Hi welcome to everyone's favorite segment Mailbag. Yes, we're back into it. Back in the old lab. and yes, I've decided not to go full background lab background with the uh Tv monitor now.

so I've got a little bit of racking, a little bit of game gear haven't fully set up yet. Lights and audio? not perfect. Back to using the shotgun mic. And yes, I'm back to having the camera close so I can actually show you stuff on the camera.

Brilliant! Let me know what you think. Anyway, today's guest lab is a real-time Cody from Maryland at Cody with a K. thank you very much So let's let's have a squeeze here. What do we got? Feel like a weather person? Let's get into it.

Um, we've got it. Looks like a what looks like a big ass monitor up here. but it's just the camera. uh, perspective that's from the microscope which looks like it's down there.

Um, it's just one of those. It looks like a is it a Usb jobby? so that, uh, or is that a Hdmi out? Uh, perhaps. So anyway, I'm doing some Pcb design here. Some schematic work.

Nice. Got some sort of switching that looks like a nixie tube clock down there. Probably building himself. Don't know what the big red button does, but I'd love to find out Old school Sony one of these monitors.

Like an actual monitor monitor. That's you know, one of these industrial monitors that they used to use in Tv studios and stuff like that. So very nice. Got a color bar graph pattern happening there.

Got the Wd-40 no wackers. looks like with some fume extraction up here. An old Pc down here, some component cabinets. Love the Messy Bench.

Bloody winner And it's got a whole bunch of hard drives. So doing some serious looks like that's a rack of hard drives I think and plugging them into one of those, uh, Usb? um. docking things. Very cool.

Got the Maggie lamp. Is that a genuine Maggie lamp? Not quite sure and a desoldering station up there? So sweet. Nice little messy compact bench. Another big red button down there.

I wonder what that does? Um, Awesome Cody, Thank you very much for sending that in. Is it down in the basement though? There's trees out there, so I don't know. We don't have basements here in Australia. It's not really a thing, so I don't know.

Might be partially underground or whatever. Not quite sure, but nice sweet. Thanks Cody. Anyway, first up, had this one for a while.

thank you very much. Uh, Todd Noyce from Palmerston North in New Zealand Hi to all my New Zealand viewers, so let's get stuck into it. I forgot the note on the side, so um, yeah. Anyway, let me know what you think about the new setup compared to the old one.

I think it's going to be better because I can show stuff. I like having the camera close and I can't see much of the bench though, but that's just you know how it is. Whatever. So anyway, let me know what you think.

note on the side. You know I don't read the notes first because it spoils it. I don't know what's in these things most of the time unless there's a description by the way, which this one does have a description that says surplus electronics. So for all your surplus fanboys, let's see what.

Oh oh hang on. Oh, this looks old and crusty. You'd like Holden Krusty here on the Eev blog. Thank you very much.

Well, we can read the note later, but look at that. There's no real I can't I can't age that one. There's no real distinct smell to it. I would have expected a smell to that one.

I really would have. So let's let's open it. You can get first dibs. I can't even see on the monitor.

There we go: Transmitter, receiver, sensitive, depth angle, Metro Tech Pipe and Cable Locator cool, A pipe and label and cable locator for you know, detecting like copper pipes and stuff. I guess from Metro Tech Corporation in Mountain View, California. I don't know if yours in Mountain View? everyone's getting out of California, aren't they? So this is the Metro Tech Model 480 pipe and cable locator. and there's actually a from Mountain View California made in the Usa and uh, I don't know if they still sell it or not.

You know it's obviously a really old design. Oh, do we have a is that some sort of no, it's just serial number? Anyway, there's many different ways to actually uh, find and locate pipes including metal and uh, like Pvc pipes as well. I believe there's like techniques for like plastic Pvc pipes that use like a vibration method and things like that. but uh yeah, this one actually uses.

this one's designed for metal, uh, pipes and it uses a uh, conductive and an inductive mode. Oh by the way, Uh, you need these things when you're like doing construction and stuff and digging up the ground so you don't dig up like water pipes and electrical cables and other you know things. So anyway, conductive mode is where you have uh, access to the pipe externally from the ground. It's sticking out so that you can actually the conductive pipe so that you can physically put a clamp on there and actually put the test signal which for this one I believe is 83 kilohertz uh, the test signal into that.

and then you have a ground stake which you put in and then you can walk around the ground and wave the receiver which will which is this one. Here you wave it over the ground and then it can inductively pick up the signal coming from the Uh pipe underground. But if you don't actually have physical access to the pipe, you can use what's called inductive mode and you actually just sit this box on the ground and it generates a magnetic field which then penetrates through to the ground. I believe this one can go up to 20 feet in a practice 20 feet depth.

