Tuesday, June 27th, 2017
Dallas Semiconductor DS1284 die decap from Electronupdate: The Dallas Semiconductor DS1284 (and related DS1286 which integrated a battery and crystal in the same package) found lots of use in industrial control and test equipment. 30 years ago processor chips contained not much other than the processor. Utility functions such as real...Tags: Dallas semiconductor, review
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Thursday, June 1st, 2017
A teardown of piezoelectric buzzer from Electronupdate: An assembly commonly used on fire, burglar and similar alarm systems. Based around a piezoelectric disk coupled to a plastic cylinder with a hole on the end (used to amplify the sound). The controller appears to use a rom-based look up table to...Tags: alarm, piezoelectric, review
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Monday, May 22nd, 2017
https://youtu.be/OX0-zDwOe14 A look at the cross section of a surface mount inductor from Electronupdate.Tags: review, surface mount inductor
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Tuesday, May 16th, 2017
Teardown and analysis of Deepace KC901V 6.8GHz handheld network analyzer from the The Signal Path: In this episode Shahriar reviews the Deepace KC901V 6.8GHz handheld network analyzer. This battery-powered instrument is an RF multi-instrument integrating VNA, spectrum analyzer, field strength meter, and a low-frequency signal generator. It can also perform signal port vector...Tags: network analyzer, review
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Tuesday, April 25th, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA4SvTBCAXU Afroman did a review of the Siglent SSA3032X Spectrum. More details at Afrotechmods tutorial page.Tags: review, Siglent SSA3032X Spectrum
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Friday, March 10th, 2017
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQXd7u4kPvs[/embed] Craig writes: I’ve gotten a lot of questions on the blog about the new version of the MHS5200A function generators available on eBay. Viewer Tolga was kind enough to send one in to me to review and tear down. Although some improvements have been made over the older models,...Tags: MHS5200A, review, teardwon
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Tuesday, March 7th, 2017
Teardown: A look at the Datum/Symmetricom 8040 Rubidium frequency standard The 8040 used an LPRO 101 (low profile Rubidium oscillator) oscillator. Interestingly, there is a note written on the top of the LPRO case: “vibration test may have magnetized cover”. As you may know, Rubidium standards’s accuracy is very sensitive...Tags: 8040, review, Rubidium standard
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Monday, March 6th, 2017
Keysight MXA revision-b signal analyzer / Spectrum analyzer review, analysis & experiments from The Signal Path: In this episode Shahriar reviews the long awaited Keysight MXA Signal Analyzer (N9020B). The new X-Series Spectrum Analyzers from Keysight offer an entirely re-designed GUI interface which supports multiple tabs as well as multi-touch interaction....Tags: review, RF
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Tuesday, February 21st, 2017
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQZxvtEn4T8[/embed] Teardown and analysis of microwave (26.5GHz) electro-mechanical step attenuators from The Signal Path: In this short episode Shahriar takes a close look at a pair of Hewlett Packard microwave electro-mechanical step attenuators operating up to 26.5GHz. Mechanical attenuators offer excellent repeatability, low insertion loss and nearly limitless linearity. The...Tags: attenuators, review
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Tuesday, February 7th, 2017
Teardown and analysis of a Peaktech 6225A power supply from ElectroBob: I got a Peaktech 6225A power supply to power some things, as it seemed like a good deal, going beyond what one might find normally in these types of supplies: more display resolution and supposedly, lower noise. For this price,...Tags: review
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Thursday, February 2nd, 2017
Teardown of a 4-20ma panel meter from SteelCity Electronics: Below is a panel meter that has been used in some sort of industrial process. It was manufactured in 1980 and I’m not quite sure who the manufacturer was – the company’s logo is not easy to read but it might say, “Aumano”....Tags: panel meter, review
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Tuesday, January 24th, 2017
Ist-Rees laser spectrum analyzer teardown from The Signal Path: In this short episode Shahriar takes a close look at an Ist-Rees laser spectrum analyzer. This simple instrument is based on a continuously rotating diffraction mirror to detect various wavelengths. A trigger signal is used to denote the beginning of the scan...Tags: review, spectrum analyzer
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Tuesday, January 10th, 2017
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Uxd00N3CRc[/embed] A teardown video of a 1 Farad super capacitor from Electronupdate: In a recent video on the tear down of an electrolytic cap a viewer was wondering what a super capacitor looks like. They have much more capacitance: 10,000 time more on average for the same volume. Surely this means the...Tags: capacitor, review
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Monday, January 9th, 2017
Jay did a teardown of a Curtis 1231C-8601 500A PWM DC motor controller: The Curtis 1231c-8601 power board is relatively simple. It uses 18 MOSFETS in parallel to switch current from the motor- terminal back to the battery- terminal (the motor+ lead is already connected to battery+). The MOSFETs it uses...Tags: PWM controller, review
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Monday, January 2nd, 2017
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vCQJtN3Obk[/embed] A teardown video of a solar battery charge controller from Electronupdate: A solar battery charger: one side goes to a Solar Panel, the other to a lead-acid battery. A charge controller allows the battery to be safely charged. Snagged off of Amazon. Seemed really cheap at $17.36. A look...Tags: battery charger, charge controller, review
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Tuesday, December 27th, 2016
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grzvNoBKWuo[/embed] Kenneth Finnegan writes, "I recently purchased a pallet (!) of Mastr III repeaters for some parts. These are really unique radio systems since their so modular, so I thought you'd enjoy a video where I tear one apart and talk through its basic theory of operation." More details at Kenneth's...Tags: review
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Wednesday, December 14th, 2016
Kerry Wong did a teardown of a Vivitar rapid battery charger for the NP-FW50 lithium-ion battery pack used in Sony A6000 digital camera: The circuit board itself though looks surprisingly clean and well designed. It does not use any dedicated lithium ion battery charging ICs however. Rather a MC34063A buck/boost...Tags: battery charger, review
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Monday, December 12th, 2016
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndXQex_spS8[/embed] A teardown video from Electronupdate: A dollar store item which implements a flickering candle effect using and LED. A look at the technology: linear feedback shift register or ROM based? Let's decap the controller and take a look at the silicon die to find out! More details at Electronupdate blog.Tags: decap, review
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Wednesday, November 16th, 2016
Andy Brown did a teardown of a GPS Disciplined Oscillator: The design did actually surprise me. I was expecting to see an OCXO pulled from something else together with a modern GPS unit and an MCU to co-ordinate the synchronisation all mounted on a custom PCB. What we’ve actually got is...Tags: GPS, review
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Friday, November 11th, 2016
[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ9OyubxoJQ[/embed] A teardown video of an XBOX 360 and analysis of GPU silicon die from Electronupdate. So, what makes an XBOX tick? One of the most notable parts will be the graphics sub system... and at the heart of it, the GPU. The GPU die is bonded onto a substrate...Tags: review
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