Design

Dec 26, 20214 min read

T-Minus Three Days: Adding a Real Time Clock

As mentioned in my previous post, with only three days left until launch, I made one last major change to STAR: I added a Real Time Clock...

Dec 24, 20213 min read

Rather than continue to trickle this information out slowly, as I have been doing, I'm going to skip to the good stuff and hand over the...

Jul 28, 20212 min read

For a simple, easy simulation of the bistable 555 oscillator, I turned to http://www.falstad.com/circuit/circuitjs.html Note that I have...

Jul 25, 20212 min read

Breadboards and circuit schematics are fine and good, but what is this circuit actually doing? STAR’s initial design borrowed heavily...

Jul 25, 20211 min read

Thoughts on circuit safety: The high voltage capacitor has the potential to fail, as it’s under the most stress. It can fail open, which...

Jul 19, 20201 min read

If you ever want to figure out how to cram components onto a breadboard, I cannot recommend Fritzing enough. https://fritzing.org/...

Jul 19, 20202 min read

My Geiger circuit owes much gratitude to Tom Napier's article "Pocket Geiger Unit" from January, 2004. https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine...