Way back when I was but a little kitten - I can't remember exactly what year, but I was in the mid 1980s at most - I was gifted one of these toys by a friend; But sadly, after a few weeks, something on the inside broke. I remember trying to fix it, but you can probably guess the aftermath. When I saw it on a table at the Vienna Comix - a comic book and collectible trade in Vienna - I just had to grab it for restoration! The only real issue I'm still having is the tint; I did buy a piece of foil, but that is also blurry and not entirely see-through. 0:00 Intro - Presentation 1:25 Disassembly 2:19 Gears! And Funcion Overview 4:03 Broken Part / Steering / Collision Detection 6:11 Magnet / Wire Brush 6:53 Motor Refurbishment 8:28 Reassembly / Gearbox 10:20 Track Assembly 12:22 Fix Wiper Plate 13:40 Rewiring / Putting it together! 14:40 Going Forward... In a Way 15:18 Movement and Collision Issue 16:12 Screen Repair Attempts 17:37 Silver Trimmings / Buttoning Up / Let's Play! 19:40 Summary / Outtake Music: My Train's A Comin' Unicorn Heads (YouTube Audio Library) You can support me on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/atkelar ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qRvF3kxsEg

Workshop Project #25 - HP 5512A Counter One word: NIXIES! I've been hunting for one of these old school counters for quite some time and I got lucky a few weeks ago: This unit was up for grabs for reasonably cheap; it was listed as "untested, as is" and "a good source of nixie tubes for clock projects"... Well, I think I can rescue that beauty from such a cruel fate! Not that I have anything against nixie clocks, but please: don't kill vintage gear for it! The unit had the fan missing and somebody had put in a crued power cord mod because the built in power socket was not the typical modern ICE one, but rather these oval ones from ye days of yore... The electrolytics were in pretty bad shape; and this time it's not an estimate but confirmed: I put in reasonable new ones again. Note: I don't have as much selection for the make and model of caps as I'd like: I need a well matching capacity first, a minimum of the same voltage second and thirdly a case that is at least not larger than the original one. Make and Model is last on that list, but if I can find the same ones, I'll gladly take them. In this case though, the tantalum one was so expensive, that I just went for a regular house and garden variety instead. Almost 40$ per piece... with 3+ weeks delivery time... yikes! 0:00 Intro / Overview 1:35 Peek inside / Nixies Are Stuck 3:50 Pulling Modules / Back Panel and Case 5:23 Recapping Start / Gutting Caps 7:29 Stuffing Caps / PCB Recapping and Cleaning 9:33 One More Cap! / Potentiometers And Switches 11:28 Back Panel Re-Mod / Filter Cap Mounting 12:34 Cleanup Time! / Reassembly / Backplane Cleanup / Thermal Paste 14:00 Back Panel Assembly 15:40 Function Switch Cleanup / Front Panel 17:30 Filter Cap Soldering / Voltage Check / -35V Adjustment! 18:38 First Nixie Glow! / Function Check / 100kHz Adjustment 19:45 Real Test / New Fan / New Foam Padding / New Feet 21:20 Circuit Overview 23:30 +/-1 "Error" / Bye / Outtake Music: My Train's A Comin' Unicorn Heads (YouTube Audio Library) You can support me on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/atkelar and also on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Atkelar Thanks to everybody who signed up already! ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmd3YlDw_cQ

The pawpet news team is at it again! This time we hear about a new reality-TV program, new legislation about bank-robbery, a parachuting fox, and a sponsored financial weather report. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJLu2FC-afY

First row of larger updates about the modem project! At long last: visible progress has been made! Debugging interrupt code without a visual debugger is hard. I finally narrowed down the issue to a bug in the assembler I use. Sheesh. Do I have to fix *everything* myself? :) 0:00 Intro 1:15 Breadboard Montage / EEPROM Issue 2:14 PCB Prototype Time! / Power Supply Adapter Update 3:47 5V-3.3V Issue and Choices / Programming Adapter 5:24 SMD Soldering... Kinda... / LEDs and Button 6:50 ESP Programming / Configuration Program Intro 8:10 Config Program Details / Local Server Overview 9:20 Progress Summary 10:35 User Doc / Credits / Outtake My project GitHub, to follow along any progress: https://github.com/Atkelar/nabunet Music: My Train's A Comin' Unicorn Heads (YouTube Audio Library) You can support me on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/atkelar ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9-dGFAdfuI