City of Stralsund flogs unique library collection

Money has to be saved everywhere these days, but should a public entity be allowed to flog the family silver? The city of Stralsund, UNESCO world heritage site, has recently silently and covertly sold off a unique library collection. An online petition was started with the aim to revoke this action: https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/rettet-die-stralsunder-archivbibliothek

buying electronics on ebay

Based on my experience buying electronic components on ebay I decided to maintain a personal white-list and black-list of ebay sellers.

The best LED bulb?

The LED chips in the LEDARE light bulb from IKEA, photographed in their own light at a forward current of about 1 mA per string - under normal operation the current per string is about 240 mA).

At least the best one I have seen so far. After giving a lecture on LEDs yesterday I finally unpacked and tested my latest buy – the clear E27 LED bulb LEDARE from IKEA. The specs of this LED bulb are not overly impressive, with an efficacy of a mere 50 lm/W it is about… Continue reading The best LED bulb?

DIY STK505 replacement

The adapter board attached to the STK500's ISP10PIN header.

The Atmel STK500 development board does support many but not all of Atmels AVR controllers. As an enhancement a STK505 unit was constructed by Atmel to support the ATtiny24/44/84 series of microcontrollers, which come in a 14-pin DIP package. Other plugin-boards for other pinouts have also been made, but since the STK500 itself is considered… Continue reading DIY STK505 replacement