Then the signal is inductively uh, coupled to the conductive pipe underground and then it. And then you use the receiver in the same way. But of course, because you don't have direct access, there's a lot of attenuation when, especially the deeper the pipe goes. then.

uh, you know your reception level is going to be really poor. So that really, you only use the inductive mode if you're absolutely desperate and you can't if you don't physically have access. Uh, to hook this, you know to clamp onto, uh, the pipe under test. So anyway, um, we have a power and oh, that's oh, I like that.

Hang on, I'll show you down here. this has got the same one I think. oh look at that. Oh that's gorgeous.

I wish this was feeler vision. that is fantastic. Love that. Anyway, got some headphones, um, depth angles missing, don't know why.

Sensitivity range low, medium high, and a beautiful analog meter on the receiver there. That's great. I love it Anyway, the actual receiver. The reason that it comes apart in two bits like this is because well, this uh, sits on the ground and it can be connected up for a cable to do your uh, your conductive mode, the clamps and things.

Your clamps that, obviously, um, come in there but we don't have them and the receiver It a reason it has a carry handle on it or they both have carry handles is because you carry this around and you put on the ground and you sweep it like this like back and forth and hopefully I think you can do it other ways as well. You can get like that, but you know this would be like the easiest way. So you walk around and you'd hear it like be and then likely to get like louder as you actually uh get towards as you get closer to the cable. So you wander around and you can follow, walk around the ground and follow the cable like that.

just follow the signal. So yeah, it's an inductive pickup system. nice and check this out. They don't make the batteries like that anymore.

The ever ready battery from battery for electronic applications neither 1603 number 276 when I was playing along at home. Oh my goodness. Anyway, I like it's really hard to get that out of there. So anyway, let's whip out all this.

There ain't much in it folks. Look at that made in the United States of America? Um, there's actually no. there's just the term, just the terminals in there. Let me open this.

There we go. It just had the terminals in there. like that somebody's taking out the cells. Oh wow, that's terrible.

Muriel. And as for the main board here, uh, you can still see the original hand soldered flux residue. Well, why? They got this second board, which looks like it's got a, uh, huge conformal coating over it. Anyway, there's not much in it.

A couple of caps, Um, that looks like a transformer there, and uh, this over here. Well, that's a that's a trimmer. Oh, this is. I thought, what? What's going on here? Is this our detection coil? No.

Look. They've actually got the wires going and there's a split in the case. Aha. So they're using the metal outside ring like that.

That is the coil. Wow. I expected like like huge multi-turn jobs. Um, but no.

Wow. that's it. That that's the transmitter. So as I said yeah, I believe it operates at Um 83 kilohertz or something to that effect.

And uh, it's just putting that into that. That's the coil. That's it. Wow.

I'm stunned. Oh, but hang on. Check this out. That looks like it's in a valve socket.

What the Wow. Well, that is really something. Look at that. Have you ever seen a board gunked up As much as that? That is absolutely incredible.

Wow. And they're using like an old, Is that like that's an old-school valve socket. So like, why did they? Why did they do that? Um, like. I don't like.

They don't seem to be like replacing of like maybe like an old school design with like single valve design. It doesn't seem to be and like you. but look at what you're replacing it with. You got a big like 14 16 pin dip and all these passives all around and a couple of other down there as well.

That's just that, that's crazy. So I yeah, it doesn't seem to be simply replacing a valve. That's that's incredible. Why the heck you wouldn't just build that onto there? I don't know.

Um maybe they you know different different designs. Perhaps that was they just use that as a like. Maybe for different purposes. they just plug in a different board for different models.

Maybe that that has to be the reason. Oh yeah, this rubber conformal coating. The good thing about it is that you can just peel it off like that and it looks like it's done no damage to like. You know it's it's not gonna stick.

It's just like a rubber conformal coating. Wow. there you go. Anyway, it's an Lm324, that's it.

And the receiver. They've got the same split design with the contacts down there, so like I'm absolutely amazed at that. I would have thought like I expected, like you know, hundreds of turns or something to be able to like get enough sensitivity to actually detect this. Oh there we go.

