Author Topic: EEVblog #759 - Mailbag (Read 19845 times)

EEVblog · « **on:** June 30, 2015, 12:37:17 am »

A big mailbag episode, getting through lots of backlog.
P.S. Yes I failed to twig to the cordless ESD strap. Will have to do a video debunking this!

SPOILERS:
NicaDrone EPM688 OpenGrab Electro Permanent Magnet
For UAV/drone payload pickup
http://nicadrone.com/index.php?id_product=59&controller=product

Fused USB to UART adapter (FTDI-Free)
https://www.tindie.com/stores/maxtch/

A PCB designed in AutoCAD.
Freescale tower system modular development platform:

Perf prototype board:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/perf/

Pulsed Light laser LIDAR module
http://pulsedlight3d.com/products/lidar-lite

A fun FAIL button, and a whole lot more.

boffin · « **Reply #1 on:** June 30, 2015, 04:29:24 am »

You came oh so close with Mississauga

MISS - SA - SAW - GA

Awesome mailbag as usual; now I'm off to eBay to find a Fail button.

codeboy2k · « **Reply #2 on:** June 30, 2015, 04:33:54 am »

Nice mailbag, I liked the format, open first, teardown later ! that's a winner in my book.

Mississauga -- I was born and raised there, but I'm in Vancouver now. It's quite a large city, I think it's now the sixth in Canada. It's named after The Mississauga Indian Tribe.

Pronounciation: Almost everyone can't pronounce it on first seeing it. You guys got it pretty close.
I grew up pronouncing it like this: Miss-sis-saw-ga ... that's an american english "saw" like the 'o' in 'long'. not the Australian 'saw' which you guys say like an american 'sore'

thewyliestcoyote · « **Reply #3 on:** June 30, 2015, 05:06:39 am »

Lacking permanent magnets like what is used OpenGrab used in side of microwave waveguides as lacking phase shifters, reversible gyrators, and attenuators. Different kind of material but the same effect of lacking DC magnetic field. Very cool!

Rasz · « **Reply #4 on:** June 30, 2015, 07:38:15 am »

ESP8266 is NOT BLUETOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!1111111one

I have to say Im loving the little guy. At first I wasnt sure, young noob with no interest in electronics? But Ryan(sp?) is confident, assertive and makes mailbags more dynamic and fun. Im probably the least enthusiastic guy around here, writing something positive for a change took a lot of mental energy from me

Yansi · « **Reply #5 on:** June 30, 2015, 11:08:55 am »

Yeah, its a nice WiFi chip with a crazy firmware full of bugs, poorly documented features and things wildly changing from version to version.

Nice mailbag, full of interesting stuff :-)

Only the latching magnet didn't look quite 5kg capable, looked kind weak. Also using thyristors at 5 volt supply voltage and even two of those in series? I think there's no close to 50A, or even 300, jeeeez. Anyone measured the curent? I think not... That's nonsense. I'd like to see some discussion on the design.

EDIT: Jeezus christ.. they even can't publis a schematic in PDF or PNG or whatever, some bloody stupid "upverter online tool" slow as a whack and web browser selective. Blargh...

EDIT2: Okay, taking back the 5V, there is 40 volts in the caps. There is a LT3495 boost converter.

bktemp · « **Reply #6 on:** June 30, 2015, 11:43:42 am »

After seeing those small caps I did say the same: 300A from those 2 caps? Never.
But then I did the math: 40V/300A=0.133ohms. That is at least possible with low ESR caps.
The schematic lists them as EEEFK1V331P, 330uF, 35V low ESR caps from Panasonic with 8mohm @100kHz. The 300A could be correct, but 40V is a bit too much.

rsjsouza · « **Reply #7 on:** June 30, 2015, 03:12:41 pm »

Nice mailbag, and Ryan was very good in the video; it was really nice to see the interaction between the two of you.

I also did schematics and some simple PCBs in Autocad in early 1990s on a 10MHz XT without math coprocessor... Pretty cool when I opened an existing file and the circuit was slowly redrawn, just like an animation effect where all the elements (lines, circles, rectangles, etc.) were drawn in the screen in the same order as originally placed.

janoc · « **Reply #8 on:** June 30, 2015, 03:20:36 pm »

Quote from: Yansi on June 30, 2015, 11:08:55 am

Yeah, its a nice WiFi chip with a crazy firmware full of bugs, poorly documented features and things wildly changing from version to version.

There is 3rdparty firmware and development toolchain for it too, so you don't need to rely on the buggy default firmware.

BTW, Dave, that was USB B connector, not A on that USB/UART adapter.

8086 · « **Reply #9 on:** June 30, 2015, 05:49:02 pm »

I can't believe the youtube comments re. Ryan. So much negativity, as if all those people weren't awkward at his age.

Maybe they're so old they can't remember, hahahaha.

gemby · « **Reply #10 on:** June 30, 2015, 07:15:03 pm »

Dave, little trivia, have you noticed little golden bears on Josip Medved's boards? Medved ( his last name ) means bear on Croatian.

MobileWill · « **Reply #11 on:** June 30, 2015, 07:36:29 pm »

Quote from: Yansi on June 30, 2015, 11:08:55 am

Yeah, its a nice WiFi chip with a crazy firmware full of bugs, poorly documented features and things wildly changing from version to version.

Nice mailbag, full of interesting stuff :-)

Only the latching magnet didn't look quite 5kg capable, looked kind weak. Also using thyristors at 5 volt supply voltage and even two of those in series? I think there's no close to 50A, or even 300, jeeeez. Anyone measured the curent? I think not... That's nonsense. I'd like to see some discussion on the design.

