Hi welcome to everyone's favorite segment: Mailbag. We're back. We're back in the lab. the original lab, the one and only.

and let me know. I'm always changing up this mailbag thing. Oh, settle on something eventually. Anyway, the moment I'm using my Uh 10 to 18 millimeter wide angle lens not quite at 10 millimeters, but it's really close.

I can, I can actually touch the camera which is really cool and I'm using the internal mic. Tried to use my little uh I. I've got a cheap comic. A while I've got better mics, but they plug into Xlr and I'm using my Sony Next Vg30.

Anyway, for those who care about the details, Mailbag, let's get into it. Um, we will get to the Uh lab of the day. I've got two labs of the day, so stick around for that. But let's get straight into the mailbag.

Show me anyway. Leave your comments down below about how this one looks. You can't actually see um, because it's closer now. I can actually see the racks.

I probably need to light those up a bit. Let me know if you think I should light those up. Do have my studio lights Anyway, Too many details Mailbag, Let's go. This one is: if you're on the Eev blog forum, you almost certainly know.

Um, Halcyon? Um, or however you want to pronounce it. I think it's Halcyon. anyway. um, fellow Aussie.

Anyway, um, my studio light just went out bloody hell because it's gotta have a permanent setup because I was running that from battery and the batteries don't last long because they're so yeah. let me go plug it in Anyway, let's get to it. If you want to send something into the mailbag, there it is. Po Box 7949.

It's not Balkan Hills anymore. Technically, it's Norwest now because they formed a new suburb. so you've got to send it to noise. You can send it to that crazy Aussie bloke.

Not many people send it to that crazy anymore. H-a-l-c-y-o-n I think it's Halcyon, although it could be house Scion anyway. Um, thank you very much. How so let's have a squeeze? Do we got? What do we got? A super, What's a what's a track stick? A track stick.

Don't know what a track stick is. I think we got a two minute tent. Oh, is this like a Gps tracker or something? I think this is like one of those. It's got a yeah.

It's got magnets. Yeah, it's a Gps tracker. It's A. You know you stick it on the bottom of a car and it and it tracks.

so you know you can track your uh, track your spouse or whatever. There's probably one on the uh, new Eev blog mobile from Mrs. E blog see where I go Anyway, Thank you very much Hal. let's read the note.

Found this little doodad while clearing out some old junk at work. Yes, I know what how it does for a living. Um, it's uh yeah. really quite interesting.

Um, basically this device that records Gps coordinates, altitude, temperature, speed, etc. at regular intervals. And when the device detects movement. Okay, that's nice because you don't want to piss away your battery life by.

you know, I like doing it all the time. So it detects movement and then, well, you know the Gps like. The problem is, you stick it to the bottom of the car. how are you going to get good Gps reception on the bottom of the car? So you know I do.

Anyway, the idea is you attach the device to your intended target, whether it be a vehicle or object and retrieve the device at a later time for downloading. I'd love that it comes by the way on the original like dot matrix um thing and it looks like it is printed on a top matrix printer as well. Winner winner chicken dinner! We evaluated this product a long time ago, but in didn't end up using them. We've just designed our own gadgets in-house these days using off-the-shelf components.

I won't tell you what we use them for, I can guess, um, but I'm sure we can make some educated yes, we can make educated guesses. I can make more educated guesses because I know it. How it does for a living seems fairly well constructed, but I'm not sure how great the performance is. I gave it a test on the drive home with the devices.

just sitting on the passenger seat. Didn't seem to get Gps fixed until about an hour into the journey. Yeah, that's what. Like it's only going to have like a little piddly.

Oh no. it might not have a patch antenna. Actually, it may actually have a helical. Um, in fact, you know you'd want it to because it's a plastic.

Uh, yeah, that's uh yeah. plastic case. There's probably like a helical antenna inside, but you know if you stick it on the bottom of the car, it's It's not going to do anything really, so I you know. Oh okay, so he put it in the post to get to me.

There you go. So unless the batteries have died, it should still be. I should still be functioning. And that's all right.

How knows where my lab is? Anyway, the software isn't too bad, even allows you to export data from its own proprietary form, and it's something useful. Cool. Oh, it's made in the United States of America. Two minute tear down.

No, that's not dot matrix. I think that's Inkjet. Oh, the super Track stick. Install? What software first? Um, no bugger that will tear it down first, shall we? It's actually a rather nice design.

I like it. And the clip, just like physically, clips onto the thing. It's got a power button there and you just pull this off. Ah, there you go.

You can insert it right up the clacker and it's got two Aaa's there. Do we? Just what does it say? It just says pull out. Does it pull out? Yep, There we go. Oh oh oh uh.

Houston, we have a battery leak. As you've no doubts already seen because I did two separate uh videos on this uh, before I just interrupted my mailbag here and uh, with these leaking batteries. So rather than actually tear this down, which looks like it might be a destructive, uh, process, we might actually have a controlled experiment here because we've got these absolutely identical brand new Max Plus batteries. and we've got a known device that made the exact same brand and type battery, uh, leak, and like almost rolled off the same production line.

