Hi welcome to everyone's favorite segment Mailbag Yes, it's entirely different. Yes I'm back in the old lab and yes I don't all know I don't have anything behind me except this are dumpster-diving Sonique TV which you've ever seen on the second channel because I'm doing this as a test of a concept of going to use instead of like a green screen or something crap like that in case I take something green out of the Mayo Bates just not going to work and they look crap no matter how hard you do it and have an actual TV behind me where I can include photos of people's labs so you can send in a picture of your lab and I put it up on the screen as I do my ol' bag let me know down below please if you think that is a good idea. So yes, this is a 55 inch TV that I found in this dumpster. but I need about a 70 inch to like get the entire frame coverage so it seems like it's just like a backdrop.

So anyway, I'm just testing the concept here. and yes, I have haven't fully installed proper lighting in my new lab yet or my old lab I want to call an old new whatever anyway the lab which I'm moving back into by the way eventually in a few more months or slowly over the next couple of months. If you don't know, those of my supporters will already have seen that videos of the old / new lab and all the economics behind it and the move and all that sort Of jazz. Anyway, let me know what you think down below.

so yeah, apologies for not the world's best lighting but I thought I'd try it out. and yes, I do have a much smaller mailbag bench and this was originally my soldering bench that I used here in in the old lab. So yeah, I don't need my mailbag benches typically I think it's two point one meters by 900 millimeters deep. it's it's insanely big.

And of course because I'm downsizing to the old lab. Yeah, I just don't need that. So this is like a perfect sized bench. so I'm gonna use this for my Oh bag bench now.

Anyway, let's get into a mailbag, thank you very much. Enders and the labs completely empty. so the audio if it's a bit echoey man. and yes, of course this is famously Jim Williams's old lab which they actually preserved all they preserved I think this bench part of it here and you can see it in the computer I think it's the Computer History Museum please correct me down below if it's wrong I've been to the Computer History Museum Absolutely fantastic.

Anyway, yeah so I can be in anyone's do mailbag from anyone's lab I think it's cool I've got to be careful of light reflections off the screen and stuff so I'd hate to buy like a big expensive 70-inch TV cuz I'm gonna find a 70-inch in dumpster. Have found a 65 65 is actually just not big enough needs to be 70 inch. I believe I've done the framing measurements for that so yeah don't buy it and then find it's got some huge reflective screen which doesn't work or something. So yeah I don't know especially when I have like stood I'm probably gonna have like - I Normally have two studio lights either side of me so you got to angle those right but it should've been should be okay is can't put them too close and then it reflects off that straighten the lens anyway.

thank you very much Oleg Kotov from the Ukraine I Don't want my Ukrainian viewers got some cool stamps here. Let me show you haven't had stamps for a while and the cameras so far back? Okay I can get off the bench and approach the camera but yeah that might be a thing in the future. So anyway yeah it's 70 inch TV but no stamps. Look at them in these tons of them.

Awesome Love stamps is terrific so let's get into it tying up the right angle. Alright, this is absolutely enormous box. let's have a look at ya I don't like having the camera so far back. it's like two meters back at least and I can't just like like usually it was like just like a meter away and I can sort of like reach forward, lean forward and show stuff to the camera.

So anyway that might but to get the frame in, it's got to be like for this screen man. Anyway, you have a note: oh hi, Dave thank you very much to read it. Oh yes, we like this here on the Eevblog. Hands up.

if you remember these. this 18 inch floppy Wow another five and a quarter inch rubbish genuine 8 inch job' fanta and we've got some sort of original listing on there or something like that. Anyway, I Start I didn't start on 8 inch floppies I'm not that old. started on 5 and 1/4 inch floppies I Used to sell software and mail out five and a quarter inch floppies and then three nine, three and a half newfangled three and a half inch floppies came along.

even though they were hard case they weren't floppy anymore like these are anyway. what do we got? So yeah, that was fun. When you had to actually use the Musial floppy disk mailer, the cardboard mailer. you can still buy those thing so we have some sort of vintage computery thing.

Great thing about an empty lab is you can't just off the bench and there's plenty of room, right? and that's in there. Ah, speaking o'night that's the Iomega zip. Wonder if it has the click of death? Hands up, if you remember the click of death from the Iomega zip drive. Oh, we got a whole bunch of like 2-minute tear downs.

That's some sort of Oh a 3G CDMA things. But what's this? Is this an old computer thing? I Think it's just I Think he's just sending a bunch of random stuff. and we do have an old board which will go over green. doesn't have the crinkly solder mask.

it's not that old. Oh does it? No, no it doesn't Oh wonder what that does. We'll check it out. Cool.

Oh, we've got a USB to Rs-485 isolator which Oleg has designed. It's got his name on it so beauty. Don't even have to read the note to know it is when you put your name on the silk screen. And you should.

