Technology

Musical Reeds to measure RPM

|

This old tachometer uses music box type reeds to measure motor RPM without electricity. It's more useful than a digital Tach because it shows you resonant frequencies and can be used to check hammer and reciprocal speeds too.

This is a pretty neat device, after watching this video this weekend. They still make them but they are enormously expensive due to the limited demand and the cost of manufacture.

Technology Connections – Fans; High is next to Off on purpose

|

I've been woefully uneducated about the different types of electric motors and this got me reading and thinking about the different versions of this technology and how IGBTs and microprocessors using variable frequency drives have really changed things over the years.

Computers were faster when they were slower!

|

Luke makes some good points about computers getting faster -- they generally aren't for users -- because coders are getting sloppier and we are demanding more out of them all of the time. I know Luke, and so do I reject the fancy window managers that are popular, but still even if you don't use the resource intensive window managers, software in general from the web browsers to video players, are becoming more and more data intensive. Solid state drives are a bright spot in speed, but still technology just gets heavier and heavier, even as the raw speed gets faster.

LGR Oddware – Thermaltake 5.25

|

Y'know, sometimes you just wanna use your PC to light something on fire and hold your drink. Oddware has you covered with the Thermaltake Xray from 2004! Providing a 12V DC lighter alongside a cupholder in a single five and a quarter inch computer case drive bay.

Back in the day when you could smoke in your office, you might want a cigarette lighter in your computer.