EEVblog #839 - Mailbag

[EEVblog]

New 2016 Mailbag Bonanza with Sagan helping out.



SPOILERS:
A Kollsman Instruments MD-1 Automatic Astro inertial navigation system analog computer for a B-52 Stratofortress bomber!
Article: http://www.ausairpower.net/SP/DT-MS-0407.pdf
From The Geek Group:
http://thegeekgroup.org/

Realistic CB Radio teardown and testing with a spectrum analyser.

Silicon Labs Sensor Puck Bluetooth heart rate monitor demo board: http://www.silabs.com/products/sensors/Pages/environmental-biometric-sensor-puck.aspx

WinnerGear MicFlip Reversible Micro USB cable:
http://winnergear.com/product/micro-usb/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/micflip-world-s-first-reversible-micro-usb#/

Jack Ganssle: http://www.ganssle.com/

RFT EO213 East Germany Analog Oscilloscope Teardown

iRiver MP3 Player Teardown

Telstra T-Box Remote control version oddity.

[SL4P]

Dave - you reeally have to do something about those hand-held close-up shots...
They only work about 25% of the time!
Maybe a foot-switch hack to kick the lens, or cut-away insert of the beauty shot

[Arjan Emm]

High Dave,m are you really telling us you don't own a angle grinder??
Well, time to go to tool shop i'd say...

[makerguy]

Hi, Dave. Yet again an excellent Mailbag video.
I wonder how the Australian border control didn't freaked out when they X-rayed this mail. It looks like a WWII bomb.

[Barny]

No.
These looks complete different.
Because of the sticker & internet-pics to confirm, there are no big problems.

There are way more interesting components.
For example old railway - track occupancy sensors.
They look exactly like a mine.

[G7PSK]

Would not think that thing is welded shut, how would it get serviced. Take the 4 screws out and try to remove the top, quite likely there's a vacuum in there and the nut on the front is the evacuation point.

[Muhh24]

Hi Dave, great video.
I've got a very similar Oscilloscope to the EO 213 that you got in the Mailbag.
It's called the Voltcraft 2020 and was sold by Conrad Electronics in Germany. My physics teacher gave it to me a while back because he figured I might have better use for it.
Also he gave me the Digi-Scope-Converter. A little box that would sit on top of you analog scope that would give you an X and a Y channel output with the measurements that you would take with it. It can do basic things like frequency or RMS voltage calculations. It is also capable of doing a single shot capture and saving a reference frame which you can then overlay on top of your realtime waveform view.
It is quite slow and only goes up to 500kHz, yes kilohertz, but it's all I have right now.

[PA0PBZ]

Come on Dave, tell us about that batteriser!

[SNGLinks]

Interested in the Silicon Labs puck but postage to the UK is $60.80!!

Had to fill in the long form before finding this out.

Ashley

[Azhar]

I would love to have this scope, am I the first to request?? I live in Melbourne

[AF6LJ]

I would love to have this scope, am I the first to request?? I live in Melbourne

That is a good old scope and still useful.


Good Video Dave.

[steve30]

Sagan's presence caused quite a lot of controversy in the #EEVBlog IRC channel.

Personally, I quite enjoyed his appearance.

[c4757p]

Always seems causes some somewhere. I think he's adorable, though he's got his daddy's voice

[Skimask]

SPOILERS:
A Kollsman Instruments MD-1 Automatic Astro inertial navigation system analog computer for a B-52 Stratofortress bomber!
Article: http://www.ausairpower.net/SP/DT-MS-0407.pdf
From The Geek Group:
http://thegeekgroup.org/

I used to work B-52's (G & H models) up until a few years ago, 20+ years, mainly on the flightline with a little bit of backshop.  Instruments/Autopilot /INS (AP/INS, IFC, GAC, whatever you want to call it) was my career field, so this little gem is/was right up my alley.  Never got to work the system on active aircraft, but we played with some mock ups in tech school.  I'm fairly sure I've still got my tech school books laying around somewhere and I remember there being a whole section in there about the Star Tracker...block diagrams, operation, etc.  Have to do some digging in the 'archives' and some scanning if I can find them.
As far as I remember, the system was installed on B-52G and earlier models.  It was deactivated and removed from all active B-52G's by 1985.

[Stonent]

It looks like a pressure cooker almost.

[AlxDroidDev]

Regarding the Kollsman Instruments MD-1: 
H.A.F.B UTAH refers to the Hill Air Force Base, in - you guessed - Utah.


Regarding the 2 remote controls:
NRF24L01 is widely used by Arduino enthusiasts and there are plenty of cheap breakout boards available on the market (Alibaba, DealExtreme, etc). It is quite "hackable", and now that the word is out that these set top boxes use NRF24L01, I'll not be surprised if they start getting hacked.

