// #eevblog — 2026-07-22
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00:26:44 <electrohead> !caffeine
00:26:44 * EEVBot forces caffeine into electrohead
00:29:45 Join: Kuschelpony ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
00:40:06 Join: Nothing\ ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
00:40:34 <Nothing\> hey, is potassium nitrate one of those "rocket fuel" oxidizers that they used to mix with sugar in high school chem to make rocket fuel?
00:40:39 <Nothing\> or a poor gummybear
00:40:47 <Nothing\> sorry, jelly baby for you brits
00:40:47 <Kuschelpony> yes
00:41:10 <Nothing\> oh heya Kuschelpony
00:41:22 * Nothing\ gently feeds Kuschelpony a carrot while stroking his nose
00:41:26 <Kuschelpony> yes, Nothing
00:41:38 <Nothing\> Kuschelpony, but yeah i'm unsure about 2 things about this
00:41:46 <Kuschelpony> just ask
00:42:35 <Nothing\> cuz what i'm doing is i have this liquid fertilizer that says it contains potash, so presumably potassium nitrate, plus phosphoric acid, which is just gonna evaporate off with the water presumably
00:42:54 <Nothing\> and there are indeed crystals when i dried a small proof of concept amount
00:43:25 <Nothing\> but the crystals seem to be deliquescent, which made me wonder just how well they'd keep a flame with water literally locked into the molecular structure
00:43:45 <Nothing\> for some reason i keep thinking potassium chlorate is what i'm after
00:44:35 <Nothing\> i want to do a small proof of concept run where i mix maybe 25mg of each in a 1:1 ratio and see if it'll go off. But, don't you need a high temperature ignition source like magnesium?
00:45:08 <Kuschelpony> i can tell from the90s, when potassium nitrate was still available in shops, that this forms quite dry crystals and they readily oxydize sugar with a spontaneous release of quite much energy
00:45:40 <Nothing\> ahh so maybe the perceived deliquescence was just because i didn't fully dry the crystals
00:45:45 <Kuschelpony> phosphoric acid is hygroscopic and in most circumstances a thick liquid
00:46:22 <Nothing\> which, when you're drying things by just leaving them sitting out for months at a time with no added heat, it takes a bit of time to fully dry things
00:46:38 <Kuschelpony> thats mostly your enemy, and as far as i know fertilizers are deliberately made in a mix that makes it hard to seperate useful oxydizers
00:47:24 <Kuschelpony> or things attract moisture and change from dry to wet, unlessyou very heat them
00:47:25 <Nothing\> i need to invest in a hotplate for drying. It's too sketchy doing it on the stove. I have the classic coil shaped heating elements, so my 500ml beakers don't sit evenly on them and i can see one of them tipping over some day. Nevermind when it starts bumping.
00:47:35 <Kuschelpony> ouch
00:48:18 <Kuschelpony> hmm maybe fractionized crystalization, have not yet tried that with my pot of -diverse acetates
00:48:28 <Nothing\> yeah when i made my copper sulfate i tried doing a double boiler sort of set up with water in a pot to keep the pot from getting ruined or overheating, and just heating the mixture in that, albeit it much slower
00:48:44 <Nothing\> i quickly found out that non-fumey chemistry become fumey chemistry when you add heat
00:48:56 <Nothing\> acetic acid fumes all through my house like tear gas lol
00:50:07 <Nothing\> Kuschelpony, it's kinda funny that i found out vitamin c is a reducing agent, so technically I could make a bomb out of vitamin c and fertilizer
00:50:16 <Nothing\> i forget the product it creates
00:50:25 <Nothing\> ascorbic nitrate?
00:50:37 * Nothing\ shrugs
00:50:37 <EEVBot> ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
00:51:34 <Kuschelpony> imnot sure if it forms that nitrate
00:51:44 <Nothing\> but like i always say. Making explosives is easy. Making explosives without blowing your hand off, or worse, that's where you need the lab experience you only get with a proper bachelor's degree to give the the health and safety mindset that only hands on lab experience can intuitively teach somebody
00:51:53 <Nothing\> Kuschelpony, yeah i was just speculating
00:52:19 <Nothing\> i have some dirty manganese dioxide too, i think that's a reducing agent isn't it?
