Don Foreman wrote:

After nearly finishing a microscope ringlight using 10 "regular" white
LED's last winter -- and then getting sidetracked -- I've decided to
ditch that design. I'd even made the little plastic spheres that
would aim the little "projectors" with lenses.

I'm ditching it because 1-watt Luxeons have come down in price to the
point where 4 of those with Fraen 30-degree beamwidth collimators are
under $50. I ordered parts today. Diversity of 10 is better than
diversity of 4, but I think 4 will be enough diversity to avoid bad
shadows and specular reflections, and I expect that the illumination
level will be much brighter with four 1-watt Luxeons than with 10
"regular" white LED's. That expectation is based on a couple of
experiments with Luxeons I have at hand to play with.

I couldn't resist ordering another 3 watt "burn the night" Luxeon
emitter. They make seriously neat flashlights using very cheap
reflectors found at Harbor Freight and Home Depot. Eat yer hawrt
out, Maglight 3D.

It's "shop season" again in Minnesota...




Yeah, it's snow and slush season here in Red Sox country too Don.

We had our first ****e weather last weekend and young son (17) managed
to find some "black ice" at nite while driving on a gradual curved
street in the next town, slid to the curb and stood his recently aquired
Honda Civic on its head on the sidewalk.

He kicked the door open and got out without a scratch on him, thank G-d.
While he was standing there calling the cops on his cell phone a Ford
with five young girls in it encountered the same slippery spot and slid
a similar path, smashing into his upside down car, then bouncing off it
to hit a parked car across the street.

None of the girls got hurt either. I guess not one of the guardian
angels who were looking after those teen agers were taking a coffee
break then, but every once in a while one of them has to go to the
bathroom or something and we have another sad funeral to attend in town.

I feel quite bad for the kid, he worked for a year to earn most of the
money to buy that 85 Honda, and he'd spent a lot of spare time "pimping
it up" which is what the young bucks around here call what we used to
call "customizing" when we did similar stuff to our '49 Fords. The event
made the front page of the town paper too, he's got his 15 minutes of
fame now.

Documented at the bottom end of the web page I've been keeping to chart
his progress:

http://home.comcast.net/%7Ejwisnia18/ben/index.htm

Happy and safe holidays, guys,

Jeff


--
Jeffry Wisnia

(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"As long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in public
schools"