Semiconductor Tester & identifier by 'WARF' + internal views

[Fraser]

I recently purchased a WARF semiconductor tester and identifier that I stumbled upon on ebay. It is ex Thailand and costs $35.95 + $6.99 p&p. delivered to the UK.

The latest auction page is here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/220918753786?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Item # 220918753786

Before buying the unit, I did some background searching on semiconductor identifiers and found the commercial products from ATLAS and several web pages detailing how to build a very similar product using an Atmel ATMEGA8 processor. The WARF unit appeared to behave in the same way as the Atmel based DIY unit right down to the messages it provides. this looks to be a "cottage industry" product being sold through ebay.

The Atmel based project can be found here:

http://www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/AVR-Transistortester

(Google translate works well)


Videos of similar DIY units are here:



  (With MUSIC  )

  (With more MUSIC  )

There are also several very similar units shown on you tube that I believe are the same electronic design.

My unit arrived and I was very impressed with the general design and build quality for the low production run product, that this appears to be. I attach some pictures. The case is very professional in appearance, complete with a proper plastic laminated front panel label with stippled surface... a nice touch that shows care has been taken with the design. The unit comes with well made test leads as well.

I have briefly tested the unit and it does what it says on the tin. Perfect for my needs and half the price of the ATLAS product.

Well worth considering if you often need to identify those horrid SMD semiconductors with untraceable markings ! I wouldn't be able to build the unit and case it for the price I just paid. I even bought a spare just in case this one dies.


Other links to similar units:

http://danvanca.ee-media.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48:atmega8-tester-schematics-electronics&catid=6:microcontroler&Itemid=4

[PStevenson]

pretty cool, I just happened to have bought one of these today, how long did yours take to get to you?

[Fraser]

Hi,

Bought 12th December, arrived 24th December, just in time for Christmas 

Well packed and no additional charges.

[PStevenson]

brilliant, cheers dude. how is it for identifying pinouts? I'm so bored of going online looking for datasheets to transistors !

[Fraser]

It works as advertised 

The cleverly written firmware identifies all manner of pinout configurations including the various diode smd configurations. That was the main reason I bought it. I already have kit for testing semiconductor performance but I keep finding nasty little SMD beasties that take time to identify. This unit does it in seconds 

It even includes resistor and capacitor value identification which I don't need but they included it for completeness. This is an SMD component type and pinout identification Gem ! Sadly it can't tell you the full specifications of a component but I have other equipment that helps there if needed.

The unit obviously can't identify a blown component but it is often the case that a particular part appears more than once on a PCB so a good one can be used to identify the dead one with the same part number

For the money, I think it will pay for itself many time over in time saved. AND it appears to be a well known DIY project so if you kill the ATMEGA8 with a charged capacitor or energised PCB, you can always program another and fit it using the available firmware ..... an ATLAS unit is generally a bin job if you kill it !

[Psi]

I have the ATLAS PEAK one, it works well.
Dunno how i did anything without it.

It was on special in a kit with their LCR meter and a carry case.

[Fraser]

I was tempted by the ATLAS product as the company repuatation is good, but I liked the idea of a unit that I could repair if it failed, and the price was pretty good. I would love the ATLAS ESR meter but already have the Dick Smith Electronics 'Bob Parker' ESR meter and a Hungarian sourced "cottage industry" unit so can't really justify another.

[PStevenson]

I know this will sound abit lame but the reason I stayed away from ATLAS stuff is the shape of the unit, I just need something square that fits in with all my other square stuff haha

[zaoka]

It would be good idea to test it against leaky transistors or diodes to see if we still need to use analog multimeter for testing

Also add ESR.

[Fraser]

Sadly I don't have any duff semi's in the lab...they all go in the bin to avoid future confusion. You have a good point though, I will save faulty semi's in the future for equipment testing 

I see this unit as more of an identifier than a true component tester.

