Dan Maloney
haha fair enough, maybe I should just try stuff out and see whether smoke appears
Wow that sounds fun. Is an oil ignition xformer like a neon xformer?
You could measure input current/power with a wattmeter, might that help?
Not sure what the failure mode is.
more or less. It's just take 120 in, dump 10kv @ 22ma out. I think most of the neon sign ones do some sort of switchmode PSU voodoo, but this is a clasicall hunk o' copper transformer
OK. Classical neon transformer is current iimited so you can short it out with no problem.
I mean, the transformer itself did try to start on fire one time
For the curious:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/BECKETT-Electronic-Oil-Igniter-51771U/202312891
BECKETT Electronic Oil Igniter-51771U - The Home Depot
Electronic Oil Igniter - Designed for efficient ignition. Vacuum encapsulation process. Adapts to multiple baseplates. Case material constructed of high-temperature thermoplastic. UL recognized in the
This one is rated at only 6 kV
Cool! I'd recommend an old-school neon xformer. They are tough and current limited using saturation of the core.
I think the oil igniters are also somewhat duty-cycle limited. Neon signs are made to be on all day, OTOH
Hmm. That's good to know. The current limiting might be a smart move. I don't know that mine does or not (though it hasn't popped a breaker so ╮(─▽─)╭ )
Can't beat the price of the oil thing though -- next time I need high voltage I will check it out :)
as an aside, 10kv though the arm is quite the experianec.
Glad you are OK, yikes!
as long as it's not both arms
In school woking on HV machinery
yyyeeeah, was going to ask where the other contact point was...
we are under strict instruction to only use the dominant hand
you put the other one in a back pocket so the current doesn't go through your heart
Yeah, I took 32 kV from a TV flyback through the arm once. That was eye-opening.
HV scares me so I always single hand it
15ma will kill ya. So worth playing it safe
(HV for me being anything above 12v :::))))
I believe it went in my right arm and out my right shoe, as both my right arm and right leg felt about the same tingly as when they 'fall asleep' but like 5x more intense.
Wow glad you are OK.
Yeah, but now I have superpowers ;-)
Hahaha
I got hit with the secondary side of an automotive ignition coil being fed by a CDI box on the primary side. It knocked me to the ground.
not fun.
~40-50Kv, 2-3mJ ?
Yikes.
the lesson: Don't add water to the wood while the transformer is still on. It will arc up the droplets.
PRO TIP
how no one got hit at Superconf 2 years ago still blows my mind
I guess you can't use deionized water because you need a little conductivity>
?
so much arcing, so much beer
best not to trust the lumped circuit model with high voltage / high frequency
Yeah, the water actually has to have baking soda added to it.
No longer a lump :)
Interesting BM problem I helped with: Tim "Wizard" Black making flame speakers
If you put ions in a flame it reacts to magnetic fields
and you can make the flames speak
so had to inject ions via a wick of electrolyte into a propane flame, then speaker coils around it.
Very neat project for Burning Man, but he took it there and the wind never died down.
bah
I probably missed some questions as I'm a slow typer
I asked earlier... whats your favorite/oddest sensor at the moment?
Great question!
Haveing a lot of fun with a CO2 sensor
if you put it on your desk it senses the co2 from your breath
what if HVAC was driven not only by temp but by CO2?
You know those impossible meetings in the closed meeting rooms?
huh, neat. I've been having fun watching just temp/humidity on my desk. I'm a heater!
I think a lot of those are hard because your brain gets deoxygenated!
a damp heater even
yeah, I seen that research popping up more and more over the last couple of years
Also PM sensors are fun. Turns out cooking is just as gnarly as a wildfire
I left tech and move into a wood shop, so a whole new set of bad air problems
I wonder if we're ever going back to those stuffy meetings again. For so many reasons.
Got a box of those PM sensors too, I want to get them installed around my house
Yes, good point
re: 10kv shock: I was actually burning the bottom of my long board when it happened. The convex shape kept shedding water, hence needing to add more. Though, about a year later it paid off when a not so smart Graduate TA in the electronics lab was telling us to measure impedance with an ohmmeter while the circuit was live. I told him to stop being a dunce, he told me I'm just an (at the time) freshie that can't possibly know better, so I turned grabed my board that was next to me, flipped it over for him to see, then flicked the 12AX7 I wear as a necklace. He then listened to my explanation and took me seriously. I probably saved some pour soul from having to replace two dozen fuses in high end multi meters that day.
Adafruit also has a great CO2+TVOC (votatile organic components) sensor that I recently used to prove to my landlord that my ventilation brought in exhaust fumes from other apartments https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-sgp30-gas-tvoc-eco2-mox-sensor/ I had fun and I got my ventilation fixed!
in particular before fire season and to compare against winter condistions where everyone is burnign wood
out house included
our
But, we're past the end of our hour, so we need to wrap up. As always, the Hack Chat is always available, but we do have to let Jon get back to work if he needs to. I just want to say a big thanks for coming on today and chatting with us like this. And thanks to everyone for coming in with great questions.
I am coercing comrade Foote into this exciting project: https://kaltek.wordpress.com/2021/01/29/measuring-the-cosmos-global-human-positioning-night-sky-laboratory/
Sweet!
Thanks all!
thanks Jon for your time, and everyone who shared resources and tips!
@Kevin Andersen - Adafruit recently got a CO2 NDIR sensor too, so true CO2
Thanks @Jon Foote !
thanks
thanks Jon, good 'seeing' you (I miss Benders)
I will try to summarize resources. I should probably do that in a hackaday.io project :)
Thank Jon!
@Johnathan Carlson ooooo, interesting!
Nice to "see" so many pals here! thanks for coming!
Thanks!
Thanks Jon! And next week we'll be talking DIY Neuroscience with Tim Marzullo - event page to come...
Thanks Dan! Kalman stuff
https://www.bzarg.com/p/how-a-kalman-filter-works-in-pictures/
How a Kalman filter works, in pictures
I have to tell you about the Kalman filter, because what it does is pretty damn amazing. Surprisingly few software engineers and scientists seem to know about it, and that makes me sad because it is such a general and powerful tool for combining information in the presence of uncertainty.
cool, something I still don't quite grok
Also this is good
https://medium.com/@jaems33/understanding-kalman-filters-with-python-2310e87b8f48
Understanding Kalman Filters with Python
Today, I finished a chapter from Udacity's Artificial Intelligence for Robotics. One of the topics covered was the Kalman Filter, an algorithm used to produce estimates that tend to be more accurate than those based on a single measurement alone.
Cool, I'll add those to the transcript. Thanks!
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