alexis @alexisvl@mastodon.online

yooooooo

nice to see the -2kV is right where it should be. -1920V on the cathode (the remaining 80V is grid cutoff bias). I thought I had an accuracy problem but my probe wasn't adjusted right

fun little waveform, this is what my probe sees at the crt cathode pin if it's not quite touching it. i think the -2kv arcs to it, charging it up, then the probe capacitance is slowly discharged by the probe resistance until it reaches the breakdown voltage of the air gap again

(scale x100, 500V/div)

makes a fun quiet hissing noise

man, I was pretty concerned that the whole "i need 200+Vpp of AC for a thing, I know I'll just use a plain ol Colpitts oscillator running at a lot of volts" would result in some smoke escape but it works perfectly :)

when your traces look like mod wires, mod wires look good

sleepy pretzel baby

crimping cables is a pain in the butt but at least it keeps me out of trouble for a while

i've used this stuff (AIM SAC305) before, but mostly just for reworks. it's always been "ok" for that, but they're usually really fiddly reworks and the pcb is more of a pain than the solder

one of the techs at work is really good at working with it and i have no idea how she does it

decided to try leadfree solder again after a few years of declaring it 💩

bought some of the same stuff we stock at work, and started trying to solder up one of these crt boards using it

god this stuff is awful. like peanut butter on the end of the iron. it flows like shit

also interesting how it made a couple parts spontaneously break out in crystallized rough texture the moment i touched them with it

huh. usually the MG Chem flux remover i use is gentle enough not to remove markings, but it smeared labels on a few inductors and capacitors today. I think i was more aggressive with it than usual. little disappointed by the smudging on my beautiful boards :(

all y'all at work don't need to see me going full commie

i guess also "locked" isn't the same here as it is on bird hell where it's a full "private" thing? i'm private-locked over there after too many interactions with coworkers lol

huh, i didn't realize i'd set this, whoops

now i want labels on the semiconductors too dammit

gonna order a couple boards that don't pass drc because the clearances are really complicated and setting them all up to be fully checked is a huge pita, pray 4 me

mild spice this time

here's my gross horrible code that puts color bands on resistors https://gitlab.com/alexisvl/kiband

i threw together a script to put color bands and labels on resistors

first 2021 pcb :)