Function generator in an important tool in electronics laboratory. It allows to generate different types of electrical waveforms over a wide range of frequencies. Traditionally function generators have been built using analogue electronics. There have been special ICs that have been widely used for this: Exar XR2206 and the Intersil ICL8038integrated circuits can generate sine, →
New version of famous component tester I tested some time ago has arrived. M12864 Graphical RLC/ESR Transistor Tester With AVR-ISP Socket MOS/PNP/NPN M328 is an an updated version of famous M168 component tester. This new model can test all the same components as the earlier version, plus it can do for example in-circuit capacitor ESR →
LED manufacturers continue to innovate to improve economies of scale. One of the newest packaging solutions designed to help lower costs is chip-on-board (COB) light source modules. COB (Chips on Board) , is a technology of LED packaging: Multi LED chips are packaged together as one lighting module. When it light up, it looks like →
One annoying thing on micro USB charger is that you need to plug it right way. Now there are solutions to this coming in form of revesible USB type C connector and reversible versions of older USB connector models and wireless charging. The reversible Micro USB would be nice to have for charging current smart →
Are you planning to buy a multimeter and need help? Here are some timps How to Buy a Multimeter covers what you need to know to select a meter for DIY electronics. It focuses on the needs for audio electronics, but it’s purposely kept general in nature. Handheld Digital Multimeters are mainly used to measure →
Here is a teardown of a cheap car USB charger (few us dollars). It worked well for years, but started to be unreliable one day. So I had to take a look what is inside: The issue seemed to be bad ground/- connection. A little bit of soldering could fix this.. Posted from WordPress for →
I bought this is universal travel adapter from Biltema to be able to connect my laptop power supply with grounded schuko plug hopefully safely to UK power outlets. Many other travel adapters only work well with ungrounded loads (typically either accept only ungrounded plug or leave ground not connected). This is one rare product that →
I wrote earlier about bad UK power socket adapter. Here is another one – better but not ideal. I used this to connect smart phone charger. The basic construction looks good. You can’t touch the live parts with finger. The UK pins are all metal and not insulated on the upper side like in newer →
Or lack of safety? This example is one cheap UK-schuco adapter. First look reveals that there is no fuse in UK plug (there should be max 13A fuse). There is no grounding on adapter (just plastic pin in place of ground pin), but accepts grouded equipment plug. But there is worse problem: when plug is →
Crowdfunding campaigns or wide product announcements that do not make sense pops up every now and then. It seems that energy related “inventions” seems to be getting easily into the spotlight without proven merits: Hackaday article Crowdfunding Follies: Proof That Ohm’s Law Is Arcane Knowledge tells about a special cell phone case Kickstarter (Nikola Phone →