Even if your company doesn't say you know if you're a PCB designer at a company, even if they don't say put you in, don't put your initials or your name on the PCB, there's plenty of places to put it. Let's just say that Cool! So I got you and Oleg is sending some awesome photos here. This is a sunset over the Black Sea in the Crimea look at that Beautiful and this is a Ryan plus the Horsehead and flame. I lost some astrophotography.

Beautiful. sorry about the bloody reflections, flesh lighting so hard you know when you got glossy paper? Oh yeah, glossy anything. So he's worked in Astrophysical field is now living in care, working in networking in telecoms, so we sent in some random stuff. The big bodies are quite a unique device from the Soviet era the USSR back in the USSR.

You don't know how lucky we are. Boy, this is the main board of the mainframe computer terminal device. The Mirror Cm 70 209 ends up. If you've heard of this, it's as a database computer with limited software and hardware.

Consists of a video monitor, keyboard, printer optionally and was connected to the mainframe. typically Es series or client of the IBM 360 is in serial port provided access. Wow Look at that. So yeah, it's like inside the keyboard thing.

No dumbass. Dave Keep reading. The board was placed on the backside of this Monda and directly connected to the video amplifier. What is most interesting in the components of them is this board.

you can find USSR Czech East Germans at 80, CPU clone and even Japanese paths MCU Mitsubishi is responsible for the video. Airport Unfortunately Sport is dead, but some of the rooms can be read. Save this board from a dumpster at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory Brilliant. And he doesn't know if the data can be read from the 8 inch floppy.

I Guess he doesn't have one and well, unfortunately, neither do I Look at this bad boy. Genuine Soviet-era Love it right? What does it need? 3.3 volts that's interesting. wasn't like I Expected like 5 volt only. Anyway, 5 volts minus 12 and plus 12.

That'd be for the serial coms of course, but most of it would be 5 volts I'd be guessing. So yeah, it hands up. If you spot anything familiar, there's not much western stuff. There you go, we've got some genuine acrylic.

There's a sink as that like sink ROM Maybe that's like video sinks so that would be would that be the video? I Have no idea. Anyway, got a source old-school ROM down there that's an SGS Job' no ceramic ROM There got ourselves some RAM And yeah, it's very little. Oh, there's a significant. there's a Signet expand and Oti from Portugal.

There you go. so that we were able to get some western parts in this thing. Yeah, this is just classic though. a look at that anyway.

dates from 87 summer 88 by the looks of it. Yeah, 88 Oh nine things like that. So there's a Zed ad CTC and the serial I/o Oh, there we go. 1855.

There it is. NEC Japanese Job' another TI part. guess they smuggle them out of Portugal Did they brilliant? Anyway, few mud wires on there. Love it.

God have a couple of mud wires bit a hot snot. no that's it. that's a plastic spacer. It looked like hot snot from back here.

but why they bought like that? Why would you bother on a board like this? you know, usually not. But anyway, there you go. That's fascinating Soviet-era board. and of course you know.

Look, it's all I Saw a right-angle stuff in here and it all be Auto routed I would imagine and of course all horizontal on the top. Here on the bottom you're gonna see or a vertical. yep or vertical. There you go because that's how you round it.

Alright why they got the connector on the back Anyway, that's interesting and that being see that they had on the front they just wire that job' over. It's interesting but that's how you laid out like complex double sided boards like this. Or yeah this one's double sided because otherwise if it was all like or if there were internal layers, you wouldn't have your nice big power strips coming down like this. But this is how you efficiently auto route a double site.

like a large, complicated, digital, densely populated digital board like this on two layers, one horizontal, one vertical. If you try go willy-nilly you're gonna come a guttering. You're out and pretty quick and this is a 3G CDMA a modem a 450 meek for those playing along at home. It back in 2008.

this is the only way that Oleg could get on the interwebs. So yeah, it's not gonna be much in it is there. Still got the original SIM card hands up. if that was your provider.

just feels really chintzy. Ah Oleg says this is no a Sim module. it's an IUI Em module. It looks like a Sim, but it's not compatible with a regular Sim so something tells me the external antenna is it.

It's kind of gutter. What on earth is going on in there? Like Is this the antenna? like it's folding back like that? It's going right. Okay, it's symmetrical. I'm liking that.

What the heck is that? That's just really bizarre, isn't it? you know? I Got a bit of shielding cane on there and there you go. Oh yeah, we won't go into any detail on this. Samsung There you go. So I'll just show you a quick close-up of what's on here.

you can. Oh yeah, Qualcomm Yeah, it's all there. All the usual culprits. No worries, it's on the top side under the can.

or Qualcomm Yep, welcome. as far as the eye can see. So this has to be the antenna and it's all it's all coming to got. So now you're this.

It's just a hell up up. Nope. I Just snapped enough. just held in there.

all the medals just held in place with little plastic studs melted. and yeah, they're getting an antenna out of this. I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Yeah, and I presume.

it's like a dual diversity antenna, is it? And yep, that's it. Um, and it just uses contacts down the bottom like that. So yeah, that is. That's all.

okay. Yep, so that's there. The inner ones of the ground there and the two outer ones. the two sides of the antenna.