Really the same expiry date and like only like one week or one month different in the manufacturing. So I'm going to actually, uh, whack the. I've actually cleaned it all up. so rather than sorry if you wanted to see the tear down there, it is green, lead, fleshy, flashy, made well.

it did something so I don't know how it's supposed to work. Oh, it's just flashed red. So anyway, I'm going to whack that back together and I'm going to leave that running for a couple of months and see if these bad boys leak again. Stay tuned, All right.

it's lab time. Thank you very much Chuck Kumar for sending this one in and Chucks from the United States of America and you should be able to find him because he call signs up here w7 Clk Winning call sign. Love it! And it's an Rf lab. Uh, you might be able to tell.

Got some spec ends here. Um got so yeah. that looks like a really old school. uh Sig Gen is it? Um, it can't really make it out because it's not that high resolution.

If you are going to send in photos, send them in as the higher resolution as possible and I have to crop these to 16 9 aspect ratio to fit on the screen. So yeah, it's all Rfe goodness. I've got all the component racks up here. There's one big strip light above and the interesting thing about this is the configuration.

I really like these ones. The bench is actually triangular in the corner as you can see like that. and I did crop out a bit more of the bench here. And the bench actually like it's the one chair that swings around from the bench and it swings around to two different computers.

here. There's like two keyboards and monitors and stuff. Um, so two separate stations, so he just has to sit there and swing around. Absolutely brilliant.

Notice the power strips along the bottom, those weird-ass yankee ones. But anyway, yeah, that's nice. Like how many one, two, three, four five, six, seven, eight nine? No, it's probably ten in there. Power strips along the front? Wow.

that's really handy. and I love the organization of all your hand tools and things like that. I've got something similar I need to set up here. I've got little, uh, I use coffee mugs because I don't drink coffee.

So what I use them for is for putting hand tools and stuff like that in. That's nice. Got the spools of wire that looks like enamel. Uh, wire looks like all enamel wire.

Probably different gauges and stuff for winding his own coils. Things like that. Neat and tidy. That's a really spunky looking lab.

I like that. Got the leads over here in the classic hanging configuration. I've gone away from the hanging configuration. I've done a video on my new pullout lab shells.

I'm putting all of my cables in these little pull out tubs in these custom shelves. I did might have to link in that video if you haven't seen it. Um, anyway, that's a nice little Rf lab. Probably got some like attenuators and you know, other you know Rfe goodness.

Um, stuff here. Got an old school weller here and uh, it looks like is that a pace? yet? that's a pace. Uh, classic through-hole uh, de-solderer there. So and a nice anti-static uh, bender.

You'd have to have to cut that to the triangular size, but I like that it's a really efficient use of space lab. Awesome work, Chuck. So yes, if you want to send in your own bench, I've already got like another 20 of them. Thank you, I don't sorry, I don't acknowledge everyone who sends them in, but they automatically go into a folder where I just, uh, pick uh, like or not quite random.

but you know they've got to be decent quality. They've got to be framed well, and all that, uh, sort of stuff. and they've got to be reasonably interesting. And this is a really good example of a nice lab.

but easy. Anyway, I'll put the email address down below where you got to send it to Hi to all my German viewers in particular. Uh, I think it's J-a-h-n I think it is. Uh, thank you very much.

So from Germany You always. You know, we usually get one from Germany. Germany's my second or third biggest. Uh, if you don't know, it's uh, the Yanks the seppos at about uh, 20 something like that of my, uh, Youtube audience.

Then it's Uk at like 12 percent. Uh, and Australia, uh, Canada and Germany at all around like 10 each or something like that. So that's the breakdown of my youtube uh subscribers. So no, the Yanks aren't like half of my audience, only like 20.

So settle down. Oh wow, Hey Cho! Hey Joe Gage. I've got a Ho Gage point. Wow.

I haven't seen one of these since I was a kid. I had a 16 B8 layout, right? That's 16 foot by 8 foot. None of that metric rubbish. Um, hey Cho layout and uh yeah, I I don't know if I had this exact one.

What brand is that? Ah, that's a Oh, it's made in Germany. Oh, it's German. Oh, I didn't I don't think I had German. And oh, that's a Yum.

That's a three. Why? oh that's A. that's a jewel jobbie. Oh wow.

Oh thing of beauty. Joy Forever. Excellent. I still got my N Scale here in the lab.

I found room for it. Sagan said I got to keep it as I saw in your Indiana Jones Model Railway in your latest debunking video. I thought you'd send you this switch. How do you call it in Australia? Um, these would be points.

These would be electronic points. Um, you know, I haven't been in the game for a long time. Maybe the lingo has changed, but you know these were points. and these would be electronic points because you could switch them via.

You know, usually old-school like levers. You'd have the old, uh, you know, Hornby triangle levers on there and you'd you know you have them on the edge of your bench and you, you know, do it that way. But now it's all like software. automated crap.

Oh, it's Marklin. Yes, yes, I didn't have Markland stuff. So yeah, it says the prices are quite high for the Um. electronics and stuff.

You know, the Dcc uh controllers which is the digital control, uh, systems forum and things like that. He designed his first boarding key card, didn't get it anyway. This is uh, from Rolf, thank you very much. Um, so he designed his own, but we all we got is the point.

Would have been nice to see the board. Ah, now here's where the switch comes into play. He designed his own board. Question is? well, complaint? Really, how do you detect the direction of the switch? Yeah, that's interesting without switching.

