http://www.joshuawise.com/ 2012-05-18T10:34:35-04:00 http://www.joshuawise.com/ http://www.joshuawise.com/lib/tpl/jwcom/images/favicon.ico text/html 2012-05-02T03:17:36-04:00 joshuawise http://www.joshuawise.com/projects/sstc2/pfc?rev=1335943056&do=diff The power factor correction stage for SSTC2 was based on Texas Instruments's UCC28019 integrated PFC controller. (For the rationale behind the use of a PFC circuit, see the main page for SSTC2.) Much of the PFC circuit is what one might expect, but for the sake of completeness in documentation, this page contains our implementation notes. Included also are schematics, for one who may wish to replicate this build, and overall lessons learned in designing the system. text/html 2012-04-30T03:03:02-04:00 joshuawise http://www.joshuawise.com/projects/sstc2?rev=1335769382&do=diff Sometime in November of 2011, Chris Lu, Jacob Potter and I decided that we should have a good household project -- and what better of an idea than to build a successor to Chris's original PlasmaSonic II-driven Solid State Tesla Coil (SSTC)? So, we embarked on designing a coil under the parameter of being just a good, solid, durable SSTC. We weren't looking for the biggest TC out there (we couldn't power it), or to get the longest sparks, or the highest power, but just simply a nice solid simpl… text/html 2012-04-26T04:35:00-04:00 joshuawise http://www.joshuawise.com/buggy-sponsorship?rev=1335429300&do=diff This past weekend -- April 19th to 21st, 2012 -- I went back to Carnegie Mellon as an alum for Spring Carnival. I took a red-eye to get there, arriving at 0930 after a connection through Cleveland; I slept a total of one hour the night before. Arriving on campus at about 10:30-ish, I spent a moment in a cluster, and then around 11 or 11:30, I wandered off to one of the most hallowed traditions marking the start of Spring Carnival -- buggy design competition. By the time I made it back to Gate… text/html 2012-04-26T04:29:54-04:00 joshuawise http://www.joshuawise.com/content?rev=1335428994&do=diff Sometimes, I do things that don't neatly fall as projects, but are still interesting bits of content that I hope someone else might want to read. A few of them include: * A HOWTO on setting up Kerberized NFSv4 -- somewhat out of date, but may still help you with some of the common pitfalls. * Donate Life -- why I'm listed as an organ donor, and why I hope you will choose to be too. * A few words on buggy sponsorship -- a rude awakening when I went back to Carnegie Mellon for Spring Carni… text/html 2012-03-26T02:37:00-04:00 joshuawise http://www.joshuawise.com/solving-hard-problems?rev=1332743820&do=diff Over the past few months, my primary role at work has been that of a bringup engineer; as a new part arrives, from the first silicon to get back until production release, I'm involved in the team who shepherds it through. This workload is somewhat bursty; some weeks, there will be little to do, but other weeks, parts of the system have critical flaws in them. Some of these experiences have been qualitatively different from things that I've done before, while others have served to reinforce the…