Neat. So I you think went to a lot of effort to form that? That's really interesting. There's anyone seen anything like that. before and I think I have haven't seen one like formed? What? that especially one that like goes over the edge like that? That's that's Ryle Is that part of its that part of the gray? Yes, that's the ground one because there's the ground there.

It goes down there. So this is this top side here is the ground and that one. There is the end to the one I ripped off. There is the antenna by the looks of it.

but oh no no it's not. No, it's not and that goes in there, folds back and goes down to that other contact I'd Okay and then it goes across here. Ah, so it's a we've got some stubby action happening I love a good stubby and I yeah. anyway.

I'm antenna experts out there want to analyze that? Please go for it. Living in comments, a lot of people will be interested I'm sure it's fascinating and hands up. If you remember the I Omega zip drive, it's okay. Does that mean this one doesn't have the clip click of death height assembled in? Malaysia How do I? my Malaysian viewers? Yes, the I Omega Zip Drive 250 may get that stood for back when we only have one point four four Meg floppies and we had me what couple hundred meg hard drives or something like that.

I can't remember the exact date or what hard drives around at the time, but yeah I am eager. Zip was the way It was. just a disk. You know it was real high density disc in like a hard case, like a three and a half inch shaft floppy.

And what were these backward compatible with? the three and a half inch floppy I can't remember. Used to have one. Anyway up. Yeah this was where you backed up all your stuff was on to our mega zip drives, but they had the famous classic got clique of death.

If you heard it go click, click click, you knew that. Yeah, I can't remember what the exact fault was, but yeah, the Iomega zip drive. Hands up if you still got a backup on Iomega zip drives. Wow And there's no screws at all holding that together.

Wow. I've never taken apart one before. There's nothing in it. Well that's just it.

Yeah, it's not for there's got a plastic shield. all that. yet the whole the whole mechanism just slides like that. Wow, that's interesting.

There's a light pipe up there going to the front power. I Know that's that's the button. Is it a button and combined a button and light pipe? Wow Yep, there's really not much at all. but that's check this out.

It actually slides upwards there so you push the disc in and then it comes up. Words: I Guess like that and don't know why it needs to come up. What's it's got to go over the maybe? the PCB at the back. Um, interesting.

Oh wow. that just slid out that came out far too easily. made in China by night in night, ech motor in there spindle motor. But yes, it's pretty simplistic.

Look at that. Just one polycarb plate like that and yeah. anyway. well I won't give up my day job to repair.

I Omega Zip drives. Oops, it's a way to take these apart. I'm sure. just a random rod.

Don't worry about that. Nothing to see behind the curtain. There we go there. There's our coil.

Okay, so that wow. that's really simplistic isn't it? Check that out. there's our two magnets. Is these two? Maintenance Just sit in there like that.

and then the coil. The moving coil just moves the like along like that. Wow, that's a real sheep and I'm not gonna say cheap and nasty is it? But but that's a real cheap way to do it. Like there's no gate and no cogs or anything like that.

How you do it with a traditional stepper motor. Maybe they couldn't get the fine resolution required to use like a traditional stepper motor. and then and one of those like you know, linear bearings. agog.

Tell them not a mechanical engineer, can't you? Anyway, that that's fascinating Said that. What? Yeah, so that was. Slide back and forth across there and there's your head. Double-sided Done a double sided job.

II really butchered this. There it is, so that would be some sort of T I think that's T Oh, isn't it? Yep, there you go. Anyone want to look at that part and I'm a bit he goes. Not much on there, but obviously and the coil is all part of that.

and then there's your heads down the bottom. I Totally ruined it. But anyway, Is it no? Does it float in our God Yeah. I totally screwed the pooch overnight.

Wow Anyway, um yeah, that was ahead and give that a flippity doo-dah yeah, it was it on the top and bottom as well. It's definitely something down there on the bottom. Yeah, top and bottom. I Think it's a double-sided gob.

So yeah, I find that fascinating - I Don't like it. Replace the linear barium with that. Anyway, let us know if that's the problem in how the clique of death actually manifested itself, so forget rid of that. There's not much doing in there.

don't really need to talk about that. but another ti. Yeah, until I had the wind and the design win there. But geez, yeah, there's not much in the Oh What? What was that? What is that? Beulah did I break something off? Or is that how it's supposed to be? It's like a like a right angle flat flex thing.

maybe. I did. Oh right. oh that's that's the head.

Okay I think yep, that looks like it was the head attachment that's just sheared off like that. Wow I've never had that happen before. Geez. I must have put some force on that.

Whoops! Yeah, not giving up my day job and Oleg made. these are Rs-485 two USB Isolators for use in the observatory. So here there you go. Roll your own no worries.

