Here’s another Eberspacher control unit, this time from an ancient D5W 5kW water heater. The system in this case is just flaky – sometimes the heater will start without fault & run perfectly, then suddenly will stop working entirely. The error codes are read on these very old units via
Here’s a novel little gadget, a USB powered soldering iron. The heating tip on these is very small & might be useful for very small SMD work. Bigger joints not so much, as it’s only rated at 8W. (Still breaks the USB standard of 2.5W from a single port). These
This website, in various forms, has been around now for about 10 years. Over that time the scope of what I’ve been doing has definitely widened in a big manner. Considering this, I no longer feel the current website name of “Inside Electronics” is very appropriate, so over the next
All the site migration hassle now out of the way, the blog should have returned to it’s usual speed & responsiveness by now 🙂 Here’s a couple of photos from my current project, a full write up to come as things go together: 00
The Dyson DC16 is one of the older handheld vacuums, before the introduction of the “Digital Motor”. (Marketing obviously didn’t think “Switched Reluctance Motor” sounded quite as good). These vacuums have a very large DC brush motor driving the suction turbine instead, the same as would be found in a
I recently came across these on eBay, so I thought I’d grab one to see how they function, with all the metrics they display, there’s potential here for them to be very useful indeed. One of the best parts is that no wiring is required between the sensor board &
A lot of the electronics I use & projects I construct use batteries, mainly of the lithium variety. As charging this chemistry can be a little explosive if not done correctly, I decided a proper charger was required. This charger is capable of handling packs up to 6 cells for
On the quest to get things on board replaced that are heavy users of power, the monitor in the main cabin was next. The original CCFL-backlit monitor was very heavy on 12v power, at 5A. This meant falling asleep watching TV would result in severely flattened batteries. Replacement with a
Continue readingViewSonic VA2232W-LED Monitor 12v Conversion
In the past, I’ve used RC type LiPo packs for my mobile power requirements, but these tend to be a bit bulky, since they’re designed for very high discharge current capability – powering large motors in models is a heavy job. I recently came across some Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
Here’s another torch from eBay, this time with 5 Cree XML-T6 LEDs. Having 5 Cree LEDs rated at up to 3A a piece, this light has the capacity to draw about 50W from it’s power supply. In this case though, current draw is about 1.5A at 12v input on the
The multimode dimming/flashing modes on Chinese torches have irritated me for a while. If I buy a torch, it’s to illuminate something I’m doing, not to test if people around me have photosensitive epilepsy. Looking at the PCB in the LED module of the torch, a couple of components are
Continue readingMaplin/Refrakta Torch Modification & Mode Removal
Finally, after a couple of weeks wait time, the fan controllers for the power supplies have arrived. They’re small boards, which is good for the small space left inside the case of the supply. Here they are. I’m not certain what the pair of potentiometers are for – there’s no
Continue readingDIY SMPS Fan Speed Control – The Controllers
I’ve been meaning to sort some local graphs out for a while for the radiation monitor, and I found a couple of scripts created by a couple of people over at the uRadMonitor forums for doing exactly this with RRDTool. Using another Raspberry Pi I had lying around, I’ve implemented
So, here is where all the action happens. Main radio of course is housed on the left, it’s partially hidden under my currently over-populated breadboard. All 3 monitors are linked to the same PC, using a pair of video cards. This is a very flexible system with so much screen
My other monitors are a different model, and have a slightly different main PCB inside, but the process is mostly the same for converting these to 12v supply. In this monitor type, there is only a single board, with all the PSU & logic, instead of separate boards for each
I’ve had a couple of viewfinder CRT modules for a while, & haven’t done much with them, so I decided to make a very small B&W monitor. I ordered a small transparent ABS box when I made a large order with Farnell, that turned out to be just about the
I recently ordered a PSU to run one of the TVs I converted to 12v operation, and being an older TV, it’s a fairly heavy load at 6.5A. eBay to the rescue again, with a cheap 10A rated supply. Like all similar supplies these days, it’s a SMPS unit, and
A while ago I blogged about modifying the output voltage of some surplus Cisco switch power supplies to operate at 13.8v. Since I was able to score a nice Hammond 1598DSGYPBK ABS project box on eBay, I’ve built one of the supplies into a nice bench unit. Above is the
It’s official. I’m now part of the uRadMonitor network, & assisting in some of the current issues with networking some people (including myself) have been having. It seems that the uRadMonitor isn’t sending out technically-valid DHCP requests, here is what Wireshark thinks of the DHCP on my production network hardware
Continuing from my previous post where I published an Eagle design layout for AD7C‘s Arduino powered VFO, here is a completed board. I have made some alterations to the design since posting, which are reflected in the artwork download in that post, mainly due to Eagle having a slight psychotic
To provide more run time with the conversion to petrol & spark ignition, I have also upgraded the on-board electronics supply to compensate for the extra ~650mA draw of the ignition module. This modification is centred around a 3S Lithium-Polymer battery pack, providing a nominal 11.1v to a voltage regulator,
These speakers are available free from Pringles, with two packs bought. Normally running on 3x AAA cells, I have made modifications to include a high capacity Li-Ion battery & USB charging. New battery is 3x 18650 Li-Ion cells in parallel, providing ~6600mAh of capacity. These are hot glued inside the
As the cable supplied with the panel is far too short, inflexible & does not even allow the cable gland on the terminal box to form a seal, I have replaced it with some high quality twin core guitar cable, with silicone insulation. The cable is removable from the panel
As the first USB hub I was using was certainly not stable – it would not enumerate between boots & to get it working again would require waiting around 12 hours before applying power, it has been replaced. This is a cheapie eBay USB hub, of the type shown below.
The final part for the battery pack has finally arrived, the PCM boards. These modules protect the cells by cutting off the power at overcharge, undercharge & overcurrent. Each cell is connected individually on the right, 12v power appears on the left connections. These modules also ensure that all the
Continue readingWearable Raspberry Pi Part 2.5 – Battery Pack PCM