We've got three boards that's interesting. Wow, look at that and once again our battery which is empty empty. Anyway, it is all kind of, uh neat. You know they've bundled the wires there together and stuff like that.

so it just got like that's the big clunking power switch there. so kethump, ca Thump. I mean, it's probably not the best quality thing inside, who knows. Look, it's like a it's just like a folded metal case there.

So you know. I don't know, but it just feels. it just feels really cool. Um, that's all.

And there's a little meter movement down there. And we've got a speaker. It's got a headphone output and that's it. And we've just got a bunch of boards.

and sure enough, it's exactly the same thing going on here. Um, that's it. So I don't know what this is. Um, it's got four.

Yeah, it's got four wires. Yeah, it's got four wires going into it. So some sort of transformer. No, There's absolutely no doubt that this is their version of a board to board.

like, uh, you know, like a daughter board type system. There you go. That one's just got oh yeah, two, two transistor job. That one there's probably got the matching, uh, three, two, four on it would be my guess.

And that one there just once. Once again, just a couple like, uh, that's yeah. Oh, are they in sockets? I think they're in sockets. It doesn't show up well.

Black doesn't show up well on camera. I think I'm going to dub that kinky conformal code in what do you think Now, it's interesting to note that this actually uses a high impedance speaker 100 ohms instead of the usual eight ohms. This would be, uh, to lower the battery drain. Higher sensitivity speaker, less power required for a given volume.

Yep, Three, two four. Oh. just feels so kinky. Love it! Well, thank you very much Todd for sending that in.

That is absolutely fascinating. We haven't had anything like that before and I'm just stunned at the simplicity of it. Um, like, especially in terms of like the coil. I know, like the circuitry is pretty much exactly what I expect.

I just, you know, I didn't expect anything fancy. Uh, just some, you know, Op amps and uh, you know, some transistors and whatnot. and you know, like just generating a signal and actually receiving that. Um, and you know, some filters and stuff like that, but that would that would be it.

I'm just stunned that they went with just a metal loop. A single loop like that? Um, okay, all you inductive aficionados are going. of course I used a single loop. Dave? Um, you know, because Reason X I'm sure there'll be much, uh, debate in the comments down below.

Awesome. Thanks Todd from Santa Clara, California. Um, from Eridia Llc. It's got a corporate oh no, no, maybe not.

It's yeah. I was going to say it's got a corporate flavor to it. but the packing material? no, I think it was from Kev. Good on you, Kev.

Um, let's see that. Okay, some padding. A box? A yellow box? Oh right. Oh yeah, I know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's um. it is a, uh, commercial one and it's a uh, little portable fume extractor thing. Yes, they didn't keep me up on this. Yes, I think it might even be like, is it made in the U.s Is it made by them? I can't remember exactly.

They didn't include a note. I will look it up and there's an open there and it's got. well. yes.

Okay, so we did. We take out the cardboard anyway. A little squirrel cage jobby in there and a filter and I believe it's um, fairly cheap and um, like, as in not cheaply built. It seems reasonable.

Ah, there we go. Seems reasonable quality, but yeah, it's just like a little Dc Barrel Jack and Bob's your uncle, you whack that in there and a little portable one for the bench. Especially like if you don't have much room under the bench and to get a big funnel over and stuff like that, you can just whack this on the bench. and um, hopefully it's not too loud because you know, and loudness is a problem.

especially like me trying to record videos. But that's a good goose neck. I like that and I prefer the, um, like that was, uh, operator error there. there's you know.

It's just that it's nothing really to hold that in. Oh yeah, I didn't put it in. that tight. There you go.

Yeah, I prefer the, um, the rectangular ones like that. Um, they've just got a better yeah. Once again, that could come off. but hey, that's that's.

pretty neat. It doesn't topple over if you extend it all the way like that, does not topple over. So there you go. But uh yeah, it's not rechargeable.

It's just a uh Dc jack. but neat. Let's check it out. Oh sorry, I didn't realize you can't see most of the half the stuff on the bottom of the.

uh, I think I need to. Ah, don't put the camera back any further. And really, oh, you know, I could take off some of my head I guess. So let's see how this little Uh Jobbie performs.

You can see that it's uh yeah. it's got some ceiling, uh, surround around there. It's got a nice little custom metal base in there. Uh, the cables are all cable tied down.

Nice. I mean, there's nothing really in it and that's basically just a little uh, motor drive and that's it. Speed controller and the filter on it is really easy to change. Don't know how much the external filters cost, but they just it's a two stage so it's got the uh, generally like you know, those cheap, crappy, uh solar filters will only have this sort of carbon in quote marks uh filter on the front.

