Hi Welcome to everyone's favorite segment: Mailbag. Yes, it's back. Yes, we've got to build up on the bench. so let's get to it.

So if you want to send something in, send it to Mayo. It's got a mailbag on it. Po Box 7949 Northwest New South Wales 215 through there. 2153 Australia not Austria.

So thank you very much. Elon Gendel from Israel. Hi to all my Israeli viewers. Do I have quite a few from Israel actually? So this is the biggest one.

So I I lost count of chronological order. They just get mixed up on the mailbag, so let's crack into this one. How do I? Aha, that's actually the bottom. I've got to get into the back.

tongue at the right angle matters. Oh, it's oh. it's got a handle. Oh something.

after my own heart. No, it's not test gear. Hang on. Whoa.

This is heavy. Oh, we got a bonus attachment. Ah, look at this bad boy. That's it.

There's no weight in that. There's no, it can't be any good. There's no weight in it. But it's the Panasonic Super Vhs.

Now that regular Vhs rubbish and camcorder. Wow, it's a Dp200 for those playing along at home. Hands up, if you used one of these bad boys back in the day, yeah, I was going to say why is it like that? It's because it's got to swing out like that. And yeah, get your eye up there.

And yeah, none of that Lcd screen rubbish. Thank you very much. Fantastic! It's got Xlr. Oh, it's a pro.

Hi Dave. Love your channel Two items for your consideration: Panasonic Super Vhs Dp 200. Now that Vhs already said that, I'm am I that predictable? Really? what's used in, uh, for community Channel Fuel reporting in the early 1990s? Sort of works, but needs new Belts belts. Remember those five minute tear down? Yeah, it's going to have to be a separate video.

This is a it's not five minute mail bag. tear down Sorry. And oh, look at this. a Casio G-shock Mud Master.

Wow, I don't like big watches like this. Here we go check it out. Look at that bad boy. Look at that.

Wow. The Mud Master. I mean, that's a serious bit of kit. Um, yeah.

for my mud runs and stuff, I got my Mud Run t-shirt I forgot to change my t-shirt I got my Tough Mudder t-shirt on. Um, yeah, should have changed that dog. But ah, nice. That's a nice tear down.

The second hand occasionally becomes stuck. Oh, it's just misalignment or something, is it? And Alan's got his own website linking down below. It's uh, Microvax2.org Geez, I wonder what that's about. Okay, we'll just take a brief look at this bad boy, because, well, we don't have time to tear it down.

It's the Dp 200 Super Vhs. not that regular Vhs. Rubbish. If you don't know, you might be able to see it there.

It is. 625. Wow. That's yeah.

625 pixels across. But because it's super Vhs instead of regular Vhs has a whopping 420 lines of resolution as opposed to 240 on regular Vhs. And it super Vhs also increases the luminance bandwidth. So technically you get like a better quality picture and stuff.

But anyway, um, it says push Um, I don't know. it must be powered open or something. I'm not sure what the deal is and as I said, Xlr input down here. I assume that's for an external mic and there's just like a dodgy, unlabeled Um knob down here.

So is that like some like aftermarket hack or something like that? Maybe it's made in Japan. All this stuff's made in Japan. Absolutely fantastic. It's got a character generator which is really, uh, interesting.

That's like, you know, pro level stuff so that you can insert characters over like, you know, text over the image. That would have been really state of the art back in the day. but anyway, name plate for those playing along at home and we've got a thread mount and everything. and these are designed like really, quite ergonomically.

this is designed to sit on your, uh, shoulder of course. And then you've got the Uh viewfinder here which is not that Lcd rubbish that's got a uh Crt in there. It's got a tally light as well on the front which allows uh, your subject to see that there you know person being interviewed, whatever to see that the tape is a roll in and uh yeah, it's got an eyepiece and there'll be a Crt in here. We've torn these, uh, down, uh, before.

They're really quite cool. These little micro uh crts. They're very nice. Geez, that's a bit dusty.

