Tales from the Secret Laboratory

DIY Cork Extractor

2012-01-22T06:35:00.002Z

This little tip might just help you, come festival season, when you're camping and you've forgotten to bring your corkscrew...

Grow up. Don't buy shit you don't need.

Another work of genius from the Secret Laboratory...

Wassail Torch

2012-01-13T06:30:00.000Z

It is that time of year when we must wake up the sleepy orchards so they can get to work on making little cider apples. Before waking the trees you must, of course, scare away all of the bad spirits that have been squatting rent-free over the winter period. What better, then, than a homemade Wassail torch from The Secret Laboratory?

Materials list:

A tin can (OK, they're actually steel these days). Remove the lid entirely and eat the contents. Save the lid.
An old towel or some similar kind of waste rag.
A woodscrew of sensible size.
A squidgy washer, possibly hard rubber or fibre.
A stout stick.

Equipment list:

Saw (to prepare your stout stick).
Punch (or some pointy thing that can act as a punch, e.g. a nail).
Hammer (to drive the punch).
Drill with a drill bit of sensible size (see woodscrew, sensible size).
Screwdriver (of sensible size - see woodscrew).
Tin snips. If you haven't got tin snips, nail scissors will do, as long as they're not your girlfriend's).

Procedure:

Using the saw, cut your stout stick to a sensible length, making sure the stick remains sensibly perpendicular to the cut faces.
Assuming your stout stick is vertical, drill a hole vertically in the top of your stout stick. If your stick is not vertical, either return your stick to a vertical position else establish your own local vertical reference by application of cider and proceed with caution.
Punch a sensible sized hole in the base of the tin can (see woodscrew). Place the squidgy washer on the woodscrew and, using the screwdriver, affix the tin can to the stout stick (see diagram). The purpose of the squidgy washer is to prevent fuel leakage from the combustion vessel (tin can). The importance of this can not be overstated.
Punch a hole in the centre of the tin lid and enlarge the hole to a sensible size (see wick) using tin snips.
Roll up a strip of towel or rag, leaving a little pointy wick sticking out of the centre of the roll (see diagram). Insert the wick through the hole in the tin lid and install the assembly in the combustion vessel (tin can).

Instructions for use:

Pour a small amount of paraffin (lamp oil) into the combustion vessel, just enough to dampen the towel AND NO MORE. There should be no fluid sloshing around in there. Return any excess to your paraffin container.

Light the wick and go scare the bad spirits away from the orchards. Wake the trees and let's hope the cider apple harvest doesn't fail!

Cautions:

These things shouldn't need saying but unfortunately they do. If you were a child who wasn't brought up playing and learning with inflammable substances, PAY ATTENTION NOW.

Under NO circumstances should your Wassail torch be used indoors.
Do NOT use your torch near any combustible material (dry vegetation, whatever).
Risk assessment is NOT for dummies. Formulate a contingency plan and establish emergency procedures before using your Wassail torch. Dry sand or earth is always a good thing to have around in these circumstances.
Enforce strict supervision of any parties using (or in the vicinity of) your torch, ESPECIALLY kids.
Petrol and other highly volatile spirits are NOT a good substitute for paraffin. You want a nice slow burn, not a bomb on a stick.
Finally, I cannot accept responsibility for any misuse of your Wassail torch. You're the grown-up.

I hate having to say all that shit but, you know, there are some people out there who need it.

Want a shiny nickel plate finish?

2011-12-31T04:58:00.003Z

Stage One

Ammonium Sulphate, 410g
Ammonium Chloride, 90g
Nickel Chloride Hydrate, 490g
Cobalt Chloride Hydrate, 10g.

That should be 1kg of powder. Grind it together with a large pestle and mortar. Don't worry, it's not going to blow your face off. We're not making bombs here. Take all sensible precautions though - you know what chemical shit can be like if you get it in the wrong place.

This is your "Stock Powder". Store it in an airtight container.

Stage Two

Ammonium Sulphate, 34g
Ammonium Chloride, 5g
Nickel Chloride Hydrate, 40g
Cobalt Chloride Hydrate, 5g.

Dissolve this in 0.73 litres of 5N sulphuric acid (careful now, use safety wear) and make up to one litre with distilled water.

This is your "Stock Solution". Store it in a suitable bottle.

Now rest well. The preparation is done. You can move on to Stage Three any time you like.

Stage Three

To make one litre of "Working Solution", add 50ml of "Stock Solution" to 55g of "Stock Powder", dissolve in 660ml of distilled water, then make up to 1 litre with more distilled water.

Stage Four

Connect your piece of metalwork (perhaps copper or brass) to the negative terminal of a power source (croc clips are good for this). This is now your cathode. Connect another piece of electro-conductive material (any metal or carbon but preferably nickel) to the positive terminal of the power source. This is now your anode.

Maximum current should be 15A per square decimetre of the anode and cathode but that's a bit heavy (and a bit dangerous) for home use. You'll get good results for small items just using one of those big fuckoff torch batteries or similarly rated DC power supply.

Complete the circuit by dipping your anode and your cathode into the "Working Solution", making sure they don't touch. Leave for an unspecified while. Could be minutes. Could be hours, depending upon your power source. Swish 'em about a bit every now and then.

Remove, rinse with water then polish with... polish. Metal polish is good. Lo and behold - a wonderful and most durable nickel plating that looks almost like silver.

Whoops - sorry Mr Murdoch. I forgot that this formula was one of your expensive "industry secrets", the knowledge of which I acquired from my Dad just before you sacked him and his work fellows. Hey Ho. I guess we just don't understand the meaning of confidentiality anymore.

Anti-Tardiness Event Console

2011-12-09T01:03:00.010Z

Coming soon, my newly redesigned "Event Console" - a product designed for people who want their web site events calendar to remain largely independent of mainstream social media tools. Oh, and independent of any tardy, hired web-head who's in charge of your site updates of course. It doesn't matter how tired or static your web site has become, with this nifty little tool your web site will always look like it's up to date! You can even update your web site calendar from your phone whilst lying prone in a gutter after closing time.

Ignore the "Steampunk" console imagery (sample input screen shown here). The output is pure text streamed directly into your web site and formatted according to your own style sheet.

I have two clients working in Beta for several months now, and nothing's broken. Want some?

Universal-ish power supply unit

2011-11-17T04:28:00.006Z

Hobbyists and home experimenters will know the feeling. You're working on a little project and you know you're going to need power. Often this results in a mad search for a battery box and some cells that still have a bit of life in them, or perhaps you raid your collection of "Wall Warts" (which usually means you can't charge your phone or use your router until playtime's over). Wouldn't it be nice to have a dedicated power supply for these occasions? What a luxury.

Contemplating this problem earlier today, my gaze fell upon a heap (literally a heap) of old computer PSUs gathering dust in the corner of the Secret Laboratory. I always salvage stuff from old PCs - better gathering dust than going to landfill.. Some of the PSUs were of no further use anyway, being of the old "20-pin" format rather than the "24-pin" that modern motherboards require. Some were rated as low as 200W, which doesn't really cut the mustard with modern PCs. For years I had been tripping over the very solution to my problems. It was a classic "DUH" moment...

So, the next Secret Laboratory project is going to be the conversion of one of these old computer PSUs to a useful universal-ish general purpose power supply. If it's good enough for motherboards, it's good enough for the shit I build.

The plan is to source a compact yet safe housing for the PSU, to prevent busy little fingers from poking stuff (accidentally or deliberately) through any dangerous holes. Terminals will be presented for +3.3V, +5V and +12V outputs (either separately else via a voltage selector switch - I haven't decided yet). I may include -12V for those of you who like to muck about with devices that require it. I never did fully understand why op amps need the dual polarity thing...

If you're following this project, the bit you're going to be working with is the 20-pin connector (usually marked P1), seen here to right of centre. You can ignore the other connectors (far left) - they just route the same power to other computer peripherals (hard drives, etc). You can get everything you need from the 20-pin connector alone.

Of great importance! Mark well the following cable colours:

Orange: +3.3V
Black: Ground
Red: +5V
Grey: Power Good (optional signal)
Purple: +5V Standby (optional power)
Yellow: +12V
Blue: -12V (optional power)
Green: Power On

There's some redundancy in there, so you'll find several cables of the same colour. Trust the colours but use a meter to check the voltage lines. I haven't given pin numbers because they differ between the 20 and 24-pin standards.

To turn the PSU on, you must ground the Power On pin. I plan to use a simple on-off switch for that.

+5V Standby is always on, even without Power On grounded. I plan to have a little LED across this just to show that the unit is plugged in and ready to go.

Power Good goes high when the PSU is delivering the right voltages to all outputs. Again, I plan to have a little LED across this one. You can't have enough lights on your unit, you just can't. The more lights, the better it looks (and it's a real babe magnet - well, it's always worked for me).

Regrettably, I must inform everyone that electricity can be hazardous and you really mustn't go mucking about with stuff you know not what of. In particular, do not disassemble the PSU itself and, if you do and you see something that looks like a little can of baked beans for a pixie's din-dins, don't touch it else you might end up all dead (even if you're not plugged in). That's my legal disclaimer. Can we see if we can get through this project like grown-ups?

More news soon, as soon as I've found a suitable housing for the PSU...

