Everything Else

Dodoid wrote: Pointing a cantenna at my friends house and hoping we can connect via Xbee.

When I was your age we did that with two tin cans and a piece of string...

vishnu wrote:

Dodoid wrote: Pointing a cantenna at my friends house and hoping we can connect via Xbee.

When I was your age we did that with two tin cans and a piece of string...

I think it would work equally well through buildings!

Watching Carnival Phantasm on my day off.

Went to one of them paint-your-own ceramics places with the missus and did an octopus (she did a mug). Forgot how much fun stuff like this is.

I'm trying to reacquaint myself with this forum (been away for a bit) and figure out if I can fix an Apple IIGS color monitor.

Also, I appear to have discovered YouTube videos. I like those "My Drunk Kitchen" shows, and some of the retro gaming/computing channels.

Chatting on IRC.

Not feel like sleeping yet, so watching Jurassic Park from television and playing with Polybrush sculpting tools. Is pretty good for shaping the general form after some practice.

I'm admitting I did something slightly dumb because I thought it would be cool and for my local Makerspace I've been advocating replacing the existing outdoor lights in the parking lot with mid-century fluorescent lamps. On paper it sounded great and I secured two lamps for a test install. They needed new ballasts but otherwise they are fine.





My problem is that I grossly underestimated how big they are. Each lamp is almost five feet long and weighs about 60 pounds. Now that we got 'em there's doubt floating around that they are too big for what we need, plus everyone's optimistic that four lag bolts are all you need to secure it to the wall.

I changed out a bunch of t8s with leds from hyperikon both at home and work. Low cost and some tubes have been running since 2014 with no issue. So you have both huge inefficiencies and mercury hazards which could be avoided, not to mention cri and flicker would be drastically improved. Plus you can keep the vintage luminare. The tubes are really cheap now. I found them couple years ago when they were the same price as a replacement ballast.

We're starting to replace our 400w xenon hibays with 100 or 150w leds at work. I did 4 fixtures so far but I want to rent a real man lift before we do any more.

I still think those old trackers are sooo cool, btw


Of course for a hackerspace I would assume only RGB leds would do?

guardian452 wrote: So you have both huge inefficiencies and mercury hazards which could be avoided, not to mention cri and flicker would be drastically improved.

Modern T8 tubes and ballasts can actually be more efficient than off the shelf 120VAC driven LED bulbs, if not at least usually on par: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy#Examples_2

Additionally LEDs typically don't have good color rendition, although they do cheat on their CRI measurements to get higher index numbers. A somewhat lengthy explanation here (from cinema, where they spend lots of money on LEDs but don't always get the results they want vs. tungsten or kino flos, etc.): http://www.screenlightandgrip.com/html/LED_Lights.html

Generally speaking, if you do have good color rendition, you trade off for it in terms of efficiency. For example, low pressure sodium lamps (practically speaking, in terms of available products) beat LEDs by miles for luminous efficiency. But they're only giving you one wavelength. Tungsten gives the best color rendition as the closest to a true blackbody radiator, but of course isn't very efficient.

Of course if you have old fluorescents with old ballasts, and old phosphors, a modern LED bulb will probably be better. Certainly the sickly green lights of the 90s were nothing to write about. However, after moving to all LED lighting at home, I am in the process of getting rid of it all and going back to T8 tubes. Between poor light quality (color rendition and point light sources) and dying bulbs from manufacturers (mostly in the shoddy "power supply" sections rather than the actual LEDs), it really just didn't live up to the hype.

I kept an LED retrofit in mind when I did this.

itsvince725 wrote: Chatting on IRC.

As to imply, there's a time when you're not?

Elf wrote:

guardian452 wrote: So you have both huge inefficiencies and mercury hazards which could be avoided, not to mention cri and flicker would be drastically improved.

Modern T8 tubes and ballasts can actually be more efficient than off the shelf 120VAC driven LED bulbs, if not at least usually on par: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy#Examples_2

Additionally LEDs typically don't have good color rendition, although they do cheat on their CRI measurements to get higher index numbers. A somewhat lengthy explanation here (from cinema, where they spend lots of money on LEDs but don't always get the results they want vs. tungsten or kino flos, etc.): http://www.screenlightandgrip.com/html/LED_Lights.html

Generally speaking, if you do have good color rendition, you trade off for it in terms of efficiency. For example, low pressure sodium lamps (practically speaking, in terms of available products) beat LEDs by miles for luminous efficiency. But they're only giving you one wavelength. Tungsten gives the best color rendition as the closest to a true blackbody radiator, but of course isn't very efficient.

Of course if you have old fluorescents with old ballasts, and old phosphors, a modern LED bulb will probably be better. Certainly the sickly green lights of the 90s were nothing to write about. However, after moving to all LED lighting at home, I am in the process of getting rid of it all and going back to T8 tubes. Between poor light quality (color rendition and point light sources) and dying bulbs from manufacturers (mostly in the shoddy "power supply" sections rather than the actual LEDs), it really just didn't live up to the hype.

