Monday, December 17, 2018

Getting ready for the holidays

I have not been doing much with actual electronics for the last month or so.  Made a big mistake and took a look at Thingiverse.com to try and find a model for something some storage containers for some of my SMD parts.  Well I found them and also several things that I want to make for family for Christmas.  Since then I have been spending most of my time printing parts and putting things together.

I did do a little design and printing related to electronics projects based on a question from Chuck K7QO in the qrp-tech group. He was wondering about 3D printing a Tuning Dial Bezel for small projects, and listed a couple of examples.  I did a set of quick designs and finally got around to printing them.

 One is for a dial mounted on the front of the cabinet, and the other is for a rear mounted dial.
The rear mounted one is about 50 x 60 mm. and I designed for use with a tuning dial around 1.5" diamater.

 
The one for a front mount dial is about 50 x 70 mm and 4 mm deep to provide room for the dial pointer to fit between it and the face.  I made two different dial pointers, one to slip over a .25" dia. shaft.  The other should fit on a vernier drive if used.  I do not have a drive to test it with but going from some pictures I found it should fit some of them at least.
Both designs look like the would nice on a small QRP transceiver.




I did do a couple circuit board layouts for 'test gadgets' and have them on order from China.  Since I will not get around to doing anything with them, I  ordered delivery by slow boat.  They should be here when I get back from visiting family for the holidays. 

A week ago we had the Christmas Lunch for the North Georgia QRP Club.  We had  a very nice turn out.  It was great to see everyone together again.

All the festivities made me want to go and listen to my all time favorite Christmas song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmKzZRyzV6w

I guess this is it for now. See you all next year and everyone have a Wonderful Winter Solstice.