander at some of the awesome weekend projects!