Here’s another random bit of RF tech, I’m told this is a wireless energy management sensor, however I wasn’t able to find anything similar on the interwebs. It’s powered by a standard 9v PP3 battery. System control is handled by this Microchip PIC18F2520 Enhanced Flash microcontroller, this has an onboard
A few months ago I did a teardown on this Anker PowerPort Speed 5 USB charger, but I didn’t get round to detailing the conversion to 12v I had to do, so I’ll get to that now I’ve got a couple more to convert over. Here’s the internals of the
Since I’ve discovered some nice high power PSUs in the form of Playstation 3 PSUs, it’s time to get a new Bench PSU Build underway! I’ve gone for the APS-227 version as it’s got the 32A rail. This makes things slightly beefier overall, as the loading will never be anywhere
These large LED Philips PAR38 lamps were recently on clearance sale in my local T.N. Robinsons electrical contractors for about £3, so I decided to grab one in the hopes I might be able to hack it into a low-voltage LED lamp. These are full-size PAR38 format, with most of
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
Here’s the other TV that was picked up from the local water point having been put of to be recycled. This one is much newer than the Thorn TV, a 10″ colour version from Ferguson. The colour CRT used is an RCA branded one, 27GDC85X. Like the other TV, this
Here’s another piece of commercial gear, from an industrial air conditioning unit. These pumps are used to drain the condensate from the evaporator unit, so water doesn’t end up raining down from the ceiling. This is a peristaltic pump, with a silicone hose forming the pumping element. The test switch
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
Here’s a quick teardown of an ignition transformer, used on gas fired ovens & hobs. This unit takes mains 240v AC & uses a transformer to step the voltage to several kV, at a low current to ignite the burners. The transformer section is completely potted in Epoxy resin for
For a long time I’ve needed a decent vacuum desoldering tool, as I do much stripping of old PCBs for random parts. Solder wick works well for most things, but it’s expensive & can be fiddly. It also doesn’t keep very long as the copper braid oxidises & after that
Continue readingDuratool ZD-915 Vacuum Desoldering Station Teardown
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
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
I almost forgot about this bit of kit, that came with one of my LED torches as a Lithium Ion charger. As I never plug in anything that comes from China via eBay, here’s the teardown & analysis. Here’s the unit itself. It’s very light, and is clearly intended for
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’m still on my crusade of removing every trace of 240v mains power from my shack, so next up are my computer monitors. I have 4 Dell monitors, of various models, hooked up to my main PC. The monitor here is a Dell E207WFPc 20″ widescreen model. There will be
Finally, here’s the last part of the Rigol 12v DC Power Supply project, the linear post regulation section to remove some of the ripple. I have made a couple of layout adjustments since the last post about this part of the project – a little more filtering on the DC
Continue readingRigol DS1054Z DC Power Supply – Linear Post Regulation
Since I fitted my scope with a SMPS based 12v input supply, there has been a noise problem on very low volts/div settings, this noise isn’t present on the mains supply, so I can only think it’s coming from the switching frequencies of the various DC-DC modules I’ve used. Because
Continue readingRigol DS1054Z 12v Power Supply Noise Filtering
Since everything in my shack is run from 12v, I thought it would be handy to convert my new scope to 12v as well, as 99% of the places I find myself needing test gear are off grid, with no access to mains supplies. Here’s the factory mains SMPS unit
On the boat I have installed custom LED lighting almost everywhere, but we still use CFL bulbs in a standing lamp since they have a wide light angle, and brightness for the size. I bought a couple of 12v CFLs from China, and the first of these has been running
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
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
Following on from my recent power supply build, I’ve added on a couple of improvements: I’ve added on my standard SpeakOn type 30A connector, a bank of push terminals for quick connecting test leads, and a 15A FSD ammeter. Due to the limited space inside the supply, I’ve had to
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 &
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
I received this USB supply with a laser module from China that I purchased on eBay. I have heard of these nasty copies of Apple chargers going around, but I’d never received one this bad with a piece of Chinese electronics. Model No. A1265, so definitely an Apple clone. Apparently