Recent Posts

91

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

« Last post by iMo on Yesterday 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..   

92

Beginners / Re: Signal generator question

« Last post by RoGeorge on Yesterday 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.

93

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

« Last post by tautech on Yesterday 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.

94

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

« Last post by brownbillca on Yesterday 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 . . .

95

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

« Last post by mikeselectricstuff on Yesterday 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

96

Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff / Re: Identify an old (mid-1970s) 10-bit ADC

« Last post by ballen on Yesterday at 08:55:14 pm »

Floobydust, thank you very much, this looks right!

97

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

« Last post by shabaz on Yesterday at 08:53:03 pm »

This is really disappointing news if this yearly charge applies.
The open source tools do not support VHDL as far as I'm aware, so that's not an option for some.

98

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

« Last post by fzabkar on Yesterday at 08:51:44 pm »

I think these ICs are protected against shorts to ground. I would try shorting SO to ground.

99

Thermal Imaging / Re: Infiray T2S Plus or Infiray P2 Pro with Macro lens

« Last post by MF-jockey on Yesterday at 08:50:50 pm »

I purchased the T2 Pro because of its long distance vision.
The Android app "InfiRay" doesn't always work for me on the Xiaomi 9T and occasionally has to be started several times. It's similar on an Android tablet.
Unfortunately, I haven't found any common free Windows programs yet. The Xtherm 2.0.8 doesn't seem finished and doesn't allow you to select cameras.
An older version from the manufacturer's website https://www.xinfrared.com/pages/download-app shows the selection, but does not work with the new hardware version.
The focus of the T2 Pro can be adjusted up to a close of 18 cm, so an area of approx. 33x44 mm is sharply imaged. That's not enough for me and I experimented with an additional lens (from my Flir E4). This additional lens enables sufficient magnification for working with SMD components.

100

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

« Last post by Kleinstein on Yesterday at 08:46:41 pm »

The two step run-down can work with any starting charge. It just needs a little (but not much) heatroom for the start.  The sequence is not really symmetrical, but it is still the same sequence of steps, just different times.  So not just the same direction for the end, but also all the reference transitions in the same sequence, just with 2 variable times. A condition can be the any of the phases should not be too short as settling at the integrator takes some time.