Hi, it's time for another mystery teardown. And when I say mystery teardown I Really mean it because I have no idea what this is until we actually tear it down. I Stay on this in that big dumpster raid which I'll link in at the end and down below. if you haven't seen it with a whole bunch of stuff in a dumpster from a mysterious technology company that I'm not allowed to mention.

Anyway, this looks like a PowerPoint and it is a regular. Oh it's a 15-amp job' by the way, it's got the larger Earth pin here. it's physically longer than the regular right 10 amp one. So that's like the industrial 50mm amp outlet.

So anyway, it looks like a regular PowerPoint But like where does the mains go in? Where's Willy Where's Willy I Guess the mains goes in through a little mini B connector does it and some other is that at the end a micro USB mini-b and a micro USB I'm so dude, like what the what? the? If it was something that took the mains as an input and then outputted something like it measured something or outputted something, then it wouldn't be in this form Factor: you would plug a male powered male pin into a female receptacle. So what on earth is it doing? Well, Only one way to find out. it's tear it down. Rip the back off.

Here is actually a battery door in this. so it's actually battery-powered so oops, that just comes right off. And we have a little hobby Lithium battery in here. One of these nanotech jobs that looks a bit bit puffy, doesn't it? Hmm.

Anyway, anyway, 7.4 volt job to sell this side. up. There you go. Thank you! Nice label in there Oh Dangerous voltages inside.

Do Not open. It's okay. I'm a professional. Return to Platypus Instruments for Repair Platypus Instruments I Love Look at this.

I Love the logo. That logo is just fantastic little little bill surrounded by an Ohm symbol. That's great. Anyway, Platypus Instruments, don't go look them up now because it might be a spoiler for you if you want to try and figure this out from the teardown.

but this is a specialized instrument the company only makes as far as I know. they only made this and it came out in mid 2017. so it hasn't been out very long. So obviously the company who I got this from didn't need it anymore and they tossed it in the dumpster or it got thrown out, but accidentally.

Whatever it was or it doesn't work, who knows. Um, but yeah, it's a specialized bit of test equipment. believe it or not. Well, it's actually test equipment to test test equipment.

Can you figure it out yet? So obviously we've got a Lithium-ion battery input here. reset button. We've got a programming port there, and dangerous voltages inside, so let's crack it open. All right, let's have a look inside.

Tada. There's one big-ass cap. and of course, yes, it does actually output. Oh, the P The PI 3 version 3.3 March 2017.

There you go. So it was. It was actually released in mid 2017, so well. yeah.

Oh, and we've got a couple of leads there too, by the way. Um, which is quite nice because they've used the existing holes on the these are normally the screw holes that you you know put into the screw into the plate in the wall. They've actually used those screw holes as little lid. yeah, make a little reverse lids on there.

Anyway, that's pretty cool. So we've got a big-ass cap on there and got a couple of a couple of training and that looks like a some sort of I know worth electronic components? Yep, is that a custom any off-the-shelf Anyway, got a couple of chokes in here and Jesus not much else is there. so actually there's a fair bit on the bottom and that's where all the goodness is. Let me get that out.

Actually, the first interesting thing here to note here is look at this micro switch. This is actually looks like it's a safety micro switch in a lock because it was normally pressing against the back of this plate. So it's designed to detect when we've actually removed the board from there. And if you have a look where it's connected over to here, it looks like it's connected to some big beefy part of the obviously some sort of power supply system.

So it's designed to maybe yeah, shut it off. or maybe even discharge this huge Rubicon nice 450 volt to 20 micro farad cap. So yeah, maybe some sort of safety in a lock tip. You know if people do take it apart to prevent, but what to do? Think you discharged the cap anyway, wouldn't you though? But I don't know.

So briefly explain what it looks like we've got here. You'll notice like we've got different blocks all around here. They seem to be sort of separate functions. So what we've got down here: this section.

It's a little bit mysterious. you know it's got a power there and a what a couple of optos and this is actually an LM three, five, eight so like. And there's nothing on the backside by the way. So almost all the circuitry is on the topside except for these transformers and the cap and this power resistor here.