I admit I because you can manually switch them like that, can't you? So yeah, how do you actually detect the location of it without actually switching it to know the actual location? You'd have to switch it one way or you'd have to actually switch the things so that you know and then presume that it's switched and there's nothing wrong with your. you know, because there's no feedback mechanism. You just send the pulse to the coil and it switches it over. Anyway, measure the coils of different brands and types.

Anyway, let's have a look at the note and uh, we might do a little mini teardown of the coil inside this puppy. So let's have a look here at this point or turnout. and well, it does have some little manual override switches here and you can see that track. I think that one's just flapping around in the breeze, so I think that might be busted.

but you can see that that bit there pulls in and out as you either do it manually or you do it via the Uh coil in here which just then just dries that little lever coming out there which then um, flicks it out so you know it can go like that. Or if you go out like that, it goes. It chooses this path here, then it can either choose around here or straight through like that. Now one of the first things I thought is that if you have a look at the one that actually moves here, there's actually a little hole in that.

So my first thought would be that you could actually use some sort of uh optical switch because when it's in, when it's in that position like that, if you had like a photo or something on the other side of your board like like actually in your board on the other side of the track like that, perhaps you could actually detect when that actually goes in this position or something like that. So you could do some sort of like, you know, mechanical optical uh solution like that to detect whether or not they've uh switched because like, you can't really do it from the uh, you know, by measuring anything back from the coil at all Really? I guess. um so you know I don't think that mechanical position there is going to make a difference to what the coil actually uh reads. You know, even if you were able to like measure the inductance or something like that.

So yeah, I do like does like a Dcc solution exist for this thing? Does anyone know? Please leave it in the comments down below. I do know there's lots of uh, model railway hobbyists in, uh, my viewership, so you know, maybe they'll know. But of course you can't. Actually a lot of people say, oh, just detect uh, whether or not you know power is getting through to this track or whatever.

Well, you can't really do that because, um, it's on a Dcc system. They're all wired up, everything's wired up, so you know, um, and then it's just digital control. So yeah, I, I don't necessarily think you can do it that way. You know you can like, try and I I think there might be.

I've got a vague recollection there might be some systems that I can actually tell the location of the micros by like local current drawer and you know stuff like that and like going over certain points and things like that. uh, maybe. But that's only after the fact that like a train's gone through on the wrong track and whoops, you know it's gonna smash into your other, uh, try and you know some of these engines, they can cost serious money in your rolling stock. Geez, Um, anyway, so yeah, I suspect.

um, I yeah, I don't know. Leave it in the comments down below. I'd I'd say some sort of optical position sensing system. I mean, you know you go ridiculous and go well.

I'm going to have a camera above it. Then I'm going to use visual Id to see if the track is switched. Like, you know, there's more than one way to skin this cat. I'm sure no.

Rolf actually says the inductance of both coils differs a little bit, so I won't re-measure it according to the position of the iron core. So yeah, like, maybe. But I yeah, I don't know if I'd rely on a solution like that. You might be able to get it to work.

You know you measure the inductance like you drive it, and then when you're not driving it, you uh, like measure the inductance of it by feeding a low level signal through which is of course not going to make it. uh, switch. But um, yeah. you continuously measure the inductance perhaps or only when you need to.

You know it only scans it periodically or whatever. Um, to see if it's switched. So maybe I don't know. I wouldn't put my faith in a solution like that.

It seems to be lots of around, you'd have to calibrate it and it's a bit messy. There's got to be an easier solution than that, so let's see if we can operate these. uh, 12 volts, one amp, uh current limit? I've got set. That should be plenty.

Black is going to be the common here and brown and yellow are going to be You have to alternate between them. Um to go in a certain direction. Oh, that's already done. but if I hook that up there, you go.

Point Eight. Yeah, 850 milliamps, something like that. so you definitely don't want to leave that on there. Geez, that's going to heat up pretty quick.

You know it's like 10 watts. Give me a break. Anyway, there you go. Cool, huh? So it's actually, you know it sounds like there's a fair bit of, well, it's physically moving it.

that's how much force is in those things. but you only need that brief current to switch it over and then the other one here. I never had electronic points as a kid. couldn't afford it.

Oh, did that? I heard it go nut? No, it doesn't like that at all. Wow. There you go there. we go.

Just gummed up a bit. So there you go, that goes straight through and that will go around it that way. Sweet. Um, yeah, I don't know.

Leave it in the comments down below. if you've got any good ideas to help out, how to actually detect the position of these things when they're not being, you know, driven. Because otherwise, yeah, you've just got to assume that as you saw, like it just got stuck there. it just got gummed up.

It wouldn't work. And you know there's a lot of maintenance required on a good model railway layout. In terms of, you know, keeping the tracks, uh, clean, and you know, keeping your points operational and stuff like that. So yeah, so that is a genuine problem.

I'm surprised if there's not a solution out there already. Come on, leave it in the comments. Anyway, that's cool. Thanks.

And here you go. This is how it does it. You can see that there's going to be a iron core inside there and it's just going. You've got two separate coils here and you've got this lever arm you can see there and pull that across and that just goes backwards like that.

Nope, Nope, Nope. Just skipped there. You go. so it's got to stay flat down like that and it just moves.

That's all there is to it. Pretty simplistic and let me know about this. I actually thought about moving the Tv away because it is actually on casters, so technically I could wheel it out of the way. But and maybe I can hang some like posters in the background or something like that and then you can see more of the shelving.

