Congrats to the winners

Congrats to the winners!

Congratulations to the winners. Lots of interesting material in this contest.

Great story.

It is so cool when you come across somebody who really knows their trade.

Those people are the stuff of legends - like this one.

About 12 years ago I had a fresh driving license for a motorcycle. I bought a ca. 20 years old bike (at that time). And I didn't have much experience with electronics nor motorcycles. There were many recurring troubles with the bike over the following months. Rusty contacts were failing, ignition needed adjustments as it was constantly drifting, the carburetor was fragile and sometimes didn't let the petrol through.

I usually managed to start it somehow, but once I was desperate and had no idea what was going on. I called a guy who knew a guy that had a repair shop. So he came to see the motorcycle. He solved the worst issue by cleaning the carburetor and bending the floats inside, so we were able to start the engine. After a while, he noticed that a warning light for charging was lit and asked, whether the alternator is OK. I told him I had no idea, because the light was on all the time since I bought it (and the previous owner told me so), but it should work, as I drove a few hundreds kilometers already. Note: I didn't have a multi-meter at that time.

The guy was amazing - the bike was on a stand and the engine was started, so he turned on the headlight, looked almost directly into it and increased throttle. As the brightness of the light slightly increased with increased RPM and then got dimmer again with idle RPM, he said that the alternator is OK. A few days later, I verified that with a multi-meter. The takeaway is, that almost 2,5 V makes a difference on a 12 V light bulb.

Here are two example pictures I took in a garage of a common car battery - when the engine was off and a few seconds after starting. (I don't know whether this applies to new motorcycles, but newer cars don't always recharge the battery to 100 %, they sometimes let it discharge to ca. 60 %, depending on various conditions, because of lowering a fuel consumption.)

Recently I went to my village to have enough open space to safely test my recently built quad copter and functionality of its autopilot. Unfortunately I failed miserably and return to my home unsuccessfully.

My initial plan was, First I will test everything using q-ground control app on my android phone by connecting the MAVlink telemetry module with it though micro-usb to micro-usb cable. And as a backup plan I will use the laptop as ground control station/debugging etc.

Before leaving for this trip I put at least one extra items of each type except micro-usb to micro-usb for my mavlink telemtry module and when I tried to connect the mavlink telemetry module with my phone then I found out that this brand new cable was not working and at that time I really wished for my multi meter to test the continuity of this cable and also a wire cutter/stripper so I could join two normal micro-usb data cables together. So I flew my drone manually and soon battery ran out so my first day of testing was ended without doing anything useful.

Lesson One: Always less expected things will ruin your day like mine was ruined by this small cable.

Next day when I used my laptop as ground control station, I found out that GPS signals are not giving sufficiently stable horizontal position due to bad weather. I tried everything even changed the firmware to default PX4 stable releases v1.9.2 and v1.10.0 in the hope of getting better EKF2 result but everything was fruitless and still getting the same error. This time this bad weather and GPS issue was getting on my nerves and now 2nd day was ruined without even able to ARM the autopilot so again I was not able to fly or test anything. I also checked the GPS output of my cell phone to make sure its the bad weather thats effecting th GPS output and I found out that my position was continuously changing in Google MAP. That was slight sign of relief that drone hardware is fine.

When I was getting troubled by the bad pix-hawk 4 GPS module output at that time I was really wishing for some tool that can generate GPS signals alternate so so I could replace the onboard GPS with it in that really bad weather.

Lesson Two: Never underestimate the power of Nature and always be ready for the worse.

The downside with having an interest in Power Electronics, I keep finding stuff that is too heavy/bulk to fit on the bench or even in the same room.

Electric Fence unit shown is one of the things that does fit on the bench, but I'm not testing it there.

Looks like it's also got a failed SCR, not that I can fully test that.

I've also got a few inverters that range from 20kg to 100kg, the later is fridge sized and doesn't fit in the room.

I'm sure others have struggled to work on equipment it's easier to move the test gear than the device itself.

Hi Johan,

Maybe there is at least one tool that is possibly common between medical professions and engineering; a lab coat : )

Surprisingly, someone on the forum, jw0752 frequently re-purposes dental equipment into electronics tools!

Having changed professions and now working as a physician I often find myself missing my old workbench from my engineering days. The tools of my new trade don't really offer all that much help trying to figure out what's wrong with my electronics at home. Repairing the car, fixing bikes, toys, and any other odd jobs around the house.

Trying to figure out what wrong with my NUC is proving to be a particular challenge...

<last month in Jerusalem my neighbour had problem of electricity and I helped them connecting it back since I'm an electrical engineer  but my tools are stay at company I work for .. so it was a terrible experience since I had been shocked from a wire that hasn't been disconnected and that was due too no tool to check with