Wednesday, February 21st, 2018
A teardown of the HP 8620C and HP 86245A by Kerry Wong: I just picked up an HP 8620C sweep oscillator with an HP 86245A 5.9 GHz to 12.4 GHz RF plugin on eBay. This time around though, the unit does not work. While it was advertised as a working...Tags: HP, repair, review
Posted in Teardowns | 1 Comment »
Monday, February 5th, 2018
Kerry Wong did a teardown of an HP 8671A microwave frequency synthesizer: I recently bought an HP 8671A microwave frequency synthesizer on eBay. This synthesizer can generate signals from 2GHz to 6.2GHz with an unleveled output of more than 8dBm. It is a nice complement to my HP 8642B signal...Tags: HP8671A synthesizer, review
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Wednesday, January 17th, 2018
Here’s an interesting two-part series of posts by Ken Shirriff detailing the IBM mainframe tube module. Part 1 discuss the tube modules and describe the IBM 705 that used this module. Part 2 covers powering up the module and getting it to work. Read the full post at Ken Shirriff' blog.Tags: IBM, review, tube module
Posted in reversed, vintage | No Comments »
Monday, January 15th, 2018
Kerry Wong did a teardown of a PM1A color analyzer: As I mentioned in one of my posts a few years back, a color analyzer from the 80’s can be a treasure trove for the hobbyists. And at the very least, it is a cheap way to get yourself a...Tags: Color Analyzer, review
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Monday, January 8th, 2018
Cross section and analysis of an opto-isolator from Electronupdate. Check out the video after the break. (more…)Tags: opto-isolator, review
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Wednesday, January 3rd, 2018
Kerry Wong did a teardown of a 65W Cree LED bulb: Upon removing the glass bulb enclosure, I was a bit surprised to see that only two power LEDs were used in this Cree bulb. Typically, you would see many more lower wattage LEDs put together to achieve higher wattage...Tags: LED, review
Posted in Teardowns | 5 Comments »
Thursday, December 21st, 2017
Tisham Dhar did a teardown of a Sense Energy monitor: Recently I obtained a Sense Energy monitor via US from Margaret of BitKnitting. She is doing a very interesting neighbourhood energy efficiency project. As usual I could not contain my curiosity and opened it up to have a look. I...Tags: review
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Monday, November 27th, 2017
Kerry Wong did a teardown of an ATVR-1000D automatic AC voltage regulator and discussed how different types of AC regulators work: The ATVR-1000D utilizes a motor to drive the wiper of a autotransformer (Variac), the servo motor can be driven in either direction depending on the output from the OpAmp...Tags: ATVR, review, voltage regulator
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Tuesday, November 21st, 2017
Yahya Tawil wrote in to share his review of a web based EDA tool, the EasyEDA. He explains the general structure of this tool and some of its cool features: EDA cloud tools which are related to electronics are emerging exponentially in almost all aspects (i.e. simulation, PCB design, footprint creation,...Tags: online tool, review
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Tuesday, November 14th, 2017
The cross section of a 1N5817 20V 1A rectifier diode from Electronupdate. Check out the video after the break. (more…)Tags: review, Schottky diode
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Thursday, August 10th, 2017
Pete posted an article taking a closer look at Maxim's DS3231 real-time clock: Fortunately, Maxim also offers the DS3231, which is advertised as an “Extremely Accurate I2C-Integrated RTC/TCXO/Crystal”. This chip has the 32kHz crystal integrated into the package itself and uses a built-in temperature sensor to periodically measure the temperature...Tags: DS3231, real time clock, review
Posted in Chips, reversed | No Comments »
Monday, July 24th, 2017
A review and teardown of a cheap Hall effect clamp meter (ACM03 Plus) from Kerry Wong: I recently purchased a BSide ACM03 Plus clamp meter so that I could do some high current measurements for my tab welder project. This meter can be bought on eBay for around $25, which...Tags: review, teardown
Posted in Teardowns | 1 Comment »
Friday, July 14th, 2017
Manuel Azevedo did a review of Akafugu's modular VFD clock: I discovered this wonderful tiny VFD clock by chance, while browsing Tindie for novelties. As I’m a newcomer to this Nixie/VFD world, I was not aware that Brian Stuckey already did an article in 2014 on a previous incarnation of...Tags: review, VFD
Posted in clock | 6 Comments »
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
Posted in components, techniques | No Comments »
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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