For testing components I use a Duoyi DY294 and Leader LTC906A. I use various models of Huntron Tracker (HTR1005- B1S and Tektronix TR210) for in-circuit semiconductor testing. I don't think the WARF unit is specified as detecting leakage so I wouldn't like to suggest that it could give a reliable result. You do get gain and forward voltage drop measured though.

[Bored@Work]

Did WARF at leat give credit to the open source project they are copying?

[Fraser]

I found nothing in the supplied literature stating where the design came from or Credit to it's open source if that is the case.

I should state that I have not checked the firmware of the ATMEGA8 and it is just my suspicion that it is the Open Source project code that has been used. The unit certainly behaves like those shown on the you tube viseos though.

A little naughty as it is being sold, presumably for profit ? In my case I see it as someone doing the hardware for me to save me time and at a reasonable cost. They should credit the firmware and design though. I will email the seller and suggest he consider doing so.

[Bored@Work]

A little naughty as it is being sold, presumably for profit ?

I wouldn't fault them for that. Selling free/open source software for profit is ok. Even the hardcore GPL allows commercial usage. There are even some open source licenses that don't require to give credit at all. So they might be fine. It is just that the others in the videos didn't mind to give credit.

[wkb]

I found nothing in the supplied literature stating where the design came from or Credit to it's open source if that is the case.

I should state that I have not checked the firmware of the ATMEGA8 and it is just my suspicion that it is the Open Source project code that has been used. The unit certainly behaves like those shown on the you tube viseos though.

A little naughty as it is being sold, presumably for profit ? In my case I see it as someone doing the hardware for me to save me time and at a reasonable cost. They should credit the firmware and design though. I will email the seller and suggest he consider doing so.

Do not assume that all open source licenses require an attribution.  E.g. the BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) does not. 

[Fraser]

I just emailed the seller to let him (her?) know that I was impressed with the product. I asked whether it was based on the firmware and design that is on the internet and whether the originator of the design will be credited. I will let you know the result.

The sad thing is that I am not certain who, exactly, designed the circuit and wrote the final release firmware. It must have been quite a task and I take my hat off to him/her. 

[RJSC]

The sad thing is that I am not certain who, exactly, designed the circuit and wrote the final release firmware. It must have been quite a task and I take my hat off to him/her.

It was a German guy named Markus Frejek. See his article at: http://www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/AVR-Transistortester

[RJSC]

The main thing making me considering buying from them is the enclosure.

I can get an ATMEGA8 from ebay for 3€, an LCD with no backlight for 5€, I already have resitors, hooks and biding posts and I can program the ATMEGA8 on a breadboard straight from the parallel port on my lab PC. I can also make a single side PCB at home using thinks I already have but the damn enclosures are expensive and there is no way I can make a nicely finished cut for the LCD.

Also, why the hell are the LCDs with blue back light are so much cheaper than the ones with no backlight or green backlight?
I already have 2 of those blue backlight LCDs, but the backlight would drain the 9V battery much quicker and those blue LCDs are unreadable without backlight.

[Fraser]

Hi RJSC

Thanks for advising me of the clever originator of the design. After my message stating that I didn't know who produced the final release, I did some hunting and found that it was Markus .... very clever chap indeed.

With regard to building the unit. Yes, I agree, if you have the parts it can be built quite easily and at relatively low cost. I balanced build time and effort against the asking price and on this occasion decided a nicely cased unit, ready built and tested was more economic for me as I have little spare time in the evenings.

I think a very similar case is available from Farnell, complete with LCD hole, but it costs almost as much as the complete WARF unit !

Sometimes it nice to have a "turn key" solution 

[RJSC]

I think a very similar case is available from Farnell, complete with LCD hole, but it costs almost as much as the complete WARF unit !

That was precisely my point. An enclosure like that trough regular channels costs more than half of the WARF unit, and i don't mind paying 30% to 40% more for the professionally made PCB and assembly work. The PCBs I make at home are just single face, tinned with "liquid tin" to avoid corrosion.

