The Dayton Amateur Radio Association (DARA) hosted Hamvention 2023 in Xenia, Ohio, on the weekend of May 19th. This annual event is the largest gathering of amateur radio operators. Sprawled across the Greene County Fairgrounds and Expo Center are commercial vendors selling gear or services, educational talks, license exams, and a massive flea market.
Often I hear this question: “how can I get better solder joints?” Without looking at anything they are doing, I already know that they could be using more flux. Or, as I point out in this video, perhaps the correct type of flux! Flux removes oxide layers, gets contaminants out of the way, and makes for better solder joints. But there are so many different types of flux and even more ways to apply it.…
A powerful, but an underused feature of digital oscilloscopes is the trigger circuit. Learn from James how to use an oscilloscope’s trigger to find glitches, measure pulse widths, see transients, and stabilize a scope’s screen. This video explains the difference between Auto and Normal sweep modes, shows how to use a Pulse Width trigger, and explains how to use Hold-Off.
When running on a battery, it is important to know what parts of your circuit draw the most current. Profiling is a process where you look at sections of code or interactions with hardware to see how much power each requires. In this video, James shows four tools (and their tradeoffs) when profiling IoT or Edge Machine Learning devices. See if it makes more sense for you to use a Digital Multimeter (DMM), Power Supply…
When connecting multiple oscilloscope probes to a circuit, does each probe need to connect to ground? The short answer is yes! Why? The long answer is kind because of the ground loop. Remember, a circuit needs a closed path. And while on DC circuits we may rarely think about the distance of that path, it absolutely matters when there is an AC or frequency component. When you do not connect each probe’s ground, the signal…