I don't know, let me know in the comments down below what you think about that idea. But anyway, I couldn't be too lazy at the moment because things still aren't cleaned up properly yet. Anyway, thank you very much. Uh, the person unknown from parts unknown? Well, Alexandria? Um, so which is here in Sydney by the way? Um, so I don't know what this is.

Um, I've got a Gvdi Ac voltage detect stick. I think this is commercial merch. I think this is commercial. I'm not sure if they clued me.

Oh yeah, yeah, I think they clued me up on this. I didn't know it would come from sender in Alexandria. Um, I thought it was like a Chinese company or whatever. Um, Anyway, it's a multimeter we haven't had.

Um, somebody sending a multimeter for a while. It's a Gvda Smart Digital multimeter. Um, it looks wow. The Lcd is like they've like done the range.

So let's open it up. Oh nice little padded case. Tommo Lee from Gvda Technology Limited we are. They're an Aliexpress seller from China.

Uh, yep. Anyway, they've got this their new smart multimeter. So put in the Aliexpress link down below if you want to check it out. It's a little pockety kind of thing.

Um, thank you very much. So obviously there'll be a two minute tear down and there it is there. it is Gvda, So it's in a thing is it's in a case. right this straight.

If you want to leave it in the case, I reckon that strap is going to obscure the Lcd. Am I wrong? Will it turn on? It won't turn on. They do have real clicky switches. I guess I have to install the batteries.

Oh but um yeah. like Okay, so they've got they're not. Oh, quite a few batteries. I don't know if you get that many with it or whether or not.

that's a special. Um, it does. Oh, this is interesting. They look like standard probes, but they're not.

They are not standard four millimeter look. Look at that look. They're like like the classic two millimeter pins on the old school multimeters. but I've never seen like I'm I'm gonna call these like two millimeter shrouded um, banana plugs.

I, I don't think I've ever seen the two millimeter shrouded ones. Certainly not in multimeter leads. That's that's kind of weird. Wow.

Anyway, um, yeah, it's kind of like in a moment it's designed to be mobile phone look and feel. I mean, you know that's a bit wanky. But anyway. gigantic Lcd screen on.

They've done away with the switches. So yeah, let's crack her open. and oh, it's a rugby. but rub a baby buggy bumper.

There you go. Rubber baby buggy bumper holster. Oh, it's got a light on the back as well. It's got a Led light.

Okay, let's have a quick squeeze at these. See if they're any good Gvda. Haven't heard of them before. This is the 118b.

I don't know the difference between the 118b and the 118a. anyway. Um, yeah. it comes in a little case.

which I don't You know you keep your leads out. Well, it's yeah. you keep your leads in one side. That's pretty.

That's all right, except for the fact that you can't actually use it in the case because you have to take it out to plug your probes in. So anyway, peel that off. Come on there we go. Oh look at that.

It's like a bought one now. Well, I actually don't mind it that much. Part that it looks like a mobile phone. The tacky Qc plastic.

Oh god it's It's not much Qc on the Qc, not much glue on the Qc pass sticker. So yeah, you need a Qc pass sticker for the Qc pass sticker anyway. Um, um. Ncv.

Cool, non-contact Uh. voltage detector? Very nice. Um, that's handy that you want for a portable meter so it feels rugged enough. There's a little bit of twist in that, but you know it feels like it would take the knocks and the screen's going to be big.

So I've got a 600 milliamp 250 volt fuse in there, so you know it's not a 600 volts or a thousand volt jobby. A lot of people forget about the voltage rating diffusers. they go. Oh, it's got a Hrc fuse in it, but they don't realize that.

Oh, it's only a 250 volt rated Hrc fuse which is not as good as say a 600 volt rated one. You know, like a good one will be like a thousand volt rated Hrc fuse. So anyway, um, let's crack it open so it looks like compartment which hopefully will be the fuse as well. that looks like self tapper.

It is metal into metal insert so that's the first plus. Oh there you go at night. A fuse is inside so you know. Yeah, it is what it is.

like. the new uh, Bryman meter. The 786 fuses are inside. So just like the fluke.

uh you know 70 series and that and the 80s there you know fuses are inside. So and we've got self tappers here, but they actually are very similar threat. They are like proper plastic self-tappers like the Uh Fluke and Brimen are using in their ones, but you know, smaller of course. But they do give off the same vibe.

so it's all about the vibe. So let's let's crack this open and we're in. Like Flynn. There we go.

Oh, that's neat enough. There you go. There's our fuse up there. It is a ceramic job, so that's all right.

Um, it's kind of like bodged in there. I don't know. like it doesn't have a proper holder. It's just like got these contacts just soldered under the side of the board.

But yeah, it's adequate for the job. Um, what? What is this? don't that looks like a real is that like a relay? Oh, that's how they're doing it. of course because this doesn't have a rotary switch. So they must be doing, um, some switching there.

Ptc here. We've got some diode protection up here. We've got. uh, there's your high voltage input resistor.

uh, string there. it's You know it. It's okay for a pocket meter. Um, it's You know.

it's like, how much does this thing cost anyway? Um, there's our Led. Uh, and and it's just a two chipset. Ah, so is one Lcd driver and one is the multimeter chipset. I can't say I've heard of an Sdic Sd7581.

Is it? Well, that's interesting. Turns out that that is a Uh risk Micro. a little eight bit risk. uh, micro data sheet.