00:53:15 <Nothing\> it's like a 5 year old bag of potassium permanganate but over time it's obviously decomposed from nice purple crystals to brown crystals
00:53:38 <Nothing\> in retrospect, I should keep some of my more reactive chemicals in the freezer
00:53:47 <Kuschelpony> MnO2 is a major oxydizer
00:53:57 <Nothing\> ahh got it back wards
00:54:03 <Nothing\> that's interesting it know
00:54:53 <Nothing\> i've been thinking about getting a bottle of potassium chloride salt substitute to make potassium acetate out of
00:55:08 <Nothing\> i'm curious to characterize the properties of it myself
00:55:11 <Kuschelpony> that what is mixed with carbon in the positive pole of zinc-carbon cells
00:55:44 <Nothing\> oh yeah you're right
00:56:07 <Nothing\> those things are chock full of manganese dioxide and ammonium chloride electrolyte
00:56:34 <Nothing\> which, i understand ammonium chloride is smelling salts, so that probably smells pretty nasty to dry it out
00:57:08 <Kuschelpony> hmm, i notice nothing, but the cells i used were already discharged
00:57:35 <Nothing\> oooh yeah, I know you don't care for YouTube much. But, I was planning on watching a video of a guy making an op-amp IC in this amazing DIY fab he built in his garage
00:58:59 <Nothing\> it's pretty amazing to think with the water purity needed being beyond nine nines (9.99999999%)
00:59:19 <Nothing\> that you could still make ICs with much less stringent requirements
01:00:04 <Kuschelpony> you just get very low yields
01:00:18 <Nothing\> yeah i was just trying to articulate how to so that once i realized it
01:00:38 <Nothing\> it's more about increasing yield than a black and white "they work or they don't" sort of scenario
01:01:30 <Nothing\> ah well, i've gotta go get me some breaky
01:01:42 <Kuschelpony> everyone can make a bipolar transistor at home without chemicals at all, just poke two needles really close together at a crystal piece of carborundum grinding paper (SiC)
01:01:52 <Nothing\> thanks for the back and forth, Kuschelpony. As always it was insightful and i appreciate you taking the time
01:02:10 <Nothing\> Kuschelpony, i've heard copper oxides make a nice semiconductor
01:02:27 <Nothing\> i've heard of making point contact diodes out of oxidized copper
01:02:33 <Kuschelpony> thousands of techs can unfortunately agree
01:02:59 <Nothing\> oh yeah i guess they use oxides mainly as insulators don't they
01:03:01 <Kuschelpony> you can even make photovoltaic cells from copper oxide
01:03:13 <Nothing\> really? Now that's freaking cool
01:03:26 <Nothing\> that almost makes me want to grow some copper oxide just to try something like that
01:03:36 <Kuschelpony> i meant as unintentional semiconductor making diodes between conductors where we would love to have no resistance
01:03:54 <Nothing\> then again, i still haven't figure out how to metalize the surface of a crystal without fancy expensive tech like sputtering
01:04:07 <Nothing\> ahh i see
01:04:10 <Kuschelpony> you need the red oxide that forms at lower temperatures and restricted oxygen, not the black that is an isolator
01:04:24 <Nothing\> copper (II) oxide
01:04:49 <Nothing\> if i'm not mistaken
01:04:58 <Kuschelpony> conductive crystals can be galvanically metallized, its alsosometimes working to melt some alloy to them
01:05:59 <Kuschelpony> basically said, two pieces of red oxydized copper in a glass of water, one in sunlight and the other in the shadow, and you get a photovoltaic voltage
01:06:15 <Nothing\> oh that's neat
01:06:46 <Nothing\> anyway, i've gotta go eat
01:07:01 <Nothing\> take care of yourself, bro