The Lindsay Technique for tangle-resistant cable storage

2011-11-09T01:58:00.001Z

I call this the Lindsay Technique because it was musician and rock climber Andy Lindsay who taught me. The technique is derived from rock climbing practice but it works equally well in the world of live music performance.

Happy tangle-free gigging!

Reclaiming your toothpaste

2011-11-07T01:27:00.000Z

OK, not an invention as such but a super little tip for all of you with TDA (toothpaste depletion anxiety).

Coming next on The Secret Laboratory - a full video disclosure of the Lindsay Technique for non-tangling cables. A must for musicians...

CRAPULITE® - building material of the future

2011-10-14T01:05:00.000+01:00

It is with no small measure of pride (and indeed a huge dollop of smugness) that The Secret Laboratory is able to release details of its latest invention, CRAPULITE^®

This open-textured, lightweight yet strong medium is ideal for repairing large gaps in crumbling masonry or rotting timberwork.

CRAPULITE^® is produced from a readily available and sustainable source of recycled material, combined with an all-purpose filler in a secret process known as “shredding and mixing”. The high content of tabloid material renders CRAPULITE^® impervious to bookworm. With a skim of rendering and a lick of paint, even your surveyor won’t know it’s CRAPULITE^®.

The Secret Laboratory is in the process of negotiating exclusive rights with the construction company Bodgitt & Leggit of Purley.

Drop -Tank sidecar

2011-08-16T12:00:00.006+01:00

Current shed project is the conversion of a 1945 Hawker Tempest Drop Tank (used for carrying extra fuel) Into a useable sidecar body for my old Panther motorcycle. I have so far welded in a new nose section (as it was dropped on its nose) and made some cutouts for the passenger.

The cutout weakened the body considerably so I welded some 8mm round bar all round the aperture. This required considerable heating, which is when I discovered all the rivets and seams were sealed with lead! Interesting! Next stage is making brackets to fit the body to an old chassis I have 'in stock'

Bijoux Stomp Box

2011-07-07T09:19:00.003+01:00

Saw this on tinternet and thought can't be that hard. Baccy tin with a fax machine speaker hot-glued to the bottom (the fax machine's unfortunate demise was one Monday morning when it refused to take the paper for the tenth time!!), soldered to a mono jack socket which was drilled and mounted in the side of the tin. Critical part is to stick a heavyish metal disc to the shiny dome thing in the middle of the speaker. this one is about 35mm. I reckon a smaller one would give a higher sound like a tom tom.

Well it works ok, lid down and tap it with foot, sounds a bit like a kick drum. Probably would sound great through a PA . I am going to attach it to a plank so I can boot it properly.

Quilted Coffee Pot Cosy

2011-06-07T15:54:00.001+01:00

It's sad really but every now and then I get an inexplicable urge to make a quilted coffee pot cosy. Perhaps it's just that I like watching my ancient Singer doing its stuff (how does it grab that loop from the bobbin below?) or perhaps it's just that the simplicity of the cosy allows even talentless idiots such as myself to create something of profound beauty. Many there are that have knitted a scarf but few go on to "turn the heel" of a sock. The coffee pot cosy is the scarf of the quilting world.

I made this one for Angi Webb's coffee pot. Her pot is 8" x 4.5" rather than the industry standard 8" x 4" and so this cosy is truly a custom item.

There you go Angi - a present for your new house, from the Secret Laboratory...

Prawnvelope

2011-06-04T04:35:00.004+01:00

How to cook prawns on a barbecue (little ones, not king prawns). You know the problem. If you pop them on the barbie individually then some inevitably fall through the bars and into the coals. Those that escape that fate must be turned individually - a tortuous exercise involving the loss of even more prawns and the burning of fingers. You could thread them on a skewer but small prawns are liable to be split asunder, leading to further prawn loss.

No more prawn loss with the Prawnvelope! To make your Prawnvelope you need a fresh mesh from a disposable barbecue (this might involve re-using an old mesh from a previous barbie so you can liberate a fresh mesh for this purpose).

Carefully fold the mesh in half. Don't crease the fold flat - use a former of some kind to get a prawn-sized radius on the fold.

Insert the prawns into the Prawnvelope. The mesh itself should hold them in place but, if you're nervous, use some food-bag "ties" to secure the edges of the assembly.

Now spray your prawns with oil, lemon juice, black pepper, whatever, and commit them to the barbie. You see how easy it is to flip them all in one easy action?

Another work of genius from The Secret Laboratory...

DIY-DI

2011-06-01T05:08:00.001+01:00

This is really a re-visited project. Some time ago I built a little pre-amp to boost the signal from my passive mando pickup (it's in the archives somewhere - check if you wish). Misdirected ambition caused me to create a compact "belt-mounted" device. It was nothing but trouble. Never again will I take on the East in the race towards miniaturisation. I will stick to what the Brits do best: Big fuckoff industrial-looking boxes with hardly anything inside but good in the long run.

Above you can see the business end of the unit. The socket marked "In" goes in and the socket marked "Out" goes out, sort of. This means you can plug things in at any level and they come out at line-level.

I'm really pleased to have discovered the secret of switching the power via the input socket so you don't need a separate power switch. Install a stereo (three-pole) jack socket for the input and connect the neg of the battery to the ring (in the tip/ring/sleeve architecture). When you plug a mono jack into the stereo socket, the sleeve and ring are shorted, the neg ends up where it's supposed to be, and, hey presto, you've got power to the circuit (this is a trick used in most effects pedals). Don't forget to unplug your cable after use else you'll drain your battery.

At the other end of the unit we have the "Smugness" knob. Although one minor side-effect is to make things louder, the primary purpose of this control is to enable geeks of electronic persuasion to treat anyone within earshot to a two-hour explanation of the difference between "gain" and "volume".

For me, the benefit is that I don't have to carry my heavy back line amp to simple sessions. I can plug my mando or bass into anything. Need more signal? You've got it...

New clear energy.

2011-03-14T12:08:00.005Z

Here at the tank, our top chap Neville has got a cunning new plan to extract the H2 from H2O.
As all you boffins will know, this would mean we could convert our infernal combustion engines to run on the stuff, with the bonus that the exhaust is only water vapour. The only details I am allowed to divulge are that this process will involve a pair of scissors, and a large polished rock borrowed from his mate Macca. Nev assures me that this process will be cheap and highly efficient, and that the patent will be worth quite a bit, and could result in a noble prize.
Neville also believes that this will eventually involve the use of so many buckets of water as to lower sea levels, allowing the reclamation of farm land, and the planting of his favorite trees.
The only predicted drawback is that some atoms may be split in the process, so you may hear some bangs. These will be contained within the tank where we have a very large pot of glue ready.

AP 12.42. 14.3.11.

Modding the Behringer - episode two

2011-01-22T06:19:00.001Z

Welcome back. A quick update on the repair of the Behringer Ultracoustic ACX900:

One of the failed components on the Behringer was the switched 3-pole jack input on channel 2 which, being plastic, had sheared off at the base of the threaded bit. Our replacement (below) has a metal socket instead of a plastic one. Why this hadn't been fitted in the first place is a secret known only to Behringer. After all, channel 1 has a metal jack so why not channel 2?

Getting the old socket out was a nightmare. This is a double-sided circuit board with plated-through holes and lots of densely packed surface-mount components on the reverse (not visible here). The process of removing the old socket also removed some of the plating, so when we put the new socket in we weren't sure if there was anything left to solder the contacts to.

There are six miniature selector switches on this circuit board - four latched and two press-to-make. Two of these switches are shown below. Each switch is operated by a little button made of some kind of translucent plastic shit that fractures when you touch it (not a good quality in a button). Being custom-made to fit the Behringer console, these were not replaceable items (Maplin had never seen the like) and so we shored them up with glue from a hot-glue-gun. They won't fracture again, and they still transmit light from the indicator LEDs on the board. Bless the inventor of the hot-glue-gun. Get yours now and you will never regret it. A million uses.

The electronics sorted, the final step was to put the amp back together again. Below we are applying eff-off double-sided adhesive tape to secure the brown vinyl covering and to hide all evidence of our Great Hairy Leader's aggressive jigsaw-assisted entry. What you can't see in this pic is the wonderful new internal bracing behind the access panel, which is made of the finest seasoned Spanish oak, courtesy of Actreo Hardwoods (thanks Adam).

Rear view below. All done. You'd never guess we'd been in there, would you?

The moment of truth! We plugged it in and hired a crazy fiddler to take it through its paces. Sounds as good as new but we know it is technically sounder...

And finally - never a silver lining without diamonds falling out of his bum, our Great Hairy Leader made a beautiful bread board from the leftover Spanish oak.

Modding the Behringer - episode one

2011-01-15T02:46:00.000Z

"Apart from that, how did you like the show, Mrs Lincoln?"

No. Our first project in 2011 concerns the Behringer - our Great Hairy Leader's acoustic amplifier, not the Derringer (Booth's notorious weapon of choice).

People in the music world will recognise Behringer as the German manufacturer of a range of rather nice sounding kit, well priced but with a reputation for questionable build-quality. Although not heavily gigged, our Great Hairy Leader's Behringer amp was beginning to show signs of wear - busted buttons and sockets, etc. The Secret Laboratory agreed to assist with repairs.