I I only found it's in uh Mandarin So, but it's got a uh, 24 bit Delta Sigma Adc in it and an Lcd driver. So yeah, that's interesting. Um, what's this puppy down here? That's a Tm 1622? once again, another uh, Asian brand I've never heard of. but that's uh, just an Lcd, uh, controller.

So yeah. basically. um, it's just going to be like it's going to be multi-channel thing and it's just going to be measuring and it's just going to be switching some stuff in here. and Bob's your uncle.

Not much to it. There's your non contact detector up there and let's do a flippity doo dar on that. I've taken it out. a few screws, little plastic clips.

uh, there's the sockets. By the way. they're just a split. oh no, the end one's a split socket up there, so it's obviously doing some uh sensing and uh yeah, the others are just a little, uh, two millimeter tube there.

I haven't measured it, but I presume it's two millimeters and plastic just slides over that so I haven't looked on the bottom yet. Let's have a squares. Oh, there's our big gigantic backlight. and yep, there's our relay.

There you go, it's you know, I don't think that's a Japanese jobby. Um, and uh yeah. buzzer and well. four tactile switches.

That's all she wrote. So that's actually, um, quite fit for purpose. I'd say really. Um, I haven't checked the price of this, but I'm sure it's You know, it's uh, quite a cheap.

Got our zebra strip in there, and with all our contacts along there like that and heavily multiplexed of course, because this thing's going to have a ton of segments on it. so let's work that back in there. And yeah, there you go. So yeah, it's not, you know, a Ul listed front end or whatever.

But yeah, it's like, good enough for like a glove box, multimedia little, you know, pocket filled multimeter. and if the, uh, non-contact uh test is any good, you know it might be useful for that as well. So yeah, I do actually quite like the form factor. All right.

the test with the plastic self-tapper screws. But first, a pro tip: putting these back in actually counter rotate it like that until you feel a where it's jumped into the existing thread. You should be up. Yep, yep, should be able to feel a point.

and yep, that then screws much easily into the existing thread. I actually haven't got the right size screwdriver here, but ah, bugger, it should be right. Good enough for Australia. Yeah, so rotate that back a little bit and then you should be able to feel that cell tap.

It's not as good as the flukies, but uh, it's still okay. So if you do that first, you'll get a much longer life on your threads. Yeah, you can just feel the point where the existing thread was neat. All right.

So let's plug these leads in. It's a shame that they've got to stick up. They're actually oh, tigers and nuns nasty in there, so they're not going to come out on you, that's for sure. So yeah, I am not going to write home to my mum about these probes.

They're not gold-plated They look good. The angle looks wonky. Yeah, those ones came straight out of the one low factory. Anyway, here's the display.

It shows the current, uh, temperature. That's a little bit out because it's supposed to be 22 in here. I do have my air con on. maybe you can actually see it, but anyway, or at the moment, it's going between Volts, Ac, Dc, Ohms, and continuity.

So it's in smart mode in quote marks, or we can switch to millivolts. There you go hurts. Capacitance down to one puff? Oh yeah. Like yeah, it's measuring.

Yeah, it's down. single puff resolution there, so that that seems all right. No worries. and yet lead detection.

We saw that before and the non-contact tester. I'll just test that. Hang on. Nope, uh hello.

Oh jesus, it has to be really close. Or is it oh no. it goes on top on the end of there. Oh yeah, yeah, I guess I don't know more experience required with that.

It's not very loud, the beeper in it's not very loud. but I like how it's got the, uh, different color Led up there. That's nice. So yeah, it's functional, gets you out of trouble.

You know, it's supposedly like 600 volt cat three? It's like me, um, you can actually use the probe with that. Actually, I'm able to make that happen with just the whoop. Yeah, I don't know about that. Um, because I'm nowhere near like it's picking up the mains from me.

Uh, no, I don't like that. if you're gonna do it and say, probably keep the keep the leads out. but then again, it's better to get a false positive than a false negative. So let's put in auto mode here.

And oh, that's really slow. Wow, that's one of the slowest continuity testers I've ever used. Wow, that's a good half a second. At least I don't time it.

It's yeah, I like that it's got visual up here as well. But yeah, if you're after a good continuity tester and nah, nah, it's a loser for that. And the other thing is, it doesn't really have like a dedicated um ohms or Volts range, you know You can only looks like you can only do the smart. I mean, a millivolts is on its own, but uh, you? you can't like choose? Just Ohms on its own.

So you're going to have you know if you're measuring low Ohm resistors, you're always going to get the continuity coming on. I mean, that's kind of annoying, but not the lid on the yeah, there it is. Yeah, whoopty. Do it like it's not much.

No, I can't even like select between that. Ah, hang on no H H Yes, Ah, like what? No, No, that's like, no, it's holding the knight. that's just holding the value. No, it's that's not actually holding the range.

That's tricky. That fooled me into thinking it was actually holding the range. Anyway, hold that down. There's your back light.

That's actually that's going to be reasonable anyway. Instructions: they're all in English, looks adequate, and, uh, spec specs. Basic Dc accuracy. Yeah, it's exactly what you expect.

Half a percent plus three accounts. One percent for Ac supposed to be true Rms? Uh yeah. only goes to one Kilohertz. So yeah.

and Dc current? Uh, six thousand microamps? up to six hundred milliamps? Uh yeah. of course there's no uh 10 amp range. Ac current will do the same at one and a half percent. That's at 1.2 Diode.

