Recent Posts

1

Other Equipment & Products / Soldering station recommendation

« Last post by bottlegardener on Today at 09:08:21 pm »

Hi all,

I'd like a second soldering station as I'm getting tired of moving my beat-up Weller WES51 between two locations. I have a vague notion that much has changed technology-wise in the intervening 18-odd years since I bought the Weller. I'm a bit overwhelmed. I was just wondering if anyone has any recommendations for an inexpensive (under $200, cheaper is better) station?

I work on mostly old audio equipment and old cameras. Everything is through-hole. It's nearly all uses lead solder. I sometimes have to work on flexible PBCs and primitive PCBs with traces that easily lift. On the other end, I sometimes need to solder wires to stainless steel battery contacts (for which I typically use Rubyfluid and thoroughly clean afterwards) or braided chassis ground wires on guitar amps. Other than that it's all pretty basic stuff (patchbays, cables, ordinary through-hole PCBs).

Any recommendations would be much appreciated. I'm particularly curious if any of the cheap Aliexpress would suffice.

2

Altium Designer / Re: Polygon ignores when thermals are disabled in pad properties

« Last post by thm_w on Today at 09:06:28 pm »

I'm sure something is buggy, you can always go back to the old version you originally created the PCB in. For me on v20 it seems to work.

I would say though, I get the feeling you are overthinking the design a bit. Would the direct connection on all vias really be bad? Are you worried cap will tombstone or something?

3

Beginners / Re: buying a oscilloscoop

« Last post by scroeffie on Today at 09:05:06 pm »

thanks all for helping friend says this is the best 300 euros scope that he could find its even better than the 500euros rigol models
for my hobby ,he also says i need probes 1:100 because of the crt psu puls 400....1000v  no idea what he is talking about but i trust him
dont even know how a scope works to much buttons and things on the screen but i wil figure it out
need to fix this psu 

Owon XDS2102A oscilloscoop


https://www.eleshop.nl/owon-xds2102a.html

4

Test Equipment / Re: Racal Dana 1998 blown fuse in BNC connector

« Last post by PA3BBV on Today at 09:03:57 pm »

Hi All,
Today, I have received tge pico-fuses, they fit in the connector and all is working fine again. Thank you all for the support!
 

5

Repair / Re: Which USB3-SATA dock/cradle/adapter for 3.5+2.5" hdds without 4K/sec emulation?

« Last post by Greybeard on Today at 09:03:49 pm »

How did you find out that this will happen?
Probable ther's much more config data stored in the EEPROM (time out behavoir etc.)...

6

Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff / Re: (Yet Another) DIY Multislope ADC

« Last post by iMo on Today at 09:01:13 pm »

Frankly, I've been looking for a symmetrical perfectly deterministic rundown..
Those not fully symmetrical rundowns with varying/different times etc lead to a voodoo where one juggle with esoteric 15 digits floating point coefficients in order to get a reasonable results..   

7

Beginners / Re: Signal generator question

« Last post by RoGeorge on Today at 09:01:04 pm »

You still didn't show on what is the LED soldered onto.

What kind of PCB (printed circuit board) is the LED soldered on?  Did you use Aluminium substrate PCB, or normal FR4?  What thickness is the copper clad, and what copper surface did the pads have?

That type of LEDs can not work without radiator.  Get some Al substrate PCB from a defective light bulb.  If you don't have Al PCB at hand, you can find defective white light bulbs at any EE waste basket, or sacrifice a working light bulb you might have at home.  Remove the plastic cap of the light bulb (there are videos online of how to remove the plastic cap without damaging the interior), and retrieve the Al PCB.

The Al plate to retrieve from the light bulb looks something like this (without the wires):



Snip away one of the white LEDs, preferably one from the middle of the plate.  Do not try to desolder the white LED, that won't be easy (unless you use a preheater).  Snip the white LED with a pair of pliers, then clean the pads one by one, and solder your UV LED instead + some wire on the other side end of the copper clad.

Use the biggest soldering-tip you have, and preferably use a preheater, the Al underneath is a big heat sink, normal soldering iron won't be able to melt the solder.  Do not increase the temperature on the soldering iron, but instead preheat the Al plate at 10-150*C or so.  That will help a lot when soldering your LED.  I wouldn't use any more the UV LED that smoked the flux, because overheating shorten their lifetime a lot.  Use a new one if you have.

Then, test how much is it heating inside your enclosure.  If the plate gets so hot that you can't keep keep a finger pressed on the back of the Al plate, then it's probably too hot, more than the 60*C allowed by the datasheet.  Make sure there is good air circulation, eventually poke some holes to your enclosure, for natural convection to lower the temperature.  Without air circulation, any radiator will eventually heat too much, no matter how big the radiator.

8

Test Equipment / Re: Looking for a replacement general purpose oscilloscope for home use

« Last post by tautech on Today at 08:59:09 pm »

AFAIK a 1 GHz and a 2.5 GHz active probe is all they offer so far (and with very little info/details).

You overlooked Siglent's recent inhouse design of 5 GHz differential probes.
https://siglentna.com/products/accessories/probes/active-probes/

They are not listed as accessories for any of the lower BW models other than for the current 3&4 GHz SDS7000A range.....later this year to be expanded to include 6&8 GHz models.

9

Test Equipment / Re: Hacking the Rigol DHO800/900 Scope

« Last post by brownbillca on Today at 08:58:05 pm »

I Tried this today and this is what I got. any help would be grate.
DOH814 firmware 00.01.02 it did make a backup though.

 adb: error: remote object '/rigol/data/Key.data' does not exist

go run rgtoolMod.go
keyFile: Key.data
deviceId: DHO8
SCPI format: ':SYSTem:OPTion:INSTall'
options: [RLU BW7T10]
error open Key.data: The system cannot find the file specified.
exit status 10


Please, send generated :SYSTem:OPTion:INSTall commands to the scope via the SCPI interface, and press any key to check for the new *.lic files.
Options are installed without scope reboot.
Press any key to continue . . .

10

FPGA / Re: Lattice has silently removed free iCEcube2 license and now charging $471

« Last post by mikeselectricstuff on Today at 08:55:53 pm »

They did the same a few years ago for ISPLever software for the EC series and CPLDs. I suspect they have to pay for licensing of some parts of the software, but seems a pretty dumb move to charge for software to use their low-end parts