[kalleboo]

Would not think that thing is welded shut, how would it get serviced.

It's the military, so why service when you can just outright replace? Anyway, it's someone else's money!

[jh15]

I worked at Kollsman Instruments in the '80s. I wondered why the build looked familiar, especially the sealing.

I did not work on this line of instruments, but did work on the cockpit instruments They were hermetically sealed in many models.

I think it is hermetically sealed with metal tape and solder (SOHLder?).

After the unit is repaired and calibrated, we would send it to assembly girls who would use a huge soldering iron, old school huge copper head, but only 50 watts or so on a high mass head.

Maybe 3/8" wide, the tape, (think of thick alarm window adhesive metal tape) is wrapped around the bare metal, fluxed and soldered all the way around.

Then it is painted.

You do the reverse to get it off. scrape or clean the paint off. Find a huge old soldering iron, no flames or torches please, and start heating at the seam where the wrap of tape ends, you can pull it free bit by bit.

I'd freak if that thing came apart with 4 bolts hehe.

[EEVblog]

Sagan's presence caused quite a lot of controversy in the #EEVBlog IRC channel.

IRC, what's that? 

[gadget73]

ah, IRC.  True old-school geek stuff.  Once upon a time I wasted a lot of time on there, often with BitchX as a client running in a screen session on my Gentoo box.   Haven't run linux as a desktop in years though, I got burned out on computers after doing tech support for a few years.  Now I'm boring and use Windows to look at people doing silly things on youtube.

[blackbird]

It's also called Stanley knife for most of the time in The Netherlands albeit in Dutch; 'Stanleymes'. Sometimes we also called them 'Afbreekmes', roughly translated to 'snap-off knife'.

[PA0PBZ]

It's also called Stanley knife for most of the time in The Netherlands albeit in Dutch; 'Stanleymes'. Sometimes we also called them 'Afbreekmes', roughly translated to 'snap-off knife'.

For me "Stanleymes" is the one with the replaceable knives, and they are not snap-off. Stanley knife is 2 metal halves that come apart when you take the screw out, and it has storage inside for more/different knives. the snap-off/break-off kind is well.. once you have used the last piece you just get a new one.

[Fungus]

That's not a Stanley Knife, this is a Stanley Knife:



Everything else is a box cutter.

Even if it's made by Stanley.

[PA0PBZ]

That's not a Stanley Knife, this is a Stanley Knife:

 

[blackbird]

Ah ok, you're right. Sometimes the snap-off are wrongfully called Stanley knives. My mistake.

[Brumby]

That's not a Stanley Knife, this is a Stanley Knife:


Everything else is a box cutter.

Even if it's made by Stanley.

Yep  +1

[rrinker]

 I do have one oddball combo of the two though, I forget where I got it, but it has a 2 piece metal case like a proper Stanley knife, with the button on top to extend the blade, but the blade it came with, while shaped like the standard Stanley blade, also has places where you can snap off the dull end like a typical box cutter blade. The only difference between it an and actual Stanley knife is that the button throw (and the blade) is much longer. I guess it would be considered a heavy duty box cutter, as opposed to the typical cheap plastic ones.
 Stanley is the most common supplier of those knives in the US as well, although the common term is more often "utility knife" for the Stanley, and some call any retractable blade knife a "box cutter" but as I freely admit, if there's anything Americans are, it's inconsistent.

[Brumby]

From my experience, the Stanley knife in Australia is basically defined by the body of the knife - with the classic trapezoidal blade being the most common, but there are other blades - such as a hooked blade (used for cutting linoleum, I believe).

A quick search for Stanley knife blades came up with this one - which appears to be exactly what you have described:

... and it's even marked as 'Stanley'

[Don Hills]

Regarding the MP3 player:
The iRiver brand is now Astell & Kern. (http://www.astellnkern.com/) They still make high end players and other equipment. The 4-way button system was called "D-click". It worked well but you had to remember to use the hold switch, because the whole front panel was the "button" it was easy to inadvertently press when handling it.

The model you took apart was introduced in 2007. I still have (and use daily) an earlier model (U10) from 2005. It was high-end at the time - MP3 / OGG / WMA audio, MP4 video, FM radio, recorder (to MP3 format), Flash games. (The whole UI was Flash based.) I still use it because it drives full-sized headphones better than my phone.

[blackbird]

A quick search for Stanley knife blades came up with this one - which appears to be exactly what you have described:

... and it's even marked as 'Stanley'

Ah, maybe this is why I got confused and called this snap-off knife and the 'real' one both a Stanley-knife. Because it is branded 'Stanley' does not make it a 'real' Stanley-knife, the one Fungus showed is the real deal. Case closed