2 volts. open circuit voltage. So not terrific. 1 for Ohms, it's all you know.

It's it's fairly typical. Four percent for capacitance. Um, you know it's not great. You're not going to write home to your mum about, uh, that sort of accuracy.

And I could actually use my decay resistance box as a reference here because it's uh, you know, 0.1 percent. This is actually quite an expensive, uh, resistance calibration. Uh, you know, decade box. It's actually, you know I've done a video on this way back.

It's it's from Iet Labs, a very reputable one and it said, you know it's in the order of like point one percent so it's pretty good. And for you know, it's going to be better than that. Um, of course. so it's supposed to be uh, six thousand counts.

So actually, let's go down five five twenty and we'll see where it switches. 600. Oh yeah, yep. 600 to 610 560? Yep, hang on.

1k 10k, 100k One Meg 10 Meg, No, why'd the beep There shouldn't have beeped 100? Ohms 10. Of course you're gonna get the uh. continuity buzzer. Okay, you know it's going to work like I have.

no doubt it's going to meet a spec. Oh, I just actually noticed it had a bar graph there. Let's actually try that again. Yet, the bar graph is no faster.

It's gimmicky bar graph. Not only is it tiny, it's uh, no faster than the actual reading. So it's just converting the reading. It's not doing any like sampling any quicker whatsoever.

All right, let's feed mains up. It's clacka. don't try this at home kitties. There We go up the 310 displayed 244.

Yeah, it's near enough. Does have a dual display, which is quite quite nice. 50 hertz because we're in Australia? Um, no worries. So yeah, that's going to work all right.

Uh, like is it going to blow? its? uh, snot. If I uh, put it in millivolt range? perhaps? I don't know. Uh, will this 20 meter handle it? So we go. No, it's just going to flash the, um, the, uh, my negative there.

So did it survive? Yep, there you go. No workers. And here is the ridiculousness of having. uh, just this auto function only.

Okay, I've got my uh. reference box here. I'm generating zero volts. Okay, and it thinks it's like zero Ohms continuity.

which, well, technically it is. like the output impedance is going to be low, but if I go up to 0.1 volts aren't My knobs a bit dodgy there, so don't worry about that. Um, I just need to readjust the thing on there anyway. Um, it's showing 1.2 k, not 0.1 volts Dc like.

And if I go up to 0.2 volts, 0.3 volts, it still thinks it's a resistor, thinks it's a 10 meg resistor with 0.3 volts on it, right? And well. okay, Well, granted, we should have used the Millivolt range for this, But there you go. You have to get to like half a volt before it will actually start detecting that as voltage and actually display that. So yeah, that's just it's just ridiculous.

So anyway, um, yeah, like it's near enough it's going to be with Inspect nearer towards full scale 10.0 Oh, that's a bit out. that's a bit how you're doing. Yeah, I'm definitely all zeros there. Um, that's yeah.

I don't think my box has gone dodgy. Um, yeah, nah. There you go. 5.005 and 5.014 What's that in percentage? Yeah, that's only like point Two, eight percent high.

So it's with Inspect. Yeah, so yeah. well, yeah. Look, I'm not going to go to town on this if you're really, if anyone really desperately wants a like a full review of this thing.

I don't know, like it's like a 43 buck meter. Yankee bucks. but it's like looks like it's currently on sale for 20 bucks. so it's 20 U.s Like that includes delivery.

So yeah, crazy. I mean I've done a full Um shootout. A pocket multimeter shootout. I wouldn't classify this as a pocket, although this could fit in your pocket.

I wouldn't classify it as a pocket meter because it does have uh, the you know, the removable leads and really the case is probably like that's bigger than a pocket meter. I mean you know. I mean you know, by far the best pocket meter on the market was this one that I used to sell. I don't sell it anymore because it like a lot of people didn't want to pay the premium for this.

uh, Samurai Pm, uh 300. but San Juan make other ones and like you know it's look, it's much much bigger than that, right? It's just like you know there's a huge difference. So that's why I wouldn't class this as a pocket meter. But you know it comes with a nice case and it's 20 bucks delivered and you know it's worth.

You know, just throwing in your glove box or whatever. No worries whatsoever. Um, you know as just a second meter. I wouldn't use it as like a main meter all the time.

It's like there's nothing stand out about it. The continuity test is horrible there. Just for kicks, we'll measure my reference capacitor here, which is from 1967 if you can read that. Thank you very much.

It's a Bobby Dazzler. Ah tell you what. Oh yeah, that's pretty close to bang on. not too shabby.

but anyway, yeah. like there's nothing remarkable stand out about this. I'm not going to go. Wow.

You know it's not like it's not. It's not an aiming killer or anything like that. but you know, if you like the form factor it might have. you know, if it's got a non-contact tester and you might have the light you know you might have need for something like this, then you know by all means.

Um, yeah, check it. You know, 20 bucks, You know, like you get it if you don't like it. then you know you haven't wasted much. So yeah, I'll leave the link to the Aliexpress store down below for the Gvda and they got a voltage detector stick.

Does that have an Lcd on it? Wow. that's interesting. Um, anyway, you know that's my, you know, fluke sticks. and oh gee.

that's kind of big and chunky. It just feels big. and I don't know. Um, it's just.

yeah. It's not sleek. It does look and feel a bit cheap. I don't know if that's coming across on camera, but yeah, it's you know.