01:07:04 <Nothing\> <3
01:07:26 * electrohead stabs nothing with a silicon wafer
01:28:08 Quit: Nothing\ ([email protected]) Quit: Leaving
01:30:48 * steve30 ran out of chocolate
01:31:05 <steve30> I guess i'll have a coffee instead
03:32:27 <arch> hmm, is it possible to use a synchronous buck converter IC...to drive a zeta topology? i am thinking it might be possible. need to draw it out
03:32:52 <arch> i know for a fact it is possible with a high side (pmos) buck controller IC
03:41:55 <EEVBot> [url] sueden.social | sueden.social
03:42:13 <Kuschelpony> hmm, no idea arch, i have not yet investigated this topology
03:47:35 <flyback> my generator flunked all the champion instruction test
03:48:12 <flyback> voltages and ohms are off but according to kill-a-Canuck it's making 110-120v at 61-62 hz
03:48:26 <flyback> so I suspect the generator is either ok and the doc is wrong or something
03:48:55 <arch> extra hz or two or three won't matter. just will get wrong time on devices like microwaves using line input for timekeeping
03:49:06 <flyback> yeah I know
03:49:53 <flyback> but according to the ohms and stator main and regulation winding voltages and ohms and rotor ohms it's all out of spec
03:50:00 <flyback> I seriously doubt this is true
03:50:14 <flyback> it looks mint inside
03:50:50 <flyback> im showing 7 ohns when it should be 8.4 +- 5%
03:51:11 <flyback> and the 2 stator windings almost appear inverted
03:51:58 <flyback> cap tested ok though
03:53:32 <flyback> raw voltage at the stator winding was 170-177 when it's supposted to be 150
03:54:05 <flyback> so this is all not making sense
03:54:28 <flyback> yes I tried 2 meters neither is "great" but I doubt they are this far off
03:55:03 <flyback> I guess I should just run it till it dies and go ahead with my conversion of output to dc and invert it idea
03:55:35 <flyback> prelimary testing before with a quick setup and the led flickered a lot lesss
03:55:56 <flyback> I doubt my smps to convert to 12vdc was very good either
04:24:42 * flyback gives up
04:42:26 <arch> oh cool, you can use a synchronous buck controller for the zeta topology
04:44:24 <arch> oh cool "The Zeta converter does not have a RHPZ, because the controller can immediately react to changes at the output. Therefore, higher bandwidths with a Zeta converter can be achieved than with a SEPIC or buck-boost converter while using less output capacitance"
04:45:51 <arch> https://www.ti.com/lit/an/slyt372/slyt372.pdf
04:46:10 <arch> ive made a sepic conv before, but not a zeta. yoink, added to my todo list
04:47:26 <arch> i feel like i should be able to make that for my ye olde' radioshack iron core transformer powered radio power supply
05:28:12 Join: DogWomble ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
05:38:49 Join: k ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
06:01:38 Nick: k is now known as K
06:21:41 Quit: Kuschelpony ([email protected]) Quit: Ex-Chat
06:34:00 <flyback> nea
06:34:02 <flyback> t
06:34:18 <flyback> the thing I find the most amazing are those 20mv smps
06:35:00 <flyback> anyways gotta go help mom for a bit and get some glue to fix the foam on the air conditioner after I took it partially apart for mold cleaning
06:35:04 <flyback> bbl
06:35:25 <flyback> cleaned up the generator it should be good to go if the storms we are supposted to get are bad
06:35:29 <flyback> laters
07:12:53 <arch> T3sl4, is this possible? my guess is, no. the low side nfet would interfere: https://i.imgur.com/PT3Pcey.png
07:13:41 <T3sl4> whats the SW voltage range limit
07:14:05 <arch> 17V
07:15:17 <T3sl4> to..........
