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Contec CMS-50F Pulse Oximeter Teardown

Rear Case
Rear Case

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.

Contec CMS-50F
Contec CMS-50F

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 later time via a USB-Serial link. There is software supplied with the unit for this purpose, although it suffers from the usual Chinese quality problems. The hardware of this unit is rather well made, the firmware has some niggles but is otherwise fully functional, however the PC software looks completely rushed, is of low quality & just has enough functionality to kind-of pass as usable.

Top Cover Removed
Top Cover Removed

A total of 4 screws hold the casing together, once these are removed the top comes off. The large colour OLED display covers nearly all of the board here. The single button below is the user interface. The connection to the probe is made via the Lemo-style connector on the lower right.

Lithium Cell
Lithium Cell

Power is provided by a relatively large lithium-ion cell, rated at 1.78Wh.

Main Processor
Main Processor

All the heavy lifting work of the LCD, serial comms, etc are handled by this large Texas Instruments microcontroller, a MSP430F247. The clock crystal is just to the left, with the programming pins. I’m not sure of the purpose of the small IC in the top left corner, I couldn’t find any reference to the markings.

Aux Processor
Aux Processor

The actual pulse oximetry sensor readings seem to be dealth with by a secondary microcontroller, a Texas Instruments M430F1232 Mixed-Signal micro. This has it’s own clock crystal just underneath. The connections to the probe socket are to the right of this µC, while the programming bus is broken out to vias just above. The final devices on this side of the board are 3 linear regulators, supplying the rails to run all the logic in this device.

Main PCB Rear
Main PCB Rear

The rear of the PCB has the SiLabs CL2102 USB-Serial interface IC, the large Winbond 25X40CLNIG 512KByte SPI flash for recording oximetry data, and some of the power support components. The RTC crystal is also located here at the top of the board. Up in the top left corner is a Texas Instruments TPS61041 Boost converter, with it’s associated components. This is probably supplying the main voltage for the OLED display module.

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OLED Pulse Oximeter Teardown

OLED Pulse Oximeter
OLED Pulse Oximeter

Here’s a piece of medical equipment that in recent years has become extremely cheap, – a Pulse Oximeter, used to determine the oxygen saturation in the blood. These can be had on eBay for less than £15.

Powered On
Powered On

This one has a dual colour OLED display, a single button for powering on & adjusting a few settings. These cheap Oximeters do have a bit of a cheap plastic feel to them, but they do seem to work pretty well.

Pulse Oximeter
Pulse Oximeter

After a few seconds of being applied to a finger, the unit gives readings that apparently confirm that I’m alive at least. 😉 The device takes a few seconds to get a baseline reading & calibrate the sensor levels.

Main PCB Top
Main PCB Top

The plastic casing is held together with a few very small screws, but comes apart easily. here is the top of the main board with the OLED display panel. There appears to be a programming header & a serial port on the board as well. I’ll have to poke at these pads with a scope to see if any useful data is on the pins.

Main PCB Bottom
Main PCB Bottom

The bottom of the board has all the main components of the system. The microcontroller is a STM32F03C8T6, these are very common in Chinese gear these days. There’s a small piezo beeper & the main photodiode detector is in the centre.
There is an unpopulated IC space on the board with room for support components. I suspect this would be for a Bluetooth radio, as there’s a space at the bottom left of the PCB with no copper planes – this looks like an antenna mounting point. (The serial port on the pads is probably routed here, for remote monitoring).
At the top left are a pair of SGM3005 Dual SPDT analogue switches. These will be used to alternate the red & IR LEDs on the other side of the shell.
A 4-core FFC goes off to the other side of the shell, bringing power from the battery & supplying the sensing LEDs.

Battery Compartment
Battery Compartment

Power is supplied by a pair of AAA cells in the other shell.

Dual LED
Dual LED

The sensor LEDs are tucked in between the cells, this dual-diode package has a 660nm red LED & a 940nm IR LED.

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TS100 12-24v Soldering Iron

Handle
Handle

When I ordered the tiny USB soldering iron, I decided a proper iron upgrade would be a good idea. Looking around for something that didn’t require AC mains power turned up the TS100, a Chinese design, that unusually is actually very good! Above is the handle itself, with it’s small OLED display & two operation buttons.
This iron is controlled by a STM32 ARM microcontroller, the firmware & schematics are completely open-source.

DC Input Jack / USB Port
DC Input Jack / USB Port

The bottom end of the iron has the main DC input jack, designed with laptop chargers in mind (DC input range from 10v-24v). Above that is the micro USB port for programming.

Heating Element Socket
Heating Element Socket

The iron tips slot into the other end, many different tip types & shapes are available. The one supplied was the simple conical tip.

Standby Screen
Standby Screen

Plugging the iron into some power gets a standby screen – it doesn’t just start heating immediately, for safety.

Heating
Heating

The left hand button starts the heater, which on a 24v input voltage gets to operating temperature well within 10 seconds.

Temperature Stable
Temperature Stable

The right hand screen icon changes when the temperature has stabilized. The control PCB has an integrated accelerometer, leaving the iron hot for a few minutes triggers a timeout & it powers down. Once picked up again, the heater instantly restarts.
The operating temperature is adjustable with the pair of buttons, from 100°C to 400°C.

Different Bits
Different Bits

Here’s a selection of bits for the iron. The design is very similar to the Hakko T15 series of irons, but these are a much shorter version. Like the Hakko versions, the actual tips aren’t replaceable, once the bit burns out, the entire assembly is replaced.

TS100 Soldering Iron
TS100 Soldering Iron

Here’s the iron fully assembled. The entire device is about the same length as just the heating element from a Hakko T15!

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Totally Wicked Forza / JoyeTech eVIC 60W Teardown

Display
Display

I’ve been a vaper now for many years, after giving up the evil weed that is tobacco. Here’s my latest acquisition in the vaping world, the JoyeTech eVIC 60W. This one is branded by Totally Wicked as the Forza VT60.

18650 Cell
18650 Cell

Powered by a single 18650 Li-Ion cell, this one is a Sony VTC4 series, 2100mAh.

Under the battery a pair of screws hold the electronics in the main cast alloy casing.

OLED Display
OLED Display

After removing the screws, the entire internal assembly comes out of the case, here’s the top of the PCB with the large OLED display in the centre.

USB Jack
USB Jack

On the right side of the board is the USB jack for charging & firmware updates. The adjustment buttons are also at this end.

Output
Output

On the left side of the board is the main output connector & the fire button. Unlike many eCigs I’ve torn down before, the wiring in this one is very beefy – it has to be to handle the high currents used with some atomizers – up to 10A.

PCB Reverse
PCB Reverse

Removing the board from the battery holder shows the main power circuitry & MCU. The aluminium heatsink is thermally bonded to the switching MOSFETs, a pair under each end. The switching inductor is under the gap in the centre of the heatsink.

DC-DC Converter
DC-DC Converter

A close up of the heatsink shows the very slim inductor under the heatsink.

Microcontroller
Microcontroller

The main MCU in this unit has a very strange part number, which I’ve been unable to find information on, but it’s probably 8081 based.