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 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 another Dyson teardown, in my efforts to understand how marketing have got hold of relatively simple technology & managed to charge extortionate amounts of money for it. This is the DC35, the model after the introduction of the brushless digital motor. On this version the mouldings have been changed,
I have yet another receipt printer, this one appears to be brand new. It’s possibly the smallest thermal 80mm printer I have at the moment, and has both USB & Serial interfaces. There’s not much to these printers at all. Removing a single screw allows the case halves to separate,
Continue readingNanoptix “Spill-Proof” Thermal Receipt Printer
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
Earlier today, one of my neighbours put their dishwasher out for the scrap man. After asking if I could appropriate it in the interest of recycling the Ham Way™, I was told it wasn’t draining. The engineer called out to fix it had claimed it was beyond economical repair. A
Here’s another active balancing circuit for large ultracapacitor banks, this one is designed for a series string of 6, at 2.5v per capacitor. Based on the design here, I have transcribed the circuit into Eagle & designed a PCB layout. As can be seen from the circuit diagram above, this
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 is a Bosch 14.4v Professional cordless drill/driver, recovered from a skip! It was thrown away due to a gearbox fault, which was easy to rectify. Here is the drill with the side cover removed, showing it’s internal parts. The speed controller is below the motor & gearbox here. The