They're just garbage. I've done videos on that, but this looks like a heparin type filter and uh, well. worth getting spares. Of course, because you know if you're doing a lot of soldering it's going to clog up in no time.

But I like that. I like the case. I like the design. Let's give it a bowl.

Okay, let's start out by having a good 30 centimeters above. it's turned on. Oh on its lowest setting. it really not very loud at all.

Well on maximum. Wow. Um yeah, that is. That's almost jet engine type.

Well, you know I'm exaggerating. But anyway, got it. About 30 centimeters above. So let's not put it.

let's put it like halfway. Something like that. Let's give it a bill, burn some fresh ease. At 30 centimeters, it really has to be quite over it.

But the good thing is is that you can just, uh, get it fairly close. and oh no, I see it's going to miss it. It really has to be quite over or on. A decent yeah, yeah, there we go.

There we go. It gets it all Now There you go, swirling up, swelling up. That's pretty good. I that that's outside of the line.

You can't see that, but that is outside of the line of the nozzle there and that's sucking it all up that that that volume is not too bad at all. Okay, I'll turn my mic around like that and you're probably hearing what I'm roughly hearing now. and That is quite an acceptable level. At halfway that that sound level like.

it's probably not great for video, but for general work, there you go. It's doing an okay job for such a small head. Yeah, and of course, if you turn it right down, so jeez, you know you can, I can barely hear that at all. It still does okay.

you'd have to get it fairly close, but even that's still a decent distance away that you can get in there, so that's near silent now. Wow, Well, I think that's doing an okay job, so that's well worth, uh, your consideration. If uh, you know the form factor suits you because it may, you know you may not want one of these big ungainly things on the like under your bench and then like coming up like this. A lot of people like don't have, uh, room.

Yes, of course it's no match for like the giant sized nozzle like this and the greater airflow and stuff like that. But but just for little, uh, you know, concentrated work, this one's pretty good. You know you can't get it like 30 centimeters above and you probably got to sit like set on absolute max. so I've got it set to a third there.

and it's a nice, like low level background, sort of. you know, fair noise. It's quite nice. Halfway halfway is would still be acceptable.

You know you wouldn't use it all day, for example. but if you're just doing a board for half an hour, an hour or something like that, um, that'd be acceptable, but you'd never use it on max. I mean, that's just I. I can barely hear myself think, um, that's just yeah, crazy.

But so yeah, I think that's a pretty groovy. It's well worth, uh, consideration. It's uh, you know, reasonably well built and it suits a niche need. I'll link it in down below.

Thanks for sending that one in. So yeah, I'm actually quite pleased with that. I think it's quite neat. I'm actually going to use this as a little, uh, secondary one for my because I'm going to have a second solder set up on just on my uh, work.

like my uh, editing desk where I'm going to have like a Pc based lab. This is my main soldering bench, but you know, often I might want to just do a couple of joints I don't want to bring it over to here. I'll just do it sitting at my uh, workstation or whatnot. Or I can do, you know, little capture videos there or whatever and I think this would be perfect for that.

So yeah, well worth a look. Link down below. We've got a new lab. thank you very much William.

Send in a couple of photos if you are going to send in photos I believe it's uh, Evblog Plus Mailbag gmail.com It's got to have the plus mail bag so it gets into the right folder filtery thing Anyway, thank you very much and make them 16 9 aspect ratios so they fit on the screen because I've had to crop these ones anyway. I've got three different shots. let's check this one out. So we've got a couple of Fluke 87s.

We've got uh der Lcr meter. We've got a fluke scope meter jobby an old Tektronix job. uh, what's that a 2, 4, 5 is? it can't quite make it out, but we've got one of these uh, digital microscope thingama jibs. we've got uh, old school? uh wella, look at that.

Check that out. That's probably one of those Gw uh, power supplies. or you know, one of those brands. Whatever looks like, uh, that that looks like a function gen of some description.

Uh, Hp classic Hp Media. You've seen me do a tear down off. Got our Pace Multi-medal Got the Maggie lamp again? Um, we've got just another work lamp over here. We've got the uh component cabinets up the top.

uh, not sure what's hidden back there? is that some sort of amp or something? and William obviously does Bga rework because that's a Bga rework station. so it's got the pre-heater on the bottom plus the hot uh nozzle on the top and you can see like a Bga that's a uh Lcd uh Tv board by the looks of it so looks like does some Bga rework and stuff like that. So sweet. And there's a bigger overview of it.

