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First off, hope this is not too out of place to be posted on RR, but with the recent threads on sound systems and general electronics which got quite technical this might possibly interest one or two of you lot here. Here's what I've been up to the past couple of evenings. From the sound systems thread: - The little tripath amps (ebay it) are good for the money and a better option than a car amp. I never heard of them before so Googled the name, but they went out of business a while ago and several Chinese factories appear to be knocking out amps built out of old stock parts. Anyway, basically these things are class-D switch mode amplifier chips, which the world and his wife makes now and feature in pretty much any modern telly or laptop or tablet as they are cheap and efficient. I wrote off and kindly got sent a handful of samples for nothing by Maxim in the states. Believe it or not, that it actually a 10W RMS monoblock and it's only 4mm square. It'll be a bit of a blinder to solder wires to I'm sure. Anyway, looking about for something interesting to put some speakers in, I have found this pair... 80's vintage George the Robot. I had one of these when I was a kid and loved it. You program it with the buttons on it's head and it runs off round the room. These were both past their best. One looks like it's been sat in the sun too long and the other one's got bits missing. After a bit of fiddling I got the incomplete one to come to life. I'd forgotten how noisy they were. The other one doesn't appear to want to play ball.
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scruff
Part of things
Posts: 621
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I had one of them! Got sacrificed to the god of 'I wonder what's in there'
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1994 Lotus Esprit - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights. 1980 Porsche 924 - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights.
I spy a trend...
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Last piece of the puzzle is the speakers. I happened to already have these amongst my junk. 2?" Harman Kardon drivers don't know what out of. Look like they should be able to handle some reasonable power for their size though. So, time to start modifying my retro... I picked on the uglier one first. (The brother looks on in anticipation... Or despair.) Speaker would have been a near straight swap for the original if it weren't so deep. Denuded of its worn out decals. Classic British design. A little bit of hollowing of the head cavity... ... and fits like a glove, so I dremelled the tabs off the speaker frame.
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I had one of them! Got sacrificed to the god of 'I wonder what's in there' Haha! I think I had too much respect for mine, but I expect the temptation was always there. Did it look much like this one inside?
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On to fitting the amp in the robot.... Well I've probably thought about it too much and got a bit carried away with this so I'm still going. I didn't want to have anything poking out of the case, no wires and stuff. So I plan to use one of those FM radio transmitters to send the audio wirelessly to the amps. Each George has an FM radio receiver permanently tuned to the right frequency and an amp inside. Here we go: Drew the shape out in Inkscape and threw down some suitable footprints for the various components. None of it is connected together, I'll just work out how to hook it all up and add on little bits of wire later on. Chopped out a suitably shaped bit of copper clad with the angle grinder and printed the mirror image of the pattern out onto a page of glossy junk mail. Then ironed it face down on to the copper for a couple of minutes (iron is set to 'linen'). Soak it off straight away and your left with the positive image on the copper. Not perfect, but it will do. Dissolve the exposed copper with warm ferric chloride in a hot water bath for 10 minutes and you get this. And after a quick rub over with 400 grit wet'n'dry give you this.
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Me likey thready.... Beep Beep.
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U clever f**k. I'm jealous
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skinnylew
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 5,546
Club RR Member Number: 11
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Toy Robotsskinnylew
@skinnylew
Club Retro Rides Member 11
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wow!! amazing stuff, seriously technical and wayyyyyyy over my head lol but the robots are coooooolll ;D
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dungbug
Posted a lot
'Ooligan!
Posts: 2,852
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I didn't have one of these myself but I vaguely remember a mate of mine having one. ;D Some cool modding here chap, are you keeping the LED lights for the 'eyes' as well?
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Past: 13 VW Beetles from 1967 - 1974 Bay Window Campers (1973 & 1974) Mini's (1992 Cooper lookalike & 1984 '25 Anniversary) MK2 Polo Coupe S (1984 & 1986) MK2 Polo Breadvan (1981 & 1984) MK4 Escort (1989) MK2 Granada Based Hearse (seriously) Fiat Uno 60S (1986) Punto 60S (1998) Cinq (1997) 1998 Yamaha YZF600R Thundercat 2003 Ford KA
Current: 2004 Ford Focus (barely alive)
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scruff
Part of things
Posts: 621
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I had one of them! Got sacrificed to the god of 'I wonder what's in there' Haha! I think I had too much respect for mine, but I expect the temptation was always there. Did it look much like this one inside? Not much of my stuff got any respect when I was younger I'm afraid, but to be fair it was full of corroded batteries and I imagine the justification was 'fixing' it. Yes it looked similar from memory. Watching with interest! Have you ever used EAGLE for making PCBs? You can draw the circuit and make the PCB to suit rather than point to point wiring. It's free too and if I can work it then it must be easy! That said you can clearly make PCBs so I assume you know what you are up to!!
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Last Edit: Oct 8, 2011 9:11:00 GMT by scruff
1994 Lotus Esprit - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights. 1980 Porsche 924 - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights.
I spy a trend...
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I didn't have one of these myself but I vaguely remember a mate of mine having one. ;D Some cool modding here chap, are you keeping the LED lights for the 'eyes' as well? I tried masking them before painting, but ended up drilling them out. I'll replace them once it's done, maybe with different coloured ones. Have you ever used EAGLE for making PCBs? You can draw the circuit and make the PCB to suit rather than point to point wiring. It's free too and if I can work it then it must be easy! That said you can clearly make PCBs so I assume you know what you are up to!! Tried it once, and gEDA too but I found neither seems to have the parts I've got lying about and drawing new footprints is a bit of steep learning curve. Besides, I've not really worked out exactly how it's going to be wired yet beyond the basics. If I was going to get a factory to make boards up then there would be no option but a proper CAD, but for quick and dirty hacks Inkscape or Visio are pretty good and I can just cut and paste the footprints once I've drawn them out the first time.
