EEVblog #917 - Mailbag

[EEVblog]

Lots of teardown mix in today's Mailbag
And Windows 10 SBC action, along with Sony and the Russians.



SPOILERS:
Latte Panda single board computer
http://www.lattepanda.com/
Sony Pyxis IPS-30 GPS Teardown
Creative Zen music player teardown
Panasonic CF-U1 Toughbook
Raspberry Pi 3 enclosure:
http://www.kurokesu.com
Electrical insulation in a spray can
HP ESP128 hot swappable rack mount server power supply teardown
Zeo sleep monitor teardown
Russian Kvarts 404 transistor radio teardown
Russian calculator B3-14

[Monkeh]

Those server power supplies get air blown at them very, very hard by dedicated fans. They actually move a very noticable amount of air. They absolutely will overheat in moments without forced air.

[silicon_ghost]

The Zeo headband has been sorta resurrected.  Steve Gibson (Security Now podcast) and his minions have been mucking with them.  https://www.grc.com/zeo.htm

[jonovid]

 I smell a product placement marketing Rat in your Lab,s Mailbag, Dave!
unleash the ©Nano Protech on the ©Lattepanda & see if ©microsoft upgrades can save it.  is their a linux Latt-panda?
also- so server space must be at a premium,for a ultra compact power unit to be viable, also- Like the Raspberry Pi 3 enclosure -good Mailbag 

[boffin]

Calculator chip package is a QUAD IN LINE (QIL) and the Mockba 1980 radio, is the "Olympics - Moscow 1980" radio

[elektrinis]

Hey Dave, what is the link to that formula battery?

[heypete]

Although I'm not associated with the maker of the Raspberry Pi case, I have ordered several of them in the past from him and they're really solid cases and look great. Not cheap, but well-made and durable. They seem to resist my 2-year-old kid pretty well, as well as having ~20C reduction in CPU temperature (from 50C to 30C in a 20C room).

[Fungus]

1000% is only one order of magnitude more... 

[MichaelKavanagh]

Hey Dave, what is the link to that formula battery?

https://www.energusps.com/

[EPTech]

Hi Dave,

I have had a representative sell 6  cans of a similar spray and it does pretty much what he claimed. Except het did not demonstrate the isolating properties but he claimed that during his training he saw the instructor spray it on a mains powered multitool (dremel) while in operation, put it in a bucket, again while turning and, as a grand finale, put his hand in the water.

Maybe you can do a controlled and safe test to prove whether the leakage current is reduced to a non-lethal level.

[Kilrah]

Wow, that poor toughbook has taken a hell of a beating, do they play football on concrete with the things to get the case screwed up that much? Can't wait for a teardown.

Loved the GPS, insane how things have evolved.

[NickS]

Maybe you can do a controlled and safe test to prove whether the leakage current is reduced to a non-lethal level.

Like this?

Chances are the Dremel would work fine in water without the coating, even with your hand in it (Neutral is much closer than your hand). Short term of course.
Now if someone used it for the full claimed year entirely underwater? That would be something!

[djlorenz]

I kinda like the littlepanda!
The website is not so great and there is not too much documentation and projects but I was thinking how is possible to do implementing a "real" processor with os and arduino/microcontroller functionalities...

[hli]

The russian radio is actually called 'Moscow'. It reads 'Moskwa' in Cyrillic - the 'C' is actually an 'S', and what looks like a 'B' is a 'W'. When you look at the small icon to the left of it you realize that its probably a model for the olympic summer games in 1980 which were held there.

[vk3yedotcom]

4:00 "Identify that transistor and win a prize - maybe - no - can you?"

It's nearest to n40 in our alphabet but not in theirs.

A conversion chart for Cyrillic to our alphabet is in this thread about Russian germanium transistors at http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=102213.0 

Hence the transistor is a P40.

Still available - eg http://www.ebay.com/itm/P40-EFT306-EFT307-Germanium-transistor-15V-USSR-Lot-of-50-pcs-/131113922534

The front styling is like a 1970s western radio but the innards are more 1960s with the germanium transistors etc.  The dial calibration is in wavelength (metres) not kHz (which is more usual here).

Also notable is the wavechange switch, offering a choice of long and medium wave. If you go outside you might hear aviation beacons sending Morse code and occasionally voice weather announcements on long wave (a lot were closed down recently but some should still be audible).  750 to 2000 metres is 400 kHz down to 150 kHz.

[Vertigo_01]

Hi Guys,

Nic Hume here. I'm the guy who sent in the HP-ESP128 hot-swappable PSU.

I think Dave missed the letter I sent in with the PSU. The server that this thing came out of had a series of 3x 25CFM fans just to cool the PSU (for a total of 75CFM of forced-air cooling... ) The neat thing about the fans is that they were actually stacked PAIRS of 5-blade / 3-blade fans, effectively functioning as a miniature turbine compressor to generate enough pressure to move the air through the dense components of the PSU.

Needless to say they made one hell of a racket when turned on.

As far as heat dissipation goes, I started mucking about with those PSUs to try and re-purpose them, and quickly gave up. At rest, they quickly exceeded 75deg. C while sitting on a bench. I'm terrified of what they might get up to if run under load without cooling. Regardless, they are very much NOT passively cooled !

Hope that helps fill in a few gaps!

[Jeff_Birt]

I picked up one of the Latte Panda boards after seeing it on EVBlog. After just playing with it for a while I installed Mach 4 Hobby version and the Ethernet SmoothStepper plug-in for Mach 4. It was then hooked up to a Taig CNC mill. While this is no I7 16gb RAM desktop machine it is a capable little board. After seeing mine one of our research groups here at the university bought one (with the touch screen) and they are running Matlab on it as part of a research project.

Here is a short video of some engraving on the Taig mill with the Panda in control.

https://youtu.be/HcjkuwkJP8Q