The ware for August, 2006 is below. Click on the pictures for a much larger version.

I try hard never to post a ware that people will never have seen by definition–e.g., wares that I make. However, I’m going to make an exception this time, because there is an interesting story behind this one. Perhaps of most interest to readers is that this ware will be open-sourced and soon schematics, layouts, and software development kits will be released. So, I guess the question to readers is: what might this do? What is it for? This will be a lightning competition this time, I think, because in a few days my day-job company that I made these for will allow me to make public the details about this hardware.

So the winner of July’s name that ware is Joe Martin, congrats! Please contact me for your prize. I think Joe’s explanation was the most informative, pointing out how the channels were routed in lexan and bonded together. I still don’t know definitively what this ware is, but the little poking around I did agree with the idea that this is used mostly in dangerous settings, such as nuclear reactors or in the presence of highly unstable chemicals like silane. And yes, I’m “that guy” who bought it from Halted specialties :-D I had read about pneumatic logic before, but I had never seen one in real life, so I was really excited to see it on the shelf. I just had to get it to add to my collection of weird and wonderful electronic artifacts. I’m surprised that people recognized it from seeing it there on the shelf!

Wow, a lot of people had very good answers for this one. It was hard to choose one, but I’d have to say Mark wins the prize this time. He managed to guess the manufacture and the model, which is the RMX 1450. Congratulations, and great work! Contact me to collect your prize. This is the amplifier that I use to drive my Bose 802’s, part of my DJ rig, which I haven’t had a lot of time to play with lately, unfortunately.
Short on time just now for writing a post, but basically, the reason why I had my amplifier open was to replace the cooling fan for the big heat sink bank. Since it’s an audio amp, it’s no good to have a noisy dust-laden fan blowing through it, so I replaced it with a nice new hydrowave bearing fan from Panasonic.