What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[HecticZA]

Bought a Magnum 2005 soldering station.

Also bought an Uni-t UT61E last month.
Both items probably won't rate that well against the more popular models, but both are a huge upgrade from what I had and I'm very happy with both.

Will now save for a Micro soldering iron for my soldering station, hot air station and I hope to get a variable power supply as well.

First of all I will have to buy some sort of scope. Due to Diabetes my eyesight is pretty bad.

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

[0xPIT]

Bought an ES121 screwdriver. Loving it already <3

[kripton2035]

bought a cetus 3d printer. UK stocks are pretty tight so duno at all when it may arrive to me !

[VK5RC]

A box of goodies.

Christmas has come early!

[lordvader88]

Some 3kV 5pF ceramic cap's for a high voltage probe.

[edgelog]

So, I opened up my new Quick 861DE and to my surprise it looks quite different from the 861DW that Dave reviewed. For instance, it has a different blower (since it's 200 L/min instead of 120, that's to be expected), but the main transformer isn't there, replaced by a smaller one on the main board. Also, the EMI filter on the back panel is absent. The main board says "856D-Powerdrive v2.8 2015-06-22", while the 861DW in Dave's video says "861D-MotorDrive V1.5 20150731", so the 861DW Dave had is a more recent revision than the 861DE I have.

Now, the 856 is a different unit from Quick, you can see it here (click on 856 on one of the buttons on top):

http://quick-global.com/2-lead-free-rework-2.html

Checking the specs there, it seems the 861DE is a 856 in the case of the 861DW. Interesting.

All the boards in my unit are completely different from the boards you can see in Dave's video of the 861DW. See 12:04 point in: https://www.eevblog.com/2018/02/20/eevblog-1058-quick-861dw-hot-air-rework-station-review/

BTW, about that EMI filter missing, I didn't notice any flickering of the lights, but I don't have any fluorescents either.

[imidis]

That's one of the problems with things like that, they are consistently inconsistent. 

[djos]

That's one of the problems with things like that, they are consistently inconsistent. 

Maybe the filter is only required for 120v 60hz countries?

[djos]

That's one of the problems with things like that, they are consistently inconsistent. 

You don't need a PhD in power electronics to see the emi filter on the board.

I must confess I didnt look at all the pics. 

[Jay_Diddy_B]

I bought a (very lightly) used Rigol DSG815 Signal Generator:












Dave did a teardown video:



So no need to take it apart.

Photos:

http://www.eevblog.com/2015/11/25/eevblog-823-rigol-dsg815-rf-signal-generator-teardown/

I am curious to know if this could be hacked to the 3 GHz version.

Thread:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-823-rigol-dsg815-rf-signal-generator-teardown/

Regards,

Jay_Diddy_B

[McBryce]

Picked up a nice and rather compact isolation transformer. The previous owner had upgraded it from 300VA to 500VA with the biggest Ring Transformer I've ever seen. My old isolation transformer only managed 200VA and was struggling in some circumstances, so it was time to upgrade. Unfortunately, like most modern Isolation transformers, the Earth wire is connected through, making it not fully isolated, but that will be modified as soon as I have time. Never heard of the maker Renesse, nor could I find anything online about the device.

McBryce.

[kripton2035]

would like to see inside pictures of this transformer !

[ChrisLX200]

Tried 3D printing a case for one of the five DPS5015s I have lying around, seemed to work out OK and a whole lot cheaper than buying them.

[McBryce]

would like to see inside pictures of this transformer !

The Ring Transformer basically fills the entire case 180x180x100mm. There's probably bigger Transformers, but I don't usually deal with parts like this. I'll post a picture later.

Bryce.

[Specmaster]

I had to buy a 1TB drive for mr crashed NAS and I got myself a near mint AVO 1001 for a mere fraction of the hard drive cost 

[rsjsouza]

(...)
Don't buy any external Seagate drives, 2.5'' or 3.5'', they use SMR drives (Seagate Archive) internally.

If you are to believe in this report, don't buy Seagate drives. Period.