Got a little DC to DC converter there that provides the isolation of course. Nice little layout like it. They might come in handy if I need to do AI Rs-485 videos. you can check these out.

Apparently he's got details over on his website. Oleg I Think it scoot off with a kite with a silent K in there dot me I could be wrong on the pronouncing of course. I'm wrong on the pronunciation I always am. Anyway, yeah that's neat so thank you very much Olli for Centi.

Not a whole bunch of just random and vintage stuff like this. always wanting to tear apart I've always had I've kept my eye on mega zip drive. always wanted to tear it down but yeah it's nothing doing in there at all. Amazing Anyway, thanks bye thank you very much Robert Alexander from Northwood in the United States of America yes if you are gonna send in your mailbag, send in Depierre Box seven nine four nine of Baulkham Hills New South Wales Two one five three Australia Actually it's not Baulkham Hills anymore.

They renamed it nowhere so technically you should put Norwest but it's still gonna get here. Good thing is I've got the existing that keyboard tray under here I Can just whip out because I don't want to use the Crocodile Dundee knife with what is obviously some sort of well, it's this spoiler alerts this photograph. but is it like a poster or or something like that seal for our protection? It is actually a photograph I Believe that looks like photo paper. Oh yes, the Bike Magazine covers.

I Got a new Bike Magazine cover I Don't recognize this one I Do not recognize that one. These are awesome. I'll put the link in. but yeah, Bike Magazine Covers: Yeah, these are just absolutely fantastic.

He's recreated from scratch, the bike magazine covers hasn't just copied them, and he's yes, he's got the permission of the original author apparently. So yeah, I've got some really good ones up in the or the current lab, and these are absolutely fantastic. So highly recommend these. You can't actually get them different sizes I believe.

But yeah, this is nice. Yeah, the old bike covers back in the day hand out hands up. If you actually remember these, it's a fantastic yes. Robert Teeny is the original, our creator of these Bite magazine cover artworks and he's got Roberts permission to actually recreate these so this is just his latest one.

This is the April 1983 cover of Bike Magazine. Great stuff and this is supposedly it's called inside IBM This is terrific. Link down below Bike Covers: Calm, thank you very much Richmond Technology in Philadelphia great height. A friend friends in Philly and she's got the mask so I sent thankfully because apparently you can't Fine Yeah yeah, the story behind that is in the cupboard just over here when.

I got this led back from the previous tenant who was renting it. They just left a box of like in brand-new sealed box of 10 mass behind because they did actually install new walls and they painted and sort of did some little mini renovations in here and they're obviously from that they left them behind. So yeah, Fred needed some hearts I sent her a whole bunch of oh and send her the box of mass which is terrific because you can now get them here. they just dime-a-dozen you know along with hand sanitizer and everything else.

What are we got here? Alright, but oh we got we got smoke alarms I've already done sent. is there a note smoke detector electronics for testing so do a quick two minute teardown. but I've already done a video on smoke alarm. was going to do a follow up one which involved what wasn't kind of remember what it was.

Was it something to do with power factor or something? Anyway, yeah I was gonna do a follow up and do a quick quick squeeze but at the same brand that I did the the teardown videos on before. mm-hmm Anyway that was about standby current consumption. Well I can't remember the videos I've done. there's so many Yes.

I'm not quite sure why anonymous person has sent it in a couple of smoke alarms like this. Maybe they haven't seen my video about? well it wasn't really smoking. Lance was just the example that I used of how bad product design can kill the environment this case having like massive standby power consumption in these things and you know you have to get into the hole. Real complex argument and stuff like that.

I was gonna do a follow-up video I'm sure it was on maybe some aspect of complex power or something like that I can't really remember, but yeah, there's nothing really that interesting in these things. These things are really built down to a price. You've got your sensor here and maybe we can tear that down. But and then you get your your beeper, your sounder and here's another one.

I'm very similar and they really like you know, cheap out on everything. like like the switch is like a piece of folded sheet metal like that contacting just a link on the PCB because you got to put the links on there anyway because this is like a single sided board to get the cost down and there's like yeah I really like this one's got wires Wow you know look coming all the way over here and I going over to the like a buzzer over here with the the you know piezo sound or with the wires. where is this one? doesn't they've They've got the cost down even more there, so there's just going to be one single custom ASIC on the bottom of this controlling the whole thing. Caution: All radioactive.

Yeah, this one here is actually really quite impressive. I Like how they've got the posts up here which then make contacts with these little stamped metal battery contacts over here. That's that's really quite something. They've used a real spare, no expense there with the proper tactile switch there, well gilded the lily.

but yeah, there's nothing in these things. it's just the well. where is? oh sorry. Oh the main ASIC is um, it's it's under the bottom there.

There you go. It's a dip. Joby There you go, that's a sensor. There's nothing else in there.

