A motley collection of ideas
In this section, you’ll find all kinds of articles. Some of them are machine translations of my older writings in Hungarian, which may contain grammatical errors or content that is no longer up to date. I apologize for these mistakes, and I would be very glad if you let me know when you come across any. Happy reading!
This stairwell lighting timer switch was rescued for me from a building by a friendly electrician acquaintance of mine, Sándor Auffenberg. It had been removed because it was “misbehaving,” but it later turned out to be perfectly fine. According to its label, it was manufactured in 1991—so it’s 30 years old… I’ve written before about … Read more
In 2014, the Csepel spark telegraph station turned one hundred years old. The equipment transmitted messages from both Béla Kun and Lenin. I decided that for the 105th anniversary, I would build a spark transmitter myself. Csepel spark telegraph radio station The construction of the Csepel spark telegraph radio station, which marked the beginning of … Read more
I found a handful of pocket calculators in a drawer. I haven’t used them in ages—Excel, MathCad, the software called Derive, and smartphones have taken their place—but I thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering their science! Once upon a time, they were important and expensive tools, and even today, machines with similar capabilities aren’t cheap. Yet they seem … Read more
Crickets are part of the pleasant atmosphere of summer evenings. And if there are no crickets, the engineer makes… I found this switch in an old electronics magazine, originally powered by a 9 V battery. Thought I’d try a solar version.
This is a very old piece I wrote, even before the release of OpenOffice 2.4. I’m bringing it back because people often ask me for quick text editing tricks. I’ll show you how to do it using RegEx. The OpenOffice RegEx engine is quite usable. Microsoft Word can do similar things too, but it handles … Read more
Cutting foam or polystyrene sheets with scissors or a saw is an unpleasant task, but with a hot wire, these materials are easy to slice through. You can buy hot wire cutters for just a few thousand forints, but it’s also easy to build one yourself using the transformer from an old reading lamp, a … Read more
Architects have been interested in mobile buildings since the end of the 19th century. In nature, most things move in some way, whereas traditional architecture creates rigid, static things out of stone, wood and, more recently, steel and glass. There have been various attempts to bring buildings to life in some way, one trend being the revolving house.
Anyone working with electronics will eventually hold a component that you need to identify—what it is, how its legs connect, if it’s the right value, or whether it works at all. Testing with a multimeter A knowledgeable person can learn a lot even with a basic ohm-meter. Some multimeters include diode-test or transistor current gain … Read more
The JYE Tech DSO 068 is a do-it-yourself oscilloscope kit that’s easy to assemble. Anyone who can solder well, has some basic electronics knowledge, understands a little English, and owns a digital multimeter can confidently take on the task of building it. The kit’s list price is $79 (around 23,000 HUF at the time of … Read more
As I write these lines, there is half a metre of snow under the window and it is -10°C. The sunlight is playing nicely on the bruised trees, but the cold is evil. If we have to get out of our gloves, our fingers quickly get cold, our skin starts to burn. The blood circulation to the back of the hand deteriorates rapidly, and the gloves are of no use. It’s better to put your hands under a coat or use a hand warmer.