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
Time for another teardown! Here’s a pocket-sized headphone amplifier for use with mobile devices. This unit is powered by a built-in lithium cell, and can give some pretty impressive volume levels given it’s small size. The 3.5mm audio input & output jacks are on the front of the unit, along
Here’s a very common chip used in older LCD monitors. This converts the incoming VGA signal into LVDS for the panel itself. The gmZAN3 is a graphics processing IC for Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) monitors at XGA resolution. It provides all key IC functions required for the highest quality LCD
Continue readingIC Decap – Genesis Logic gmZAN3L XGA LCD Controller
I recently got the latest upgrade from Virgin Media, 200Mbit DL / 20Mbit UL, and to get this I was informed I’d have to buy their latest hardware, since my existing CPE wouldn’t be able to handle the extra 5Mbit/s upload speed. (My bullshit detector went off pretty hard at
Here’s an eBay oddity – it’s got the same light & lens mechanism as the cheap “disco light” style bulbs on eBay, but this one is battery powered & has a built in MP3 player. This device simply oozes cheapness. The large 4″ plastic dome lens sits on the top
Continue readingeBay Special – LED Disco Light With Built In MP3 Player
After having a couple of the cheap Chinese PSUs fail on me in a rather spectacular fashion, I decided to splash on a more expensive name-brand PSU, since constantly replacing PSUs at £15 a piece is going to get old pretty fast. This is the 30A model from Mercury, which
Time for another random teardown, a signal splitter for HDMI. These units are available very cheap these days on eBay. This one splits the incoming signal into two to drive more than one display from the same signal source. The stamped alloy casing comes apart easily with the removal of
Overview Time foe some more retro tech! This is a 1980’s vintage CCD-based VHS camcorder from Panasonic, the NV-M5. There are a lot of parts to one of these (unlike modern cameras), so I’ll split this post into several sections to make things easier to read (and easier to keep
Hacking the Sony FD-20 to accept a composite input is easy – the tuner receives the RF transmission, produces an IF, this is then fed into IC201, a Mitsubishi M51364P Video IF Processor. The VIF IC then separates out the composite video signal, which is output on Pin 13 (in
Here’s a modern LED bulb, that unfortunately decided to disassemble itself within a few minutes of being installed in a light fitting! The base plastic snapped off the main aluminium body at the screw posts! The PCB in the base holds nothing but the input components. Above is the bridge
Magnetic tape is the medium of choice for my offline backups & archives, as it’s got an amazing level of durability when in storage. (LTO Has a 30 year archival rating). For the smaller stuff, like backing up the web server this very site runs on, another format seemed to
These chips are used on PC motherboards, to control many of the legacy peripherals & things such as temperature monitoring & fan speed control. Here’s the block diagram from the datasheet to show all the features, this IC handles many things on a modern motherboard! 00
Finally the Raspberry Pi Foundation have released an official LCD for the DSI connector on the Pi. When these were announced, I placed an order straight away, but due to demand it’s taken quite a while for it to arrive in the post. The LCD itself is an RGB panel,
Since the boat was still running it’s internal network on 10/100M speeds, an upgrade was decided on, the internal WiFi signal strength was also pretty poor further than a few feet from the NOC. The new router is a Cisco/Linksys AC1750 model, with gigabit networking, and full 802.11ac 2.4/5GHz Wireless.
Here’s a new addition to the network, mainly to replace the ancient Cisco Catalyst 3500 XL 100MB switch I’ve been using for many years, until I can find a decently priced second hand commercial gigabit switch. Here’s the switch with some network connections on test. So far it’s very stable
Here’s an odd & sudden failure, the power adaptor for a Samsung device. It’s been working for months & on being plugged into the mains today the magic blue smoke escaped. It’s one of their 2A models, for charging bigger devices like tablets. Strangely for one of these chargers, no
With every piece of Chinese electronics I obtain, mainly Baofeng radios, they come with a Europlug-type power adaptor, and a universal plug adaptor for the mains. The charger units aren’t too bad, there’s a fair amount of isolation between the primary & secondary, and even though they’re very simple &
Thanks to Lewis, M3HHY for lending me this one 🙂 Here’s a quick look at a Sainsmart frequency counter module. These are useful little gadgets, showing the locked frequency on a small LCD display. It’s built around an ATMega328 microcontroller (µC), and an MB501L Prescaler IC. The circuit for this
Recently I decommissioned some networking equipment, and discovered the power supplies in some switches were single rail 12v types, with a rather high power rating. I figured these would be very good for powering my Ham radio gear. They’re high quality Delta Electronics DPSN-150BP units, rated at a maximum power
Continue readingCisco PSU Hack & Switched Mode PSU Background
Following on from my review, here are some internal views & detail on the components used in this radio. Below is an overview of the main PCB with the top plate removed from the radio. Most visible are these MOSFETs, which are Mitsubishi RD70HVF1 VHF/UHF power devices. Rated for a
I have recently begun to create an archive of all my personal data, and since LTO2 tape drives offer significant capacity (200GB/400GB) per tape, longevity is very high (up to 30 years in archive), & relatively low cost, this is the technology I’ve chosen to use for my long term
This is the control unit for a Routemaster system, that downloads traffic information for the area local to the vehicle. Here is an overview of the unit, in it’s aluminium box. Here is the unit with the top cover removed, showing the pair of PCBs.
Here are the first set of mods & improvements to the RasPi Experiment board. Instead of the solder-point experiment space, I have added a standard mini-breadboard, even though it’s a little too long to fit on the board properly. In the DIP breakout, is a MAX232 TTL-RS232 interface IC, useful
Continue readingRaspberry Pi GPIO Experiment Board Improvements
This is the Velleman MK179 Proximity Card Reader, which is supplied in kit form. In the image above you can see the completed kit, the read coil is etched onto the black PCB on the left. Bringing a recognised card close to the coil operates the relay on the main
Here are the viewfinder electronics from a 1984 Hitachi VHS Movie VM-1200E Camcorder. These small CRT based displays accept composite video as input, plus 5-12v DC for power. Here is the front face of the CRT, diameter is 0.5″. Closeup view of the PCB, there are several adjustments & a