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I lightly sanded and rattle canned the one I too apart with satin Simoniz Tough Black. It seems to have stuck fine, but my prep left a bit to be desired. Looks ok form a distance: I soldered the major components down and made a start on wiring it up. Clockwise from left: a pair of H-bridge motor drivers, the 10 watt amp, a 3.3 volt regulator and a smoothing cap, a micro controller chip, the FM radio receiver (the little green square), and a 418MHz receiver from a car alarm keyfob. As there's no physical dial, the FM radio has to be tuned in by sending it a command digitally, like "tune to 102.6", "scan up until you hit the next station", that sort of thing. The easiest way to do that is have an on board computer or microcontroller send the command sequence down a wire. The amplifier can also be commanded the same way to change the volume or mute. I added the motor drivers and the car alarm receiver as an after thought, so I can maybe drive the thing about on a radio control while it's playing. The micro controller can vary the speed and direction of the motors in response to a signal received wirelessly. The amp chip was a pain to solder down. It's doesn't actually have legs, just pads on the bottom. In a factory they would put blobs of paste on the board, plonk the chip down into it and warm it up in an oven to melt it on. As the pads are only half a millimetre apart, I haven't got a hope of doing that so instead I've stuck it on with it's pads in the air and am soldering little bits of wire on individually. Takes a couple of minutes a pad, but not too bad once you get going. Cheers for the replies.
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cianha
Part of things
aka VDubbin
Posts: 923
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Oct 10, 2011 12:50:50 GMT
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I'd never have the patience to do that, well done chap!
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scruff
Part of things
Posts: 621
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Oct 10, 2011 15:47:06 GMT
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Nice work! My sausage like fingers make SMT stuff hard work, so I avoid it if possible! I take it the amp is pretty robust and can cope with a bit of heat?
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1994 Lotus Esprit - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights. 1980 Porsche 924 - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights.
I spy a trend...
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woodenspatulas
Part of things
Retro in ways you can't imagine
Posts: 448
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Oct 10, 2011 16:28:37 GMT
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WOW, wow and triple wow
i have issues soldering up my cars loom after I had to replace some rotton copper!
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1999 Vectra Estate + 1995 Saab Engine = Good Times
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mr
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,526
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you know the bit where you used the angle grinder?.......thats the point where id have run out of useable parts,severed at least one finger,kicked all the other reachable parts accross the garage,realised id buggered the cars paintwork with my moment of madness,trodden on the only remaing parts that i hadnt already broken and stropped off to get a beer (beer makes it all better again) totally out of my league,well done mate. they look a little bit like the robots from "the black hole" love this thread!!!!!
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Got the car from 105 bhp at the crank to 152 at the wheels.nitrous going on next.....if it ain't broke,keep bolting on go faster parts until it is........ www.fordgranadaclubuk.freefo.de
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I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't like people like you!! (read as people that are better than me) Your far too clever for your own good, you know that!
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Remember the days when sex was safe and motorsport was dangerous. Vintage bling always attracts pussy.
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alx
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 367
Club RR Member Number: 21
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Toy Robotsalx
@alx
Club Retro Rides Member 21
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Bookmarked!
Solely for the techy, shiny components, robot cool stuff content as I haven't got a clue what's going on with the copper lump with voodoo stuck to it :-)
Top work that man.
AL.
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Oct 11, 2011 22:45:49 GMT
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you know the bit where you used the angle grinder?.......thats the point where id have run out of useable parts,severed at least one finger,kicked all the other reachable parts accross the garage,realised id buggered the cars paintwork with my moment of madness,trodden on the only remaing parts that I hadnt already broken and stropped off to get a beer (beer makes it all better again) totally out of my league,well done mate. they look a little bit like the robots from "the black hole" love this thread!!!!! He he, sounds a bit like what happens when I pull the manifolds off the van. I think they are a total rip off of that film too. Fair play though. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't like people like you!! (read as people that are better than me) Your far too clever for your own good, you know that! Lol! Thanks ;D I quite often get the same feelings reading readers rides, especially watching folk effortlessly shape sheet metal into stock looking or arrow straight panels. Guess it's all down to practice and I occasionally get to do this sort of thing for a living. Bookmarked! Solely for the techy, shiny components, robot cool stuff content as I haven't got a clue what's going on with the copper lump with voodoo stuck to it :-) Top work that man. AL. Cheers. All will be revealed in due course. Not too far off I hope. Actually it was after reading Grizz's random stuff threads that I thought putting this on the forum might be a good way to keep up momentum and actually get something finished.
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Oct 11, 2011 22:46:56 GMT
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Nice work! My sausage like fingers make SMT stuff hard work, so I avoid it if possible! I take it the amp is pretty robust and can cope with a bit of heat? It's probably not especially robust, just all modern electronics is pretty tolerant of abuse. To be honest I'm a bit surprised I didn't cook it. In the earlier photos I accidentally had it stuck on 90 degrees out. Don't know how that happened, but just spent an hour ripping it all off and having another go. If I had have broken it I got a few spares, it's just the soldering them down that's a little tedious. Anyway it went on much better this time. I fired it up just now and it worked straight away without any fuss. In the pic is a junk MP3 player connected directly to the input of the amp and the output's connected to a speaker. Couldn't turn it up much as the kids are asleep but it sounds nice. I'll get the rest of it hooked up tomorrow evening and the microcontroller programmed with a bit of luck.
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