Got some more component cabinets. Over to the side we've got Lone Star that's a Yankee thing. Um, okay, yeah. more component.

Had some big ass caps up there. it's been collecting the old caps. geez, don't go overboard. Um and and all the leads as well.

Um, a lot of people prefer. I've over the years in various labs I've been in. Uh, you know you hang the wires like that. Probably not going to do that in this lab.

I'm not sure about it because I'm still setting it up. So anyway, cool. Thank you very much William. There you have it.

Nice. Oh, and I don't know what that is looks like. Maybe some sort of spectrum analyzer? I don't recognize it. Off the bat, some sort of portable analyzer thingy.

hi to all my viewers in Leipzig in Germany. Uh, in particular Abe Lipzigger. Aprilman. Anyway, uh, the that's the Sausage King of Chicago.

Let's uh, hands up if you know the movie anyway, what on earth is ah, Dr. Livingston's and oh, Anatomy? Oh yes, Yes, yes yes. Oh well. I've had this one a while so I'm sorry.

Uh, it is a commercial thingamabob. There's no note attached but I will link it in. These are very cool. Um the 500? it's They're jigsaw puzzles.

but um, not only they're the body anatomy like this, but they're They're actually full size when you put like they've got all different parts of the anatomy, but they all fit together and you can like make them into one large. like human size. Uh, jigsaw puzzle kind of thing. Um, absolutely brilliant.

School holiday is coming up. This will be a school holiday thing for the kids. so that's and we've got the thorax, We've got the abdomen and the head. Absolutely brilliant.

I'll link them in down below. I'm certified. Maybe it's a Cmi certified medical illustration? Um, from Meza. Shoemaker is a certified medical illustrator who studied at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

So there you go. She did these things. and um, yeah. certified.

And yeah, they're anatomically correct. They're designed for teaching and things like that. But apparently if you lay them all out they are. You can get like all of them.

That does the whole body. It's like human size. So they've sent me like, um yeah, like some upper like torso. uh stuff.

Oh so the head. Um, you know, torso and they all like fit together apparently. So you know if you can picture like the head fit in. Onto the yeah.

so yeah. they all go together and you get the arms and the legs and everything apparently. So these are very cool, very educational things. Dr.

Livingston I presume. Anatomy. Jigsaw Puzzle. The human head.

Volume One of seven, um, 538 pieces for you. Uh, jigsaw aficionados. There you go. Um, they look like standard sized jigsaw pieces to me, so no workers and it all comes like fully annotated.

That is. Fan Freaking tastic. Well done. A lot of efforts gone into that.

So yes, well done. Messer. Volume One at the Head: 100 Medically Accurate Genius Games proudly presents Dr. Livingston's line of Human Anatomy puzzles.

In this first volume, assemble an accurate cross-cut section that gives you an inside view of the head and neck. piece together the brain and the thick bony skull and made in China, of course, grown. But anyway, Geniusgames.org Fantastic. I'll link it in down below that looks great.

Open this one by mistake. Um, oops. Um, thank you very much. Uh oh Paula.

and it's a air duster. It's a like a rechargeable air duster thing. They did, uh, clue me up on this one. Eco-friendly strong airflow, portable, and uh, rechargeable because if you got the uh, like the air duster cans, they don't last a long time.

They're expensive, but they're useful if you turn them ups and air duster upside down, then it turns into a freezer spray. Pro tip there. Um, so yeah. but uh, very like you've got to have some sort of like air duster or something, you know, cleaning out equipment and stuff like that.

If you're working on, you know, if you're dumpster diving, getting old Pcs and stuff like that, then um, yeah, that goes in there. Oh okay, right. so that's a oh there we go. There we go.

That's not bad, that's not too shabby at all. It takes a bit to get up to speed. Wow, I can't wait here. we go.

Oh, knocks the box off. no workers, That's great. And there's another nozzle attachment which is the up like it's got a little brush thing on top is that is that? Yeah, I don't think that's like any static. I don't think so.

I don't think they mentioned that. Anyway, it comes with a micro uh, Usb charge, lead and um air duster. 5 volts. uh 2 amps output power 40 watt.

so I seen like 40 watt nominal motor. I guess 6 000 milliamp hour. There you go. There's all the details made in China of course, but uh, that.

that is neat. nice and compact. Sit down on your shelf. Um, you know it shouldn't degrade.