So yeah, the whole idea is that you have to put your eye right up to there so you've got one eye on the shot, one eye on the uh viewfinder. If anyone used to be like, use these, uh cameras, uh, back in there like they still do like, you still get the shoulder mount, run, and gun, uh cameras. I've done a video on that on the second channel, but anyway, and then your hand of course goes in here like this and this is ergonomically designed. There's your start stop and there's your electronic zoom there.

They've also got a slider on here as well, so presumably that's motor driven and you should be able to see. Can you see the lens inside there change? Yeah, there we go. look at that Beautiful. Don't know what all the gunk is though, no idea.

Anyway, that's got a 12 times optical zoom. now that digital zoom rubbish. but it's a pretty feature packed. I mean it's got low light.

um the focus you can open, close the iris, you can white balance adjust, you can switch between iris and shutter control and you can have auto or manual or portrait modes for those and you can fade in. You can get on-screen display so you can put the date time overlay and stuff like that which is of course very common back in the days. Geez, nobody has that. Any cameras don't do cameras, even still have a date time overlay feature.

I don't know. Anyway, we can do some sort of uh, search capability and stuff like that. And on the top here it had some sort of like a warning sticker. I guess our removal? you know, don't dig around with this because this is where you set the date time and the counter and stuff like that.

so you can switch that off or on. Um, and there's our power button on the top. Then we've got a cold shoe mount of course. Now that hot shoe rubbish.

And oh, the mic has got wide tele and zoom select as well and it's got rubber baby buggy bumper on there. Um, so that'll take out some of the vibration, but none of that image stabilization rubbish in this. But if that microphone's not good enough, external mic, no worries. So like I assume that the Xlr I don't know, I haven't read the manual soon.

The Xlr down there is for the mic, but all that's unlabeled and then on the back. If you want to use it as a Vcr, you want to play it back. There's your controls, no workers, and there's your battery. eject.

Your battery goes down in there. It's got a big spring down in there and a couple of contacts. uh, your tape eject button. Then we've got composite video out and also an Rf uh, like Dc output that presumably powers an external like, um, Rf interface.

Oh, it goes in there. Okay, so it's like a little physical attachment that goes on the back and these are two pins that provide power through the Rf modulator. and then you can plug it directly into a Tv. Anyway, audio out and we've got higher quality S video out as well.

and edit. Presumably there's some sort of edit, uh, box facility or something like that internal speaker. You can have hi-fi or normal and a weird-ass Dc jack. The amorphous pro head Sounds impressive.

So anyway, leave it in the comments down below. if you used one of these bad boys, and uh, what did you use it for, So I yeah, thanks for sending that in. Obviously has to be a separate tear down video because there's ton. There's an hour's worth of, uh, tear down material inside this thing.

So ah, fascinating. I've also got like another big camcorder like this, um to tear down that came in like that big, uh, plastic carry case and everything like that. Still got that. There's someone sitting in the mailbag, so you know, keep pestering me if you want to see the teardown.

Thanks. That's brilliant. Look at it. just completely wet the way of the dodo.

Unbelievable. And today's home lab comes from Andrew Tayman. Thank you very much. Doesn't say where he's from, it's just here.

It is. Um, it's your basic regular looking lab. We've just got a like, you know, a fairly long bench. Looks like at least two of them could extend out further.

One big length of Esd mat? that's probably is that. it's They're usually even like 600 or 900 mil deep. unless it's like a custom, uh, depth or something like that. But they, they're your typical.

Like a short one will be like 600 mil. a long one. Like I've got 900 mil. something like that.

So I've got ourselves a fluke down here. We've got ourselves one of those um, inspection, uh, microscopes. That's one of those, um, I can't remember their brand they keep sending me. I've got like five of them I haven't reviewed or something.

These guys, these keep piling on multiple sucks of the salve. Anyway, yeah, we've got our uh. precision screwdriver set. Nice.

Um, Jbc? Is that a Yeah, That looks like I haven't seen that particular model before. But there you go. Got the obligatory mug. Um, I don't know what that is.

