Ring ring

I've been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good.

Barbra Streisand

We're not sure how good Barbra Streisand is at electronics, but details certainly caused a half-day delay recently when we first encountered the phenomenon of wire "ringing". The project seemed quite simple - make an attiny13a output to a common anode 7-segment display.

It started badly when two of the displays died in early experiments due to a lack of a current limiting resistor. Finally after a bit of fiddling about, the code was working well outputting the required hexadecimal numbers from an Arduino Nano test-bed. But every time we shifted (pun intended) to the attiny13a, weird extra signals led to faulty inconsistent errors in the display.

The lack of reproducibility was excruciating - and even weirder that an attiny85 behaved perfectly in the same circuit! Was it the individual chips? The circuit? The gods of electronics and their capricious cosmic interference?

Spot the smoothing resistors and capacitors (plus short traces!)

Nope - it was wire ringing in the circuit. As the display was on one breadboard and the chip on the other, a combination of 10 cm connecting wires (too long!), no resistors in line with the 74HC595 shift register (47Ω), no decoupling capacitors (47μF and 0.1μF) to filter the signal and just enough differences between the specs of the attiny85 and the attiny13a to be crucial.

So the final product worked, and it was so satisfying and frustrating at the same time that it has been set up on the breadboard ever since. It is fired up from time to time amidst much sighing, shaking of heads and clucking noises. Or, as Kym would say, "That's very nice, dear."

The impossible takes a little longer

“I believe when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade...and try to find someone whose life has given them vodka, and have a party.” 

Ron White

You are not supposed to be able to do the whole citrus thing up here in the hills, what with the cold and noticeably wild winter weather (altogether alliterate). Despite that, and maybe due to optimistic naivety, we parked a lemon tree by the fence in the garden when we first arrived.

As a couple of semi-retired scientists, we added two big thermal masses close by in the guise of black solar absorbing compost bins. The theory was that even in the midst of winter there might be few hours of re-radiated warmth from the big yellow.

Like warmish dwarf vaders on guard

The other bit of conventional wisdom is that it takes a few years to get fruit. So it was a bit of surprise to see a proto-lemon on the tree this week.

Well hello yellow

All this is quite wonderful, but not as wonderful as fluffy puppies and besotted dog dads.

Melting the internet

Have a grand day, y'all!

Sproing

“I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older.” 

Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room

Days are becoming warm enough to prompt motorcycling, and it was a cold but invigorating dash down the hill for work yesterday. The Italian Princess has new shoes, and she fair flung herself into the corners - emboldened with all the promises of warmer weather that the 1st of September heralds.

Meantime spring means that much younger folk get all dewy eyed and, er, buy a puppy? Meet our "GrandPup" Ella - gorgeous!

And puppy makes three

The previously cutest puppy in the extended family now sits forlornly outside looking in - oh how the mighty have fallen.

Let me in ya mongrels

Warmer weather has also prompted us to think of wood for next winter! So we put our pile of crappy pine on Gumtree last week and great balls of "resin choking" fire a bloke came along and bought it all. So now we have space for proper logs which will delivered soon and then be therapeutically cut up over the next few months in anticipation of the great cold in '19.

Posing with pine

We were going to spend a few column inches moaning about the recent debacle and abominable behaviour displayed by the self serving plutocrats in Canberra, but honestly with their tin ears it doesn't make much sense to keep banging on their walls!  Well done, little boys.

Take care and we hope you are enjoying your hayfever as much as we are.