EEVblog #1019 - Mailbag

[EEVblog]

Dave gets IoT angry in this Mailbag



SPOILERS:
Bolt IoT challenge Dave to get an Internet Of Things App working in 5 minutes. Will he do it or will he lose his collective...
https://www.boltiot.com/

Arduino based DIN rail PLC controller, the Controllino:
https://controllino.biz/

Total Solar Eclipse Stamps: https://www.usps.com/stamps/solar-eclipse.htm
Polish 1980's teardowns
Extensive collection of VOIP Media Gateway server rack cards

[boffin]

OK OK; I'll post here, rather than the original #1019 thread

• The speaker connector is the standard DIN connector, as nasty as they were, that's what was on European stuff in the 70s
• The receiver has a lot of SW and LW bands in addition to the 550-1600 AM and 88-108 FM
• The component tester has a HUGE number of fanboys on your website...  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project  It's a pretty cool device.

[Pratik_Panda]

Haha, it is crazy what people do with IoT these days. They would rather use WiFi to unlock their home gates even if it takes 15 freaking minutes rather than just turn a key like they have been doing for centuries.

[bjcuizon]

Hmm...looks like someone just got a massive collection of serious telecomm/networking hardware right there.

[NivagSwerdna]

22nd July 2028, totality passes straight over Sydney 04:00 UT and it's a four minute long beauty.

I might have to be there!!

[Gary350z]

• The component tester has a HUGE number of fanboys on your website...  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project  It's a pretty cool device.

Fixed link:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project/

[Barny]

The chinese thingemebob at the end looks like the copy of an german open source project.
Its called the AVR transistor tester.

It tests all sort of transistors and diodes and other components.
https://www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/AVR_Transistortester

Its an interesting little thing.
Sadly your display dont work.

[Edit]
Ups, I shouldn't wait to long to post the message.
[/Edit]

[McBryce]

Those speaker connections on the Polish tuner were the standard speaker connection on most cheap European Hifi gear in the 80's and 90's. The connector looked like this. What was used in Australia?

McBryce.

[komet]

The DIN speaker connector was the obvious choice when I built this amplifier as a kid. This was 1988.

[Barny]

Hey, that's exact the same connector my Blaupunkt car radio uses.
(It's an old Jetta II from 1991)

[bjcuizon]

Those speaker connections on the Polish tuner were the standard speaker connection on most cheap European Hifi gear in the 80's and 90's. The connector looked like this. What was used in Australia?

McBryce.

Today's springy type speaker connectors were obviously "under development" at the time.
Why didn't they use binding posts though?...As they were around since 1905ish. Are they concerned with the safety of the user? Well, they didn't use this in PA gear (with high output voltages), did they?

[jonovid]

did you not know the internet of things IS
the rube goldberg machine of our time.
you're supposed to have fun trying to figure it all out Dave!   

the 70s hi-fi tuner amplifier & red phone, reminds me of tandy / radioShack or rat shack stuff.
it works but, only just, with the minimum number of electronic components needed. long before the chinese discovered product re-engineering

Wow data center rack boards lots of goodys here! 

Arduino based DIN rail PLC controller -  did it get static damage on teardown? 

chinese transistor resistor diode Mosfet resistor, capacitance , inductance tester
I have two of them awesome little chinese testers. you get a transformers Autobot logo on start up!. 
both of mine have good LCD screens,  use a good battery Dave! 

[McBryce]

Today's springy type speaker connectors were obviously "under development" at the time.
Why didn't they use binding posts though?...As they were around since 1905ish. Are they concerned with the safety of the user? Well, they didn't use this in PA gear (with high output voltages), did they?

No, they were mainly used on those low-cost 3in1 (Record player, Tapedeck, Radio) Hifi units of the time that came with matching speakers, where you couldn't trust the owner to connect the leads the correct way around if you used seperate posts. We're not talking high-end gear here, just this type of low-end rubbish.

McBryce.

[cezar]

Dave, too much criticism to the component tester. I find it very useful to do a quick check for diodes, transistors pins, caps, etc. They cost almost nothing and it is worth having it on the bench

[jonovid]

Dave, too much criticism to the component tester. I find it very useful to do a quick check for diodes, transistors pins, caps, etc. They cost almost nothing and it is worth having it on the bench

So lets test the chinese component tester & lets see how it stands up to professional standards.