Thousand volt. Uh, cat. Three? Of course it's non-contact Um, you can actually see the tip in there. That's interesting how they got like the transparent tip, but uh.

I guess the batteries are in there. Are they? No. So what do we got here? Aaa? 1.5 volts? Yep. Oh, there's triple A's in there.

Um, hello. they're a piss cell. It's heavy duty. none of that alkaline rubbish.

Um, a piss cell? Okay, somebody's taking the piss. Oh, they installed them backwards so that they wouldn't drain. that's telling. Um, does that mean that? uh, it's got a high standby.

I might have to measure that. There we go. There, we go. We're in.

all right. Oh, it's got a backlight on it. Look at that. That's kind of nice.

You know, I've never seen one with the screen before. Works there we go. It actually discriminates okay, against the uh pins? there does earth. But that's all right, and it's higher there.

Oh, there we go. Boop boop. So you can actually see where probably the bulk of the pin is right down there. That's actually got pretty good discrimination.

Don't mind that. look. Yeah, we can rotate it. There you go.

So there you go. You can rotate it like that. That's got excellent discrimination. Does it change? Yep.

Looks like it's got two ranges there, so that's not detecting anything at all. And it's just detecting. Okay, that. That actually seems pretty good.

I don't mind the discrimination in that. And it's got a light. Isn't that cute? There you go. That's all right.

Does the job well. I suspect this is going to be a destructive teardown. Oh, why the hell not? Well, yep, that was destructive. All right.

Uh, that's not going back in there. And oh, we've been blobbed. All we've got is a lousy blob. and that's it.

Um, so yeah, sorry. Are they a couple of or die yes. I think they are. They're cues, aren't they? Um, and yeah, a couple more down there.

and well. that's all. She wrote. the back light under there.

a little Lcd with Naf. All that'd be multiplexed of course. Um, it's got. uh, four pin, only four pins and that's it.

So operating current? Uh, 5.7 milliamps? Uh yeah. you'd expect that because it's got a backlight and stuff like that and let's switch it off. Oop, there we go. You know that? 30 35 milliamps? Wow.

it's pretty loud. Um, and it's pretty bright as well. And no, not microamp. Good enough for Australia.

Um, so yeah, no reason to install those batteries back to front like that. Yeah, it's actually bang on a micro amp. Anyway, that's the Gvda Ac voltage detection stick. I actually don't mind it.

The uh, functionality of it's uh, quite what. It seems to work quite well. I just like. I think it's just looks and feels a bit cheap.

That's all. Um, doesn't inspire. You know, the vibe's not. there, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence, but uh yeah, it seems to work reasonably well.

So anyway, probably cost like 10 bucks delivered, Does it? I was wrong. It's only nine bucks delivered. So yeah, that sort of price. Just throw one in the glove box.

No worries. Not sure how many sucks the Sav Seed Studio have had, but it's a lot. So yeah, thank you very much Seed Studio. Um, it's pretty light.

don't know what it is? No idea. I don't think they clicked. Maybe they did clue me up. But uh, like it's been a couple of months since I've done mailbags.

So all this stuff is, you know, at least several months old. Sorry, I haven't gotten around to it earlier anyway. um oh. E-design Oh yes.

they sent in a new, um, what oh would it come from? Okay, they ordered it directly from seed the studio because they're the uh, they're the distributors of this. Um, they sent a replacement one. Sorry, there's nothing to see, Nothing to see here. It's just the replacement Lcr meter.

Um, because I totally destroyed the last one so they wanted to know if I. oh, there we go. it's boots up. Uh, they wanted to know if I could if I wanted a working one because I do have other Lcr uh, pocket like the tweezer Lcr meters and I thought I would do a, um, like a shootout kind of thing.

So there you go. I might do a, uh, let me know in the comments down below how desperately you would like to see a pocket Lcr tweezer shoot out Because I've got. I think I've got a global specialties one and I've got the what's that Canadian one. Um, and we've got this one and I think that's it.

Are there others? Let me know. Hi to all my viewers in Thailand. Don't get many from Thailand. Um, I can't make out the first word because it's covered with a cassand cool.

Sorry. Um. Anyway, Thailand, There you go. Um, we haven't seen a Thailand uh thing.

Although it's not a stamp, there's the Thailand thing. that's how many. uh, I don't know what's what's the time and the Thailand currency? I? I don't. Oh anyway, it's got B on it.

There you go. Um, oh okay. We have solder seal for our protection. Why do we have solder? There's sent solder into the mailbag.

I guess they sell this solder. I guess it's solder wire in case you needed to know. Um, there you go. It's green.

So does that mean it's lead free? Usually if it's green like spool or label or something like that, it's lead free. That looks like you know one one millimeter job. So Shenzhen Ju thing solder wire? Okay, got one millimeter lead-free solder. Might give it a go.

As it turns out, this is super special stuff. This is ultra low. uh, temperature melting point. uh tin and bismuth with uh one percent silver? Um, solder.

This is real. You know not many companies actually manufacture this and I went to the Du Fang website Shenzhen Jufing website and they said yeah, we're one of the few that actually manufacture this low melting point solder and uh, I've done it. Oh, Video Donkeys years ago with uh, the Quick Chip solder. This is basically the same thing.