So that's an Op Amp and just something else. This section here. this is actually a Pic 12 F series micro and these two chips here are actually um, half bridge drivers. So that's what these two power MOSFETs are here for.

and we've got a diode up there and that ties in with this. So is that a common mode choke or transformer? I'm not sure what's doing there, you'd have to look at the configuration anyway. so that's I got the 400 volt huge cap on there. So obviously this section here is tied into the half bridge drivers here with the MOSFETs And then here's our output here.

By the way, this is our mains output and it is actually an output. It's not an input. You don't plug anything into it like mains into a female socket. That's not how it works, so it actually outputs stuff in this section.

Up here, we've got another picmicro that's the programming port. of course we've got a fuse in there I've got a big shunt resistor up there and this is a you know, really schmick o MOSFET and another grunty looking MOSFET here, which dryer seems to be driving this transformer here from Worth and then the output side of this goes over to here. Oh look, and some traces tapping off over to here. So that's probably doing some sort of measurement functionality.

It's probably not drivin' anything, is it? I don't think so. I think it might be tapping off there a measuring and then the output of that is obviously tied in somehow into our mains output here and on this section over here. Classic Our 3406 3 I've done a whole video on that I'm sure way back in the day. Um, Buck Boost converter.

So yeah. nice big 270 own power resistors there and they nice and well, what is this thing? Have you figured it out yet? Hmm I might let the original designer tell you. Roll the videotape hello and welcome the platypus instruments I Don't about to share with you. maybe an interest for you in your personal safety, your business productivity increase, and efficiencies.

We have painted a pocket inverter between use for for trip time testing. portable our CDs The inverter is 240 volts 50 Hertz pure sine-wave both neutral bonded is a very safe form of isolator power supply and also contains a 360 volt DC outlet for objects. Proving the inverter totally eliminates the requirement to connect the mains power and its hazards totally eliminates a requirement an isolation transformer. it supports stand-alone RCD testing devices or portable appliance testers with our CD facilities.

Even if you have an isolation transformer, you still need power and some portable point testers cannot do 250 volt goyard testing so they have to do leakage testing. The inverter meets all those requirements. thank you very much. Trevor From Platypus Instruments I'm somewhere here in Sydney I believe and it's actually hard to find information on this thing because all they've got is a Facebook page like this.

They did have a website but it's Gonski as in like the domain is gone and it seems to be like a startup thing that they're started in. There's videos talking about I think this is like the investment guy in it or not investing like advisement like startup advisor guy or something like that and please correct me if I'm wrong. but anyway, um yeah, little startup you do Trev Obviously had this idea for this little portable appliance tester tester so it's a pad tester tester if you pat as in portable appliance test to test a tester. Does that make sense? No.

Anyway, it's like AC current. That's a pretty cool idea because I assume that when you're out on site and you've got these portable blinds testers and you actually want to certify that your check that your portable appliance tester is works, you might have to do that once a day or once a week. I don't know the requirements for that sort of thing. Um, you want to make sure it still works and this tester is designed to test the tester.

So a nice niche little great example of a nice niche little product. and just love the form-factor This seems to be quite a lot of engineering going into this, so they said it was patented. Let's go have a look at the pattern. Now it turns out this is actually an innovation pattern.

It's not a full pattern and I thought I'd do a little spiel on that and I happen to have my brother-in-law Phil who is a patent attorney here and at the time he was just hanging out lab the other night and I shot a video all about patterns and ended up being a half-hour thing. so I won't go through that I'll link it in at the end and down below if you. I highly recommend you watch it to know all about the difference and everything to do with patents. Anyway, it was fantastic.

So here is a diagram for it: I'm sorry, that's the crudity that it comes with. Anyway, it's got a battery charger in here. Of course that those were the extra connections you saw on the battery there. they were the inner cell taps of course to balance charge the lithium.

