Atomare Datenkrake - Die Datenschleuder - CCC

ent holder is made of drilled solid steel sections,
but a new spaceframe construction welded from
light thin steel pipes has been already developed.
In both cases the alignment mechanism is
based on screws and rubber blocks and offers a
1:300 gear ratio.
And what is the second most technological
difficult part? It is the first stage of amplifier
which is critical for sensitivity. A MOS tetrode
(cascode), a transistor used at the input of TV
receivers, is used here together with the photodetector
in a very unusual configuration to get
minimum noise. Electrical engineering people
usually have serious problems understanding
the idea behind the noise reduction, claiming
that it cannot work.
Factory manufacture can afford expensive and
hazardous processes and one-purpose tools.
This is not possible when you are working in
your cellar. Nevertheless, some methods had
to be developed to reduce the complexity of the
building process.
Drilling steel parts precisely according to a plan
is pretty annoying, therefore the Ronja website
offers drilling templates for download. Glue this
template on a piece of steel and suddenly there
is nothing easier than manufacturing a complicated
steel part.
Complicated assemblies are complicated to
understand. Therefore Ronja offers rotating 3D
model videos modelled with U. S. Army BRL-
CAD. BRL-CAD has been developed for already
thirty years and is now free software.
Soldering many parts without making a mistake
can be difficult. But the printed board contains
sector codes printed on the edge and the same
code is in the population partlist. This speeds
up the population process tremendously, reducing
error rate at the same time.
Shopping is an important part of the building
process and it has been made easier with automatically
generated partlists in spreadsheet format,
where order numbers can be filled in and
the file sent to the electronic parts shop. To
40 40
rFc 2549 revisited
make sure parts are available as easy as possible
worldwide and in small quantities, the whole
electronics has been designed from low intelligence
parts: discrete transistors, a simple video
amplifier, individual logical counters and shift
registers etc.
What if it doesn‘t work after building? Most people
don‘t have an oscilloscope at home and have
only rudimentary knowledge of electricity from
the primary school. Therefore testing procedures
have been developed to identify correctly
or incorrectly working parts of Ronja using only
a multimeter.
Building a Ronja is a very lengthy process,
much more than going to a shop and buying a
WiFi card. It takes about 70 hours. Fortunately,
it‘s not boring: „It was very amusing for the
whole course of building work. First I was afraid
of it, but as soon as I started, it fascinated me
immediately.“ (Filip Nemec)
At the end we have a carefully assembled medley
of ridiculously cheap components that can
connect our home to the Internet with optical
wireless, a technology more modern than electromagnetic
radio: „The feeling when the medley
of components started to work and the first
packet was transferred, cannot be compared to
anything else.“ (Petr Sadecky)
Ronja is or was running on 153 registered installations
worldwide. More information can be
found at http://ronja.twibright.com
die datenschleuder. #93 / 2008