You know, lithium ion battery? It shouldn't Uh, should hold its charge fairly well and then keep it charged up. and wow, it's probably not right up there with a pinpoint source air duster, but geez, it wouldn't be far off. That looks neat. So the Opolar Air duster.

It's the Uh Cd01c but this one here says the Wh Cd01 so I don't know. Um, English manual? Uh Raider Power: 10 watts set on the back. 40 watts. Oh come on.

33 000 rpm blowing force. Oh there you go. Um. ounce? oh ounces? Okay, I'm not familiar with blowing force.

Um, it's not my speciality. So in the order of like one ounce of blowing force, I don't know. Is that per like for a given aperture or size or something less than 80 db. noise? Yeah, I'll take its word for it.

And uh yeah, there's not much else you need to know about it. I do like the attention to detail in there. Just put an extra. what's not a port because it doesn't actually do anything.

It's just like a storage location so you can keep it like nice and compact. Uh, like that. Shame. It doesn't come with like a carry case or something like that.

and then you just whack that in there like that. Bob's your uncle? Yeah, all right. crappy dumpster. uh Pc.

or with original dust down there if you can see it. Oh yeah, that looks pretty crusty. Look at that. Let's see if we can get rid of this.

Um oh, I'm going to regret this doing this inside the lab and ah, what the heck. I'm moving out shortly. Anyway, so here we go: Whoa. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. whoa whoa whoa yeah. I'm gonna call that a win. Um, yeah, that's neat.

No worries, more than good enough. Um, yeah. and it's really like I didn't even like blow that only for a few seconds and it's really gotten rid of all the crap or most of the crap off the cables. Even so yeah, that's got more than enough force.

now. if we get these uh, three rings off here and we get the screws, this should come apart fairly easily. Well, that's the plan. Yep, there we go.

we're in. Oh, that actually looks really good, doesn't it? Oh I, that's the uh. that's the whoa. What's going on with the trigger there? That's just a to give some force back on the uh lever.

I think that's just to keep that. I think that's just to keep it. So oh no, no no. It's got the plastic thing.

It's like it's an insert there and that gives it its spring, So I don't know why they've bothered with that. I'm not sure what the deal is because there's our there's our micro switch that switches it on. Whoa. It blew its own case.

In a way. Great. Anyway, this looks like really well constructed. They got three 18650s in there.

I won't. uh, I won't take the pack apart, but you know they'll be like, uh, you know, probably the best you can get from the Shenzhen market. And the driver board. Check out that.

That looks neat. Got the individual motor wires coming through holes in the board there and going over this elastic down. Um, there's our mosfet with our three mosfet drivers there. that is great.

Wow, You can't Uh, can't really complain about that at all. That is terrific. That's got a lot more in it than I. uh, I, thought it would.

What do we got down? Okay, that'd be our battery charger. and that's our battery charger. I see. I won't bother like showing you all the uh details.

but yeah, that's our motor drive board. fortior. Um, and fu Fu2 6831. Uh.

driver? Anyway, um, I like that and that resistor up. There's Kamagatsa. Check that out. but you know it's it's still there, it's still soldered, no workers.

Another So mosfet, another mosfet. You can tell by the pin outs. There you go. More mosfet action and that's it.

But yeah, that's pretty groovy, so that's really impressive. That one definitely gets a thumbs up, but a den will want to be because it's a 110 Yankee bucks on Amazon. I'll link it in down below, so you know it's not something that you'd buy on a whim. But if you're serious about cleaning out gear, this would, well, it'd pay for itself in next to no time if you're buying air duster cans.

because even in bulk, you know, if you're buying those in bulk. uh, like a lot of people, you know if you're serious, you might have shop air or something like that. But you know a lot of people won't have shop air and a big compressor and things like that. So in this case, especially if you've got a little tiny, uh, lab.

but you do lots of work like this. uh, then you know, Especially like if you're like me and like you take things outside to dust them out. um then yeah, like your shop is not going to help you outside, is it? um so you can just you know, take your dumpster fine Pc outside and take a little um, charged up air duster like this and just blow the crap out of it and this looks like really good quality. I'm very impressed by this.

It's got more than enough grunt for cleaning out uh, Pcs and whatnot. I you know I don't know about like absolute measurements compared to air duster cans and and or shop air or something like that. but yeah, I'm impressed. I think that's worth every cent.