Opening the Behringer uncovered a host of manufacturing peccadillos, the first being that none of the abundant case-screws appeared to serve any structural purpose. After removing all screws, the interior of the case remained resolutely inaccessible. It might as well have been carved from a single block of MDF. It became clear that gaining access would require more than just a screwdriver.

Above, our Great Hairy Leader gains entry to the Behringer using an electric jigsaw. The rather festive little circles in the photograph are due to the sawdust storm he raised in my living room, each particle caught in the flash.

The case thus breached, it was possible to remove all of the gubbins that needed attention.

Above, our Great Hairy Leader discovers the problem. Everything is made of crap.

We had to break there to order new components online and steady our nerves with a flagon of cider. Remember to tune in to the next thrilling episode of "Modding the Behringer" later this month.

New recruit

2010-12-25T14:25:00.000Z

Hello Lab fans. Please join me in welcoming our new associate, the erudite and alternatively-hinged Kate Mawby. We're all looking forward to seeing some of her projects documented here in the coming year.

Recycling

2010-12-10T02:50:00.001Z

Reasons for never getting rid of that old Singer: However "new" a man you think you are, you will never be able to sew as well as your Mum without mechanical assistance.

Spectacles case. Media: Old fag-damaged fleece jumper.

Triboluminescence of sugar

2010-11-11T04:12:00.002Z

Hello again. I've been really lazy recently. Well, not really lazy - I've been busy doing other stuff for other people, so I've neglected the Secret Laboratory recently. I don't even have a project for this month yet. I'm going to have to come up with something...

Anyway, just to fill the gap, I thought I'd introduce you all to a really easy technique for observing the phenomenon known as triboluminescence. Yes, this is my own method, I didn't nick it from the Internet.

Triboluminescence is an optical phenomenon whereby light is generated when chemical bonds are broken. So how do we do that then? Here we go...

Go out and buy a packet of generic "Extra Strong Mints". You know the kind I mean. They're hard, white and about an inch in diameter. Make sure they're fresh and dry - this doesn't work with soggy old mints.

Bear with me here. Take your mints to bed. Make sure everything is really dark. Hide under the duvet to make sure it's really dark. I don't mean just fairly dim, I'm talking pitch black, the kind of dark I imagine must have existed before the Universe was born. The kind of dark that doesn't even have space attached to it.

Stay in the dark for five minutes or more, keeping your eyes open. Your eyes will struggle to accommodate the dark but they will fail because it's really dark, right? You now have super-sensitive eyes, ready to detect the merest stray photon.

Take a mint from the packet and hold it 'twixt both forefingers and thumbs. Stare wide-eyed at the point where you judge the mint to be (you can't actually see the mint because it's really dark, right?)

Keep your eyes on the judged location of the mint - this phenomenon is fleeting. Snap the mint in half smartly by rotating your hands outwards to bring the broken faces uppermost. In other words, you're snapping the mint towards you, not away from you.

Did you see the flash? What colour did you see?

That was triboluminescence of sugar, brought to you by The Secret Laboratory. You can eat the mint now. Sleep well.

Warning: Eating mints can cause tooth decay. Always brush your teeth before falling asleep after observing triboluminescence of sugar under a duvet at night.

Units with mirrors, footrests, glass shelves and stuff.

2010-10-02T16:00:00.005+01:00

A whole new look for 'The Strand' salon in Fulham.

I did suggest that the name should be changed to 'er' but the boss just gave me a dark Glaswegian stare and told me I was very very silly, and then chased me around again trying to touch my stuff.

Tinktank screws up.

2010-09-23T16:30:00.003+01:00

It's impossible to follow the Bristlebot performance. However, here at the Tinktank we have progress to report from the 'Fulham' project. In the following video one of our operatives does his stuff, screwing up.

Practical Bristlebots

2010-09-19T14:32:00.002+01:00

Domestic chores. Don't you just hate 'em? This month the Secret Laboratory has harnessed bristlebot technology to make housework a thing of the past.

Now I have to think of a way to explain to Bryn why he's not getting his mobile phone back...

Introducing Neville

2010-09-16T23:35:00.003+01:00

Neville is my sidekick here at the Tank. He looks after the 'office' stuff, mainly answering the phone, which is switched off, coz we dont want to wake him up. He's been with us since 1986, when he arrived here having stowed away in my fathers baggage. He's a nice chap, and although he likes to sleep up to nineteen hours a day, he is dead honest. We're thinking of promoting him to 'Project Manager' as the bloke who's been doing it for the last 27 years is bloody useless, the left hand has never known what the right hand has been doing, but perhaps thats been for the best.

Ma who?

2010-09-15T23:56:00.009+01:00

An idea for a new game?

An entry for the Turner prize perhaps?

It was probably supposed to be a shed or a stomp box, but the office lost the plans, so we're really not sure!

Update 16/9

Plans found, the Koala in the office had 'em in his pouch all the time.

Apparantly they are 'units' for a hair dressing salon in Fulham. Unfortunately its me thats gotta fit 'em. Last time I was there the Scottish boss kept chasing me around trying to touch my stuff, and I kept bangin' my head on things. He's a nice chap, but really. Ah well, must grin and bear it for the alliance.

What's going on?

2010-09-11T05:41:00.000+01:00

Just in case anyone was wondering what's going on, please join me in welcoming the Cosmic Tinktank to the Secret Laboratory. This alliance is sure to provide amusement and edification for years to come.

Tinktank Here

2010-09-11T00:28:00.003+01:00

Just testin' out new powers.
If this works, the staff here at CTT will try to come up with some stuff.
Ooo now I'm editing, vandabadoozie.
Dont worry we aint insane, just mildly mad.

Silly String results

2010-08-27T03:18:00.004+01:00

This goes back to a project started in February 2010, namely, what actually happens if you shoot a can of Silly Party String with an air gun? I would have forgotten the project had not Kate Mawby pestered me regularly, demanding results. Thanks also to the Croydon Tink-Tank for safety advice and video recording services on the day, and to Su Wayland for making encouraging remarks from the safety of an upstairs window.

Don't try this at home!

Freedom Boot modifications

2010-08-19T04:13:00.002+01:00

The Ledbury Freedom Boot has now been gigged twice and two weaknesses have been exposed.

Firstly, the beading pins that affix the bottle caps to the stick are too dainty by far. Whilst they have not yet shed their load, they do bend easily and corrective action is frequently required mid-set.

Action: The puny beading pins are to be replaced with 6 x 1.5" black laquered dome-headed screws.

Secondly, the googly eyes fell off the toe-cap, demonstrating that "Sellotape Self Adhesive Sticky Fixers" are not as effective as the blurb on the pack would have you believe. Oh yes, the adhesive facing is aggressive and sticks to almost anything. The problem lies with the foam pad between the adhesive faces, which, like unto a marshmallow, has barely any cohesive qualities at all.

Action: The eyes are not to be replaced as they contributed little to the overall musical impact anyway.

All will be well for Acoustic Roots Linton 2010. Bought your ticket yet?

Freedom Boot

2010-08-11T03:48:00.002+01:00

Missed my July posting deadline - Bah! No projects posted in July because I was too busy festival-going, gigging and suchlike. I never imagined how stressful semi-retirement would be. Never a minute to oneself.

Anyway, the July project (now the August project) is the Ledbury Freedom Boot - that's the working name, not the final production name. It will probably end up being called something sinister like Cthulhu or Betty.

The Freedom Boot (aka Ugly Stick, Zob Stick or Lagerphone) is a linear array of percussive elements with a stomp-activated mode of deployment. I am tired of thinking up ways to avoid admitting that it is basically a boot on a stick adorned with beer bottle caps. You don't need a scholarship from the Royal Northern to learn how to play the Freedom Boot.

Our band, The Fylthe, is enviably well endowed kit-wise, so why a Freedom Boot? It's all Tom Waits's fault. Our Great Hairy Leader insists that our cover of Waits's "Underground" should be as dirty and noisy as possible, hence the Freedom Boot. Can you hear it yet, in your head?

Rattle BISH BASH BOSH
in the BISH BASH BOSH
there's a rumblin' groan
down below, etc...

Also, Waits is notoriously litigious and fiercely protective of his property, so having a big steel-toe-capped Doc Marten on a stick could come in handy in a pre-courtroom scenario.

Ready for Acoustic Roots Linton! Couldn't get the whole instrument in shot - sorry.

Re: cycling

2010-06-30T20:10:00.001+01:00

Scraping the barrel this month - only just made it with a last minute project for June. It's not so much of a project really - more of a handy tip.

After many seasons of exposure to the elements, certain types of rubber bicycle handlebar grips begin to decompose. In the heat of summer they become a sticky mess. If they are part of an integrated "grip-shift" system, replacement is moderately expensive and definitely a pain in the bum.

Spotting an old inner tube in my spares box, I wondered if I might re-clad the grips using sections of the tube. I thought it might be difficult to install the cladding but no - a bit of decisive tugging and the job was done. They feel better than new and I saved myself a few quid.

Not exactly the "Work of Genius" expected from the Secret Laboratory but definitely a lesson in how not to give up on busted shit.

Make your own jumping bean

2010-05-25T12:06:00.000+01:00

Hacking the Jackhammer, part two

2010-05-09T06:13:00.002+01:00

I am delighted to report that Marshall were only too pleased to supply me with the components I needed to restore the Jackhammer to its former glory. It is great to interact with a company that does not subscribe to the "No User Serviceable Parts Inside" philosophy - a company that does not ask to see my "Level Umpteen Soldering-Iron" qualification or "Registered Safe Screwdriver User" certificate before accepting my order.