[cezar]

Dave, too much criticism to the component tester. I find it very useful to do a quick check for diodes, transistors pins, caps, etc. They cost almost nothing and it is worth having it on the bench

So lets test the chinese component tester & lets see how it stands up to professional standards.

are there any 'professional' testers which can test almost every component? - I doubt. I don't think these Chinese testers are to replace anything professional.

[McBryce]

Dave, too much criticism to the component tester. I find it very useful to do a quick check for diodes, transistors pins, caps, etc. They cost almost nothing and it is worth having it on the bench

So lets test the chinese component tester & lets see how it stands up to professional standards.

are there any 'professional' testers which can test almost every component? - I doubt. I don't think these Chinese testers are to replace anything professional.

The Peak DCA75 (made in the UK no less!) is a lot more professional and trustable than those Chinese toys. It won't do LCR, but it will give you a lot more info and can even do curve tracing if you connect it to a PC.

http://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/dca75-dca-pro.html

McBryce.

[b_force]

Dave, too much criticism to the component tester. I find it very useful to do a quick check for diodes, transistors pins, caps, etc. They cost almost nothing and it is worth having it on the bench

I guess Dave missed an entire (pretty big) on going topic on this forum? 

I have actually seen many companies using these little devices.
They are super cheap, and decent enough to check if your components are faulty or in the same ballpark.
Nothing wrong with them. (the software only misses a few important steps, like zeroing out lead resistance)


Btw, these FPGA boards look cute, but the chip itself seems obsolete?

[Brumby]

Dave, too much criticism to the component tester. I find it very useful to do a quick check for diodes, transistors pins, caps, etc. They cost almost nothing and it is worth having it on the bench

So lets test the chinese component tester & lets see how it stands up to professional standards.

Seriously?  Those component testers are not meant for any professional assessments.

I have one - and I find it very useful for sanity checks ... especially for go/no-go checks on semiconductors and passives recovered from boards or that have unknown provenance.

It's a great little item for any hobbyist.

The one major criticism I have is when trying to test SMD components - which is what the 3 flat areas of the PCB are for.  Just so fiddly.

[madires]

Oh my, Dave completely missed one of the 10 most popular threads of this forum. The MTester runs a modified firmware version (based on the k-firmware), but you can program the current k or m-firmware:

k-firmware: https://github.com/svn2github/transistortester/tree/master/Software/trunk
m-firmware: https://github.com/svn2github/transistortester/tree/master/Software/Markus (read the README!)
documentation: https://github.com/svn2github/transistortester/blob/master/Doku/trunk/pdftex/english/ttester.pdf

[boffin]

The chinese thingemebob at the end looks like the copy of an german open source project.
Its called the AVR transistor tester.

It tests all sort of transistors and diodes and other components.
https://www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/AVR_Transistortester

Its an interesting little thing.
Sadly your display dont work.

Not really surprised, the 'good battery' that he tried was still only 7.2v

[RGB255_0_0]

This one has almost as much hate coming to you as the mailbag with all the PC gear 

Still, it seemed you were pretty disinterested with much of it and it was displayed with your contempt.

[Gabse]

The Component Tester (I send to you directly from Aliexpress, yes it is one of the cheapest, but i have the identical one) is a very clever opensource Project (https://www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/AVR_Transistortester ) started by Markus Frejek and Karl-Heinz Kübbeler, published under BY-NC-SY License, but it was than faked by Chinese Manufactures. It can measure all sorts of components including Transistors, Diodes, FETs, IGBTs, Triacs, Resistors, inductors... It shows the polarity, and all important values like hFE, Uf, Capacity, ESR, UGS... I thought you might not heard about them before and maybe are interested in the way it works, so I sent you one. I know, that it is not a professional tool, but for hobbyists might very useful. The LCD is probably so dim, because the second battery was probably flat too, it says VBat=7V instead of 9V. The pins of the socked are Labeled 1,2,3, and the Tester will automatically detect the pinout of the component, and show it on the LCD. Btw, the Zif socket is not genuine TEXTOOL, There is written TEXTDOL on…

[madires]

Actually Markus Frejek started the Transistor Tester project and abandoned it after a while. Karl-Heinz (k-firmware) took over and I've (m-firmware) joined in a little bit later.

[dardosordi]

Please Dave, make another video of just the tester and compare it to some of your good gear, its an interesting piece of gear and many in the forum like it. Im pretty sure it will be an interesting episode.

I think your review didn't do it justice, and looks like you were in a pretty bad mood when doing it, maybe it was the IoT crap or maybe you were hungry. Please consider it.

