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axt.bsky.social
axt
@axt.bsky.social
89 followers 120 following 310 posts
I like birbs and turbomolecular pumps <3
Medical steel augmented FMMT666.
+51° 25' 45.78, +6° 59' 9.36
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axt.bsky.social
Last colors and the big chili goodbye.
See you next year. 🌱
Three bushes and small trees with red, green and yellow leaves in the garden. About a dozen of planting pots with the remains of chili plants in those red pebble thingies. Some garden shoes next to them. Photo taken from above.
November 13, 2025 at 2:32 PM
axt.bsky.social
Things that don’t belong in the lab.
But stereo.
A small Roland Jazz Chorus (a guitar amplifier) on a furniture wheel bord under a table in the lab. Some effects pedals on top of it. Fun fact: Have been using the big JC-12 for decades, but this tiny variant (2x6“ ?) has a true stereo inputs. So much richer. Maybe they‘ll someday make a JC-12+ 🥰.
November 9, 2025 at 1:23 AM
axt.bsky.social
Spindle Ermine
Pfaffenhütchen-Gespinstmotte
#moths
Close view of the moth. Looks like a dalmatian, but as moth.
November 8, 2025 at 11:31 PM
axt.bsky.social
This is of course not a not perfect quantitative analysis, but I swapped the filters three times, to reduce bias/offset effects in the room (*coughs*); and this cheap cut-to-pieces air filter mat beats the Weller Zero Smog Shield solder fume extractor by a factor of three. And price of 1/10.
Particle counter in top of the box of a “Pureburg” filter. It displays about 140k 0.3um particles, down to 2 10um ones. Same setup, but Weller ZS Shield filter (without gas filter). Display shows numbers about three times higher than for the Pureberg filter.
November 7, 2025 at 10:55 PM
axt.bsky.social
Is there a list of Thinkpads that do not have this sh!tty rubberlike coating?
Ugh. *würg*
November 7, 2025 at 2:06 PM
axt.bsky.social
I bought a particle counter, and as several studies suggest, these desktop solder fume extractors are pretty much useless. This counter doesn’t even detect the smaller (and much more harmful) particles and gases. Just 2cm of solder wire, and the device immediately sounds the alarm :)
The device in my hand after a clean count. u instead of μ below 0.3um 27820 0.5um 2624 1.0um 237 2.5um 23 5.0um 13 10um 0 Seconds after soldering a bit, the display says 0.3um 1403779 0.5um 229626 1.0um 17267 2.5um 1647 5.0um 766 10um 22 A test filter consisting of three layers of a HEPA filter and these black “active carbon filter“ mats. Test setup in the homelab. A 15x15cm wooden (lasered) DIY filter, a relatively big Weller WXP120 in front of the filter. The particle counter is about half a meter to the right. Filter blows into the corner of the room in the basement.
November 7, 2025 at 1:19 AM
axt.bsky.social
Coworker ordered two Siglent demo oscilloscopes for a week or two. A lot of memory and bandwidth, but that’s it. Quite limited and also not very responsive. Rather meh.
Siglent SDS 5108X, eight channel analog oscilloscope on a workbench in the office. Big black scope with a 12”(?) display. Looks like a LeCroy. Feels like a LeCroy. Nobody wants a LeCroy, hehe. Only our SW people use them - in conjunction with the AUTO button, lol. But in contrast to the LeCroys, this one here has a working peak detection. Maybe they learned that from Siglent :)
November 6, 2025 at 6:54 PM
axt.bsky.social
As it seems, my old Tektronix „7934 Storage Oscilloscope“ is still working. Even forgot that it‘s still here, hehe. Will take it to the new lab. Enough room there (well, at least for now :).
Very big, very old oscilloscope on a kitchen table. The front is quadratic, but it actually has two time the depth and weight 15..20kg. It‘s turned on, but nothing is connected, only a flat gnd line is displayed. Three plugins are inserted. A standard vertical amp, a fast 7A92 time base and -drumroll- a 7S14 dual 1GHz sampler.
November 5, 2025 at 2:10 AM
axt.bsky.social
New wireless 3D printing nozzle has dropped.
A hot end block from a 3D printer connected to a small antenna from the original LimeSDR.
November 3, 2025 at 2:51 PM
axt.bsky.social
Urban green woodpecker having breakfast. 🪶
Shot through the window. S/he noticed me immediately and is staring directly into the camera. Chest towards cam, bead to the right. On the lawn, some brown leaves in the background.
November 1, 2025 at 10:42 PM
axt.bsky.social
Perfect cut, I would say.
I didn’t pay attention and cut an edge off the mobile workbench with the circular saw. Nice and clean triangle in my hand. Perfect edges. 30°. Nice. Not.
November 1, 2025 at 5:04 PM
axt.bsky.social
Without my glasses, I thought the neighbors had put up some kind of Hallothingy decoration, lol. 🪶
A great blue heron on a chimney cap. Btw., in German, we call this Kanadareiher. The animal - not the chimney (just in case :)
October 31, 2025 at 11:03 PM
