Thursday, January 8, 2015

Possible Research Project

When I was a kid I helped my dad build an electronic kit.    It was  a Heathkit digital wind speed and direction display complete with anemometer and wind direction vane.  In my effort to capture the fun of knowing the wind speed (I live near Enumclaw)   I found one on   EBay. It came  complete with schematic  and  assembly instruction book.  It is obsolete and many of the micro circuits  are not available anymore, or not offered  to the general public.   The display tubes are increasingly becoming rare and hard to find or expensive.  They are high voltage and  neon.  

I   have an anemometer hooked up to a bicycle speedometer  (offered by "Inspeed")  and I like it, however its hard to see and I miss the  good looking display of the  past.   I like aspects of it, like Max speed, and the ability to  be programed to different wheel sizes. (Important to convert revolutions to m.p.h.) .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             I I am wanting  the old display  redesigned to use modern cathodes or l.e.d.s and be able to be programed to use replacement anemometers  that use reed switches as a  pulse  measurement.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I have all the manuals and can talk about the research I have done(Websights,displays,Etc.). And  with redesigning the boards and shrinking the cabinet would protect against copyright or license infringement.