[Specmaster]

I had to buy a 1TB drive for mr crashed NAS and I got myself a near mint AVO 1001 for a mere fraction of the hard drive cost 

Don't know where did you get that WD Red, but just to say, there is a way to get WD Red cheaper, very cheap.
You see, WD is a high tech company selling products to recover their R&D cost, with a huge profit margin, and usually their internal driver customers are either server farms or companies, and they are willing to pay the price.
However, their external driver market is basically dominated by personal buyers, and they don't like to pay for IP.
Therefore, WD and Seagate both sell external drives cheaper than the internal drive inside the enclosure to secure this market.

As a result, you can buy WD Mybook or WD Easystor and strip out the internal drive.
There are 3 possible internal drives, being WD White, WD Red 128MB and WD Red 256MB.
You have to take a bet, the WD White is either rejected WD Red or overstock, so if you get that one, you lose the bet.
Some WD White drives also require you to modify SATA 22P cable since they put a trap to prevent you from using the drives as internal drives.
The WD Red 128 (AKA WD Thailand) and WD 256 (AKA WD China) are both genuine WD Red, but with TLER disabled.
There is also a 4th possibility, HGST Helium, but that's rare, just like winning a lottery.

Don't buy WD 2.5'' external drives, they have USB circuity on HDD PCB and no SATA exposed to external.
Don't buy any external Seagate drives, 2.5'' or 3.5'', they use SMR drives (Seagate Archive) internally.

I got my WD red drive from Amazon UK for £49.99, could have got a normal internal one for £35 but I did not know that the red drives will not hang if something fails to load, it will rely on the remain drives to load the data and move on. The other drives are normal internal ones and they do apparently hang in such an event and it is so annoying especially when the information is duplicated on the remaining 3 drives grr. Seriously thinking about installing 500Gb drives and going back to having just 4 separate drives instead of a raid array, then I could back them up to the 1TB plugged into a caddy on the desktop, more storage capacity and less frustration hopefully.

[tautech]

I had to buy a 1TB drive for mr crashed NAS and I got myself a near mint AVO 1001 for a mere fraction of the hard drive cost 

Don't know where did you get that WD Red, but just to say, there is a way to get WD Red cheaper, very cheap.
You see, WD is a high tech company selling products to recover their R&D cost, with a huge profit margin, and usually their internal driver customers are either server farms or companies, and they are willing to pay the price.
However, their external driver market is basically dominated by personal buyers, and they don't like to pay for IP.
Therefore, WD and Seagate both sell external drives cheaper than the internal drive inside the enclosure to secure this market.

As a result, you can buy WD Mybook or WD Easystor and strip out the internal drive.
There are 3 possible internal drives, being WD White, WD Red 128MB and WD Red 256MB.
You have to take a bet, the WD White is either rejected WD Red or overstock, so if you get that one, you lose the bet.
Some WD White drives also require you to modify SATA 22P cable since they put a trap to prevent you from using the drives as internal drives.
The WD Red 128 (AKA WD Thailand) and WD 256 (AKA WD China) are both genuine WD Red, but with TLER disabled.
There is also a 4th possibility, HGST Helium, but that's rare, just like winning a lottery.

Don't buy WD 2.5'' external drives, they have USB circuity on HDD PCB and no SATA exposed to external.
Don't buy any external Seagate drives, 2.5'' or 3.5'', they use SMR drives (Seagate Archive) internally.

I got my WD red drive from Amazon UK for £49.99, could have got a normal internal one for £35 but I did not know that the red drives will not hang if something fails to load, it will rely on the remain drives to load the data and move on. The other drives are normal internal ones and they do apparently hang in such an event and it is so annoying especially when the information is duplicated on the remaining 3 drives grr. Seriously thinking about installing 500Gb drives and going back to having just 4 separate drives instead of a raid array, then I could back them up to the 1TB plugged into a caddy on the desktop, more storage capacity and less frustration hopefully.

Second Copy is fairly handy for regular backups and quite user custom configurable.
http://www.secondcopy.com/

If you look hard enough there's some cracked versions available if you're into that sort of thing.