Of course it's going on because this is a radioactive one's gonna have a little bit of americium. Where is it one micro? Curie's is it 70 something maximum? I don't know. yeah. bloody serial number on it.

Anyway, gonna have a little tiny minut amount in there. No, it's not. It's not dangerous. Yep, there's our dip chip and you know safe space.

Keep it all nice and compact. Put the DP under chin underneath. no workers and um, yeah, that's like all it is. It's just an ionizing ionizing detector.

so I'm not sure the actual physical mechanism of it, but basically how it works is that they just apply, apply a voltage to it and like the metal can here they call this. this is like the ionization chamber and when you apply a voltage across the Americium-241 that they've got in there, then it produces like a small current and then that current will change if you get smoke particles in there and that's all it is to it. Really? So yep, it's just a cheap and cheerful way to do it. of course, our modern ones there.

Another method is the photoelectric method where you can actually look at like you shine like an infrared LED through a similar kind of chamber theme and look for the particles that disrupt that when they enter. And like you know this. Pros and cons of both approaches, and like some smoke alarms will actually have combined photoelectric and ionization sensors. Thank You Lee saying I'm from Singapore I don't want my Singaporean viewers don't get too many from Singapore So fantastic! I Love Singapore Singapore is my favorite Asian stopover anywhere.

There's only two ways out of Australia. There's basically well, no, there's three so there's either east or actually that way to because you're viewing this different - I'm pointing that way East to America all theirs up through Asia to get to Europe or then you can now go via Dubai or whatever it is. Yeah, Hi! David We should design my own switch my power supply for my projects in order to save costs to tear down a Coolermaster desktop supply. Unfortunately I couldn't understand it's complicated circles.

I Think you'll need help to analyze it. Unfortunately, it's quite a significant effort to reverse engineer a Coolermaster switching power supply I've done videos on how to I did a RIE goal saw, scope, front end and that, but that was basically a tutorial on how to reverse engineer circuits and it'll be the same thing. Sheikha Fry's not sponsored via Macker Yes, it's Maca's none that. Mickey D's rubbish I Don't know you Yanks A weird MacOS So there it is a Coolermaster Power supply.

Yeah, that would take a significant amount of time to reverse engineer. I'm afraid, like you can get schematics I'm sure I may be somebody who repairs PC Power Supplies has actually got this schematics somehow fit for these things. Yes, it is a single sided board I can see the links on there because you don't want to add double-sided rubbish. Cost too much.

So thank you very much Leasing Furs I think it's Sang CC'ing It's a silent eye for sending in this Coolermaster Power supply I Don't know that. Oh, it's a G 650 M Okay, so all you are PC Power supply aficionados will no doubt done. You know? Oh, this is crap. Aw yeah, that's really good.

Oh, that's godlike God. There's so many people who rave on about Palsun as if I don't rave on about power supplies. But anyway, yeah, this is a one with like external interconnects like that makes it up, you know, like modular cabling and all that sort of jazz. And yeah, what main capsule we got there? We've got Elite branded caps any 85, GZ not even 105 temperature.

So yeah, I think this one's probably built down to a price, but don't they are sort of. You know, like a really neat and efficient I mean you get crazy power densities in these or not. Crazy, but you know they're They're really quite good, especially for the price. Like really, quite amazing.

But yeah, we could go to town analyzing this anyway. Got here's our here's our 240 volts mains input. They never really gone to town. They've got a two-stage filter there with the common mode chokes to the PTC in there.

Perhaps I know is that it's PCC up there. Is that like is that designed to sense like, possibly like they're not cuff physically coupling that, but you know it's not a really long, really long lead. They're really flapping around in the breeze. Anyway, Bridge Rectifier Looks like we have another gigantic choke here.

and then yeah, it goes into our basically our full wave Bridge rectifier goes into our two cups. And then there's our primary side driving transistors in our switching transformer. That's going to be our primary sized switching regulator there. Got some opted a couple of feedback down there and uh, there's one job' on the back.

Now that's sneaky little bugger. The others are on this side here and would that that'd have secondary regulation no doubt. Anyway, it's going to give you all your different voltages. You're going to get your 3.3 s and your 5 volts and your 12 volts.

and I don't yet do they still did. Minus 12 volts like modern power supplies? I'm not sure, not with the latest urges. anyway. oh, the fuse there.

missed that before. heat shrunk for our protection and extra heat shrink on the lead over there. That's a nice touch so that you don't touch. I'm here all week, so do we have a secondary side controller down there? What's that? Santa But people say oh I Kind of read this stuff.

It's it to try and read it on a little couple of inch camcorder screen. It's hopeless. Anyway, there you go. I'm sure you can read that at home and then they've got just complete say look a DC card there it is.

So is that for like one particular voltage there? Perhaps that's interesting, but yeah, they ran out of horizontal space so they had to go vertical. So all the green ones in here, these would all be low. ESR jobs? What brand are they? Oh yeah. Caps on.

