Thursday, September 8th, 2016
A teardown of a Static fieldmeter from Kerry Wong: Static fieldmeters (or electrostatic fieldmeters) are typically used for non-contact measurements of the electrostatic field strength (usually in kV) of charged objects. These are highly specialized test instruments and most hobbyists probably seldomly have the opportunity of coming across one. So in this...Tags: electrostatic fieldmeters, review
Posted in Teardowns | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 7th, 2016
Teardown and analysis of an Agilent 86109B Optical/Electrical DCA-X oscilloscope module from The Signal Path: In this episode Shahriar presents the inner workings of an Agilent 86109B optical/electrical DCA-X oscilloscope module. This particular model offers up to 50GHz of electrical bandwidth and an optical input capable of receiving up to...Tags: Agilent, review, tutorial
Posted in Teardowns | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 17th, 2016
Lukas Fassler from Soldernerd shares his experience with DirtyPCBs: I can think of a lot of situations where it could be useful. But the main reason for this project was to gain some experience with getting a PCB professionally manufactured by a board house. For several years I have done my own...Tags: DirtyPCBs, review
Posted in DirtyPCBs.com, PCBs | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 8th, 2016
A teardown of Amazon's cheapest multimeter the DT-830B by Electronupdate: Purchased the cheapest multimeter I could find so I could extract the integrated circuit. A surprisingly simple IC! The actual meter design was much as expected. Poor attention to detail for higher voltages, concerning lack of fuses on current measurements......Tags: multimeter, review
Posted in Teardowns | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, June 7th, 2016
Bajdi wrote up a review of 3D Printer extruder: End of last year I decided to build a new 3D printer. At that time I already owned a very cheap Chinese Prusa I3 printer, it worked, but wasn’t a very reliable machine and it was dead slow. As I did not...Tags: 3D printing, extruder, review
Posted in 3D fabrication | 1 Comment »
Friday, June 3rd, 2016
Dirty PCBs detailed review by Big Mess o' Wires: Now for the key question: were the boards any good? From my inspection, I’d say mostly yes. I spent a long time examining the boards under 10x magnification, and comparing them to my original EAGLE files, and to the Gerbers using gerbv....Tags: Dirty PCBs, review
Posted in DirtyPCBs.com, PCBs | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 18th, 2016
Lindsay Wilson did a teardown/modification of a Chinese SMPS to allow an adjustable output voltage: I'm currently working on a product which uses a size 2430 "hobby" brushless motor and 25A electronic speed controller (ESC). In its "intended" use, the controller runs from two lithium-ion batteries with a total voltage...Tags: review, SMPS
Posted in Teardowns | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 13th, 2016
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwAieDTRMdQ[/embed] Here's another great video teardown from TheSignalPath: In this episode Shahriar repairs an Anritsu 37347A 20GHz Two-Port Network Analyzer. The unit does not boot up and as a result its internal state is unknown. The boot fault is traced to a bad RTC module which has a built-in integrated...Tags: repair, review, RF, teardown
Posted in Teardowns | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 4th, 2016
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNAsLy73E1g[/embed] The crew from Fictiv wrote in to let us know about their special edition teardown video of Lockitron Bolt, which includes insights from the co-founder on material decisions, engineering insights, prototype development, and lots more. More details at Fictiv blog. Via the contact form.Tags: Lockitron Bolt, review, teardown
Posted in Teardowns | No Comments »
Monday, May 2nd, 2016
Ken Shirriff did an in-depth write-up of the punched card sorter: Punched card sorters were a key part of data processing from 1890 until the 1970s, used for accounting, inventory, payroll and many other tasks. This article looks inside sorters, showing the fascinating electromechanical and vacuum tube circuits used for...Tags: card sorter, IBM, review
Posted in vintage | 1 Comment »
Friday, April 1st, 2016
NopHead wrote a blog post review of Elektor 500ppm LCR meter: I recently bought a 500ppm LCR meter from Elektor because I didn't have anything for measuring inductors or the ESR (equivalent series resistance) of capacitors, both of which are important for modern electronics, particularly switch mode regulators that have become ubiquitous....Tags: LCR meter, review, tips
Posted in tools | 5 Comments »
Monday, January 11th, 2016
Another great video review from TheSignalPath: FLIR MR160 Thermal imaging and moisture meter review, teardown & experiments In this episode Shahriar takes a close look at the FLIR MR160 Thermal Imaging and Moisture Meter. Featuring Infrared Guided Measurement (IGM) technology powered by a FLIR Lepton® thermal imaging sensor, MR160 helps you...Tags: review
Posted in Teardowns | No Comments »
Thursday, January 7th, 2016
Todd Harrison did a teardown of the CSI Premier 75W and Hakko 936 solder station: I did the teardown of the CSI 75W solder station as well as the Hakko 936. The Hakko of course had all analog circuits using operational amplifiers and potentiometers as well as a temperature sensor in the...Tags: CSI Premier 75W, Hakko 936 solder station, review
Posted in Teardowns | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, December 29th, 2015
new299 tried out dirtySLA and did a quick video review.Tags: review, SLA
Posted in Videos | 1 Comment »
Monday, December 28th, 2015
Another video review from TheSignalPath, Keysight EXA Signal Analyzer/Spectrum analyzer: In this episode Shahriar reviews the Keysight EXA Signal Analyzer / Spectrum Analyzer (N9010A). The X-Series Signal Analyzers and Spectrum analyzers from Keysight are compared against each other. The EXA is a general purpose spectrum analyzer with extensive applications. The...Tags: review, spectrum analyser, teardown
Posted in Teardowns | No Comments »
Saturday, December 26th, 2015
John Boxall from Tronixstuff has written an article on using Blynk with Arduino: There are many ways of remotely-controlling your Arduino or compatible hardware over the Internet. Some are more complex than others, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your level of expertise. Lately we’ve become...Tags: blynk, IoT, review
Posted in Arduino, tutorials | No Comments »
Monday, November 30th, 2015
Jeremy Blum writes: A few months ago, I built and reviewed the Shapeoko2 CNC mill from Inventables. Now, I’m back to review its successor, the X-Carve. The X-Carve features new-and-improved mechanics, a much sturdier spindle mounting system, and a myriad of other improvements that make it easier than ever to...Tags: build log, CNC mill, review
Posted in tools | No Comments »
Friday, November 20th, 2015
Rigol DSA875-TG 9kHz – 7.5GHz Spectrum Analyzer & tracking generator review, teardown & experiments from TheSignalPath: In this episode Shahriar takes a close look at the top-of-the-line Rigol DSA875-TG 7.5GHz Spectrum Analyzer. This unit which, offers a built in tracking generator for the full frequency range, has a portable form-factor. I...Tags: review, RF, teardown
Posted in Teardowns | No Comments »
Friday, November 6th, 2015
Felix of LowPowerLab writes: I mentioned before that there’s added support for HTTP requests in the gateway interface. That allows using things like wi-fi thermostats, and this story is a review of how I did just that. I wanted to integrate the home thermostat into the Moteino IOT Framework Gateway...Tags: Moteino, review, thermostat
Posted in repair | No Comments »
Thursday, August 6th, 2015
A teardown and repair of a Rohde & Schwarz FSH3 3.0GHz portable spectrum analyzer from The Signal Path: In this episode Shahriar examines a faulty R&S FSH3 100kHz – 3.0GHz Portable Spectrum Analyzer. This exceptionally dirty unit does not power on and is missing a power supply and battery. After...Tags: portable spectrum analyzer, repair, review
Posted in repair, Teardowns | No Comments »
