Why modern high tech electronics fail? Too often the reason for that is electrolytic capacitor failure. I have had a quite high number of electronics that has failed by this reason after few years of service. I have had a quite number of devices failed by capacitor: PC motherboard, PC graphics card, set-top-box, DVD player. →
I have participated in Free Product Road Testing program by Farnell. Farnell indentified my blog to road test some of their products. I was willing to participate, because what’s more fun than free high tech products to test. The first product i got was Arduino UNO. Arduino Uno is a a microcontroller board based on →
It seems as though nearly everything “high performance” these days boasts some amount of carbon fiber in its construction. Originally used in aerospace, carbon fiber has moved into the mainstream. Technique: Carbon Fiber Primer article from MAKE Magazine discusses some of the basics of carbon fiber construction and explains how to create a carbon fiber →
I have earlier written about 555 timer design contest. 555 Servo Controller was winner in several categories. It looked so simple and “have seen that eariler” type of circuit that I wondered why this was so winning circuit: Finally after few days I got time to check out the Simple 555 timer based servo controllers →
Google announced on Tuesday a new feature of the Android operating system called Android @ Home. This framework and associated functions promise to transform an Android device into a home automation controller that connects and directs all of the devices and appliances in the user’s home: gaming consoles, lighting, appliances, irrigations systems and anything else →
Toolduino is a simple software tool that lets you easily interact with Arduino hardware. With this software you can easily can test the circuits you create. The Arduino must be running the Firmata firmware that comes with the Arduino IDE. Things can’t get much easier for all kinds of hacks. You can just connect some →
I had to do some repairing for Nokia N73 mobile phone. The problems were on some buttons and charging connector. Mobile phones can be tricky to open and often use special component, which can make repairing sometime hard unless you know exactly what you do. A real goldmine for anyone attempting to star repairing a →
At one point or another, you will probably find yourself needing to solder a SMD (Surface Mount Device) package. Many people here might think SMD soldering is almost impossible. SMD soldering is usually a lot easier than it looks! First you need right tools. The tweezers are very important in the entire SMD soldering process. →
My Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR) circuit has been available as kit made by Far Circuits. The kit consists only of circuit board and components needed to build the circuit in a small plastic bag (you need to download the building instructions). The original circuit design is from my web page and Far Circuits added 5V →
Weekend Project: Make a Simple Laser Communicator – Secretly shoot your voice across the room in stealth mode on the beam of a laser! Looks like an interesting project. Weekend Project: Make a Talking Booby Trap – Having trouble with people snatching your stuff? Here is an inexpensive, sneaky gizmo you can make to keep →