There you go rage in the comments down below about caps on. But yet green traditionally refers to out low. Here's a little joke there with a little sluggy in him. and yeah, they've hots knotted down that large choke there.

but that's all she wrote and well, all the cool stuff is on the bottom. Look at this. this what makes it like to reverse engineer? this is quite a task. It's easier because it's single sided.

PCB When it's single sided like this, does you know you don't have to like? There's just got some jumper links and you know stuff like that in there so it just makes it like really easy to really easy to follow so you don't have to worry about like traces going under parts on the top and then having to dese old other parts. And you know often if you want to reverse engineer stuff like this correctly, you do actually have to start desoldering parts and stuff anyway. Yeah, it's mains in around here. Notice all the isolation between primary and secondary here primary over here and we've got some primary site controllers down in there.

Not an extensive teardown, but yeah, to actually reverse engineer this and get the schematic, it can be done of course. I mean I'm not going to say it's hard, but it's very time consuming to actually do this and get it right. You can see like star grounding point there and little traces running off like that. So yep, star ground in is important.

I've done mentioned that many times in videos I Won't go over it again. but yeah, to reverse engineer or this is just a it's a pain in the ass. But as I said, I've got a video on how to reverse engineer this stuff. There's multiple techniques you can like.

well the first thing you usually do is take a high-res hour photo of the PCB and then you can you know, usually stay, get a good first pass approximation with like high-res photos and you can zoom in. and then you can physically print them out and then you mark off all the traces that you've followed and and eventually once you have marked them all off with your highlighter, you should eventually come close to a final circle. Then you know, if you've got like traces going under, chips and things like that, you know you have to start buzzing stuff out and or desoldering things and and stuff like that to get the full circle. and then you've got a like, if you're trying to physically do it, it's a real pain I'd probably rather reverse engineer something like this using like photos so take photos of it and then yeah, do it that way.

Large print outs, you know, preferably like a three. It's a good use of like an A3 prenup. So there you go. Thank you very much.

Lee sorry I can't die I'm not gonna do video reverse engineering that, but if you're please, if you do have the schematic Lincoln and leave it in the comments and down below and help out Lee Cuz he wants to learn about this stuff and design his own power supplies. Oh, it's a Lazy Susan power supply. Terrific! Thank you very much. John Patterson from Tempe Arizona at all my viewers in Arizona I do like Arizona Arizona Microchip when are we got note in the green wrapping we have Oh oh it's a cheap-ass These things.

They're ultrasonically welded. he can actually crack them open. Oh my god, there is no weight in that at all. It's a mains USB charger adapter I had been not close to the camera.

it's it's really annoying. Unfortunately my mind oh no. I if I go back to shooting, the male will be shooting the mailbag in here. If I go back to I'm using my Sony Enix 80 at the moment which has a fixed lens on it whereas I normally for mailbag I used my old Sony NEX VG 30 which has an interchangeable lens and I can use my wide-angle lens so I could potentially put it really close again and still get the TV angle and so I need to play with that need to experiment but there's no weight in that at all.

Oh my god, that's gonna be a piece of garbage. Oh Second sucker the serve from Johnny back in 2016. You're pushing your luck. This one's a fantastically simple single transistor USB charger that aboard an eBay for 91 cents with free shipping.

Yeah! I Can feel the 91 cents about the simpler switch bypass flow you can imagine with the half wave rectified. no optocoupler interference depression. a secondary side regulation Yep. I've done a video tearing down one of these and thankfully eBay for he started a long term experiment if he could run all my USB devices using his charger.

I Expected the project last a few weeks at most, but I continued for three years so it still kept going. Oh wow, the charger performed flawlessly until about seven months ago when current output abruptly fell to 30 milliamps. I discovered that transistor had gone high impedance. it was still oscillating, but the collector would not pass much guarantor or to fix this.

he D soldered and baited in the oven for 20 minutes. We seem to reverse some kind of internal bonfire Oh Neat. Nice catch. yeah, but you're never gonna trust that again.

I knew it never recovered to full 350, but I was able to supply about 200 for the remainder of the experiment. Wow Anyway, he's done John Caird A complete and utter ripoff of Dave cared highly encouraged of course. and Wow yeah, there's another secondary side. it's got a single transistor on the topside April 6.8 volt Zener and Bob's your uncle.

Well I like that's terrible Muriel Anyway, thank you very much John Who has a YouTube channel? Check it out. dielectric videos that hey, you know this one's got a screw and yep, that's what you get for your 91 cents Delivered like it's just unbelievable. Oh there we go. Yeah yeah, he sold it in the transistor Danny Oh let's just put in a little wiggle wiggle wiggle yeah I'm symbol here to try and what? that's the fuse I I think that is the fuse that's fast.

Good luck. that's just awful. Maddy's terrible. Oh no I know there's only one thing for this and that's to wire eyes.