I can't see. Maybe it's a special purpose bit of measurement kit. It's like, ah, could be some sort of like, you know, power custom power measurement. Um, do that or something.

Anyway, we've got the rodent Shorts Rtb, uh, 2000. By the looks of it, a lot of people picked up that bargain when they, uh, released that We've got uh, yeah. two high-end um, six and a half, seven half digit meters here, the Keithley, and, uh, the keysight. Got another Keithley Bitter kit over here.

What is that one? Uh, that's a, that's our. It's a power supply that looks like one of those, uh, precision power supplies. they often use those in, uh, like, really, like, um, like providing power for like, mobile phones under production tests and stuff like that. And they can provide like really fast pulse loads and they can, you know, simulate all sorts of, like battery, uh, stuff.

and things like that. Those things aren't cheap. Um, they're very specialized bits of kit, So if you can get one, score, one of those on ebay, you're doing well. But they hold their prices.

Um, looks like we've got, uh, the Rhigo Electronic. Uh, load over here. Um, and we've got the Ryegol. Uh, 832 power supply, isn't it? And uh, cheap ass hot air? Uh, gun? Here, we've got another.

There's that, That's a solder sucker by the looks of it. Yeah, solder gun, solder sucker. We've got uh, looks like the components up here in little um, bok tray box things, micro controllers, um, resistors, and all sorts of stuff. Idc connectors, Leds, headers, blah blah blah.

all sorts of stuff. Uh, everything nicely. Um, on the pegboards in the background. Beautiful.

What else we got? Uh yeah, there's the Jbc down there, so it's interesting. Now getting the iron up, off the onto the top up there. and only you're having your iron down here so you can free up your bench space. Uh, that's a good idea.

And then we've got the open top trays here. I've I've done a video building open top a trays. I really like them because you can just pull them out and the stuff's just there. you don't have to take lids off and things like that, which is really annoying.

So I'm trying to partially transition over to those and got more stuff up here. Uh, looks like reels of stuff and things like that. Yeah, Smd reels. and you know stuff like that because often you know you do a short production run, you got some, you know, reels and stuff left over and yeah, you want to keep them.

So there you go. That is a very nice basic layer. Well, it's not basic because there's some high-end and specialized bits of kit here. Uh, for various things that he works on.

So there you go. I don't know what's being worked on down there, but um, yeah, it's obviously you know. It's like it's your basic lab and then you equip it with some like specialized stuff. And you know, usually like a basic lab's not going to have two, six, or seven, half digit meters in here.

You know. So once you sort of step up to that sort of level like you need a reason, uh, to do that, and it looks like, um, yeah, a precision power supply or uh, some such, and uh, something else over here. If you know what that is, leave it in the comments down below. but neat.

And here is the G-shock Mud Master. Look at this beast that is just insanely thick. Wow, that's incredible. And look at all the protrusions for the buttons and everything else.

shock resist. I mean, this would be like, yeah, this would survive anything. Incredible. So it looks like it's got an altimeter.

That's the button that switches that on this button on this on the front. Here, you might think this is some sort of sensor. Nope. Um, it seems to match these.

These seem to be the big buttons. that's the light button, so it doesn't seem to do anything. It's now flashing charge, charge, charge. But anyway, barometric pressure sensor and temperature.

So is that barometric pressure sensor there? And that's your temperature sensor there? perhaps? And of course it's got the really, uh, old-school like, different, uh, time zones, London, Paris, and all that around that side. Yeah, does anyone have those anymore? Like do you find it like, you know, if you're traveling and stuff like that? Like. I just think it's messy on an analog watch. Not really a fan of the combination digital analog watches, but anyway, if you want to see what I'm wearing at the moment, I've got a Citizen Eco drive so you can see the size difference there.

This is a ridiculously large case, and this is quite small and thin. and if you look at the, look at the differences in those, I mean that's just nuts. Anyway, this thing on my wrist would look insane. There it is on my wrist because I don't have a big wrist.

so I uh, suit the uh, like the slimmer form factor watches and stuff like that. So yeah, that's just oh man, no way. Like there's no way I'm gonna wear that. That's just crazy.