axt.bsky.social
We have this old microparticle counter in the lab; working from 40μm - 0,18μ. Maybe it’s time to reactivate it to measure some of these filter mats for solder fumes extraction. New homelab is now in the basement, w/o ventilation, meh - and I will not spend >>1000€ for a production grade one.
Alu rack with two shelves. Long and bulky black tube on the bottom one (the counter) and some compressed air equipment on the upper shelf. View from behind. Nothing spectacular. It’s just literally a black box, lol. At home. Three of these useless black active carbon mats with three finer white glass fiber filters on each other. Black, white, black, white, black, white. On a working desk. View of a wooden, lasered suction device with the filters inserted. Some soldering equipment in the background.
October 31, 2025 at 4:30 PM
axt.bsky.social
To hell with those fancy, multi pad footprints. Two copper planes and done. Hehe.
Schematic symbol of an eight pin MOSFET. Five drain pins, two source. View of the footprint in the PCB editor; just slammed this on two copper planes.
October 30, 2025 at 5:37 PM
axt.bsky.social
Cannot even leave the room for five minutes, lol.
Close view of the display and knobs of an oscilloscope. Some coworker(s) (again) set it to Chinese. Probably bc I wrapped someones workplace with bubble foil, hehe.
October 30, 2025 at 2:47 PM
axt.bsky.social
Now in mass production, bc you can’t just waste perfectly good PCB copper area.
Milled PCB. Three smaller cutout board under a bigger one. There would have been room for one more in the top right corner, but I ran out of time. Three small PCBs assembled. One is attached to a 9V battery, two more laying in front on the table. These are relatively low Iq (~4.5μA) buck regulators; 3V3 from 9V.
October 28, 2025 at 7:39 PM
axt.bsky.social
New Philips HUE TOS my a$$.
October 25, 2025 at 5:34 PM
axt.bsky.social
Washing away the excessive ripple current off the PCB.
October 22, 2025 at 4:58 PM
axt.bsky.social
Already let the magic smoke out, after testing this q&d mobile 3V3 supply and attaching the bat. Reversed the clip. Small one is plus; everyone knows that, yep. At the battery - lol. Damaged the PCB while desoldering the switching regulator. 2nd version now with diode. About 4.4μA Iq in PFM mode.
A 9V battery, dark blue and yellow with a small, milled PCB attached on top of it. Some other PCBs in the background. A red and yellow crocodile clip are attached to the output pins. Damaged PCB and the new one next to each other. New one with an MM Schottky diode and the clip mounted the correct way. Multimeter in DC current mode displaying 4.38μA.
October 21, 2025 at 6:37 PM
axt.bsky.social
0.5mm pitch SOT-5x3 and 0.2mm traces on this let’s-quickly-test-sth PCB.
Close view of the bespoken footprint. Milled PCB; some small copper traces on FR4. Close view of the soldered IC, about 2x1mm in size, with 8 pins. Tips of the tweezers beside it. Smol chip, yep.
October 20, 2025 at 7:04 PM
axt.bsky.social
This multi layer shice is still amazing. 3.3μH power inductor in a 0805 package. Still ~1.7μ @ 500mA DC bias (though 2μ2 has a much flatter curve, up to ~1A).
0805 inductor in a HP test fixture. It’s held by two small golden cylinders, less than 1mm in diameter. Screen of an old HP LCR bridge showing the (LR) measurements at 500kHz 3.38μH, 489mΩ. Screenshot, discrete steps from 1kHz up to 1MHz. Ls and Rs. Diagram from the datasheet. Ind. va. DC bias, up to 1.5A. Most ind. balues up to 2μ are somewhat flat, only the 3.3 and 4.7 inductors fall off quickly; even lower than the 2u one at ~300mA.
October 17, 2025 at 1:47 PM
axt.bsky.social
The human via machine.
Hundreds of 0.4mm copper rivets in a white, rount plastic container. Four of the rivets beside tweezers. Smaller than the tips. Milled PCB with some of the rivets pressed in. A closer view.
October 13, 2025 at 10:08 PM
axt.bsky.social
Quite a lot of figs, but far too little sun this year — they’re all a bit 🤢. 🌱
Close view of the fig tree. Two big green figs in the foreground, some more in the back. One branch with about half a dozen big, green figs. A wide angle view of the fig tree from below towards the overcast sky.
October 11, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Reposted by axt
trullateee.bsky.social
Wisst ihr, was ein Terminversäumnis beim Jobcenter ist?

Einladung (allein das Wort suggeriert was anderes als es ist!) kommt am Tag des Termins oder gar danach.

Termin liegt in Schul-/Arbeitszeit plus nächster Punkt.

Es ist niemand telefonisch erreichbar, um den Termin ...
October 9, 2025 at 11:25 AM
axt.bsky.social
"As flat as a PCB.“
A 3D graph of an interpolated surface through points of probed PCB coordinates. Colored from violet (low) to bright orange (high). This thing has the shape of one of those canned potato chips - but rectangular.
October 8, 2025 at 12:37 AM