It's oh here we go. Oh it's okay I got my glasses on. Oh wow that that was satisfying that it's pretty satisfying Oh Highly recommended. Can't see who this is from unless I its FedEx can't see.

let's have a look cuz they put him in the pouch thing from Beijing Stone Technology oh yeah I think they emailed me I don't remember what it actually is but you know occasionally companies give me heads up as they stuff move. You know they want me. They always want me to do like a review video. I always seen my YouTube channel and they want I would love to do you a review of this consumer gadget or something.

It's like no I'm not going to review a consumer gadget but anyone's free to send something into the mailbag and I'll look at it for a couple of minutes and go OK or whatever anyway I have no idea what they've got. What is it? Oh oh no this looks oh you are to USB converter. What do we got? Stone Techno this is. this is really on topic.

not a consumer farting nobody gadget this is this looks ok. They're extolling their virtues. Leading manufacturer of HMI Intelligent Eye yet TFT Modules Intelligent T of T Modules. Cool all right So we got ourselves.

Oh there it is. Yes great stuff I I Do love these. If you developing your product, developing your widget, don't don't like our invent the wheel get like one of you know something like this. One of these Intelligent LCD Modules is an Australian company that does these as well our 4d systems who you've seen on the mailbag before and they do like they're huge now they do.

Yeah these are similar sort of theme like Intelligent LCDs Like this, you can whack them into your product, especially if you're a contract design engineer or something. You know building some industrial automate a widget or something these things have I don't know if this one does, it probably does. but yeah other like lots of them on the market. they have built-in graphical user interfaces and you can program them and you can have like a real you can.

You can create for your client a really fancy like automated system and you can do it in like you know, hours, days, or a week or something rather than like and make it look really fancy with the touchscreen user interface and the whole works. because they've got all the libraries for you know, gauges and dials and all sorts of stuff. So if you're doing automated control I presume that this one is that will do something like that I presume you are instructions. Got an MCU on there and it's got yeah, it looks like it's got fancy stuff that you can program.

So yeah, these are this smart LCDs and they're not cheap. You wouldn't put it into a consumer product for example. No, no way. that's when you'd roll your own.

But these things are worth every cent. When you want to look like design like a, you know, 10 off hundred of something like that. even a thousand off something like that. If you're doing it for a big client for some automated factory, you know Tesla come to you on well we want you to set up, then you automate a production line for our new you know, cyber truck or whatever and you've got to have all the automated controls and touchscreen.

You know it's all going to be fancy pantsy. and yeah, this sort of stuff does the business. looks like we've got a A PC interface with that as well. Cool.

Pair it up and see if we can just uh, its touchy-feely see if we can just do something basic with it out of the box? Alright I Always spent too long on this I'll just see if I can get just something basic like loading in a demo example or whatever. but I'm down there on the download page here. Update: Validity period has got font creators so cool. I Guess if you want to choose your own cust fonts and things like that, you know some companies have like you know font standards for their company of you know and consolidate fonts across all their products and think hardware setting.

RTC's so it's got a real time clock keyboard setting Okay, can you? and that's the thing I didn't check. can you actually both certain? No Oh gosh. I Whoops. Notes: all that plane is that is.

There may be some digital I/o and here some of these have digital I/o and you can actually program them so you can actually use this as like a maybe not this one but I've seen some that you can use as like a controller. So this is your entire product and if you just need a couple of button interface or something like that then you can probably do that. It surprised me if it can't anyway. I'm not going to go that deep.

This is not gonna be a full-on review and this is what we're gods. Just a zip file until 2019. It looks like it just runs. It's just an X II Beijing Stone Technology Software License has exploit.

Oh come on, you sell Hardware Not software. Aha. So here's the USB stick they sent and we've got testing projects and stuff like that. Cool.

Sure if you can see that, but it's flashing and I'm pairing it from the USB so it's almost as if like it doesn't in the USB doesn't have the grunt to pair it. perhaps. ah, even running the software on the disc. the USB Drive I like licenses expired.

come on. Anyway, I can show you what happens if I plug in an external five volt adapter, five volts, three amps. Not sure how much it takes and can we start a variable or beeps? - So I want a good old fashioned knob or a dial? Yeah, we go. Oh, we can't Oh, that's it.

look at that. so it pops up a key - out right? We can enter something in there and I got it's all back to front. Oh it's all too hard. Anyway, we can icon rotation anyway.

yeah you can see it. It's all touchy-feely and they did have like a decent-looking GUI like interface and stuff like that. Aha, it turns out all you have to do is run a XE utility and update validity period and it just the software validity period is updated to success. Why bother? That's insane I Just know.

Anyway, success can't even click on success. and I mean like Flynn I did get some message about it has to be starting compatibility Windows compatibility mode I Don't know. Anyway, I'm pushing through. although we've got audio files, video files, fonts, and all sorts of dialy graphic Ii things, so these are all the different.