[gardner]

Please Dave, make another video of just the tester and compare it to some of your good gear, its an interesting piece of gear and many in the forum like it.

Agreed.  I was quite surprised to see Dave first not realise what it was and then go on to dismiss it so quickly as worthless crap -- after putting two different dead 9V batteries in it.  Maybe he was just in a bad mood after futzing with that IOT POS.

I think these are almost magical little gadgets that are super useful for identifying and testing recycled parts.  Much as I wish I could, I cannot justify owning a real LCR meter, but one of these doodads at $15 seems to do the business better than some of the cheaper ones I see reviewed.

[Dubbie]

I have a lot of good gear in my lab and my stupid little $20 component tester is definitely in my top 3 most used tools. Probably behind my multimeter and my scope. So handy as a quick check when making repairs or double checking random components when throwing together a prototype on a breadboard. Often I can't be bothered looking up a part number and just know I want an NPN bjt, so I'll just grab what's nearest and shove it in to get the pinout and confirm that it really is a npn bjt.

[b_force]

I have a lot of good gear in my lab and my stupid little $20 component tester is definitely in my top 3 most used tools. Probably behind my multimeter and my scope. So handy as a quick check when making repairs or double checking random components when throwing together a prototype on a breadboard. Often I can't be bothered looking up a part number and just know I want an NPN bjt, so I'll just grab what's nearest and shove it in to get the pinout and confirm that it really is a npn bjt.

Exactly this.

[Macbeth]

Please Dave, make another video of just the tester and compare it to some of your good gear, its an interesting piece of gear and many in the forum like it.

Agreed.  I was quite surprised to see Dave first not realise what it was and then go on to dismiss it so quickly as worthless crap -- after putting two different dead 9V batteries in it.  Maybe he was just in a bad mood after futzing with that IOT POS.

I think these are almost magical little gadgets that are super useful for identifying and testing recycled parts.  Much as I wish I could, I cannot justify owning a real LCR meter, but one of these doodads at $15 seems to do the business better than some of the cheaper ones I see reviewed.

It's astonishing that Dave doesn't even know what this is, despite in it's many configurations being instantly recognisable and probably the most popular cheap device ever for the world's budding electronic engineers and hobbyists. It has everything going for it including the longest running thread on EEVBlog itself ever.

Has Dave/EEVBlog jumped the shark?

I'm hoping he was just pissed off and narky because of his man-flu. 

[HKJ]

I have looked at these small component testers some time ago:

http://lygte-info.dk/review/ComponentTester%20Fish8840%20UK.html
http://lygte-info.dk/review/ComponentTester%20MK-168%20UK.html
http://lygte-info.dk/review/ComponentTester%20Multifunction%20Tester%20T1%20UK.html

And the more professional Peak:
LCR: http://lygte-info.dk/review/ComponentTester%20Peak%20LCR45.html
Semiconductor: http://lygte-info.dk/review/ComponentTester%20Peak%20DCA75%20UK.html

[Dubbie]

All those links now seem to be broken HKJ

[ChrisLX200]

I have looked at these small component testers some time ago:

http://lygte-info.dk/review/ComponentTester%20Fish8840%20UK.html
http://lygte-info.dk/review/ComponentTester%20MK-168%20UK.html
http://lygte-info.dk/review/ComponentTester%20Multifunction%20Tester%20T1%20UK.html

And the more professional Peak:
LCR: http://lygte-info.dk/review/ComponentTester%20Peak%20LCR45.html
Semiconductor: http://lygte-info.dk/review/ComponentTester%20Peak%20DCA75%20UK.html

Thanks for that, I have the third example you listed above and find it a very useful tool. Also cheap enough not to cry over should it self-destruct for some reason. The Peak models don't seem to offer much for the extra cost - and to get the full range of functions you essentially need to buy two different instruments.

[b_force]

All those links now seem to be broken HKJ

Work totally fine here.

[Dubbie]

Maybe it's because I am on tapatalk

[bjcuizon]

Today's springy type speaker connectors were obviously "under development" at the time.
Why didn't they use binding posts though?...As they were around since 1905ish. Are they concerned with the safety of the user? Well, they didn't use this in PA gear (with high output voltages), did they?

No, they were mainly used on those low-cost 3in1 (Record player, Tapedeck, Radio) Hifi units of the time that came with matching speakers, where you couldn't trust the owner to connect the leads the correct way around if you used seperate posts. We're not talking high-end gear here, just this type of low-end rubbish.

McBryce.

Right, I get your point.

