Dollar Store Supplies

[alparent]

A lot of people have oscilloscopes - but not as many probes as they need, so go to the dollar store and get

plastic salt and pepper shakers

bore a hole in the bottom for the coax and one in the opposite end for the probe and terminals.  For a 10X probe, you need a resistor and a variable trimmer capacitor.  You can buy BNC cables for a few bucks, cut them in half and you have the probe cables.  You can also make audio tracers and audio signal injectors from salt and pepper shakers.

Any pictures of this?

[amptramp]

A lot of people have oscilloscopes - but not as many probes as they need, so go to the dollar store and get

plastic salt and pepper shakers

bore a hole in the bottom for the coax and one in the opposite end for the probe and terminals.  For a 10X probe, you need a resistor and a variable trimmer capacitor.  You can buy BNC cables for a few bucks, cut them in half and you have the probe cables.  You can also make audio tracers and audio signal injectors from salt and pepper shakers.

Any pictures of this?

It came from an old electronics magazine (1950's or 1960's) but it always seemed to be a good idea.  I have no pictures since I bought a box of probes at the London Vintage Radio Club last year, so I don't need to make my own anymore.  One trick I used to see our technicians use in the 1970's when I was at Spar Aerospace was to use male banana plugs on the end of a test cable and add #28 tuberculin needles as the probe tip.  It could go through insulation and conformal coating with ease.

[Canucker]

What size are those mini bags?  I just came back from Dollarama and the smallest they had was 6-1/2x3-1/4.  I'd like to find ones about 2x3.

I'm quite sure they are 2x3...they are in the craft section not the food supplies section. I just saw today that there is a new Dollarama opening four minutes from my house....so I don't have to go to the old one thats six minutes from my house!

[Jdansti]

RIP Dave Gold

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/dave-gold-founder-99-cents-stores-dies-19058134#.UX9MjmS9LTo

[GGBB]

What size are those mini bags?  I just came back from Dollarama and the smallest they had was 6-1/2x3-1/4.  I'd like to find ones about 2x3.

I'm quite sure they are 2x3...they are in the craft section not the food supplies section. I just saw today that there is a new Dollarama opening four minutes from my house....so I don't have to go to the old one thats six minutes from my house!

These were from the kitchen section.  I asked for their smallest zip bags and that's what they showed me.  I'll have to look again.  Maybe if I go to a Dollarama in the rough part of town I'll have more luck. 

[alparent]

I got my small ones from the crafts section.

[Hemmel]

I got my small ones from the crafts section.

Same here, next to the jewelry cases and painting supplies.

[Jopn]

I hit up the dollarama on the way home last night and picked up some of that book cover paper along with a few other supplies.

Don't bother getting sandpaper there though.  I tried sanding a DIY pedalboard last night, and any rough spots on the wood took the sand right off the paper 

[Hemmel]

Don't bother getting sandpaper there though. 

Well considering the low cost of sandpaper, I wouldn't bother going to Dollarama for it anyway. Especially since there's a RoNa right next to it.

[clubrulz]

Holy crap! Did I actually contributed something useful?

I find the vinyl much quicker and cleaner. No soaking, no rubbing, no paper residue.
Just have to readjust my process.  (I've been doing photo paper for over 10 years)

Not sure how fine I can go with this technique?

At first I didn't stick the vinyl go regular paper and I had warping issues. Watched the video again and after sticking it to regular paper, the warping is gone.

Next time I'll actually try reusing the same vinyl. I known I'm cheap!

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I do have some questions with the vinyl method. I have tried the following method and the vinyl just seems to warp, shrink/melt almost and has not worked at all for me. Method is as follows:
1) Using the dolorama book cover vinyl
2) Cut out a piece and removed it from the backing paper and stuck it to a regular piece of office paper
3) printed the transfer onto the vinyl using Xerox copier
4) placed the vinyl on a clean board and then plaecd a sheet of office paper between the iron and the vinyl sheet
5) ironed on Cotton setting for about 30 seconds vinyl just shrivels up and distorts

tried less heat for longer, tried preheating the copper. Nothing seems to work. Any suggestions? do you leave the vinyl on it s own backing and then tape it to a sheet or use the vinyl as a sticker?

[Mark Hammer]

I bought some 8x8 finished plywood cubes in the dollar store last year, that are apparently used for that craft where one creates 3-d pictures within a frame (blocking on the name right now).  They're about 3" deep.  I cut some aluminum face plates for the front, and used them to make stackable modules for MFOS projects.  Nothing particularly special, but cheap and convenient.

[GGBB]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I do have some questions with the vinyl method. I have tried the following method and the vinyl just seems to warp, shrink/melt almost and has not worked at all for me. Method is as follows:
1) Using the dolorama book cover vinyl
2) Cut out a piece and removed it from the backing paper and stuck it to a regular piece of office paper
3) printed the transfer onto the vinyl using Xerox copier
4) placed the vinyl on a clean board and then plaecd a sheet of office paper between the iron and the vinyl sheet
5) ironed on Cotton setting for about 30 seconds vinyl just shrivels up and distorts

tried less heat for longer, tried preheating the copper. Nothing seems to work. Any suggestions? do you leave the vinyl on it s own backing and then tape it to a sheet or use the vinyl as a sticker?

If your vinyl is melting/shriveling, your iron is too hot, so you'll have to try less heat for longer.  When I tried it I used self adhesive shelf liner rather than book cover vinyl.  It actually took a long time for the heat to penetrate the vinyl and melt the toner - I think about ten minutes.  I did it exactly the way you describe except lower heat setting and longer time.

Funny thing is, I had great success the first time I tried it (after two or three failed attempts to get the heat setting right), but the next board I tried I couldn't get it to work at all so I went back to photo paper.

[clubrulz]

I am going to keep at it. So far the only success I have had is using regular office paper. I can get the transfer onto the copper, but it sure is a PITA getting all the paper fibers off the board. My etchant looks more like a paper mache project. The boards come out OK, but I figure there has got to be a better way. I actually got halfway through cutting out the traces with an exacto knife on a piece of paper. I was then going to use it as a stencil and just paint over the stencil to get the traces onto the board. After an hour of detailed cutting I threw up my arms and started trying the iron on method.