It'll just get in the way. I mean, if you're doing like a mud obstacle uh, course, or you're doing any sort of like mountaineering or i'm going canyon or something like that's. just like no, no, no, no, no, Okay, let's have a look inside this thing. Um, it looks like some sort of, uh, resin case, something like that.

So we've got our self tappers into resin, which is kind of par for the course, but lifted off we'll expect to see an o-ring Of course, nothing's waterproof without an o-ring And there it is. And nothing's waterproof without an o-ring and grease. So there's no point having an o-ring if you don't grease it up anyway. Uh, piezo transducer on the back.

Not sure what what that is. Oh, that's that. Just like a little, that's a pressure plate. Yeah, I think that's just a little pressure thing to put pressure onto the battery to keep it in there.

perhaps? But anyway. Um, there's some tiny little contacts down in there for our battery and I like that. I like the red rubber sheet. Usually they use like a mylar uh type sheet or something like that, but that's uh, red rubber, baby buggy bumpers, and in typical digital watch construction, it all seems to that's going to all pop out in a module.

Anyway, as far as the g-shock technology which makes it all shock-proof and everything else, that's got to be these little red. Yep, they feel like rubber. Yep, those little rubber inserts that actually keep the internal module in there from, you know, banging against the sides of the case like this. So the case can take a physical impact on here and then that's going to be attenuated by the red little compliant mounts like that.

And the buttons are somehow like physically isolated. I'm not exactly sure that one's a bit how you're doing. Um, and as I said that, that one doesn't light, one doesn't seem to push. some of the others do.

Yeah, the buttons are really how you're doing on this. I don't like them at all. I can't really press them properly, but um, yeah, it looks like there's probably another mount on the uh on the face side as well because they're Obviously this is why they're using rubber here, because that gives it some uh compliant mount from the back case like this and then uh, it would. Yeah, it would.

almost certainly you wouldn't go to that sort of effort doing it on the edges plus the back and then not do it on the front. So if we can get that module out, which is probably going to be tricky, there is probably an art to it, but yeah, I reckon we'll find another compliant mount on the top. I managed to get the retainer plate out. I'll split.

spare you the gory details of that. Anyway, we have our battery holder like this and there you go. That's its own little uh, sew up little springs in there so that's its own little uh assembly like that which then makes contact down onto the main Pcb down in here. So there you go.

You can see a few inductors down there and you know that's your typical digital watch. There's not a huge amount in it, it's going to have a blob somewhere on the other side and the buttons in there do seem to have the same uh, castellated edge on the Pcb like that and then making uh, like and then the pin that comes through because I've physically pushed that one out and you can see it come in and make contact there. I really really don't like those buttons at all. Well there you go.

I got it out and that's all the one assembly like that, which is really nice and that's typically what you'll get inside. uh, any modern digital uh, watch, or sort of, you know. And even though this is a combo digital analog watch, you'll get the completed assembly light that allows them to uh, design and test those. Notice all the test points on the back, therefore all the better nails are production, uh, testing stuff.

and then it goes within. um, an outer case like that. and then it usually has some sort of battle battery assembly and then sort of some complex uh, retainer mechanism to hold it all in place to make sure it doesn't fall out. But as I said, um, I expected to see a compliant mount on that side.

Um, but there's not that gray one down there that's plastic, so that's not. Uh, it's not the red rubber that we saw on the other side, so I guess they couldn't do that. That's one of the rubber inserts that was inside there, so that's interesting. But anyway, there's our temperature sensor by the looks of it, that's a little flat flex connector there and that, yeah, yeah, there we go.

Just pulled out from the connector in there. So so that would be a bugger to get together, wouldn't it? I wouldn't like to be working at the uh, G-shock Factory, that's for sure. Anyway, these buttons you might be able to see there's an additional contact there. Of course, that one button is not enough to make electrical contact so they have another one up there, which then combined it.