[GreggD]

Did you see those SynCor power bricks, the inductors use pcb traces for windings. @time 14:20
Oh! You did see that.

Suppose all those FPGAs are on a single JTAG chain ?
You don't tent vias if you want to probe or bed of nails the board and there is no good reason to do so unless it is wave soldered (frown-ey face)

[Towger]

Those speaker connections on the Polish tuner were the standard speaker connection on most cheap European Hifi gear in the 80's and 90's. The connector looked like this. What was used in Australia?

Probably the exact same.  I think Dave was pulling our leg when he did not recognize a bog standard 2 Pin DIN socket.  They were used for all sorts of stuff, 'back in the day'.  More recently Ikea have been using them for their clip on gooseneck LED lamps.

[Fungus]

Probably the exact same.  I think Dave was pulling our leg when he did not recognize a bog standard 2 Pin DIN socket. 

Maybe they don't have them in Australia.

I remember seeing them on just about every cheap stereo in the 1980s (here in Europe at least).

[Brumby]

You won't see them much today - but they were not uncommon around the 70s and 80s.

[b_force]

Deutsches Institut für Normung.

So not totally weird that Aussies and Kiwis are not very familiar with it 
Horrible plugs btw.

[Cerebus]

To cut Dave some slack, the function of the  AVR multitester isn't obvious if you don't know what it is, and the user interface doesn't give any particularly helpful clues.

On the other hand, he's dead wrong about that being a proper 3M TexTool socket. It's a (good) knock-off, I have a bunch of them. A genuine TexTool socket costs more than that whole board, even if you buy them in massive quantities.

[tzok]

The Polish meter you showed was an Mera UM-203 Multimeter. It was meant rather for amateur usage. They were produced for about 10 years, between 1981 and 1991. Back then Poland was a people's republic (not really communistic, yet under a heavy influence of Soviet Union), and our technical level was very low, Soviets delegated us to produce food and some heavy industry products (like trains and ships).

As for the meters - they were not so bad for their price. In mid '80s they started to produce electronic meter in the same chassis. They were UM-Z2 and UM-Z3, both based on ULY7741 (locally manufactured uA741 clone) with 50k?/V and 100k?/V internal resistance. We've also produced a professional analog meters like UM-110 (10M?, uA776 based) and UM-112 (20k?/V) and famous V640 (for export they were branded Marconi TF-2650 or Convay model 639). As our money has no value in western world, we payed with these meters for components and patents we used.

Here's my collection of Polish multimeters:


From the top left: OM4, OM-V, UM-200, UM-202; UM-203, UM-206, UM-207, UM-221; UM-Z2, UM-Z3.

If you are interested in multimeters made in former People's Republic of Poland please visit my webpage: http://multimetry.tzok.eu/

[Falcon69]

22nd July 2028, totality passes straight over Sydney 04:00 UT and it's a four minute long beauty.

I might have to be there!!

4 minutes of totality? wow!

It lasted less than 2 minutes here, and was only about 95% or so here in Portland, OR. It darkened the sky and made the shadows of my chain-link fence look like they were moving on the ground. I'm guessing because of the rays coming from the sun?! That was kinda cool.

The shadows through the trees and bushes were all crescent shaped. Like a bunch of little half circles everywhere.   The sky was twilight, almost dark, was kinda eerie being in the middle of the day. But, it wasn't like the twilight like you see near dusk. It was kinda strange, almost hypnotic. And no, I wasn't drinking.  My nephew went up on the mountain. He said He looked across Portland and could see the shadow creeping across.

If I had been able to drive to Salem, I would have seen it in totality and actually seen the stars out. But traffic was just horrible. There was like a million more people on the road traveling from all over (California/Washington, Nevada, etc.) to come see it.  Traffic was horrible. Took my friends nearly 6 hours to make the 45-60 minute drive back from Salem. So I'm glad I stayed in Portland. Would have been nice to see totality, but I remember seeing it when I was 4 years old in 1979. I'll see it again. They say one occurs every 18 months or so somewhere across the planet.

Maybe I'll save up and take a trip to Australia and see 4 minutes of it when it happens in 2028.

Dave, FYI, those are Forever stamps. Meaning a letter (basically with the weight of the envelope and about 3 or 4 pieces of letter size paper), you can mail within the US forever with one of those. Even if they raise the cost of shipping said letter to 50 bucks!

NivagSwerdna was very nice to go halves in on the cost and shipping it to ya.

Hope ya enjoy them.

Jason