There's a low voltage microprocessor in here, so that would be the one on the high side. There's a Pic 16f series on the high side and there's a DC to DC converter here. And this is the isolation transformer. That custom worth isolation transformer that we saw and then there's a regulator here.

and there's also got that pick 12 F Series Micro is the high voltage microprocessor. The microprocessor of course doesn't work at high voltage. It's still a 3.3 or a 5 volt microcontroller, but its ground is floating at 240 somewhere. you know, on 240 volts.

So it's totally isolated from the other micro processor over here. So there you go. and there's the H bridge output filter. So of course we had a half bridge driver.

but we had two of those chips and four and two transistors per half bridge. So we've got a full height bridge driver and that generates our sine wave and it can measure back. So Bob's your uncle. That's it.

It's you know. It's pretty simple and oh I have to link in the pattern at the end and then goes through the background of the invention and stuff like that. Phil says that this is a bargain-basement pattern. It's not very long, it's not, he didn't do it himself, but yeah, it's It's not hugely comprehensive, but it gives you some detail.

There you go: 60 Kilohertz PWM And the high voltage cap is, of course, charged to our 400 volts. DC sustains large voltages, short term transient output, low currents as required for loads. The high voltage CPU includes a frequency reference from which to the 50 60 Hertz output for the PWM is defined, as well as the PID control loop that stabilizes the output voltage H Bridge over Current protection supplementing a protection inherent in the analog design of the bridge in addition to the analog bias voltage removal circuits described above to protect the MOSFET. So we miss that it also monitors the current flowing through the J FET Since the microprocessor is the source of the switching bias folio signals, by detecting the overload condition, it can reduce the magnitude of the commanded output to reduce the transient currents present.

The output regulation task is performed by the PID algorithm. There you go via the isolation Transformer 22. It wasn't labeled. There were no annunciators on the diagram, so the CPU generates Birsa 35 Kilohertz signal to measure the impedance presented by Switch 31.

There you go. That's interesting. Nice. That's like a like an ESR measurement like you'll do measure ESR of capacitors.

you do that at 100 kilohertz. Typically, in this case, the 35 kilohertz to measure the impedance. The switch? Excellent. The high impedance present in the series resonant circuit I Won't go through the whole details of how this whole thing works.

you can argue it out in the comments and discuss in the comments. Conversely, a closed switch presents low impedance, removes the need for a separate power switch, and presents the user with the familiar GPO. On-off switches also serves the additional traditional function of high voltage AC switching. Thus, the low voltage CPU 16 is able to sense the state of power Switch 31 and GPO 30 on the other side of the galvanic isolation barrier.

Nice. It's capable of delivering 20 watts of sinusoidal 240 volts to the load indefinitely. Well, that little battery's not going to last too long at 20 watts, is it? Well, 500 watts for short tens of milliseconds duration, k2, high peak currents of devant. So the device under test? Well, I Thought it was only for testing the portable appliance tester.

Maybe I don't know the details of exactly what tests the portable appliance tester does, and we won't go into that. But yeah, suffice it to say they there was obviously a requirement to have short term high current, high-power pulse capability. And of course, here in Australia, we use the Menace system, the multiple earth neutral bonded system and it just goes through the conventional approach to testing our CDs and stuff like that. And there are the claims for the pattern.

So there you go. That's all there is to it. A neat little bit of nice teske. Nice.

Alright, let's see if this works I'll pair it up with an external worst 7.4 volt supply, so give it a bill. Mmm, switch off I'm not sorry why I'm not gonna troubleshoot that. But anyway. I hope you enjoyed that little mystery teardown for this really nice little bit of equipment that's actually designed and engineered really quite well.

I Really liked it for a specific purpose. It does its job and it looks like it would do it superbly so. I'm not sure what if platypus instruments are still going, he's still by it. I don't know, don't know what the deal is? Umm, but yeah.

great example of a niche product. So if you liked the video, please give it a big thumbs up. And as always you can discuss down below in the forum. and if you want to talk about this: I Guess you can email Trev his email was in the video there.

Go for it. Sure. I'll happily answer all your questions. catch you next time you.