Electronics – Brychan Thomas' projects

Repairing a Commodore 64

A few months ago my aunt gave me her old Commodore 64 that had been sitting in the attic for over 30 years. It was covered with a layer of dust and grime which needed a lot of toilet paper to remove. I wasn’t able to try and get it working at the time becauseContinue reading “Repairing a Commodore 64”

Repairing an 80s micro cassette recorder

This holiday, between revising for the mock exams, I’ve found time to get a micro cassette recorder that used to belong to my great grandfather working. I think it’s a model from the 80s, but I haven’t been able to find an exact date. I was able to get it working by attaching 4.5v acrossContinue reading “Repairing an 80s micro cassette recorder”

Upgrading the air quality monitor

When I originally built the air quality monitor for my school I used the Things Network, a public LoRaWAN radio network for low power devices to send data to the internet. This year a new version of the back end came out, called The Things Stack (aka V3). As a result, they are shutting downContinue reading “Upgrading the air quality monitor”

CanSat competition

Over the past seven or so months I have been working in a team of four taking part in the CanSat competition. The goal of the competition is to build a simulation of a satellite within the volume of a soft drinks can. The device is then launched in a small rocket and descends withContinue reading “CanSat competition”

Designing and building an air quality monitor

Around a year ago the headmistress of the school asked if it would be possible to build a device capable of monitoring the air quality around the school in real time. The computer science teacher directed her to me and I was asked to do some research and put together a shopping list of theContinue reading “Designing and building an air quality monitor”

Simulating a 555 timer in JavaScript with p5.js

The 555 timer is the most popular integrated circuit ever produced – in 2003 it was estimated that a billion units are manufactured every year. It is used for many applications involving oscillating, pulse generation and timing. Recently I was set the challenge of simulating a 555 timer circuit using JavaScript. this is what IContinue reading “Simulating a 555 timer in JavaScript with p5.js”

Repairing a HP 54502A oscilloscope

My Physics teacher recently acquired some old electronics equipment from a company that was throwing them out, and said that I could have some. I ended up with a Hewlett-Packard digitising oscilloscope from the early 90s. The display turned out to be broken, but before taking it apart I wondered whether I could fix itContinue reading “Repairing a HP 54502A oscilloscope”