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.