Anyway, Thanks Apollo, off sending that one in. Thank you very much Edson Incorporated! I opened this one because it didn't have mailbag written on it. So if you're going to send something something Po Box 7949 Norwest2153 Australia not Austria thank you very much. Um, so let's have a look at this.

This I'm going to like. I've got a genuine solder. Pull it. They're from Van News in California and apparently um, this is like the original hand solder sucker.

Um, the designer of this. It's a family owned business, um sadly is no longer with us. but they do have a link in a video. um oh, I've got a carry bag.

Excellent. I do my shopping with uh, carry carry bags. Eco-friendly But yeah, they've got a great story behind this. This is an original solder, pull it, um, de-soldering tool so everything else is an imitation of this one.

It was designed. so this is from Julie Fortune, who's uh, the sales and marketing person, but the daughter of, uh, the original designer of the solder bullet who, um, is sadly no longer with us. But I'll link in a video of him talking about, uh, the company philosophy and things like that. They still make these in the Usa.

Still a family-run business and apparently it's the duck's guts. Um, thank you very much Julie. Uh, my dad was an awesome person. Without him, I truly believe our industry would have suffered.

He certainly would have enjoyed watching your spirited and lively personality. Thank you very much! Edson is celebrating its 50th year in operation and few people have a better idea of the value and the potential of innovation that encapsulates the very nature of this company than Bill Fortune, founder and chief inventor for Instant Incorporated. Today we are in the R D Lab in Edison in Van Nuys, California. Edson is celebrating his 50th year in operation and I want people to understand what Edson means to you because you're still here, you're still inventing.

We have a larger research and development department which we're sitting in today and I want to ask a few questions because we have some special tools that have come out because of our 50th. So describe for us what Etsa means to you. Well in the early 60s we got our first patent issued and since then we have developed many more Uh products too that follow the same line as the first patent which was a de-soldering tool. Could you show us the tool that you first invented? Yeah it was the this deluxe model.

This is one of the models, one of the tools that we made in Van Nuys in our garage and that's where we started the business. Uh it really was when we first started out. I didn't ever get a patent before and when they issued one I thought this is a major miracle here get a patent because then I thought it was smooth sailing from there. But it really was the beginning and it a kind of a tricky path to to be able to develop a patent and to be able to develop a manufacturing process which we did right here in Van Nuys and we're still here doing and that first patent is still our biggest seller right here and we're keeping jobs local.

Why do you think people like Accent products? One reason is most of them don't wear out and if they do wear out. We have always maintained a repair department and anybody that buys a nets and product can call heads and talk to a human being about their problems. and we have been expanding even though the economy has been very soft and we've noticed too that many countries like China, India, Malaysia has been realized that our products are well made, do the job and they're buying those even though they have to spend a pretty good penny to get them so they recognize the quality. Yeah, is where you manufacture important to you.

I like manufacturing here in Van Nuys. We have a group of employees and some of them have been with us 40 years and they're hesitant to even retire. But we keep on going and we like to develop tools that create jobs here and at the same time that same tool creates a job where it goes because they can learn to use the tool uh, for how it's to be used in the electronic industry and they actually have work themselves. So it's the universal situation and it's good for our customers and it's good for Etsy.

Thank you very much Julie Designed and manufactured. This is like the original solder sucker. Um yeah, I've never had one like I've seen them but I've never actually had one or used one so I don't know like how many this is the only one. Seven is the 017ls which is static safe.

Okay, so this is not the static safe version. Uh, they make a black static safe and another one which has static safe with additional conductive plating. Okay, so this is the standard one so oh geez that, that's that. Took a bit of force and here we go.

Here we go. Oh nice, beautiful. Hang on. Ah yeah, that's got a lot of suction that really sucks that that that feels absolutely fantastic.

Oh the action of that. I wish this was feeler vision that that just feels really freaking good that just the action oh so much force required. Which means oh it's gonna. it's gonna suck a lot Let me tell you.

oh that's that is absolutely brilliant. So how do you actually uh clean this thing? oh oh hey, quite. It's just like a quarter turn like that and it's got the gigantic spring in there big o ring around like that and wow it's all greased up ready to go. Ah beautiful.

Oh yeah, so yes, I am a fan of the like, the handheld solder suckers. It's you know, like you can just like, you don't need any bench space for a proper like. you know, unless you're doing like tons of stuff, you just want a couple of joints, you don't want to have to wait for your thing to heat up and like takes a space on your bench. You know, if you've got a proper like gun type one with the station and everything and I don't know, just the handheld ones are great.