The Jackhammer is now in full working order. The remaining question is: What is the Jackhammer actually for? OK, it's a distortion pedal but we're already quite distorted over here in Ledbury band land...

Hacking the Jackhammer

2010-04-23T02:51:00.003+01:00

"Oh, you mend things don't you? Would you mind taking a look at..."

My heart always sinks when this question is asked. Often I arrive to be confronted with a heap of '30s-'50s electrical junk with that tell-tale patina of flaking varnish and oxidised metal, only the protective film of sticky kitchen grease having secured its survival into the 21st century. There's a smell about that junk as well. It's the smell that says "Plug me in and you're dead".

What a delight then to discover this little gem amongst a heap of junk:

A classic musical effects pedal, all that is wrong with this baby is that two of the spindles are bent and the knobs are missing. Rated 9v, I ain't gonna die through messin'.

The strawberries are safe - for now...

2010-04-11T02:29:00.006+01:00

Further to a previous posting this month, it was a nervous moment when we modded the Davis Vantage Pro 2 environmental data logger last week. It's always a nervous moment when you try to mod a largely surface-mount motherboard with a clunky old soldering iron better suited to soldering cables to plugs. So many tiny, delicate components, so close to the heat source...

Battling with what surgeons call "intention tremor", we successfully removed the integrated antenna and replaced it with a socket, enabling Dr. Alcock to experiment freely in his role as Time Domain Reflectometrist for the Strawberry Farm.

Plugging a new (external) aerial into the socket, the first thing we noticed was a marked improvement on signal strength, the device pulling in data from the three remote stations with no problems. Davis note: you should be supplying these devices with an aerial socket instead of relying upon some c**t with a soldering iron to do the job for you!

Notice the signal strength from one of the remote stations - 42 (ringed red). That was previously about 30 with the suppled integrated aerial. Now we have a socket, Dr. Alcock will be experimenting with new aerial designs to drive that figure even higher.

The Secret Laboratory - not just about dicking about in sheds. More news soon...

Stereo to Mono converter - how to do it properly

2010-04-06T04:19:00.001+01:00

On occasions you might wish to feed a mono PA input from a small stereo device such as a personal MP3 player or cassette player.

Historical note for youngsters: cassettes are those little plastic boxes full of brown string that your parents keep in cardboard boxes on top of the wardrobe. The de-facto standard of 129 metres of brown string wound on little bobbins is almost but not quite enough to store one whole album. This is what passed for copy-protection in their day. Left in a car for five summers, all cassette recordings of any kind evolved into either Wings or Steeleye Span anyway. This phenomenon has never been fully explained but is thought to be an early experiment in what is now known as consumer subscription expiry.

For example, you may wish to provide some recorded music during the interval between sets at a live gig, or you may be a quizmaster or quizmistress delivering the "music round" at your local pub. Either way, the material is on your personal device and you want it to go front-of-house, through the desk or whatever.

I know what you are thinking. You go to your local electronics store, you get a 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo extension cable and a 3.5mm stereo to 1/4" mono converter and the job is done. Oh ho ho! No. You risk (at best) distorting your sound or (at worst) frying your kit. That's your decision but here at The Secret Laboratory we like to do things properly.

Here's how to do it properly:

Find a 3.5mm stereo jack plug, a 1/4" mono jack plug, a length of shielded two-core audio cable, two 10K resistors (brown-black-orange) and some insulating tape or heat-shrink tubing.

Solder all the bits together according to the following schematic and following instructions:

On the left, your 3.5mm stereo jack. Source (R) will probably be a red wire - connect it to the "ring" on the jack (you may need a meter to check which tag is the ring but it's usually the tag on the right as you look from the rear of the plug - red ring right is how I remember it). Source (L) might be blue, white or some other colour. Connect it to the "tip" on the jack (usually the left tag as you look from the rear). Connect the shielding (Source G) to the "sleeve" of the jack (that's the BIG tag that also serves to secure the cable when you crimp it). In this particular application it doesn't actually matter if you get the L and the R mixed up but it's good to get it right. Don't mess with the G though, else you'll be pissing signal to ground.

On the right, your 1/4" mono jack going to your PA. Connect the red signal wire (Source R) to a 10K resistor and the other signal wire (Source L) to another 10K resistor, making sure the two wires don't short at this end (that's where the insulating tape or heat-shrink tubing comes in handy). Twist the other ends of the resistors together and connect them to the "tip" (PA Sig) of the mono jack. Connect the shielding (Source G) to the "sleeve" of the jack (PA G) and crimp to secure the cable, just like you did at the other end. Get this right and the whole assembly will fit inside the 1/4" jack housing. Oh, er, now is a REALLY bad time to remind you that you should have made sure the plug housings were already on the cable - I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry...

Right! You have just constructed a simple "audio mixer" - tell your friends! They'll think you're some kind of electronics genius! "Buy an audio mixer? No, I just make my own - it's nothing, really..."

Or: "Yeah Brett, I'd love to come to dinner tonight but I'm, like, building an audio mixer?" Think of the potential to keep 'em hot!!!

I showed my version (above) to Steve Glennie-Smith (Electronics Engineer par excellence) last night and he said "That's quite neat - for a programmer". Praise indeed!

The importance of antennas

2010-04-01T02:31:00.000+01:00

No, not "antennae" - that's what insects have. Antennas, as in aerials. Sticky-up or sticky-out bits of wire that mysteriously capture signals from the thick soup of radio-frequency data that's whizzing through the ether as we speak.

Perhaps you've got a long-forgotten Yagi in your loft or strapped to your chimney. A sat-dish on your wall or whatever. How soon we forget the importance of these humble items of hardware, yet we are becoming ever more reliant upon wireless communications technology.

Let me really drive this home with a concrete example:

No antennae, no automated irrigation systems.
No automated irrigation systems, no strawberries.
No strawberries, no Wimbledon.

You see? Tennis itself relies upon technicians willing to spend hour after hour experimenting with bits of bent wire.

Yesterday I visited the home of the perfect strawberry with a view to helping to create the ultimate wireless irrigation management system. Dr. Alcock's technical expertise combined with The Secret Laboratory's 40 years of soldering experience is certain to secure the future of UK sporting excellence for years to come.

Watch this space.

Audio attenuator

2010-03-31T22:30:00.046+01:00

I know, I know - everyone is wondering when I'm going to pop a cap in the aerosol of Silly String. I'm still waiting for the Great Hairy Leader to lend me his vidcam. I want the best possible footage for your delectation. More news soon...

The project for March did actually take place. The Hairy One needed an audio attenuator to balance line-out from a sound desk to mic-in on his video camera, so he could record some live gigs without unwanted background noise. A bit of Googling turned up schematics for a suitable mono attenuator. The Secret Laboratory adapted the design to produce a stereo attenuator for the purpose, constructed entirely from salvage. This is recycling at its best.

The R1s are 10K and provide the bulk of attenuation. The R2s are 1K and serve to sink optional power from the camera input to ground, fooling it into thinking it really is dealing with a powered mic (you lose a bit of signal here as well but, hey, attenuator - there's a clue in the name). The C1s are 104 ceramics. You could use almost any similarly rated ceramic caps here - all they are doing is making sure that no DC power gets from the camera to the desk. This model provides approximately 21dB attenuation.

I really wanted to etch a custom board for this project but, when I sketched in on paper, it looked like three strips of Veroboard, so I built it on three strips of Veroboard.

I put phono plugs on the desk end (line-out) and a single 3.5mm stereo jack on the camera end (mic-in). Worked a treat.

I wanted to post a photo here but the device was needed on the night in question. I'll post a photo as soon as I get the device back.

Results for February's project

2010-02-28T03:58:00.001Z

Thanks to everyone who responded. There were six genuine voters and two virtual voters. Analysing the responses was not as straightforward as I had expected.

Kate voted for option 3. Kate's cat also voted for option 3 but I suspect this was just Kate's way of trying to wangle some extra representation and so I'm accepting only the one vote (sorry Kate's cat).

Cosmic Tink Tank voted for option 3 and included some interesting suggestions to enliven the proceedings. I won't be using the suggestions but, hey, what a creative mind.

Mille Vache voted for option 2, which I would have been delighted to run with but unfortunately Mille rendered option 2 redundant by publishing the recipe in advance of project selection and execution. Never mind - it was a good service rendered by Mille and I trust everyone will try the recipe (I certainly will).

Angie voted for option 2 but see Mille Vache above. Sorry Angie. At least you've got the recipe now.

Andrew voted for option 2. Yep, that's right. Sorry Andrew. Blame Mille Vache. Enjoy the honeycomb!

Su voted for option 1. I am counting this vote as valid even though I know for a fact that Su is voting that way only to try to put me on the spot. You don't believe I can do this number theory stuff, do you Su? I have only one thing to say: Tom Westerdale, Birkbeck College. He taught me everything I know about number theory, set theory, logic and computability. Although I'm a wee bit rusty, I've still got my notes...