[rsjsouza]

I had to buy a 1TB drive for mr crashed NAS and I got myself a near mint AVO 1001 for a mere fraction of the hard drive cost 

Don't know where did you get that WD Red, but just to say, there is a way to get WD Red cheaper, very cheap.
You see, WD is a high tech company selling products to recover their R&D cost, with a huge profit margin, and usually their internal driver customers are either server farms or companies, and they are willing to pay the price.
However, their external driver market is basically dominated by personal buyers, and they don't like to pay for IP.
Therefore, WD and Seagate both sell external drives cheaper than the internal drive inside the enclosure to secure this market.

As a result, you can buy WD Mybook or WD Easystor and strip out the internal drive.
There are 3 possible internal drives, being WD White, WD Red 128MB and WD Red 256MB.
You have to take a bet, the WD White is either rejected WD Red or overstock, so if you get that one, you lose the bet.
Some WD White drives also require you to modify SATA 22P cable since they put a trap to prevent you from using the drives as internal drives.
The WD Red 128 (AKA WD Thailand) and WD 256 (AKA WD China) are both genuine WD Red, but with TLER disabled.
There is also a 4th possibility, HGST Helium, but that's rare, just like winning a lottery.

Don't buy WD 2.5'' external drives, they have USB circuity on HDD PCB and no SATA exposed to external.
Don't buy any external Seagate drives, 2.5'' or 3.5'', they use SMR drives (Seagate Archive) internally.

I got my WD red drive from Amazon UK for £49.99, could have got a normal internal one for £35 but I did not know that the red drives will not hang if something fails to load, it will rely on the remain drives to load the data and move on. The other drives are normal internal ones and they do apparently hang in such an event and it is so annoying especially when the information is duplicated on the remaining 3 drives grr. Seriously thinking about installing 500Gb drives and going back to having just 4 separate drives instead of a raid array, then I could back them up to the 1TB plugged into a caddy on the desktop, more storage capacity and less frustration hopefully.

Second Copy is fairly handy for regular backups and quite user custom configurable.
http://www.secondcopy.com/

If you look hard enough there's some cracked versions available if you're into that sort of thing.

I have a license of Second Copy. It is a convenient and configurable package that automates regular file copies, even performs data verification. However, I use it for my Outlook mailbox + working files and, if it finds a locked or temporary file, it spins forever chasing its own tail and requiring a terminate via Task Manager. This happens even if the option to "attempt to copy files in use" is disabled. I still use it but it clearly requires some babysitting.

[Mr.B]

I have a license of Second Copy. It is a convenient and configurable package that automates regular file copies, even performs data verification. However, I use it for my Outlook mailbox + working files and, if it finds a locked or temporary file, it spins forever chasing its own tail and requiring a terminate via Task Manager. This happens even if the option to "attempt to copy files in use" is disabled. I still use it but it clearly requires some babysitting.

I use Veeam Agent for Windows. It is free, mature and very stable. (and won't trip over an in-use file because it uses volume shadow copy)
https://www.veeam.com/windows-endpoint-server-backup-free.html
Single file restore through to full bare metal restore.

At work, we have been using its big brother Veeam Backup and Replication.
We have been using it for 6 years - Backup, replication and restore testing - flawless, it has never let us down.
The Veeam Agent uses the same underlying technology.

I am not associated with Veeam, just a very happy user.

[BU508A]

Bought this today:

- 10 LT1012 military spec version, part number: 5962-9084201MGA
- 20 WIMA foil caps, FKP2, 22nF, 63V
- 20 WIMA foil caps, MKS2, 680nF, 63V





I have attached the datasheet for the LT1012 which describes the mil-spec version of it.
Source: https://landandmaritimeapps.dla.mil/Downloads/MilSpec/Smd/90842.pdf

[DC1MC]

Unsoldering tubes, remembering the old times when using syringe needles.

[nanofrog]

Unsoldering tubes, remembering the old times when using syringe needles.

I've never used these, but they're certainly interesting based on cost alone. 

Guess I should break down and buy a set as they're rather inexpensive from the pricing I've seen (currently only use a couple of solder suckers and desolder wick).

[Jeroen3]

How would those work?

[McBryce]

You remove the main volume of solder from the joint using your preferred method, then you heat the joint again and push the metal tube of the tool over the pin, seperating the pin from the copper trace in the hole. It doesn't do the entire de-solder, it's just a method to free the component pin inside the hole.

McBryce.