The long awaited Red Hornet tracing

South 12th Street, New Hyde Park, NY

My 3 Most Popular flickr groups:

Quadcam (70 members)
Disney Architecture (67 members)
Dice (53 members)

Ticky Tacky provides an enlightening link about swaps.

Sharky the dog toy

Tales from the 99¢ store

As you may or may not know, I like 99¢ stores and the garbage they sell. A new one opened up in my neighborhood, but I hadn't visited it until yesterday. It was much larger than any other such store I have been in and they had some stuff I had never seen before. They even had sun glasses, of which I bought two pairs (I should chronicle the saga of my sunglasses on this blog some day). I also bought one of those dynamo flashlights that you just shake up and it charges and lights up. After I brought it home, I realized that it was (almost) completely fake. It does light up (I tested this in the store even though a handwritten sign said not to), but it is powered by a pair of CR2032 lithium batteries. The dynamo is just for show, and the box just lies.

(click photos to make them larger):



Here is the box, note the lack of knowledge of the English language and the use of the word "torch", which is what they call a flashlight outside the U.S.



Its surprisingly bright for a fake dynamo flashlight. I believe this is due to the use of a pair of 3 volt lithium batteries, which may be too powerful for the LED (there is no resistor or anything), but then again, what do I know about electronics?



The top screws off and the plastic "lens" comes out. The guts also slide out easily. There is no parabolic reflector, just a flat foil thing behind the LED. Here you can also see the two batteries. The printed circuit board has nothing but the LED on it. Don't dynamo powered devices need a capacitor to store energy, and isn't it some kind of rule that you have to use resistors with LEDs?



Yup, its just a simple circuit of batteries, wires, an LED and a piece of metal as the switch.



Here, on the left, you can see part of the fake dynamo. That coil isn't connected to anything and the little "magnetic" lump has as much magnetism as, well, something not very attractive at all.



Here you can see the switch, and the lack of many of the components that would make a real dynamo flashlight work.



Here is that little lump that's supposed to be a powerful and dangerous magnet. I wonder if its poisonous...



And here are the lithium batteries that you aren't supposed to need. Luckily, this abomination of dynamo powered illumination only set me back 99¢.

The Snow White Soup Scene

Drawn! posts cool link to vintage wallpaper!

"Richard"

New demo reel is up

It is way too hot today. Anyway, Click here for the new demo reel. It has new music, a new slate and some new segments.