What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[Karel]

My latest purchase, a new workstation for home use:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/new-workstation-for-home-use/

[BravoV]

An Asus Zephyrus G14, indulging my self with octa-cores laptop. 

I was looking at this model, but God damn it, Asus China doesn't offer the 1080p version, and as someone who have used an X1 with 2560*1440 resolution, I know how much I hate this resolution.

Gnome has bad fractional HiDPI support, so either I run it in 720p equivalent mode (720p images and 1440p text, which some of my applications won't physically fit in), or I run it in native 1440p which puts a lot of strain on my eyes.

And KDE is not an option. Therefore for me, it is 1080p or 4k, period.

I was mouthwatering Huawei's new MateBook X for a while (3k*2k, even at 200% scaling I still get 1.5k*1k), but on its final release it has only 14nm CPU, not the rumored 10nm IceLake or even TigerLake, nor 7nm Ryzen 4000U. That, compounded by its passive cooling design, I can already see performance disaster.

This is unfortunate, but consider Huawei now practically only sells in China, and we Chinese generally are not the fastest to accept new things, like AMD's rising, Huawei will have to not to let AMD to taint its flagship's name, despite it also has some quite decent lower end Ryzen 7-based laptops, just with horrible color accuracy and building quality. I hope with time goes by more "business-oriented" Chinese people will recognize AMD and more vendors will release flagship AMD products.

So, I will just wait for the new Acer Swift 5 with Gorilla glass and TigerLake with MX350, to be released later this year.

And no, I will never buy a ThinkPad again. This X1 I'm typing on had crashed 5 times this week (weeks start in China on Monday), and it never crashed on any memtest or CPU/GPU stress programs. Weird, indeed, but it just keeps crashing when I use it normally. My coworker's cheapo Xiaomi runs well, with the same Ubuntu 20.04 and KiCAD 5.

Yeah, this Ryzen 2 4000 series mobile cpu basically a breakthru in laptop computing, Intel basically hopeless against it, not too mention this tiny 14" beast have a really good battery life too, and this particular G14 also can utilizes USB C PD charging, slower though compared to using it's brick charger, but in mobile computing, its really unbeatable when in comes the convenience. 

See how AMD kills Intel. 

[lukego]

Hakko FR-830 air preheater.

Everyone else seems to use IR these days but I'm gonna take a chance on air.

[nfmax]

Grant GD120 5 litre stirred temperature-controlled water bath, for calibrating thermistors. Acquired faulty: loosened grub screw, adjusted impeller position, retightened. Fixed.

[Ysjoelfir]

That sounds like a horrific, difficult repair ;P Sounds like a bargain!

[richnormand]

Got tired of fiddling with fixing up Lipo battery packs for tools and my homemade spot welder.

[HighVoltage]

Got tired of fiddling with fixing up Lipo battery packs for tools and my homemade spot welder.

Interesting little thing.
How much was it and where did you buy it?

[Black Phoenix]

Got tired of fiddling with fixing up Lipo battery packs for tools and my homemade spot welder.

I'm sorry for my ignorance, but what is that? I see the spot welder but that thing connected to it I don't know what it is.

[McBryce]

Got tired of fiddling with fixing up Lipo battery packs for tools and my homemade spot welder.

I'm sorry for my ignorance, but what is that? I see the spot welder but that thing connected to it I don't know what it is.

They are the welding tips. These are used for welding things like the tabs that are spot welded to 18650 cells.

McBryce.

[Black Phoenix]

They are the welding tips. These are used for welding things like the tabs that are spot welded to 18650 cells.

McBryce.

So now I understand why he said he was sick of finicky with their LiPO battery packs...

[ChristofferB]

Got a hoard of x-band waveguide parts!  A few magic tees and cavities, and the complete microwave bridge of a HP 624c test set- complete with starrett micrometer driven cavity wavemeter and some sort of knife edge cam like attenuator. Am happy!

This should tide me over for my EPR spectrometer

[richnormand]

Got tired of fiddling with fixing up Lipo battery packs for tools and my homemade spot welder.

Interesting little thing.
How much was it and where did you buy it?