Sounds like you tried some cheap bulbs and got burned by faulty power supplies. I've had good luck with Hyperikon (IMO they are the best), CREE, Samsung, and Luxeon/Lumileds (for automotive). I would avoid Philips, TCP, Feit, or anything with the word "smart" in the product name. Although I do have one of the original philips (pre L-prize) bulbs from 2011 in my bedroom overhead fixture and it's still working fine. It was also $80 and weighs 3 pounds. They don't make them like that anymore... I got it as a product sample from when I worked at a firm that did commercial (retail and office space) lighting studies tho we did a bunch of outdoor projects as well (I did all the lighting drawings for a bunch of OCTranspo stops in Ottawa in 2010, and the transitway, lol)

The lighting needs for Photography/Studio use are quite a bit different from parking lot (or indeed, our workshop/office space like I am retrofitting in my spare time at work). CRI is much better than what we are taking out, energy consumption is way down, buzzing noise is gone, flicker is gone, maintenance is (hopefully) gone, I get a bunch of extra capacity in my panel to install more EVSEs (We had 6 circuits for lighting, now we have two, and the contactors are no longer melting all the time because of overloading). You can buy HO or SHO FLs with better lm/w than LED but the hours are not there and if you are installing in a high bay and have to rent a scissor lift... well, there are always tradeoffs.


That said, I like that style of fixture. It reminds me of something from Simon Stalenhag especially when they are mounted on a pole as intended. The sickly green 90's bulbs may be appropriate here if you can find some...

duck wrote:

itsvince725 wrote: Chatting on IRC.

As to imply, there's a time when you're not?

When I'm sleeping or at college, that's about it.

Checking the state of my SMD disk cabinet after my last relocation accross the country. Looks like one of them will need another low-level format, but my SunOS setup is not working anymore, I'll have to reinstall from tape. Looks like a nice weekend project. Hopefully it will be raining outside, so this will be an acceptable passtime.

Elf wrote: A somewhat lengthy explanation here (from cinema, where they spend lots of money on LEDs but don't always get the results they want vs. tungsten or kino flos, etc.): http://www.screenlightandgrip.com/html/LED_Lights.html

Interesting link! I started to get a little bit disturbed by the universal mis-spelling of the word luminaires—over-zealous spellcheck?

robespierre wrote:

Elf wrote: A somewhat lengthy explanation here (from cinema, where they spend lots of money on LEDs but don't always get the results they want vs. tungsten or kino flos, etc.): http://www.screenlightandgrip.com/html/LED_Lights.html

Interesting link! I started to get a little bit disturbed by the universal mis-spelling of the word luminaires—over-zealous spellcheck?

The luminary thing may be industry slang? Like saying "mike" for microphone in the music biz when outsiders abbreviate it to "mic"... or non-computer-nerds actually spelling out the word SCSI. Or he uses speech-to-text...

He lost me at the fresnel lenses... He claims that a 650W tungesten bulb outputs 9750lm. Sure! But then putting bulb in a reflector doubles the luminous flux of the bulb to 19500 lm... I don't think that's how luminous flux works

He also confuses power factor with efficiency on multiple occasions.

But overall it is a very good writing if dated. Industry insiders are always ahead of the curve, and deal with the newest technology that doesn't have much polish on it yet. Last time I checked the "blue bump, aqua dip" is still very prevalent in phosphor LEDs but the problem is smaller than it used to be a few years ago (better phosphors). I wonder why they don't combine a typical LED with UV led hitting a different phosphor to fill the gap... understanding that such arrangements tend to not work well for point sources. Regardless, they are still getting better... but for some in photo and cinema industry LED may never be acceptable just like there are still those who only shoot film, only drive stick shift, only listen to vinyl, etc. Sometimes when you need a tungsten bulb nothing else will do. I can't imagine an easy-bake oven working too well with an LED (I know they have built in elements now but you get the point)...

I have also found my 580lm petzl headlight to be much, much, brighter than crappy chinese brands like streamlight and energizer that claim many thousands of lumens out of a battery flashlight. Truth in marketing is almost completely absent in that industry...

I spent most of my morning and afternoon under my rust bucket Miata replacing the clutch master and slave cylinder and bleeding it. The car I bought for $2300 last summer, I've already replaced the following:

Radiator
Thermostat
Convertible top
Clutch Master/Slave
Four brake calipers
Battery
Air filter

Still needs an AC compressor, a new front bumper, a new front core support, and the rocker panels and trunk torn apart and de-rusted. When all's said and done and adding a hard top I'll have invested probably another 3-4k in the car.

Anticipating root canal.

Raion-Fox wrote: I spent most of my morning and afternoon under my rust bucket Miata replacing the clutch master and slave cylinder and bleeding it. The car I bought for $2300 last summer, I've already replaced the following:

Radiator
Thermostat
Convertible top
Clutch Master/Slave
Four brake calipers
Battery
Air filter

Still needs an AC compressor, a new front bumper, a new front core support, and the rocker panels and trunk torn apart and de-rusted. When all's said and done and adding a hard top I'll have invested probably another 3-4k in the car.

Totally worth it viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16730589&start=180#p7395084

But... if you skip the hardtop then you don't need the AC, either

IIRC the only thing engine related I ever had to do in my 91' protege was the t-stat (not counting distributor and plugs etc). I think very similar to your motor. (if u have 1.8?) I've had 4 mazda so far: protege, rx7, 3, and now mx5.