I sincerely hope that the product is 100% compatible with the open source one for me to be able to repair it.
Please tell us if WARF assures you it follows the original schematics. If it follows the original schematics and has the same firmware I'll buy from them, and try to replace the resistors related to measurement by 1% tolerance ones to see if the precision improves.
If it doesn't follow the original schematics I'll build my own.

[Fraser]

The circuit is so simple that I can probably reverse engineer the schematic in a spare 5 minutes...the firmware is a different matter...I'm not equipped for ATMEGA8 programming/firmware extraction at the moment. If the schematic is identical though...you can always use the open source code if needed in the future.

I will see what I can sort out for you. The seller has not responded to my email yet so that avenue of investigation may be closed.

Regarding the case....yes I see that you were quite rightly making that same point. I have often built a nice piece of equipment on a PCB, only to find that to make it have a quality appearance on the outside as well as the inside will cost as much, or more than the electronic parts. The cases I like are often up in the GBP40  to GBP50 area from Farnell     Digimess(Grundig) test equipment use a case series that I really like but they start at GBP40 for a small case and increase in price with size.

[Bored@Work]

The cases I like are often up in the GBP40  to GBP50 area from Farnell     Digimess(Grundig) test equipment use a case series that I really like but they start at GBP40 for a small case and increase in price with size.

Well, since unfriendly Farnell doesn't consider hobbyists in my country to be worthy buying from them I had to look for other sources. Here is a random collection from a Polish distributor. They have a lot of funny cases.

All prices arbitrary rounded, for single quantity, excl. VAT, and since this Polish distributor calculates in Polish Zloty the prices in Euro will surly go up, when the Euro continues to go down.


An enclosure series similar to your Digimess enclosure. Smallest approx. 7 Euro, largest 17 Euro:

http://www.tme.eu/html/EN/instrument-enclosures-cp-15-series/ramka_534_EN_pelny.html


Handheld with cutout for display (one of many types they have), 6 Euro:

http://www.tme.eu/html/EN/enclosures-for-portable-devices/ramka_4820_EN_pelny.html

Their cheapest handheld with display cutout is maybe the KM-33C, 2 Euro. (Sorry, for whatever reason a direct link didn't work). Or take the ABS-33A, 2.30 Euro.

They have a boatload of handheld enclosures with display cutouts. E.g. if you want to build a handheld game ABS-110 (9 Euro), a dashboard instrument ABS-32 (1.60 Euro), or a point-of-sales display CP-27-7 (13 Euro).


My favourite ones are a little bit more expensive, and unfortunately don't come with a display cutout, but they come with a membrane keypad! Eight to 11 Euro.

http://www.tme.eu/html/EN/hammond-enclosures-with-keypads-1599-series/ramka_508_EN_pelny.html

Who needs Farnell, when there are friendly companies out there happy to make you happy?

[Fraser]

Hi BoredatWork,

Many thanks for the links... as you say a great supplier....I will be doing business with them for sure 

Cheers

Aurora

[warfcorp]

Did WARF at leat give credit to the open source project they are copying?

The originator of the design by Markus Frejek.
http://www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/AVR-Transistortester.

Text screen on the Front Facia, and User Manual in next Lot.

[Fraser]

Hi Warfcorp,

Welcome to the EEVBlog :-)

Thanks for the pictures of the next batch of labels. As you will see from my previous comments, I am impressed with the effort that you have gone to in order to make a professional looking piece of test equipment. Well done and thank you.

Aurora

[PStevenson]

I got mine yesterday it is very nice and works well but one thing I had to add was backlight capability because I'm half blind
so I grabbed a MPSA14 out of the pile of shit that is my desk and used the LCD power supply to switch on supply to the LED
before I added the LED it was using 11mA and now it uses 44mA so although it's a steep rise it doesn't draw when it turns off so it should be fine.