Author Archives: Jay

Curtis 1231c Replacement Power board components

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My Curtis 1231C motor controller blew up some MOSFETs and died. I replaced it with a used unit to get my truck back on the road, but now I’m interested in repairing the one that died so that I’ll have a spare.

I might be able to replace the components that died with exact replacement parts (but the IXTH50N20 MOSFETs are hard to find nowadays, and the diodes are basically unobtainable) to get it working, but since I have it open and am doing all of this work, I am exploring alternative (new) components that will have higher ratings and possibly give my controller more capacity or at least more resistance to blowing up again.

Of course, if I replace one component (power switching MOSFET, freewheeling diode, or ripple controlling capacitors), I will probably need to upgrade the other two as well so that I don’t just move the weak link from the MOSFETS to the capacitors or diodes.

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Curtis 1231C-8601 500A PWM DC Motor Controller teardown

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After replacing the Curtis 1231C-8601 motor controller that had failed, I opened the case up to figure out what had failed.   The controller hardware is inside of an aluminum extrusion with both ends “potted” with some black semi-flexible material (hard silicon perhaps?) that could be cut using a razor knife and a lot of effort.


Inside, there is a Pi shaped piece of aluminum extrusion that acts as the heatsink for the MOSFETS and freewheeling diodes, as well as being electrically connected to the motor – terminal. It is held against a large thermally conductive, but electrically insulating pad, which separates it from the controller case, but allows heat to be dissipated. It is held in place with 8 screws that pass through insulating plastic brackets into the bottom of the case.

People online had told me that these screw holes were “potted”, but on my controller they were just filled with two rubber plugs.They also told me that you could not cut through the Curtis potting material with a razor knife. [This super hard potting material was also prone to cracking at the edges and letting moisture into the controller, so a flexible rubber like material is better anyways…]

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YouTube copyright Claim by AdRev for Rights Holder – Flight of the Bumblebee

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I posted a video on YouTube and used “Flight of the Bumblebee” as background music, which was performed by the US Army Band. Works by the government (funded by taxpayer dollars) are automatically placed in the public domain. I downloaded it from openmuse.org at this link:

https://musopen.org/music/448/nikolai-rimsky-korsakov/tale-of-tsar-saltan-flight-of-the-bumblebee/

A day after uploading it, I received a notice from YouTube that said:

“Copyrighted music was found in your video. Don’t worry–you can still make money from it, but some of the revenue will be shared with the copyright owner.”

The claim info listed:
“Copyrighted song: EPM019_037_Flight Of The Bumblebee – Boost – Ear Parade
Claimed by: AdRev for Rights Holder”

It is understandable that YouTube’s content ID system may accidentally confuse one public domain recording of Flight of the Bumblebee with another, but it does make more work for me (I have to dispute the claim) and presumably more work for “AdRev for Rights Holder” (assuming they actually review my dispute).

 

update:

Two days later I received an email from YouTube:

”

Hi Jay Summet,

Good news! After reviewing your dispute, AdRev for Rights Holder has decided to release their copyright claim on your YouTube video.

Video title:

If you earned any money during the dispute, you should receive that money as part of your next YouTube payment.

– The YouTube Team”
 

YouTube copyright Claim by Believe Music song 0604

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I used a music track that I downloaded from an account on SoundCloud that was giving away their music royalty free for one of my videos. Unfortunately, a few hours after posting the video on YouTube, I received a copyright claim via YouTube from “Believe Music”, which claimed that I was using their song “0604” on the video and requesting to split any ad revenue with them (The video was not monetized).

I submitted a dispute via YouTube, and 30 days later received a notice from YouTube stating that:
“Good news! Your dispute wasn’t reviewed within 30 days, so the copyright claim on your YouTube video has now been released. ”

The fact that the song was only numbered (0604) and not named in the claim, plus the fact that they never reviewed the dispute leads me to believe that Believe Music may just be trolling for revenue sharing with generic music that they are bulk submitting to YouTube.

I hope that YouTube keeps an eye on the percentage of claims that are disputed and keeps the music companies using their copyright ID system in line.

Installing an Encrypted Partition with LVM dual boot on Ubuntu 16.04

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The Ubuntu 16.04 installer has the option to install full disk encryption using LVM if you are erasing everything on the hard drive. However, if you want to dual boot (use some of the hard drive for Windows, and the rest for Linux) the automated installer won’t allow you to automagically use full disk encryption.

You can still make it work, but have to do a lot of manual work using a terminal from the Live CD environment.   Here is a log of what I had to do to get it working for me.

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Build a workbench from plywood and 2×4’s

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img_20160816_160641img_20161111_113437

This is the workbench I build from twenty-two 2×4’s and three sheets of plywood. Because my current garage has tall ceilings, it has a lofted storage shelf. And it also has a shelf for tool and box storage below.

I used two sheets of 3/4″ builder grade plywood for the lower and upper storage shelves and a 1/2″ sheet of sanded ply for the main workbench. The dimensions were carefully chosen so that all of the excess can be used for reinforcing sheathing.

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Growing herbs and lettuce indoors

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I wanted an indoor herb and lettuce garden, so that I wouldn’t have to buy a whole bag of lettuce, basil, chives, etc whenever I needed just a few pieces for a sandwich or recipe. So I bought two windowsill growing boxes, a bag of potting soil, and a few seed packets and got to gardening.
growing_plants

Of course, plants won’t grow this well indoors without a grow light, so I bought a LED one on Ebay, and had to build a stand for it out of 2×2 lumber and 1/2″ PVC pipe.

eery_glow

The light isn’t quite that purple in real life, but it definitely affects the color balance nearby.

Things to know if you are building your own:
A single 10′ section of PVC and an 8′ section of 2×2 is plenty for one stand.
A 7/8″ spade bit drills a perfect hole for a 1/2″ ID PVC pipe to fit into.
A 3/4″ to 1/2″ T adapter will slide easily over the top of an 1/2″ PVC pipe upright while holding a PVC pipe crossbar.
A 9/64″ drill bit works for making a pilot hole in PVC for an M4 screw, but the screw is tight.
It takes a lot less white spray paint to cover PVC than black spray paint.

A video of the build can be viewed here: