EE Times has a worth to check out article 11 Inexpensive Portable Test Tools. From wrist watch to pocket-sized device, inexpensive portable test and measurement tools have captured the imagination in year 2013 as never before. Even though small doesn’t always mean less powerful, the aphorism “you get what you pay for” still holds true. →
A better way to use datasheets than old-fashioned paper and pdf documents lying around? Hack Your Datasheets Using Datasheet.net article tells about a new service to view, snip, annotate and share information from millions of datasheets with engineers around the world. Take a look the datasheet.net introduction video: The biggest feature the datasheet.net service brings →
When I need to view and sometimes edit binary files I typically use XVI32 software for it. XVI32 is a freeware hex editor running under Windows. It has data inspector to view decoded numbers and has a built-in script interpreter. XVI32 is a portable application, i.e. no setup program is needed, you can run XVI32 →
EDN Magazine blog has an interesting series on posting on software tools available to engineers that make our lives easier. Check out those postings to get to know a large number of electronics engineering related software (most of the software mentioned on postings are free and open source). An engineer’s software toolbox – Part 1 →
How could I measure the normal power consumption of my USB gadgets? How can I measure how much current a smart phone charging takes from USB port? A special built USB measurement adapter for multimeter or USB current/voltage meter can answer to to those questions (and sometimes you get some information from device manager USB →
I just yesterday wrote about commercially make USB soldering iron product. But how building a DIY USB soldering iron? USB Soldering Iron article shows how to convert an inexpensive battery powered Soldering Iron into a slick USB powered soldering iron. The conversion idea is to cut USB cable and wire it to the battery contacts →
Powering all kind of gadgets from USB power has become very popular nowadays. Soldering from USB power? Now there are products for this. The question is that how useful they are because of the limited power available from USB port (just few watts). The maximum power you can get from normal USB 2.0 port is →
I have searched for some time a suitable software (preferably free) that allows me to measure Bode plot of electronics circuits. There are commercial software, special hardware and special instruments for that (network analyzer can usually do that on radio frequencies), but I wanted something that uses the hardware I already has. After some searching →
Here are some tips how to arrange electrical power distribution on a small electrical lab (for example home lab). Grounded power outlet: The power that comes to your electrical lab should be grounded for your safety. Most everyone has 3-prong electrical outlets in their homes, with the third prong being called the “ground.” Extension cords →
Playing with an oscilloscope you’ll (probably) never own article tells that Hackaday staff were really jealous when [Shahriar] a video he made, in which he casually explains how a $500,000 160GS/s 62GHz oscilloscope works and then starts playing with it. Looked interesting do I thought to link it to my blog as well. Experiments and →