Anonymous voted for option 1 but then disqualified himself/herself by voting twice for option 1. A bit harsh maybe but Anonymous could be anyone - perhaps even Su trying to inflate her representation. Anonymous did almost redeem himself/herself by suggesting that option 3 would be more fun but, in all fairness, if I'm invalidating this person's vote for option 1 then I must do the same for option 3.

So there we have it:

Option 1: one valid vote (Su).
Option 2: three valid votes (Mille Vache, Angie, Andrew) but option rendered redundant by early disclosure.
Option 3: two valid votes (Kate, Cosmic Tink Tank).

A clear win for option 3. I kind of thought it would go that way.

And here you are - the very can that's going to get it. The contents conform to European directives 76/769/EEC and CE 3093/94. I'm not saying that's good and I'm not saying that's bad but one way or another it will do no more harm to the environment than if it were deployed more conventionally, at a party for instance. The only difference is that my special party will be over in seconds. The only way to reduce impact is to ban this stuff altogether and that would probably be a good thing.

When is it going to happen? Well, I had planned on doing the deed later today but a friend of mine offered the use of his professional quality video camera in place of my humble mobile phone video capture facility. I must admit I couldn't resist the opportunity to capture some high-speed vid and render it in slow-mo for your delectation.

Do not try this at home. See you in March!

Your chance to vote on February's project

2010-02-23T01:12:00.004Z

February has been a slow month for the Secret Laboratory. I have several serious projects on the go but there will not be any results until late March at the earliest. Therefore, as infill, I have decided to test the intellectual orientation of my readership. You may vote upon the following three last minute projects for February, the most popular of which will be published here.

Decidable Predicates. How to decide whether numbers possess a given property.
How to make that yummy honeycomb stuff they put in Crunchie bars.
What actually happens if you shoot an aerosol can of "Silly Party String" with an air pistol.

You may vote 1, 2 or 3 by responding to this post.

A mystery...

2010-01-17T03:21:00.003Z

An unknown agent appears to be testing The Secret Laboratory. This morning a package arrived from an anonymous sender. The address was written in block capitals, so no handwriting clues. No return address on the package, no note inside and the package was franked with a "Royal Mail postage paid" label, so no postmark. Who could it be from?

Inside: two mugs of Welsh origin, each bearing a conspicuous dragon emblem; a small jug of Scottish origin; a brown paisley scarf of English origin; a newspaper clipping from The Wirral News reporting upon the activities of a certain rock band with whom I once had some association.

Sifting analytically through my portfolio of friends, I could see tenuous links to many among their number but no single friend satisfied all of the criteria. Those with a Wirral connection might know of my Welsh connection but not necessarily of the band in question. Those with the band connection might know of my Welsh connection but nothing of the Wirral. Those with the Welsh connection would know nothing of my Wirral or band connections. Those who might have judged that the scarf would work well with my tweed jacket and moleskin trousers might have known of the band and my Welsh connection but what were they doing in the Wirral? As for the Scottish jug, well, was this just a Red Herring? Or a Kilmarnock even - that's a plaice in Scotland.

I confess to being utterly stumped.

Band, Scarf, Scotland, Wales, Wirral; that's five factors. I should try drawing a Venn diagram to narrow the range of suspects but, on paper, Venns only work with three factors. Looks like I'm going to have to fire-up the multidimensionaliser tomorrow. It's been in the shed all winter - I hope it still works. Now, where did I put the 2-stroke oil?

The WHUMMMP of clean underpantlessness

2010-01-14T20:43:00.012Z

It is the sound that every solitary male dreads. What begins as a subliminal thumping grows over the weeks to become a truly disconcerting racket, like unto a teenager learning to play drums in the garage. At last comes an Earth-shaking WHUMMMMP! and the lights go out all through the house. Silence. The washing machine is dead.

This would be distressing for either gender, of course, but the special (and most ironic) tragedy for the male is that calling for an experienced service engineer is like phoning the AA to change a wheel; an admission of extreme girliness. Even if the task has never presented itself before, one feels a masculine obligation to give it one's best shot and fail miserably rather than admit defeat at the outset.

The alternatives are even worse. It's one thing to be sitting in the laundrette in crisp white boxers with "Heard it on the Grapevine" going on in the background whilst your Levis whirl around the tub; quite another thing to be sitting in the laundrette in threadbare nylon paisley briefs with "Steve Wright in the Afternoon" for accompaniment. It doesn't thrill the ladies - trust me, I know about these things.

I would have been particularly upset to lose my Hotpoint Aquarius 1000M. After all, this was the rare edition that included the "Single Bloke" setting on the wash programme selector. No need to understand the intricacies of the other settings - just chuck all your stuff in, select "Single Bloke" and press "On". Everything comes out just like your Mum had done it.

Taking care to isolate the machine from power, water and drainage, I drew breath and heaved it from its lair beneath the fitted cabinets and the sink unit. An adrenalin rush, blood coursing through my wiry biceps, I felt alive.

Seizing a screwdriver, I considered which of the many screws were most likely to grant me access and which were likely to send some delicate internal component tumbling down into an unreachable abyss. Selecting three likely-looking candidates, the top was easily removed and the innards of the beast were laid bare.

As I gazed upon the wonders within, I noticed a spring where no spring should be, then a place where a spring should be but where there was no spring. It took a moment but then a rush of realisation, a "eureka" moment as all suddenly became clear: a spring had come loose. Not any old spring though - a very important spring - the one that holds the thingummybob (yes, thanks Gracie fans, we know...)

But why had the spring come loose? Closer inspection revealed that the hooky bit at the end of the spring had broken off, and this, in turn, was because a certain retaining plate had either never been fitted or had been removed by some rogue service engineer in the past. There was no trace of the missing plate within the machine but the evidence of slots and threaded holes (plus the presence of a retaining plate on an identical partner spring) gave the game away.

No hook, no retaining plate and me running low on clean undies. What to do?

The Secret Laboratory boasts a collection of pliers that would shame a light engineering workshop - 14 to be precise, each with a different purpose. Two of these were selected to fashion a new hook on what remained of the broken spring. The spring now in place, a new retaining plate was fashioned from an old PCI slot blanking plate and secured with a screw of exactly the right type found in my Dad's old collection of "everything you could possibly need". He died in 1998 but to this day he's never let me down. Whatever you need, it's somewhere in his collection - you've just got to work out where he put it (and sometimes this involves bizarre "visualisation" techniques, crystals, incense, chanting and all kinds of hippy shit).

Job done! I reckon that saved me a couple of hundred quid. Another work of genius from The Secret Laboratory!

Note: If you want to try fixing your own washing machine, please observe the usual sensible precautions. Turn off the water supply before disconnecting hoses. Have mops and buckets ready before disconnecting the outlet (you wouldn't believe how much gunk is sitting in the sump). Stick a cork or something in the thing the outlet drained to. UNPLUG UNPLUG UNPLUG! Don't trust the on/off switch or even the wall switch - they don't always do what you think. Remember, some electrical equipment can hold a potentially lethal charge even after being unplugged. If you see something that looks like a little tin can, just walk away and call an expert (one of those babies once threw me across a room and I'm lucky to be here). Finally, if you are of the Compensation Culture, do not under any circumstances attempt to fix your washing machine. In fact, don't try fixing anything. Don't even try staying in bed because I don't want to be sued when you get bedsores. Just close your eyes and try not to exist.

Social Inclusion and Open Source Enabling Technologies

2009-12-14T01:46:00.014Z

No matter how hard our beloved ICT providers try, there will always remain individuals within our community who resolutely defy any attempt to welcome them into the age of the Internet. You might imagine I am speaking of the elderly, but no - most members of that demographic group are keen to become involved, if only to impress (and possibly scare the pants off) their grandchildren with their intergenerational skills set. Who wouldn't want a techo-savvy grandparent? Hey - some of them even drove the movement in the early days of interconnectivity.

No, I'm talking about people of any age who, for one personal reason or another, have decided not to become part of the revolution. Is it a strongly held belief in the evil of the technology or is it just an irrational fear of change? A fear of failure to perform in a new environment? These are just conjectures and I could be barking up the wrong hill of flying bananas.

Anyway, I have several very dear friends who have slipped through the 'Net and so they have no means to visit YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace or whatever to view material that I am sure they would enjoy.

How to include them? Of course! Drop it all onto a DVD and post it to them for Xmas! Surely they have a DVD player? Thereby hangs a tale...

If you are the kind of person who just buys retail and bugger the expense, fine. Your posh retail PC or video camcorder possibly came with all the software necessary to burn DVDs that can be played on a typical domestic DVD player. If, like me, you build your own kit from OEM components (or if you're trying to upgrade old kit), you might find that any software bundled with your components is of the "30-day trial" variety. It is all too easy to install the software and forget the T&Cs until months later when you try to use it.

Knowing that I had DVD burning software, I began such a project for a techno-refuser friend of mine. After an hour of work, the software informed me that my trial period had expired and that I would have to pay £39 to acquire the licence to complete the burn. Fair enough, payment-wise, but they could have told me at the start, not after an hour's work, surely? That's just a sneaky and underhand way of attempting to secure a sale. Had they told me at the start, I might have considered paying the £39 (maybe yes, maybe no) but after an hour's work? No way. Deliberately waste an hour of my time and they owe me £39 in my book. Lost sale. Indeed, lost sales, for I will never purchase any of their products at any time in the future, nor recommend them to my clients.

