Time for another eBay delight! This is a little UV lamp for curing false nail glues. These are definitely taking over from the older Fluoroescent tube based units, and seem to work well enough. In my case, they work well for exposing UV-sensitive PCB substrates for etching as well! Here
Here’s a blast from the past, before the time of GSM networks. This is a power amplifier from an Analogue mobile phone, on the ETACS system. This unit will output, according to the TACS standard, about 10W of RF power in the 900MHz band. RF connections on this unit are
Time for another tool teardown! Here’s a VMV-1 Vacuum gauge, for refrigeration system service use. This unit will measure in Pa, millibar, mmHg & InHg, displaying it’s reading on a nice backlit LCD. Power is provided by a trio of AA cells. The brass fitting at the end of the
After watching Mike’s Electric Stuff’s video on these a while back, I figured it was time to grab one from eBay & see for myself how pointless a tech these are. As far as I am aware, these units are no longer available, the domain name redirects to a company
Here’s a handy tool – a Carbon Monoxide meter that range to 1000ppm, with immediate update. Very handy for checking emissions of fuel burning appliances. There’s a large LCD on the front for displaying the reading, and the ambient temperature. There is a user-settable alarm if a high concentration of
Continue readingSmart Sensor AS8700A Carbon Monoxide Meter Teardown
Here’s something anyone in the industrial sector will recognise – it’s a strobe beacon, which continually flashes with power applied to alert operators of a hazard. These older ones are Xenon tube based, instead of LED, so contain a bit more circuitry & some high voltages. Unhooking the lens reveals
Quite a nice skip find this – it’s a mechanical tachometer from Smiths, the Venture ATH4. Scaled to run to 50,000RPM in x1, x100 & x1000 scales this is quite a nice instrument. Input drive shaft is on the right, with the scale selection knob & pointer lock. Mechanical eddy-current
Continue readingSmiths Venture ATH4 Mechanical Tachometer Teardown
This is a cheap kit from eBay, to retrofit an older car with ultrasonic parking sensors. 4 sensors are included in the kit, along with a hole saw to fit them to the bumper. There’s a small controller module, and a display module that fits onto the dash of the
Here’s a nice little feature-packed USB power meter, the UM25C. This unit has USB-C along with the usual USB type A connectors, along with a bluetooth radio for remote monitoring of stats via a Windows or Android app. Construction is nice, it’s a stack of two PCBs, and polycarbonate cover
Here’s a destructive teardown of an automotive in-tank turbine fuel pump, used on modern Petrol cars. These units sit in the tank fully immersed in the fuel, which also circulates through the motor inside for cooling. These pumps aren’t serviceable – they’re crimped shut on both ends. Luckily the steel
Here’s one of the old modems from my spares bin, a Vodafone Mobile WiFi R207. This is just a rebranded Huawei E5330. This unit includes a 3G modem, and a WiFi chipset, running firmware that makes this a mini-router, with NAT. The back has the batter compartment & the SIM
Since I seem to be the local go-to for any dead electrical equipment, this brand-new Silverline polisher has landed on my desk. Purchased cheap from an auction this was dead on arrival. Checking the fuse revealed nothing suspect, so a quick teardown to find the fault was required. Above is
The Sterling charger we’ve had on board nb Tanya Louise since Feb 2014 has bitten the dust, with 31220 hours on it’s internal clock. Since we’re a liveaboard boat, this charger has had a lot of use while we’re on the mooring during winter, when the solar bank isn’t outputting
Continue readingSterling ProCharge Ultra PCU1210 Teardown & Repair
These photos were sent over to me by a friend, an interesting piece of tech that’s used in the retail industry. This is a BluVision BLE Beacon, which as far as I can tell is used to provide some automated customer assistance. From their website it seems they can also
Here’s another domestic CO Alarm, this one a cheaper build than the FireAngel ones usually use, these don’t have a display with the current CO PPM reading, just a couple of LEDs for status & Alarm. This alarm also doesn’t have the 10-year lithium cell for power, taking AA cells
Continue readingFirst Alert CO-FA-9B Carbon Monoxide Alarm Teardown
Here a tape is installed in the printer. This unit can handle tape widths up to 18mm. The pinch rollers are operated by the white lever at the top of the image, which engages with the back cover. This printer is supplied with a rechargeable battery pack, but AA cells
Continue readingBrother PT-E300 Industrial Label Machine Teardown
The rear has the specifications, laser-marked into the plastic. The serial numbers are just sticky labels though, and will come off easily with use. This is the Contec CMS-50F wrist-mounted pulse oximeter unit, which has the capability to record data continuously to onboard memory, to be read out at a
Cleaning, Replacement Parts & Reassembly The housing of the contaminated motor was left to soak in diesel for a few hours to loosen the grok, this has come very clean. I couldn’t have used a stronger solvent here – the magnets are glued in place in the steel housing, I
I thought it was time to add a bit of security to the gear I take camping, so this GPS tracker unit was sourced from eBay. This is a Rewire Security 103RS, a slightly customised version of the common Chinese TK103 GPS tracker. The small module has all it’s power
Here’s the solar charge controller to go with the MT50 from the last post. This is the 40A version of the EpEver Tracer A series, the 4210A. This unit is large, and very heavy. Most of this weight comes from the enormous heatsink which doubles as the mounting plate for
Continue readingEpEver Tracer 4210A MPPT Solar Charge Controller Teardown
Here’s the MT50 controller from EpEver, that interfaces with it’s Tracer MPPT solar charge controllers, and gives access to more programming options on the charge controllers, without the need for a laptop. The display is a large dot-matrix unit, with built in backlight. Above is the display on the default
Time for another eBay special: this time it’s an 8-port video distribution amplifier, with BNC connections designed for commercial/industrial equipment. Not much on the front panel above, apart from the power switch & LED. The rear panel has all the connectors, input is on the left, while the outputs are
Here’s a tiny ethernet switch from the great fle market that is eBay – the Tenda S105. This unit has 5 ports, but only supports 10/100M. Still, for something so small it’s not bad. Not much on the bottom, there’s a pair of screw hooks for mounting this to a
Here’s the biggest portable USB powerbank I’ve seen yet – the PowerAdd Pilot X7, this comes with a 20Ah (20,000mAh) capacity. This pack is pretty heavy, but this isn’t surprising considering the capacity. The front of the pack houses the usual USB ports, in this case rated at 3.4A total
Continue readingPowerAdd Pilot X7 20,000mAh Powerbank & Fast Charging Mod
It’s been a bit quiet around here for a couple of weeks, as it’s the run-up to Download Festival here in the UK, so I’ve been busy sorting everything out for that. Just in time a new order has come in! Due to a small accident with the old Maplin