I believe Quick chip is exactly uh, the same. I don't know if the quick chip one has the silver in it, but anyway, the biggest Quick chip is uh designed for like a d soldering. but uh, this one's got 42 10 and 50 percent. 57 bismuth and 1 silver.

Now I believe Hp were the first ones to add uh 1 silver and that actually makes it, uh work more. As you know, it's not for desoldering parts, it's actually for soldering. Uh, you know, heat sensitive critical parts and stuff like that. But the interesting thing about the tin Bismuth mix is that when you combine it with lead I.e in regular lead solder joints, when you're doing desoldering, it lowers the melting point from this one's regularly 138 degrees Celsius.

We won't talk in Fahrenheit. rubbish here on the Eev blog. Uh, drops it from 138, uh C down to like, you know, 90s or something like that. which is where the chick quick chip, um stuff is.

So basically yeah I was when I first got this. I thought oh geez, they haven't given me much. I wonder why. And then the penny dropped and I looked at it.

Ah, Bismuth. Um yeah, so cool. Let's check it out. So this stuff is great for you know, like if you've got like some you know, critical leads or something or other like real thermally sensitive components, you might actually, um, solder these with a low melting point solder like tin Bismuth mix.

We've got a massive 20 grams worth of it. Let's give it a go now. Unfortunately, the lowest ah my pace will go down to as 180 and the lowest my Jbc will go down to is 200. So um yeah well let's start out with 180..

let's start out with some well not quite 60 40. this is tin lead with a little bit of copper. It's a sav bit job anyway. Melting point of 183 degrees.

Of course, nobody ever solders at 183 because yeah, it'll melt at 183. But when you apply your uh tip onto the joint, it's just going to suck the heat away and it's not going to be 183 anymore. Um, a bit. So technically like, let's see if I I've got it currently set to 180.

Let's see if we can get that to do it. Technically it shouldn't unless there's some error in the temperature. There's not. Let's whack it up to 190.

Here we go. 190 should just do it. Yep, Yep. there you go.

You can melt solder at 190 degrees, but you put that on a joint and you've got absolutely no chance whatsoever. Now this tin bismuth stuff. Oh, she'll melt. All right, You betcha Look at that.

Oh Bobby Dazzler. All right. I'm going to see if this works like the Uh chip Quick stuff. it should because it's pretty much, uh, identical.

All right. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually set my uh iron to 370 celsius, which is a typical, uh, soldering temperature you might have. And of course, this stuff will melt like this. No tomorrow, right? But what I'm going to do is just get a little ball.

This is just a scrap board. but ah, come on, get off there right now. I just want to show you how long this stays. I just want to see how long this stays molten for if I actually heat that up and look see how it's still still molten like that Or that didn't last as long as the chip Quick.

So maybe chip Quick have something slightly different? I can't remember exactly, but the idea is that with this low temperature solder, one of the things you can actually do with it but this isn't what this is uh, designed for is that you can actually go around and when it combines with lead like this, it'll melt at a much lower temperature. So let me just basically apply it all the way around this chip like this. and this chip should, uh, probably need a bit more than that. Do I heat up all the sides and they should? Maybe I haven't got enough on there? Should stay molten long enough on all sides for this chip to just come off? That's the plan.

There we go. there, we go. Gotcha. Yeah, it's messy, right? but it does actually work.

Look, check it out and then you can just clean up your pads with your uh, solder wick. No worries. So there you go. It's very well.

it's messy, but it is Was certainly very useful to have some of this in your kit for desoldering. and this stuff works a treat because I believe it's identical to the chip. Quick could be much cheaper as well. um from Shenzhen due things solder coast so that's really cool.

It's actually probably melting. As I said, we combine it with lead actually. Um, that'll have some lead in it now. So let's actually just heat that up, right? So this has got some lead in it and let's see how long this stays molten for right? Look, still molten.

Still molten. Ah no, no, I just died. Well, probably because I'm using metal. Oh, there we go.

But anyway, very cool stuff. You can see that we actually removed it. looks messy, but that's all just the flux residue. We can just clean all that up, no worries.

Um, and we didn't lift any pads or anything. Uh, you know you could maybe do some damage around, you know, components around the outside, so you got to have a fair bit of space to do something like this. But anyway, that was a bit messy. a bit rusty at doing that, but it worked.

Beautiful low temperature solder. so there you go. I'm not sure how much, uh, this costs, but it works the same as the Quick chip. uh stuff.

So I'll link in uh, Due Things website down below. So thanks for sending that in. Um, of course you know this is like it's not cheap stuff. This is expensive and difficult stuff to manufacture apparently.

Um, but it's you know. look. this one has like this is a 20 gram reel right? So that's it's. not much at all, but you know you use it sparingly for desolder or very occasionally.

You might need to do like ultra low temperature application or something like that, but you know most people should keep some of this for, uh, some desoldering. It's pretty neat stuff. Anyway, that's it for the mailbag. I did have another item on here, but it's a bit of avionics, uh, kit and well, it looks interesting so I haven't torn it down yet.

but I think that'll be a second teardown video because this mailbag is already like 40-50 minutes or something. Anyway, if you liked it, please give it a big thumbs up. And as always, discuss down below and on the Forum and my other platforms. You know the deal.

Catch you next time you.