Here are the details:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/737G-Pulse-Spot-Welder-Welding-Soldering-Machine-18650-Battery-Packs-110V-1-5KW/264400623164?hash=item3d8f81563c:g:35EAAOSwFTde5tOS

Got mine from Canada with free shipping:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/737G-Dual-Pulse-Battery-Spot-Welder-110V-1500W-Spot-Welding-Machine-for-18650/264454263554?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

[BravoV]

Lumintop EDC05 (AA) and EDC01 (AAA) flashlights, and two SANYO UR14500P 840mAh, AA sized Li-Ion batteries.

The two Eneloops AA & AAA as reference sizes.

EDC05 capable of using plain AA cell (Alkaline or Nimh) or 14500 AA sized LiIon cell with twice the brightness. It will not over discharge the battery.

[BravoV]

Four 18650 SAMSUNG INR18650-35E 3500mAh cells, and Soshine E3S-QC, which is a 18650 Li-Ion charger, and also can be as power bank at the same time (USB output QC 3.0 at 5V 9V 12V adaptive), capable of accepting input charge voltage up to 6v as generated by small solar panel or just plain common USB at 5V.  Each 18650 cell is monitored and charged independently.

PS : I have a habit of marking my batteries with date. 

[AlexJackson]

It was actually yesterday, but a Vectron 10MHz OCXO for my SyncServer s200.

[jogri]

Got myself 6m HV triaxial cable (quite expensive stuff) and enough triax connectors to build three cables. Stripped one end of the cable, realised that the connectors i ordered are too small for the cable and that there's no way i can assemble it...

Now looking for even more expensive triax connectors... The cheapest ones are 50 bucks a piece and not even rated for half the voltage that i want. Anyone got some spare Pomona 5218?

[djos]

I finally bought some decent SMD tweezers, an EDSYN  EP130 and an EP150.

https://au.element14.com/edsyn/ep-150/tweezer-tip-curve-pointed-133mm/dp/3386383?ost=3386383

[BU508A]

Got myself 6m HV triaxial cable (quite expensive stuff) and enough triax connectors to build three cables. Stripped one end of the cable, realised that the connectors i ordered are too small for the cable and that there's no way i can assemble it...

Now looking for even more expensive triax connectors... The cheapest ones are 50 bucks a piece and not even rated for half the voltage that i want. Anyone got some spare Pomona 5218?

Those guys have six pieces which can be dispatched immediatly.

[jogri]

Got myself 6m HV triaxial cable (quite expensive stuff) and enough triax connectors to build three cables. Stripped one end of the cable, realised that the connectors i ordered are too small for the cable and that there's no way i can assemble it...

Now looking for even more expensive triax connectors... The cheapest ones are 50 bucks a piece and not even rated for half the voltage that i want. Anyone got some spare Pomona 5218?

Those guys have six pieces which can be dispatched immediatly.

The problem is not the availability but the price of those connectors… 240 bucks for six connectors is just a little bit too much for my taste (especially given the fact that they are rated for 500V RMS but my 237 can output 1.1 kV).

[mansaxel]

This was, technically, not a purchase, it was a birthday present. But it is amazing. Get one. I've made 3 crimps with it, and I'm in love.

[BU508A]

This was, technically, not a purchase, it was a birthday present. But it is amazing. Get one. I've made 3 crimps with it, and I'm in love.

Is your wife also reading the TEA thread?   

[PlainName]

Those crimpers are fantastic - even the cheapest of cheap ones from Ebay or Ali are OK. One thing to watch though - don't think you can crimp butt joints and then remove the crimper afterwards...

[TerraHertz]

This was, technically, not a purchase, it was a birthday present. But it is amazing. Get one. I've made 3 crimps with it, and I'm in love.

Yes! Ferrule crimpers are great. So many uses. Being able to undo & reconnect wires in screw terminal blocks any number of times, without rapidly cutting through all the wire strands.
I even use them on most mains wiring now. Btw, you can produce a rounded result on large ferrules (to make them fit in tight round terminal sockets) by crimping once, rotating 45 degrees, then crimping again. Just have to get the angle right - balanced 'right on the tips'. Otherwise it pops back to match the square jaws.

Now go to Aliexpress, and buy some bulk assortments of the ferrules. They are extremely cheap that way, compared to buying from local stores.

[xrunner]

Ha I got the exact same set including that tool. 

[Cubdriver]

I got a very similar hex crimp Molex ferrule tool not too long ago.  Definitely very useful and handy to have, and with the radially closing die jaws, it's much easier to get the wire out than it is in the more common plier-style ones that mash them into a three sided die.



-Pat

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