EDIT: Jeezus christ.. they even can't publis a schematic in PDF or PNG or whatever, some bloody stupid "upverter online tool" slow as a whack and web browser selective. Blargh...

EDIT2: Okay, taking back the 5V, there is 40 volts in the caps. There is a LT3495 boost converter.

The ESP8266 Wifi you are referring to isn't so bad if you use LUA firmware or Arduino firmware. Much better than the default AT command set firmware. Plus you can use it as a all-in-one, no extra micro needed. I need to get one of the SMD versions with more GPIO's.

bitwelder · « **Reply #12 on:** June 30, 2015, 09:52:18 pm »

Regarding the USB to UART adapter, if you don't want to use a mini or micro USB format, I'd say that the choice of using the USB B (i.e. what's in the device shown at mailbag) is the most practical one, as everybody probably has a ton of USB A to USB B cables laying around, and the USB A end is plugged to the computer side.

dadler · « **Reply #13 on:** June 30, 2015, 10:08:06 pm »

I like Ryan. Do not like the new format.

It breaks up the discussion of an item over two disparate sections of the video. This means one has to seek to two locations in the video to see the coverage of an item. Sometimes your mailbag segments are used for reference (or even mini-reviews) later in the future. One can link directly to a specific offset in the video. By breaking it up, this is not possible as it would require two offsets.

Please return to the old format

ataradov · « **Reply #14 on:** June 30, 2015, 10:56:31 pm »

Quote from: 8086 on June 30, 2015, 05:49:02 pm

I can't believe the youtube comments re. Ryan. So much negativity, as if all those people weren't awkward at his age.

To be honest, I have not watched two last mailbags because of this. I don't want to be negative, but I also watch those videos for Dave unique style, not for awkward teenagers.

And yes, I do remember being a teenager, and even now I'm not good in front of a camera, but I also don't appear in random youtuber's videos

Lightages · « **Reply #15 on:** July 01, 2015, 01:26:59 am »

It is very nice of Dave to help out a newcomer to video blogging. I am sure everyone was a PHD and built like Arnold when they were 15

Good work Ryan and don't let the morons get you down! Sure the morons outnumber the nice people in the world so let it run off your back like a duck. Let them be politicians and you can do real things.

IMHO, if Dave didn't give Ryan a hand, it wouldn't be Dave. Good work Dave!

EEVblog · « **Reply #16 on:** July 01, 2015, 02:56:36 am »

Quote from: dadler on June 30, 2015, 10:08:06 pm

Please return to the old format

I will. I had no intention of changing style, this was just a one-off, but I was curious what people thought.

mtdoc · « **Reply #17 on:** July 01, 2015, 03:22:49 am »

for giving Ryan some air time. He has potential.

for the new format. I'm glad it's not a permanent change.

Barny · « **Reply #18 on:** July 01, 2015, 07:23:35 am »

Yes, youre right.
If the unpacking and the mini-teardown is done seperate, it looses the charm of the whole maibag-mini teardown concept

Muttley Snickers · « **Reply #19 on:** July 01, 2015, 09:07:28 am »

Personally I didn't mind the format and it may have been a case of just trying to thin out the backlog of mail, opening an item then doing a quick review only to find that five minutes later another similar device had been received would be rather annoying and could cause a very good design or concept to potentially miss out on the deserved recognition.

Making comparisons between similar devices seems not only more sensible to me but appears to make better use of Daves time, so leaving the reviews to the end in a bundle does benifit not only the products but those following along as well in my opinion.

The only short fall that I see with rapidly going through the mail means that some products and probably more so letters that generous people went to a lot of trouble to send in on the expectation that they would get personal attention may feel let down somewhat.

I think that Ryan did an excellent job and Dave did very well in boosting the boys confidence.

Muttley Sniffles........I still have the flu......

Stonent · « **Reply #20 on:** July 01, 2015, 12:20:31 pm »

In American:
Nick-uh-rah-gwa
Miss-uh-sah-gwa (as pronounced by my mom who is from Detroit which is fairly close to Canada)

In one Spanish dilalect:
Nick-ahr-ow-gwa (ow pronounced like "Ow! I just stubbed my toe!)

Jacko · « **Reply #21 on:** July 01, 2015, 01:06:19 pm »

Two thumbs-up for Ryan. He should be a regular mailbag participant!

Best regards, Jack

acourtois · « **Reply #22 on:** July 01, 2015, 07:16:42 pm »

Dave was right, I did the mesh thing on the ground plane to eliminate warping.

The larger your PCB is for a given thickness the greater the chances that warping will happen. The worst is not so much the warping itself. It is, a) the PCB trying to get back to its original shape and b) the integration of the PCB in its application, will create stress on the solder joints. This PCB did not have large packages, so that mitigated the issue into a second-class concern. The MCU on this was supposed to be an MC9S12, so the clock speed did not play a part in ground-plane design choices. Project was shelved for different reasons.

rollatorwieltje · « **Reply #23 on:** July 01, 2015, 08:32:34 pm »

Quote from: 8086 on June 30, 2015, 05:49:02 pm

I can't believe the youtube comments re. Ryan. So much negativity, as if all those people weren't awkward at his age.

Maybe they're so old they can't remember, hahahaha.

Youtube comments in general are mostly toxic garbage anyway. It would be an improvement for everybody if Youtube removed comments completely. I've seen a few bloggers suffering from mental issues because they read all that garbage about themselves. Many people claim it doesn't hurt them but that really isn't true, it's a death by a thousand cuts.

Goober_in_CA · « **Reply #24 on:** July 01, 2015, 11:27:24 pm »

I also like Ryan.
Any thoughts of making Ryan more permanent?
Great episode!
Daryl


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Author Topic: EEVblog #759 - Mailbag (Read 19845 times)

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