Monday, Jan 5 2009: Tonight is the first night of nublabs‘ Kitmakers course.  I’m excited to see how it goes!

I’m primarily interested in building equipment for do-it-yourself biology, such as an inexpensive, high quality gel electrophoresis apparatus.

— cut to Thursday, Jan 8 —

…and today was the second night.  There were notably fewer people tonight, but it rocked anyhow.  I learned how to use the Bridgeport mill to do basic manual milling and how to use the digital readout, turned some aluminum in a lathe, and watched an intro to MIG welding.

Then, with Alex’s help, I put together a variable DC power supply with a variac, bridge rectifier (three of them, actually – but only because we blew two), and a resistor+capacitor to smooth the resulting voltage.  Photos:

Gel box power supply, variable from ~0-200VDC. Variac is on the left; AC voltmeter, bridge rectifier and RC mounted to the board on the right.

Bridge rectifier plus RC with drain resistor for gel box power supply

Variable DC power supply, all snug in a shelf. Goodnight!

Next week I’d like to test the power output on an oscilloscope, and start working on building a “draft” of an enclosure.