A Sparkfunbench top power board kit let me take a 300 W power supply salvaged from a dead computer and use it as a bench power supply.
It’s a handy little kit that takes the power supply motherboard connection and breaks out the +12V, -12V, 5V and 3.3V DC to fused 5 way binding posts.
Sparkfun bench power supply kit
Computer power supply
According to the label on the power supply, it can source 17A at +12V, 0.2A at -12V, 19A at 3.3V, and 15A at 5V. That should be more than enough for any projects I’ll run off it.
I also picked up a few of these simple little 3-digit voltmeters that I’ll connect across the outputs to show the voltages.
Next will be to figure out an enclosure to contain everything.
Another great Southeast Linuxfest has come and gone. Had a great time seeing friends and learned about a few more things I want to learn more about.
This year, being the 10th Southeast Linuxfest, I thought it would be cool to show off all of the pictures I’ve taken from previous Southeast Linuxfests. Jeremy let me have a table which I set up just outside the registration area and I set the laptop to run a slide show of 8 years worth of photos (I missed SELF 2015).
SELF 2018 slide show
Jeremy’s dog, Fred (a Cane Corso puppy), was one of the more popular attendees at SELF this year. If he was roaming the conference, you could be sure that Jeremy wasn’t very far away.
Fred
Fred
New this year was a feedback box in each of the rooms (powered by RPis). At the end of each session, attendees could give their feedback by pressing one of the three buttons on their way out the door.
Feedback box
Also new this year were food trucks for lunch. No more hotel boxed lunches! Hopefully next year there will be more food trucks to help spread the lines out some.
The Hog ‘n Dog food truck
Sprinkles Glam dessert truck
Lunch line
Attendance seemed to be about the same as previous years, although there didn’t seem to be quite as many vendor tables this year. Notably absent were the FALEÂ people and their table of locks that people could learn to pick.
Back this year was the Fiber track, which proved to be pretty popular again.
Fiber track at SELF 2018
Fiber track at SELF 2018
Two of the more interesting talks I made it to were by Paul Jones on the Action-Domain-Responder pattern and Dave Stokes‘ talk on Common Table Expressions and Windowing Functions in MySQL. Enjoyed finding out about both of these, and look forward to learning more about them.
Another great time at SELF, and looking forward to next year’s event.
If you’ve lived in Charleston for any length of time, it’s almost impossible not to develop at least a passing interest into the history of the area. Wandering around Charleston’s Downtown peninsula, you’ll see historic markers, plaques and buildings all over the place. Driving around the Charleston area, historic markers are more plentiful than Starbucks.
The Charleston Time Machine is an imaginary time-travel device created by historian Dr. Nic Butler. It uses stories and facts from the rich, deep, colorful history of Charleston, South Carolina, as a means to educate, inspire, amuse, and even amaze the minds of our community. By exploring the stories of our shared past, we can better understand our present world and plan more effectively for the future.
Did you know in 1706, the French and Spanish invaded the relatively new town of Charleston to force the English colonial settlers out? You’ll learn all about it in the first episode: Invasion 1706!
You can see a list of all the topics covered by the podcast so far (68 episodes so far) here. The episodes are around 15-30 minutes long, so they’re nice bite-sized bits of history to listen to during the commute to work or when you’re taking a break.
Subscribe to the Charleston Time Machine using the podcast software of your choice, listen via the library’s website, or on Soundcloud.
No idea what caused it to become so badly corroded, but I finally got around to finding a new switch for it. The new switch fit perfectly into the opening, and getting it reconnected was a pretty simple job.
Now I’ve got a couple of power supplies to work with. Plenty of projects out on the web describing how to turn computer power supplies into useful bench power supplies, and I could definitely use a couple of those on the workbench.
