SH2-101 The Tulip Field
The Tulip Nebula, Sh2-101, blooming in Cygnus about 6,000 light-years away — an emission region sculpted into petals by radiation from young O-type stars.
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WR-134 Wolf-Rayet Wide Field
WR 134 in Cygnus, a Wolf-Rayet star roughly 6,000 light-years away — a massive star in its final act, shedding its outer layers in a ferocious wind.
Read more →Andromeda and Friends (M31)
The Andromeda Galaxy and its entourage — M32 tucked against the disk and M110 floating below.
Read more →Wider Veil Nebulas (C33 C34)
The Veil Nebula complex in Cygnus — the shredded remains of a star that exploded ten to twenty thousand years ago, now a lacework of shock fronts some 2,400 light-years away and six full moons wide.
Read more →Sh2 119 Clamshell
Sh2-119, the Clamshell Nebula — the North America Nebula's overlooked next-door neighbor, sitting just east of it in Cygnus around the naked-eye star 68 Cygni.
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DCBuddy: Beta Builds, a Blown CAN Transceiver, and First Shipments
The summer 2024 launch push: case prototypes and thermal stress tests, 32V Meanwell supply prep, a CAN transceiver post-mortem that redesigned the module connector, ESPHome firmware features, the Split's honest derating — and the first units shipping.
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DCBuddy V2: From One-Off to Open Hardware
The spring 2024 redesign that turned the DCBuddy into a real product: a single 12–36V rail, ESP32-C3 with ESPHome and Home Assistant integration, per-port current monitoring, CAN on the module connector, 20A capability — and a contract-manufactured batch build.
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DCBuddy: Tired of AC Bricks?
The original DCBuddy: one box to replace the pile of AC/DC wall bricks under a reef tank — dual ideal-diode-ORed supply inputs, 24V distribution, 12V and 5V step-downs, Neptune 1Link passthrough, and short-circuit protection on every port.
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LEDBrick: An 8-Year Update (and a Near-Death Experience)
Eight years of salt spray plus a three-day blackout nearly killed every LEDBrick unit — condensation shorted the boards on power-up. Ultrasonic cleaning saved two of three; the third needed component surgery. Lessons about conformal coating were learned.
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Milling Aluminum Enclosure Lids, Pt2
First prototype of a work holding tool, in this case the base plate, for milling a set of off the shelf cases from Hammond Mfg (1455 series). This is done on a scrap of 1/4" 6061, about 8x6" (its an off cut scrap). The intent is to use…
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TopOff Minder
A quick little project as a spin-off of a larger common shared design for an aquarium controller, I've knocked together a small inlet sensor and 12V driver with 4 channels, allowing you to hookup a float switch or attach a DC pump…
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Freshwater LED, Pt1
Small design vignette for an LED driver design for freshwater LED lighting. In this example I'm using a 28 Yuji 5038 LEDs at 6500k and 98+ CRI. Since they are all in series, it offers about 100Vf, which is out of range for most of my…
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Milling Aluminum Enclosure Lids
Just a small vignette on the milling of a Hammond Aluminum Extrusion case cap. All I have is a CNC6040 based machine with a 2.2kW spindle, but it would probably serve the purposes fine as we're not chewing through a lot of metal.
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Design Log: blueAcro Power Bar and Sensor Updates
Some updates for products over at blueacro.com - mirroed from Reef2Reef
Read more →theatrus' Perfect Temperature Controller - Temperature Sensors
Let's talk temperature sensors, at least let's talk about the guts of a temperature sensor and less about the housing, cables, etc.
Read more →theatrus' Perfect Temperature Controller - The Overview
I've been keeping aquariums of all flavors for a very long time, and have seen and first hand experienced what happens when our lovable basic heaters (and chillers) run amok and fail to do their jobs correctly. Even worse, we often…
Read more →PurpleAir Sensor Investigation and Teardown, Pt1
With the ongoing poor air quality all over Central California due to the Camp Fire, the interest of providing fine grained and reliable air pollution measurements peaked. One of the interesting providers of data is the website…
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Simple CO2 Solenoid Carbon Doser Project
Controlling pressurized carbon dioxide (CO2) delivery into a Calcium reactor or into a planted tank with precision can be fraught with problems. The conventional mechanism is to use a needle valve after a pressure regulator - this…
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EVE-Central.com in the age of EVE Ascension
After a week delay while the United States elected an authoritarian misogynist xenophobe (more on that in another post), CCP games will be releasing one of the most fundamental player-focused changes in EVE Online; free-to-play in the…
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