Oh dear, what to do?

To the rescue! Open Source software! After a brief hunt on the Net, all recommendations pointed to DVD Flick as being the solution, and it did everything it promised (Google it). This free package gobbled up every media file I threw at it and turned them into a playable DVD that worked even on my budget domestic DVD player. Deep Joy! The authors invited an optional monetary contribution and I will be making that, just to support the great Open Source initiative. So many times the Open Source guys have got me out of a hole when the Big Boys didn't really care about my predicament.

Priority assessment:

Open Source: enabling and friendly (if a bit geeky)
Big Boys: money and trouble

Which would you support?

Whatever you want to do with your computer, take a look at Open Source software offers before handing money over to the bread-heads. A great recommendation from The Secret Laboratory...

Bring on the Flying Trappists!

2009-12-02T05:03:00.006Z

This month, the Secret Laboratory gets all metaphysical and investigates what happens in the brain during those early morning moments before full wakefulness.

If you have ever woken with what you thought was a deep insight into the workings of the Universe, which later proved to be utter bollocks, add a response to this posting and we'll discuss it through December.

You see? The Secret Laboratory is not just about "exploding test tube" shit, although there is some of that...

Hairs in the bath - a solution

2009-11-24T01:13:00.004Z

As we approach the end of November I note that the Secret Laboratory has been rather quiet this month (demonstrating to my critics that I have not got too much time on my hands). With time running out, I decided to pull something random out of the hat by addressing the problem of hairs in the bath.

We all know the problem. Whether you're a gent such as myself who finds facial shaving more comfortable following a totally immersive long hot soak, or a lady pursuing the ideal of the silky smooth leg, once you pull that plug you know there is going to be some troublesome debris that just doesn't seem to want to go down the plughole.

The Secret Laboratory has investigated the dynamics of in-bath-shaving-related-debris (IBSRD) and has come up with the following observations and a solution:

As the bath empties, the temptation is to try to sweep the debris towards the plughole. As the wave rushes down the slope of the bath, some debris may disappear down the plughole but most will return with the (now very energetic) wave reflected from the end of the bath and is deposited as the returning wave loses energy on the incline. These are the very same dynamics that are responsible for sand deposition upon beaches.

The solution is to avoid sweeping the water towards the plughole. Instead, with your hand, keep injecting energy into the waters, even in the upper-reaches of the bath, with a constant stirring action, round and round. So long as you keep all of the water moving, it will continue to carry the debris and eventually disappear down the plughole of its own accord. You may find you don't even need to clean the bath afterwards.

I don't know - I really ought to charge for this kind of practical research...

Snoods R Us

2009-10-23T01:29:00.019+01:00

This is a tale of recycling to make us all feel good about ourselves again, after stamping all over the Planet with our big carbonised feet.

Recently, my rogue washing machine ate my favourite fleece jumper. It got caught between the spinny thing and the non-spinny thing and melted through friction. I could have thrown it away but hey, I've got a Secret Laboratory...

Salvaging the unchewed bits from the fleece, I began to wonder what I might make of them. A snood! What else? Great for keeping my neck warm whilst cycling, now the winter is upon us.

Historical note: traditionally the term snood refers to a kind of bag worn on the head with the express purpose of containing hair. More recently, snood describes a tube of fabric worn around the neck and which can be be pulled up around the lower part of the face. It does the job of a scarf but you don't have to agonise over what kind of knot is in fashion this year - it's just a tube.

Obviously some stitching would be involved and therein was the first challenge. Broadly speaking, the head is wider than the neck and so any hem stitch would need to be stretchy just to get the thing on. I know we're all on a spectrum here. If anyone can get away with a straight stitch, all I can say is try banging the rocks together guys - see what happens in the next million years.

My ancient Singer can't do fancy stitching like that, so I engaged the services of Agent A and her fabulous Bernina. In no time at all, she had the stretchy hemming sorted out with a special zig-zag stitch pattern:

I installed elastic in the bottom hem and a draw-string in the top:

Hey presto - snood!

And sooner may a gulling weather Spie

By drawing forth heavens Scheme tell certainly

What fashioned hats, or ruffes, or suits next yeare

Our subtile-witted antique youths will weare...

(Donne)

Revitalising shoe polish

2009-10-21T01:32:00.010+01:00

You know how it is with tins of shoe polish. We don't polish shoes as obsessively as we did in the old days, so, invariably, when you open up that tin that's been at the back of a cupboard for 10 years the contents have gone all dry and lumpy. Sometimes you chase a lump around the tin for ages, failing to get any on your rag. Sometimes you manage to get the whole lump on the rag - too much even for a regiment. Sometimes the lump escapes and goes on a wild tour, making your home look like the lodger's been on dirty protest. Familiar scenario? Here's the solution:

Place your tins of polish in a pan with about half an inch of water just to cover the bottom. Bring this to the lowest simmer you possibly can for about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave to cool.

When cool, open up your tins to find the polish looking as good as the day you bought it!

Another work of absolute genius from The Secret Laboratory...

Wonky Trigger Fish

2009-10-10T01:23:00.003+01:00

It was supposed to be a Trigger Fish for my girlfriend but it went a bit wrong. That's the trouble with home-made lavender bags - you never know what you're gonna git. Ah, the things we do for love...

No more knots

2009-08-24T02:48:00.017+01:00

The Secret Laboratory is not just about invention - it's about learning too. The Secret Laboratory is happy to share learning.

Did you know that there is a strict definition that distinguishes a knot from a tangle? There are computer programs out there that can analyse random tosses of string (Grannies) and declare whether or not a knot is present. Just for the record, if you can fix both ends of the string, rope, cable, whatever, and still untangle the mess between, no knot was present, howsoever convoluted and difficult to sort out. The famous disappearing knot is not a knot at all.

When it comes to knots, I'm a minimalist. I know about seven knots (reef, sheet bend, fisherman's, double fisherman's, bowline, half hitch, alan) and these are great for most purposes. I know when and where to use them. I don't need or wish to learn the other few hundred variants on the theme. It's not for nothing I was never a Boy Scout, although I did accidentally become a First Biddulph Brownie Guide when I gave my vows to a Snowy Owl I got drunk with in Switzerland 28 years ago. I thought she was joking. Apparently not, as I discovered at breakfast next morning. No way back. Take the vows, do the time...

Am I rambling? Sorry, I intended to discuss my new knotless existence. Knots are weak, they lead to weaknesses in the rope (as illustrated by the break-knot, a knot that allows you to break any rope by the power of subsequently broken fingers alone). You need to leave knots behind and work with the very structure of rope by splicing.

I had always thought of splicing as some kind of ancient maritime excuse for not joining the Scouts (or the Brownies) and avoiding the task of learning hundreds of different kinds of knot. How wrong can one be? Now I will never use a knot where a splice will suffice.

Gaze upon this wonder:

Just an eye-splice on a three strand rope, my first attempt. Isn't it beautiful? These are the people who took me there.

WizzPod results

2009-08-24T01:40:00.003+01:00

As promised, WizzPod was taken to the Acoustic Roots music festival at Linton. The trial was abandoned when it was discovered that the ground was too hard even for the stiff beer-line to penetrate.

Instead of plastic beer-line, WizzPod Mk II will be fitted with a metal pipe to facilitate insertion even in the most challenging of subterranean environments.

Watch this space!

WizzPod

2009-08-21T02:21:00.013+01:00

Festival season being in full flow here in the Three Counties, my accomplice (Agent S) and I decided to turn the resources of the Secret Laboratory to the solution of an age-old festival problem:

You know how it is. You've had a great day listening to the music and quaffing the real ales and ciders. You've barbecued everything you managed to find in the cool bag and you've jammed until the wee hours around the illicit camp fire. At long last, it's time to hit the tent. Safe in your sleeping bag, it's not long before you hear the nearby sound of some poor soul answering the call of nature. It begins with a drawn-out, mournful Zzzzzzzip sound as a tent is prepared for exit. Scuffling sounds, then muffled thuds as the hapless tenant staggers towards an unforseen nettle patch or worse. You know that before dawn it will be your turn...

Unless, of course, you are the proud owner of a WizzPod, the Secret Laboratory's two-fingered flick in the face of Nature's call!

How does it work? The role of the funnel is obvious and should not require explanation. Suffice it to say that it is gender unspecific and both myself and Agent S anticipate no particular difficulties in use. The tube below the funnel is a section of beer line (that's right, the same kind of line used in pubs to connect the cellar to the serving area - kind of ironic, really). The beer line is stiff enough to be inserted into the ground within the privacy of the porch area of the tent. Holes drilled in the lower half of the beer line provide a soak-away feature well below the level of the pitch.

Above, note the holes drilled in the beer line, the sharp angle of the tip to facilitate insertion into the ground and the plug to prevent blocking of the line during insertion.

Agent S and I will be trialling the WizzPod at the Acoustic Roots festival this weekend - watch this space for results.

FAQ

Q. Why not call it the PeePod?
A. Loads of products out there called PeePod, not all to do with Pee.

Q. Why don't you take this to Dragon's Den?
A. Can you imagine their faces? Their withering comments? We invented the WizzPod in the interests of privacy and dignity, not National humiliation.

