'Famous Vortellica'

Assalamualaikum wbt.

Good day people.. I don't know exactly what make me busy until I didn't update this 'memories remain' blog for years. When come back to face this blog, feel like I'm in a trash metal band named "Vortex Electrica" with albums titled "Blog Post". Since long time having their tour 'electronic project' and last concert "Final Year Project" together in 2010, all band members kind of busy with their life.

Some of band members are doing their own concert ,while the Lars Ulrich-Vizier still active inside the band. Thanks Vizier, the one who keep this 'famous Vortellica' band exist until today while our beloved drummer Fakhruddin now move on to world stage in US. We believed his soul still with the band.

I never stop doing my solo concert since the last concert even though I'm not creating new album with my bandmate. Currently I'm releasing new album with new band named "artofmecha". The reason for this album released outside Vortellica is it only concentrating on specific material which are mecha robot. It consume too big space to place the mecha material in Vortellica's album. However some of the general material from that nu-band will be presented inside Vortellica next album.

Past 3 years, each band member improve their skill to the higher level on mastering their own instruments. The ability to produce new song and album should be better than the old days I believe. Really hope that there will be a comeback album with the old band members one day. Pray for it to be happen soon.... Vortex Electrica Dominion.

-Shahril
Controller & Sensor Department of Vortex Electrica
2013 

An update on Phaserion & Variator: After three years...

Assalamu'alaikum everyone,

It has been a slow year for all of us are busier than ever. However, we're still burning with project ideas. On my side, I have just setup my small working area and I have been using the Phaserion & Variator for three years. (It has been that long? Whoa!).

This time, I'm going to provide some updates on Phaserion, which I think is a very handy equipment I have built all these years. It is an adjustable power supply with a range of 1.5-22V, and I have been using it for just about everything for my electronics projects. 

This is a video of the addition I made for the Phaserion:

Variator with a shiny new display

The feature addition on the Phaserion is pretty important- I added a 7-segment display to indicate the voltage, which is helpful if you have various projects with different supply requirements. The PIC used was the ever-so-simple PIC16F876 (Which I first bought after looking into Nigel's tutorials) and I think it is high time it is permanently embedded into a proper application gizmo for all that I've learnt from Microchip's PICs. We'll have a small tutorial on the 7-segment later, in which the programming was done using MikroC. (I don't think I could have progressed well in my programming if I'm stuck to Assembly language. No hard feelings there Uncle Nigel.). Here's the additional circuit:

A bit of a stumbling block here- How do I detect 22V when PIC is capable only up to around 5V? The answer is simple: A trimpot. Install a trimmer between the output power, and let it swing to it's maximum output. After doing so, slowly tune your pot to give a 5V output. Therefore the output is now 22V Ξ 5V. Swing your voltage down. It will rescale to a lower voltage! 

Some of the pictures may speak a squillion words:

You can see that black-and-white trimmer/trimpot (bought when I was shopping with Beautifulmind seven years ago, you know!) for scaling down 22V maximum swing to a 5V  maximum swing... that'll be for the PIC.

Phaserion adapted for my Starke drill batteries' charging

...and it can be used for my breadboard supply

...Yup. I used my old Chinese multimeter terminals for an in-situ power supply (good for testing nook-in-the-crannies)

Adapted for crocodile clips as well (Just for show dudes)

And since we have so many cables, a good way to organize them would be to use small cardboard cylinders to store 'em cables. Trust me, a good working space is a TIDY one.

So that's all for this article. The circuit addition is pretty simple but we'll cover that later in more detail when the 7-segment tutorial is done.

Keep on Vortexifying everyone! 

Regards,

Vizier87.