Hello world [of lockpicking]!

So a few friends from Hacklab.to gave me a set of homemade lockpicks and turned me loose on a few locks (easy ones) earlier this week. I took the picks home, bought a few padlocks from Walmart, and I’ve been poking at them on and off during my breaks. I *just* picked a 4 pin lock for the first time, whee.

And yes, that is a journal article in the background. Specifically:

Sabourin, L., Beck, A., Duenk, PW., et al. 2009 Runoff of pharmaceuticals and personal care products following application of dewatered municipal biosolids to an agricultural field. Science of the Total Environment. 407:4596-4604.

I wonder what we have here….

Update Nov 3, 2009: almost ready for some fun things…

1L and 500mL round bottom flasks, plus all the other bits for distillation. Enough to do reflux and workup. I have also gotten a separatory funnel (not shown) and other bits of glassware.

Upcoming soon will be a procedure for hydrolysis of vegetable based oils to obtain oleic acid, which amongst other uses will be for a ferrofluid procedure.

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Oh what a lovely Tuesday morning, but what rouses me from my sleep so early?

My distillation glassware has finally arrived!

Just as a teaser, but perhaps down the road things like essential oil steam extraction and simple distillations will be posted.

Review of the GT Power A8 Battery Charger

In the realm of intelligent battery chargers, there are far too many choices. Prices range from about $50USD to some in the $300 range and come with a whole variety of features. The problem is that the new emerging market is for cheap products that don’t perform, or don’t have the durability and quality expected for a complex device.

Most new intelligent battery chargers can charge, discharge, and cycle Pb, NiCd, NiMH, Li-ion, LiPo, and more recently LiFePO4. These chargers feature control over charging/discharging current. Contrast this to your ‘dumb’ chargers that are essentially trickle charge wall warts that push in around 0.5C that can overcharge NiCd/NiMH, or slow LiPo balance trickle chargers that come with RC helis sometimes.

The GT Power A8 charger sells for about $80USD + S&H, I got mine from HobbyCity.com.

My experience at Gull Lake

This last weekend I had the chance to go up to the University of Toronto Survey Camp as part of my freshwater ecology course with Dr. Nick Collins. The camp is normally used by Civil engineers to practice their survey skills in the field, but it is also situated on Gull Lake which like most freshwater lakes, supports a diverse ecosystem.

Alternator Motor Update

So my last post about an alternator to brushless motor conversion seemed to draw some interest, but people were asking some details so I drew up a quick diagram in inkscape last night.