Trying to fix a Copal 602 flip palette

While everything seems to (still) work, inside the Copal 602 clock I found a loose palette. It has one hook missing, and it should be possible to rebuild it with a tiny cut of hard plastic of the proper thickness. I still have to figure out how to keep it in place while the superglue does it job.

But, what if it doesn't work? (Or I get it totally wrong.) I think modern technology can come to the rescue: laser cut. Probably the hardest part to find is the right plastic (let alone the color), then with a 1200 dpi scan of an original palette and a digital ruler on the picture, a digital model can be drawn. Finally it is a matter of few seconds under the laser.

Here is the 1200 dpi scan if anyone needs it.

Copal 602 flip clock

3/4 side view.

Before LEDs, how were digital clocks made? Not with Nixies, that (in my opinion) were mainly used in instruments where the information to be displayed was more randomic than sequential. There existed flip clocks! It looks like they were invented in Italy.

But at a flea market I found a Japanese production, the Copal 602. It was being sold as an ornament at the cost of few espresso coffees (or one basic fast-food menu, burger + chips + drink): well worth a try, and in any case a curious ornament or case for other projects.

With my surprise the clock does work even though it appears to be running a bit fast, like 40-50 seconds gain per hour. It is very silent, much more silent than a classic clock, and it even has a neon bulb that gently lights up the time (and it works too!).

Copal 602 front view.

Time to have a look inside, since I have no real idea how it works.

Lucky battery pack

Inside A1060

I've had a battery pack from a MAC PowerBook G4 sitting around for a while. The A1060 pack is rated at 10.8V and probably 4400 mAh. It has charge/discharge protection circuitry and an embedded 5-LED charge status on-demand display. When I took apart the PowerBook I kept the battery connector (board), and that was a smart move.

Needing some 18650 cells, I decided to rescue them from the A1060. I was lucky because the pack was apparently made with servicing in mind, and since the glue has dried over time I could pry it open very easily. This fact immediately changed my plan: check the pack before taking out individual cells!

Now it was much easier to determine the polarity of the battery connector, and therefore of the matching board. In less than ten minutes I was recharging the battery pack at circa 11V 2A input.




Fast forward few hours, the pack stopped charging and the onboard LEDs report 5/5 charge status. I am now monitoring the self-discharge while I plan an endurance test.

Full pack and the matching board inside G4 12"

Nice-looking waterproof matrix keypad: how?

Say that, for some aesthetic reason, you need to embed a keypad inside the case of a project. Or because you want to build something splash/dust/dirt-resistant. But you need some human interaction, in the form of buttons to press.

Such an application could be a kitchen timer.

How to protect keys against splash/dust/dirt? Keep them inside the box, but then mechanical actions will not work. I came up with these possible alternatives to a membrane matrix keyboard:

• capacitive sensors
• hall effect (need a "magnetic" pen/tool)
• photoresistors (only if the case is transparent)

Either I used wrong keywords, or nobody has documented online a matrix keypad not made out of mechanical switches.

Something must be wrong in my ideas. So far I came up with these cons:

• capacitive sensors are unreliable, sensitive to static/noise, ...
• hall is power hungry in large deployments, at 5 mA standby for each sensor (but a single row/column could be scanned)
• LDRs need transparent case, a ligthed environment and are somewhat slow to react, in the order of 10 milliseconds

Any further thoughts?

I am about to buy a bunch of LDRs and Hall sensors to test it out...

Arduino 1.6.8 IDE problems on Windows XP

In the lab I still use a 2004 laptop that runs Windows XP. It is compact and does everything I need.

Unfortunately the last update to Arduino IDE 1.6.8 caused a couple of issues:

1. "ld returned 5 exit status" when compiling, making it impossible to get working bytecode
2. 100% CPU usage by services.exe and java.exe (or javaw.exe) even when the IDE is idle

The first issue can be solved by replacing the stock ld.exe with the one from old IDEs, like 1.0.5.

But I found no solution (and nobody complaining either) to the second issue, so I am reverting back to 1.6.5 that, as far as I remember, had no problems. Otherwise I will go backwards with releases until I reach a stable point again.

Edit: yes, 1.6.5r5 does work indeed. It is a Windows XP SP3 with a Intel centrino CPU.