Nick's Blog

We went to Salem, OR for the Great American Eclipse of 2017. We had a blast and the trip went really well, particularly because we made a lo...

When you're a hammer, everything around you is a nail. Tesla's in the energy storage business. That much is clear. Until now, they...

On a recent episode of the blacklist, the central plot device was centered around a bizarre family whose scion waged repeated battles to the...

I thought of something interesting this morning. There are obviously a substantial number of amateur automobile drivers here in the U.S. I...

We're around 10 days in, and we've had enough time now to form some general observations about the cost. On the highway, as a pure...

There are now two Hydras in the world. We got my wife a Volt, so we are now a two EV family. And instead of installing a second charging s...

I recently bought a toaster oven and immediately took it apart. It is now a surface mount reflow soldering oven, but that's been covered...

It occurred to me today... I've been trying to reduce the cost of the controller board by shrinking the board. And that works, but the m...

Anyone who lives in Santa Clara really ought to have an electric car. Santa Clara's municipal electric utility, Silicon Valley Power  ha...

Getting into SMD fabricating has really opened the doors to all sorts of new ideas. My first attempt at a wearable was sort of inspired in...

I've revised the schematics a bit. First, the power board:  There's no actual change to the circuit here, just improvements in t...

This is intended to be a sort of "landing page" that summarizes the Toast-R-Reflow project. Now that you're here, you can do a...

The power board is rated for 8 amps per channel. That limitation is a factor of two things - the traces on the power board that connect the...

When converting a toaster oven or skillet into a reflow appliance, some thought must be given to safety. There are obvious safety precaution...

Ordered my first bulk order of SMD parts from DigiKey last night. 0805 1/8W resistors are 10 cents a piece in single unit quantities (plus, ...

I got the power board installed in the oven without too much difficulty. This is a picture of the mounting for the power board. I dri...

The power board prototypes arrived today. I built one out and connected it up to the oven. It works perfectly . I fed it with a 5 volt pow...

Being a software guy by nature, I'm used to very rapid design and implementation turnaround. You edit the source code, compile it, uploa...