07:15:31 <arch> -1.8V to 17V
07:15:48 <arch> doh, ok, that L1 voltage goes negative
07:15:53 <arch> so it wont work
07:17:09 <arch> or even if it did, it'd probably destroy it shortly
07:17:33 <T3sl4> if not for the bootstrap, i suppose it could be cascoded with an external PMOS. no turn-off current tho
07:20:15 <arch> what if we used a totem pole driver, but then it likely would lose the cycle by cycle current limiting. speaking of which, that IC only has current sensing on the low side nmos
07:20:41 <arch> basically use that converter as a dumb voltage mode zeta conv, but that would suck
07:22:03 <arch> hm, ok, looks like we are limited more than we would be with SEPIC when it comes to controllers for it
07:27:11 <T3sl4> it's... synchronous?
07:27:18 <T3sl4> what the fuck are you even smoking bruh
07:33:34 <arch> lol
07:34:14 <arch> T3sl4, my knowledge makes chatgpt's electrical knowledge seem on the level of einstein
07:34:21 <arch> :D
07:34:49 <T3sl4> i haven't found a use for zeta. it's of academic interest only, as far as i'm concerned
07:37:38 <T3sl4> if i need overlapping I/O range, SEPIC or flying-inductor is fine
09:21:39 <arch> ooh
10:21:12 <rust_collector> oooiiiiooooiiiiioooooiiiiiooooiiio
10:36:02 <flyback> eww pmos
10:36:09 * flyback rubs nothing/ on pmos
10:36:20 <flyback> *canucKed**canucKed**canucKed**canucKed*
10:36:23 <flyback> *canucKed**canucKed**canucKed**canucKed*
10:37:54 <flyback> I thought pmos was to be avoided at all costs for power semi stuff
11:34:42 <arch> eyo, don't be discriminating against pmos son
13:12:53 Join: Nothing\ ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
13:13:08 <Nothing\> ugh i've got my second operation coming up soon
13:15:29 * Nothing\ hopes the triple coffee he just chugged in 10 minutes will wake him up
14:46:55 Quit: MrMobodies ([email protected]) Ping timeout: 2 minutes
14:48:29 Join: MrMobodies ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
15:20:50 Nick: Halcyon1 is now known as Halcyon
15:20:53 Quit: Halcyon ([email protected]) Client exited
15:20:57 Join: Halcyon ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
15:21:00 Mode: (by ChanOP) +a Halcyon
15:22:34 <Nothing\> jeez
15:22:56 <Nothing\> i just spent an hour just duct taping two boxes together for my cats
15:27:28 Quit: Nothing\ ([email protected]) Quit: Leaving
17:43:05 Join: Nothing\ ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
17:44:52 <Nothing\> heh i bought a calculator app on my phone lol
17:45:22 <steve30> i think my phone has an open source calculator app
17:45:28 <Nothing\> i feel like i mentioned it, but it's a near clone of a ti-84
17:51:57 <Nothing\> I GOTTA GO PIPI!!!
17:59:19 <K> hello vtables
18:18:19 Quit: spyda ([email protected]) Ping timeout: 2 minutes
18:49:27 Quit: Lord_of_nothing_ ([email protected]) Ping timeout: 2 minutes
18:53:36 Join: Lord_of_nothing ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
19:22:59 Join: spyda ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
19:54:38 Quit: Lord_of_nothing ([email protected]) Ping timeout: 2 minutes
20:00:11 Join: Lord_of_nothing ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
20:10:01 Quit: Nothing\ ([email protected]) Ping timeout: 2 minutes
20:41:11 Quit: spyda ([email protected]) Ping timeout: 2 minutes
22:13:12 Join: xstevia ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
22:13:31 <xstevia> Damn bike parts
22:13:51 Join: spyda ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
22:19:56 <K> !coffee xstevia
22:19:57 * EEVBot throws screaming hot coffee at xstevia
22:53:34 <xstevia> mmm
23:18:22 <xstevia> Protip: check the tightness if bolts so they dont fall out on busy roads
23:33:25 Quit: DHess_US ([email protected]) Connection closed
23:34:51 Join: DHess_US ([email protected]) to #EEVblog
23:37:31 <arch> hate it when my nuts pop out on busy roads
23:37:54 * arch puts tighter fitting shorts onto his shopping list
23:48:05 <rc-garage> glow in the dark yoga pants, seem to be the thing, for fat middle aged guys on a bike
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