These are all the different things. Doesn't seem. it's not hugely polished. Ok, got a bird.

see you go pick them off the last chip. Mine mine, mine. Moon effect Anyway, that's the button says that all they've got like or is that just? Anyway, this is under Project 800 by 480. That's the.

It's identical to what we've got. see if I can modify something. So these are some of the things you can do: Variables: You can scroll: text variable like an animated icon slide a scale art word variable text clock dial clock real time curve Basic graphics QR Codes Nice real-time curve I'm gonna work a curve in the middle of this just for kicks I Thought I'd be able to draw a curve but had a real time curve. This control does not need to allocate a variable address.

Had a slider scale down here. it doesn't see in WYSIWYG I Expected like where's the actual look of my slider scale I Don't look unfortunately I'm not any much luckier. look if I go to the tool like I'm trying to actually connect to the thing and online download USB Not connected. nothing.

It does look like something. he's there. We've got a Silicon Labs USB to UART fridge I don't think I've got that anywhere else. Yep, yep, it just vanished.

So I presume like that. that seems okay working properly. Yeah. Virtual serial port screen doesn't work.

It popped up with the error message before I forget what it says. Comm Debug a Solar Newman comm debug Serial debugging tool one novice novice recommended. Okay, I'll go. Tool two, Two One: Nope.

like like I should say display connected or whatever. This should be like. a connection thing. It's all this.

This software is not impressing me unfortunately and all the sort of stuff looks like fairly crude. I'm not impressed with the examples like for this thing like it comes with them, editors and stuff like that like you can. You know you've got image editing tools, You've got an icon generation tool. You've got screen screen configuration.

Haven't looked at that. Oh here it is. No one Cereal Bar I'm bored, right? And to see like, how do you actually connect to this thing, just start Touch Calibration: No, we don't touch. No.

I don't calibrate the touch screen. Nope, yeah. look. I might have an RTF Emma on this and I'd love to, but this is like a mail bag I Want things like it should just work and it's like it's 10 p.m.

here and I won't finish this video tonight. as in finish my edit and upload it and release it at midnight. So yeah, no I don't think I'm gonna play around with this anymore. Rotation Regulation: Hardware Parameter Configuration: So yeah, like Hardware Parameter Configuration: What does that do? Yeah like I'm gonna have to like.

go watch the tutorial videos or something and like but I Expected. This is obviously the one that's installed on here. It's exactly the same, so expected to just be able to load it up, it have like some connection thing or whatever and I was trying to I was actually trying to compile before. where is it? Download to you disk right? Look at this.

Yes, we just got failure Failure Failure Failure Download: JPEG Failure Like nothing because I presume it's not connected or whatever. Yeah I don't don't know what the deal is. It's got a WAV file. Is that the little pink when? yeah, Is that the Is it actually playing a WAV file when you when you press the button? That'd be cool.

Yeah. I Was expecting to be able to like, change stuff and just and simply connect to serial port and download and that's it. Like it should be that easy. but I I just I'm not seeing it here.

Fortunately I can't spend more time on this. So yeah, I was expecting more out of this software. So if I get it going I'll work it on the second channel eevblog to just go Gangbusters By the way. Absolutely Gangbusters I think I'm on some days I might actually peak Eevblog to might actually peak above Eevblog one the main channel in daily views.

It's just absolutely incredible. Anyway, yeah, so this is the software. Leaves a bit to be desired. seems pretty powerful, but it's just not polished.

There's no spit and polish in this thing like and everything's a clock setting. Everything's A and then do you put it on the main picture file? dear, where do you put it? Do you put it on these other pages like nothing's really. nothing's really obvious. So yeah, I think it's going to take some time to get up to speed on this is probably quite powerful and you can probably like do cussed like if you don't like the look of their icons and their dials and things like that.

Yeah, I'm sure you can like import and do pretty much anything you want. so yeah, but they could have had like better better examples than that. Easy to use thank you very much Stone technology and I'll link them in down below cuz they seem to have a lot of these screens anyway. as I said, these kind of like all-in-one like processing application LCD type things for want of us MA LCDs For want of a better word there, they're really cool and as I said, you can I often use them as a standalone one.

not sure about this one and need to double check. but yeah, like if you can, if you want to just hook up a few buttons or this can be the entire interface or something like that, it's got serial by I Assume you can like send out the program to send out like serial commands and control things and and things like this. So this can become the intelligent controller for your Whiz-bang product. and you'll impressed your client by having you know all this fancy graphical user touchscreen interface and develop it in no time.

So that's it for another mailbag. If you liked it, please give it a big thumbs up. And as always, comment down below: check out my Library Channel and I'm on all sorts of platforms: I'm on bit shoot I'm on library I'm on G's I'm even on dailymotion although I don't upload there anymore I'm on Vimeo For example, I'm like killing it with like two views a day or something on average on on Vimeo like a rocket taking off. Yep.

so P whatever. catch you next time.