You know you just need to de-solder a couple of through-hole parts and oh, that is sex on a stick. I like that. So designed by Bill Fortune. They had their 50th anniversary in 2011, so it's almost getting towards 60 years that this design has been around.

and oh, I've already pumped that. So oh, and it just it feels real. Like there's so much force in that it just feels really fantastic. So anyway, let's give it a bowl.

and uh, see what's what this is a? Um, single-sided Typical. Like you know, big? uh, through-hole? Uh, single-sided board. Which should be pretty easy for it. I hate soldering on camera.

Everything's like at the wrong angle and everything. So anyway, let's give it a go. Um, let's de-solder this connector here, shall we? Let's give that a go. So let's heat that up.

Ah, we've got the i should have used that fume extractor. All right, let's give it a bill. Wow. look at that.

Ah beautiful, Oh fantastic look at that. Okay, let's salvage these two big caps. Can we? Let's give it a bowl. Sometimes you want to put some fresh solder, get that in there.

Ah sweet. A little bit left on there. There's a bit of an art to this. Oh wow, look at that.

that works. a treat and we can just salvage that bad boy. There you go. Look at that nip on chemical.

Oh that's that's definitely going in the junk bin. As in the good junk bin, The parts bin. or as we say here in Australia, straight to the pool room. Okay, but how does it handle a multi-layer board? This is not double-sided This is a a four-layer jobby.

so let's suck out these big caps here. Wow. Fantastic. Oh, the cap already fell out.

You got a question whether that one was worth it. Let's get some relays. and the thing with this is, you don't have to operate it with your hand. you can keep.

I'm still holding my soldering iron. it's turned upside down and wham like that and she's good to go. And there you go. We have desoldered a perfectly good relay.

Japanese jobby. We can whack that in the parts bin too. Fantastic. This thing is working.

A treat. It works better than uh, the like. the old like I have always had. like a a Tandy slash uh, Radio Shack one.

It's just like you're probably familiar with. like the blue cylindrical metal uh tube with the uh, thumb depression on it. I I like this one better. It sucks better.

and although we haven't done much, uh, soldering, let's just take that apart and there we go. We can just clean that out. No workers and it comes with some spare teflon tips as well. Uh, which is found I'm very soon.

They come. our standard. Anyway, that is the solder. Pull it.

I'm going to put the eye in there. The solder, pull it. Uh. Deluxe Desoldering tool The Model Ds017.

As I said, you can also get a static safe version of this one. and but you know I like So. yeah, if you have, uh, strict, uh, static requirements, you're probably going in for the even more deluxe Deluxe model with the Esd model, but this is absolutely fantastic. Hats off to Bill, who's uh, sadly, Nola.

Bill Fortune is sadly no longer with us, but it's fantastic to see a product like this still made in the Usa. Still family owned business and now run by his uh, daughters who are running the company. Absolutely fantastic, so that's well worth spending your coin on. I don't care how much it costs, every lab should have one fantastic thumbs up.

So that's another mailbag. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give it a big a thumbs up and let me know what you think. Is this a preferable form factor? Even though like there's some space down here, I don't like that there's unused space.

I don't know if you've got ideas how I can jazz this thing up, or do you prefer the screen and the camera way back means I can't just like hold stuff up to the camera like that and I I think let me know anyway. Um, you know, the angle. All sorts of things still working on. having done the lights, haven't done the audio using the shotgun mic which is about a meter away.

Rule of thumb. by the way, if a shotgun bikes over a meter or a meter and a half tops away, especially indoors like this, it's gonna suck. Anyway, Thank you to everyone who sent in something to today's mailbag. And as always, don't forget to subscribe to me.

You don't have to watch me on Youtube. You can watch me on my Rss podcast feed on my own website Evblog.com You can check me out on Library Library. Have just released a new platform called Odyssey. It's just like a more user for a bit more user-friendly Youtube alternative.

the existing library login Library.tv still works. It's just like anyway, I'll link it in Odyssey.com It's just released so leave a feedback for them. I'm on the bit shoots and I'm on the Vimeos and I'm on the oh, there's a brand new one. Uh, it's just starting up.

Leave feedback for them. Seems pretty good. It's got like a subscription model and also all my content's free. Though all my videos are coming over, I've got like 700 over there already or something like that.

Anyway, all the different platforms link down below the forum. You know the business. Catch you next time you.