Paul Chilton Website Blog

Bass head repaired

Paul Chilton — Fri, 5 Mar 2010 20:46:00 GMT

A year since my Trace Elliot bass head went pop I decided to fix it as my replacement Laney head doesn't compare to it. After hours of diagnostics and drawing up schematics of the power amp board I discovered that the fan power supply feed and the P-Channel MOSFETs were damaged. I removed the fan supply components and took a seperate supply from elsewhere on the board. I tested the MOSFETs using the technique detailed in my electronics testing section and found that both of the N-Channel MOSFETs checked out fine and that both of the P-Channel MOSFETs were blown. I ordered some replacement FETs, checked all of the other components, re-soldered some suspect joints and reassembled the power amp board. I tested the amp again and it sounds like new! Some switch cleaner on the potentiometers and a good service has nicely finished off the job.

Weather station project

Paul Chilton — Mon, 6 Mar 2009 12:00:00 GMT

My weather station project is back in development and I'll be keeping the project page updated as I make progress. It is going to be redesigned from scratch with more reliable sensing than previously and hopefully with more sensors.

Bass head went pop

Paul Chilton — Mon 4 Mar 2009 12:00:00 GMT

My old Trace Elliot bass head that I had managed to repair decided to go pop today! I had just finished installing additional fans and temperature sensor to keep and eye on it and during testing it died. When I tried playing through it there was lots of crackles! :o( I've had to bite the bullet and have ordered a new Laney head. Bass page.

VPN L2TP/IPSec server setup

Paul Chilton — Mon, 2 Feb 2009 12:00:00 GMT

After a long drawn-out process of setting up VPN with L2TP/IPSec we eventually got it working! I have spent hours hunting for information and quickly became aware that no-one gives complete information about a common setup with Windows 2003 server and L2TP/IPSec VPN. VPN Setup.

www.pchilton.co.uk is launched

Paul Chilton — Mon, 1 Feb 2009 12:00:00 GMT

I decided to give the website a major overhaul and create something with more style and something that I could easily add to and modify. The new site has been designed from the ground up, using a CSS styled page with graphics designed in Photoshop CS3, stock images used for the common humanoid theme and PHP used to provide a simple 'masterpage' style framework that allows me to add new pages quickly and easily. Rewrite server rules ensure all pages are pointed to the PHP application and provide a seamless user experience.

Unipolar stepper motor driver circuit

Paul Chilton — Mon, 3 Feb 2008 12:00:00 GMT

After looking for a simple, cheap unipolar stepper motor driver circuit with chopper current control and failing to find anything very good, I decided to design my own. The design uses a common L297 sequence IC that has built in chopper functionality, I combined this with high power FETs to create a driver capable (in theory) of driving steppers up to 15A/phase. Here is the page with full details.