Q. How much can it hold?
A. We used a 12.5cm funnel. Given that volume V of a cone is 1/3 pi r^2 h, we find that our funnel holds about a pint - enough for most festival purposes, given that the soak-away tends to keep up anyway. Note: ground conditions and soil structure can affect performance of the soak-away.

Q. Can you poo in it?
A. No. There's a clue in the name.

Measure Twice, Cut Once...

2009-08-01T00:43:00.010+01:00

Measure twice, cut once - great advice from my mate Rob. Great, that is, if you measure correctly on the two occasions in question. If you get it wrong twice then you're into the realm of contingency-driven lateral engineering (or bodging, as it was formerly known).

How is it possible, after months of planning and careful consideration, to cut holes in the wrong location on the smart housing one has selected for one's project? Some people have suggested that ale is to blame. I prefer to think that I am keeping in touch with my feminine side :-)

Anyway, once the holes were cut, it was easier (and less embarrassing) to re-design the innards of the thing to fit the holes rather than to move the holes to fit the innards. After all, who is ever going to challenge me to open it up and reveal the mess that lies within? It works, that's all that matters.

What are we talking about? Why, the Musician's Friend, the Universal Belt-Mounted Signal-Boosting Gadget Thingy. Here it is:

Based on the LM358 chip, this cute little fag-packet-sized device sits between your instrument and whatever lies beyond, be it a PA, a mixing desk or whatever, outputting a strong, clean signal. Just for fun, I built in Phantom Power as well, to satisfy those folks with quirky pickups (that's what the second switch is for).

Cost? Around £15 (plus a lot of swearing during construction).

Another one-off work of genius from the Secret Laboratory!

Moving on...

2009-07-30T01:21:00.009+01:00

OK, so the quest for invisible white light ended when I discovered that human skin drinks IR. It didn't seem to matter how hot I drove the giant IR array, nothing bounced off my face unless I wore the special make-up. I'm fine, really. I can deal with failure. Don't mail me...
Moving on, what I want to talk about this evening is PE-HD (High Density Polyethylene to the uninitiated). What an amazing material! I can't believe that I've been consigning so many tons of it to recycle (Council euphemism for landfill) for so many years. I'll never throw a scrap away again, I promise!
So where do you get this wonderful material? For a ready supply, check your fridge. PE-HD is what your typical plastic milk cartons are made of. Next time you are about to throw away a plastic milk carton, try this instead: Wash it and cut out as many flat panels as you can. Now think what you can do with this stock. You can bend or fold it and it doesn't crack. You can cut or staple it and it doesn't tear. It doesn't like conventional "glues" but it is happy with double-sided adhesive tape and sticky fixers, etc.
What led me to this personal discovery was the need to devise a helmet-mounted harness for my mobile phone. I'm doing a sponsored abseil for the Severn Area Rescue Association this weekend and I thought it might be a good idea to grab some 3GP video on the way down. The milk-carton PE-HD was the perfect solution. It was so easy to make a stong and secure custom phone case with PE-HD and a few staples. It's everything Origami should have been but never was.
What can you do with yours?

The quest for Invisible White Light continues...

2009-06-23T03:25:00.006+01:00

In a recent comment concerning this investigation, Dr. Alcock correctly pointed out that I was in need of some beer and a lie down. However, he later forwarded me a photograph of his own TV remote control taken with his camera phone, demonstrating (a) the variation in response of different imaging elements to invisible radiation, and (b) that Dr. Alcock himself was in need of some beer and a lie down.

As I had just completed repairs to my large array of IR LEDs (see last post), I decided to compare what my camera could see with what my phone could see.

Below: A photo of the array taken with my camera - green, as expected. Still not very bright though. It appears the green sensors are only marginally receptive to IR and the red and blue sensors scarcely at all.

Below: My phone appears highly sensitive to IR, the red and blue sensors more so than the green.

And they say the camera never lies...

Progress with Invisible White Light

2009-06-20T01:52:00.009+01:00

The story so far...

I needed to get some measurements on the response of my camera to invisible light radiation. Here I took a photo of myself (in a mirror) illuminated by ultraviolet light. I could not actually see the light myself but the camera could, as you may see. If you grab a sample of my face and run it through a colour histogram tool (e.g. in PaintShop Pro) you will see that red and blue are very much in evidence and green scarcely at all (the tiny amount of green present is due to ambient light interference - I really should have done this experiment in the dark). So there you have it. That's what I call Ultra Magenta - the red and blue sensors in the imaging chip responding inappropriately but usefully to ultra violet light.

That's the red and blue sorted out. What about the green? That's where I need to infill with the infra red, which looks green to the camera.

I have tried but I cannot illuminate my face sufficiently using even a score of old TV remote control handsets. Here's the solution:

A large array of IR LEDs. Got to get it working first. Watch this space...

Invisible White Light!

2009-06-19T06:30:00.005+01:00

Further to my last post, I've just discovered Ultra Magenta! It's not really ultra magenta of course - that's just my name for it. I experimented further with my digital camera and discovered that it could also see ultraviolet, which the blue and red sensors render as a kind of visible magenta!

Add my ultra magenta to my infra green (see previous post) and you've got invisible white light!

Think about it - a flash unit with an infra red and an ultraviolet source, both invisible to the human eye but the camera sees it as white light! The ultimate unobtrusive flash.

No - this is too good. It's probably been done...

I need to do tests, tests, yes, tests (mutter mutter...)

Infra Green?

2009-06-19T05:15:00.007+01:00

It's not every day that someone discovers a new colour so I thought I'd mention this latest find from the Secret Laboratory - Infra Green. That's right - never been seen before, I reckon.

OK, it's not really a new colour. I was mucking about with my digital camera when I noticed that it could actually "see" the invisible infra red radiation from my TV remote control. Oddly, it rendered this invisible wavelength from the far red end of the spectrum not in red but in green - the exact complement in at least one colour model! If you're looking for green (e.g. through a green filter) the last thing you expect to see is red - it ought to be black! There's probably a perfectly reasonable explanation why my camera's green sensors (and green alone) are able to see infra red but I am not in possession of that explanation. It's probably something to do with what scientists call weird shit or quantum bollocks or something.

Of course, this is how those infra red security cameras work. Normally we view the images in black-and-white so we're not really aware what colour of sensor actually recorded the image. I always imagined one needed a special sensor to record infra red - not so...

Anyway, this got me to wondering what else my camera could see that I couldn't, and what other lies it was telling me when I released the shutter.

Then came the bombshell! What's the problem with flash photography? Too white and too bright! Suppose you had an infra-red flashgun - that would provide the necessary green signal without startling your subjects. Then infill with just a touch of visible magenta flash to balance the colour to ambient levels. Result? A very unobtrusive flash, no more than a pinky glow at 2/3 the apparent brightness of a conventional flash.

More news soon...

Mandolin Stuff

2009-06-12T03:04:00.020+01:00

Mandolins are a bugger. Were I a guitarist of note there would be millions of guitarists to compare me with and demonstrate that I'm a guitarist of relatively poor achievement. When it comes to famous mandolin players, it's like the old business of trying to name famous Belgians. There are loads of them but nobody quite recalls them. Thus, it is incumbent upon me to represent famous mandolin players in Ledbury, even though I only know half-a-dozen chords and thrash them out like I am trying to saw a biscuit tin in half with a junior hacksaw.

Talking of which, why do I get funny looks when I go into Rodway's and ask for the Adult hacksaw section?

Cutting to the main story, an acquaintance of mine brought an ancient mandolin to me, explaining that it had been a gift and that he wanted to know if it could be rendered "playable". Looking at the poor thing, it was indeed in bad shape. I took it home for further inspection. Peering through the soundhole I could see the Vicar's house through the back - and the Vicar waving - not the best sign for a mandolin. The neck had been replaced at some point in its history and had been set at the wrong angle, producing an unplayably high action. The tailpiece was shattered - generally speaking, it's a good idea to have something to tie the ends of the strings to. The face was sunken, like your granny's cheeks when she tries to smoke a tightly rolled ciggie.

However, the Secret Laboratory loves a challenge...

Back glued together, no more gaps. French Polish applied!

New tailpiece! Bit of old scrap alu found in the dark recesses of the Secret Laboratory.

Some Abalone used to replace the missing Mother-of-Pearl inlay.

In short, this mando is now just about playable. I've worked on the action but I just can't get it down any further - there's no room. The sound, however, is astonishing! I wish my regular mando sounded so bright.

By the way, I can thoroughly recommend "The Secret of Successful French Polishing" [Lindsey Doyle].

Full Circle!

2009-06-05T20:02:00.010+01:00

If you were thinking of entering this month's What's Happening in the Secret Laboratory competition, don't bother - you're too late. The prize jelly babies have gone to a good cause.

I was, of course, measuring the water flow rate through a concrete griffin's bottom and the back pressure on the pump. Why? Read on...

Followers of exploits at the Secret Laboratory (pre-dating this blog) may remember that a few years ago I converted a garden water feature to serve as an automatic tomato watering facility so that I could go on holiday, safe in the knowledge that there would be tomatoes upon my return. This year I didn't bother with tomatoes so I came around to thinking maybe I could convert this converted garden water feature into... a garden water feature. A crazy idea but it might just work...

Let me introduce my Dad (1928-1998), a man filled with grandiose ideas and a master of unfinished projects. In 1970 he bought a concrete griffin with an internal tube connecting its bum to its mouth. Our garden was to become a veritable water palace, worthy of kings and princes. All summer long my Mum and I waited for the sound of tinkling water. All summer long the griffin lay idle, gathering moss. Thirty-nine years later, still not a drop of water had entered the griffin's bottom to delight visiting nobles - until now!

The best thing is, turn a valve, engage the timer and the installation reverts to an automatic tomato irrigation tool again!

Yes, yes - I have to do some work on hiding the beer line and the power cable. Everything's under control...

This one is for you Dad - a gift from the Secret Laboratory!

Work in Progress...

2009-06-04T13:16:00.006+01:00

So, what is happening at the Secret Laboratory this week? A bag of jelly babies says you'll never guess.

Bloody Artists!

2009-05-09T01:37:00.007+01:00

Early 1990s, dawn of the Web, there I was making a presentation to colleagues at a certain college in South London, enthusing about the new technology and demonstrating how easy it was to put material online. And the most amazing thing is that you don't need to worry about compatibility, I explained. It doesn't matter what screen resolution or dimension is available on the target machine, it doesn't matter what fonts are installed, what colour depth the graphics card supports, everything sort of moves around, gets switched, swapped, substituted, resized and sorted out so it's viewable at the user's end.

So, what you're saying is that we're not actually in control of the way the page looks? queried the Artists in the group.

That's right - isn't it wonderful?

Solemn shaking of heads and tuttings of disapproval ensued. We're not sure we like the sound of that, they said. In fact we don't like it one bit.

Well, I wasn't worried. If the Artists didn't want to embrace this exciting new medium, that was their loss. No skin off my nose. We'd keep it in the Geek community for now - maybe the Artists would come around to our way of thinking eventually - always an open door and a friendly welcome in Geek World. We need all the friends we can get...

Here we are, nearly 20 years later. Did the Artists come on board? No. Instead, they stole the Web from us and destroyed it with over-complicated markup tags, Cascading Style Sheets, Dynamic Web Templates and suchlike that don't work cross-platform. Perfectly good tags were declared deprecated, so we're not sure how much longer they will be supported on each of the many browsers. Nothing works predictably anymore, as any web-designer will confirm. Ah, but it works in FireNumpty 6.5 (or whatever) is not an excuse!

So, if anyone witnessed a strange chap kneeling on the ground outside a certain Secret Laboratory yesterday morning, spilling his tea down his dressing-gown and pounding the earth with his fist in a fine impression of Charlton Heston in the final scene of Planet of the Apes, that was probably me.

You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

Whither LVLR?

2009-04-25T01:36:00.012+01:00

I don't know what's going on with the LVLR project. You know how it is when you've got 99% of the resources you need to realise a successful project outcome but that missing 1% remains out of reach? No? Oh, well - it's really frustrating, that's what it is. Try it sometime - it'll drive you insane.

What is LVLR? It's a navigation aid for SCUBA divers, particularly those working in conditions of low visibility and those over-tasked with other equipment considerations. Yes, yes, there are plenty of underwater navigation aids on the market already but none works quite like LVLR, not even the impressive and highly desirable Heads-Up-Display (HUD) that was developed by Oceanic originally for military purposes, later versions becoming available for the technical/recreational diving market. Add to this the strong possibility that LVLR could probably retail at sub-£100 and you've got the kind of "pocket-money" item that many divers would buy on spec and then wonder how they ever managed without.

So what does LVLR actually do, precisely? I cannot give details here as this would compromise the patent application. Let's just say that LVLR does something that no other product can do; it's all in the software and the peculiar Human-Computer-Interface (HCI).

I went diving yesterday with my good dive-buddy Richard, just to keep our skills up-to-date and to have a bit of fun. At the dive site an unusually heavy algal bloom was taking place and, at about 1m, visibility was truly appalling (unless you're a Police diver, in which case I suppose 1m visibility is something of a luxury). We got lost. 13 acres of murk and we didn't know where the hell we were (except how to get back, of course; at this particular dive site, North is almost always good and gets you close to an exit or something else you recognise). Eventually we found what we had been looking for - a 1910 steamboat lying about 23m deep. We actually bumped into it before we saw it. It would have been fun to stick around a while and explore the boat but we had used half our air getting there and that's when it's time to turn back - penetrating the "wreck" would have been foolhardy in the extreme. Now, if we'd had LVLR, we would have got there sooner and our more controlled dive-depth profile would have saved even more air...

So, why is LVLR still not realised six years after its initial conception? The missing, vital component is a miniature pressure transducer of the kind found in dive computers and some dive watches. I remember when these were readily available on the Internet - I wish I had purchased a few back then. Now there is no sign of these particular devices anywhere on the Internet, though I know they exist. I suspect that certain OEMs have acquired exclusive rights to the source, just to keep would-be competitors at bay. I wouldn't care if I were a competitor but I'm not - there is nothing like LVLR out there. LVLR is truly unique...

An early prototype of LVLR sits in its prototype waterproof housing, awaiting the arrival of a suitable pressure transducer. Will the sleeker, slimmer production version ever see the light of day? Only time will tell.

If you have a shagged-out old dive computer or dive watch containing a pressure transducer of the type described, please contact the Secret Laboratory!

Blues Stomp Box - complications

2009-04-18T03:23:00.006+01:00

OK, so the Stomp Box MkI didn't quite work out as planned. I didn't expect it to be perfect first time. One-off projects like this evolve over time.

The first fault was with the LED power indicator. Personal memo to self: never connect a self-blinking LED across the power input of an audio device, unless you actually want that Floyd-style heartbeat in the background all the time.

Second fault... I had such faith in that piezo transducer! I was so certain that, being a contact device, it would be relatively immune to external noise and would pick up only the stomp from the box. I was right, but in such a wrong way. No feedback problems (hurrah) but every last detail of sticky shoe sole issue was faithfully fed to the amp, making it sound like an octopus making love to a biscuit tin. Boom-schluppp Boom-schluppp, etc. In desperation, I added a layer of rubberised carpet to the top of the Stomp Box. This made it sound like an octopus trying desperately not to be discovered making love to a biscuit tin.

The blinking LED had to go. I replaced it with one of those low power plain jobbies with a built-in resistor, designed for direct connection across rails. So far, so good.

The piezo element had to go. I replaced it with a dynamic element from a crap old cassette-recorder microphone, embedded in foam packaging.

As far as I was concerned, I now had a Stomp Box! I shoved it through my 100W Laney Linebacker, took the top-end off and was pleased to hear a satisfying Whump Whump Whump coming through.

However, everyone's a critic, so it seems. On its first night out, the Stomp Box was still deemed to be too "toppy". Some said that thicker carpeting or even neoprene rubber casing might help. Others argued that an active low-pass filter might be the solution (sledgehammers and nuts spring to mind). Personally, I suspect the ability of the performers. Just because it's called a Stomp Box doesn't mean you can just plug it in, stamp on it and expect to sound like Catfish Keith on day one. These things need learning...

Blues Stomp Box

2009-03-20T04:46:00.013Z

There's a bit of a story behind this project - sorry but that's blogs for you.

Angie, a very good friend of mine, not content with being a perfectly competent folk singer and guitarist, decided to become simply the best blueswoman in the county and a serious rival to the best the World has to offer - no, really.

Then came the bombshell. Angie wanted a stomp box. For those not in the know, a stomp box is one of those little wooden platforms that blues artists stomp with their toes or heels to add a bit of percussive oomph to their performance - cheaper than hiring a drummer.

In the olden days, hillbillies would make stomp boxes out of old wooden boxes made of... er... old bits of old wooden box, and very fine they sounded too. These days you can buy handcrafted, french-polished stomp boxes online for only a few hundred dollars... HOW MUCH? That's like a red rag to a bull for the Secret Laboratory!

Materials list:

Bits of old wood. Plenty of old bits of wood in the Secret Laboratory. Indeed, the Secret Laboratory itself is constructed almost entirely from bits of old wood (no secret laboratories were harmed in this project).
Bits of old electronic equipment (plus a few bits of new electronic equipment from sustainable sources). Sorry, but in noisy modern music venues you need to go through the desk and the PA to be heard, and this necessitates a bit of preamplification.
Screws and glue... loads of glue..

Equipment list:

Saw
Drill
Screwdriver
Soldering iron
Brain

Procedure:

With brain, use saw, drill, screwdriver and soldering iron to transform old bits of wood, glue, screws and electronic gubbins (from sustainable sources) into a stomp box. That's about it really. Results below:

Welcome to the Secret Laboratory!

2009-03-17T04:12:00.000Z

OK, it's just a shed but it says "Secret Laboratory" in big letters over the door, so that makes it a Secret Laboratory in my book - even if it's not that secret anymore. It's where I do my best stuff.

This being a new blog, I've got a bit of catching up to do. Four current projects to document here: Mandolin pre-amp, Blues stomp box, Bamboo cycle trailer and Homebrew dive computer; an element of danger in each. Watch this space!

Ah - I almost forgot to mention my new assistant, Igor. He's not very bright but he's a keen learner and helps with things like chewing through cables, etc. When I placed the ad, I specified a small, hirsute hunchback with funny ears, but this wasn't quite what I was expecting. What on Earth was the Agency thinking? Apparently he's on some kind of "Rodents back into work" scheme and I have to fill in loads of bloody forms every week.