Then it forms a uh switch on the side with the castellated edges. But look at the thickness or lack thereof of that Pcb. Wow, What's that? Anyway, for those who wanted to know the total watch thickness, there you go. That is a thick ass watch as opposed to my nice little slimline Eco drive here.

Look at that. Oh, a width of a paper over nine. And the thing is with the Pcb at that, at this sort of uh, thickness, every Pcb becomes a flex Pcb. And I've actually used that um, aspect in uh designs before.

we've actually um, I specified Uh, which is not actually finished Pcb, but a Pcb pre pre-preg I specified them to use really thin pre-preg material like, you know, 0.1 millimeters and you can get boards like that sort of thickness and they're just like they act as flex Pcbs. It's incredible. 0.3 Yeah, about point three millimeter Pcb. So these really aren't designed to be repaired.

I've already broken something off there. What is that? Oh, there you go. There's a crystal that's a it's a crystal in a little, uh, plastic holder. Yeah, usually they just have their solder on the back of the board, but this actually.

there you go. It's just embedded down in there. That's neat. But anyway, you got to remember this is a mechanical watch as well, so it's got to have all this stuff inside there.

and uh, yeah, that's that's. pretty impressive, but it looks like it might have heat, stakes or something holding it in place. There you go, managed to get it apart. There's our Pcb there and uh yeah, it makes uh, press fit contacts down here to their little tiny itty bitty springs in there, which uh, go down to our coils for our uh, mechanical mechanism which is all in there.

Then of course we've got our what looks like our oled uh, what looked like on the front to be an oled uh display and there's all our contacts down on the main Pcb. Of course that'll be a custom blob. There it is. There's the main chippy down there.

it's got a protective film. slice that off. Yeah, there we go, there we go. There's our bare die or getting closer to it anyway.

So anyway, that is fascinating. Thank you very much Aylon for uh, sending in the camcorder and this uh, g-shock watch. I always wanted to take a look inside one of these and yeah, it's rather fascinating and it's just not the mechanical and uh, packaging design of something like this which is like absolutely critical. like you can't just have an a couple of electronics designers designing a watch like this.

You've got to have like a a really advanced team of you know to try and get all of this manufactured manufactured at a low enough cost, manufactured with reliability manufacturer in to meet all of the in this case, the physical uh, shock and other performance requirements and and stuff like that. And also you know, just thermal design, just isolating the uh temperature. I presume that's the temperature sensor. Is that barometric? that one? You know that sensor over there? But anyway, like I've actually designed watches and putting I've put a temperature sensor in a watch and it's not easy to actually isolate from the heat of your wrist so you know that's something that is you really have to take into account and it is rather annoying.

So in that case, maybe that over there is our temperature sensor. Perhaps There you go. I just took off the outer plate for that one and yep, I reckon that is our barometric pressure sensor. actually.

there you go. check out that took the plate off. It's got lots of gunk in there. Wow, that's terrible.

Muriel. Ah, it's just this is filled with crud. Wow. Okay, what we're actually looking at.

There is a re-enterable silicon gel that allows the pressure to come through, but no moisture. So there you go. So all the all the particles. Someone's had far too much fun with this watch and uh, it's just all collected in there.

but it still would have worked, still to work to treat. So yep, and our temperature sensor looks like it just screws out. Oh look at that. Neat.

Wow. Didn't expect that so I can't get that apart any further. So I'm going to assume that, uh, at the end of that is a uh, thermocouple and they've just like isolated that from the case. basically using that method to isolate it.

uh, no from the case. and also, um, you know any uh, radiation coming, uh, directly off your skin as well. So that's an interesting way to do it. I don't know, does anyone did? Anyone has got one of these and they've had how good is the uh temperature sensor in it? Uh, when you're actually wearing the thing? So yeah, it's an impressive amount of uh, technology that, uh, goes into all this.

not to mention like you know, low power asic design for getting. Yeah, I don't know how much how long the battery life in this thing is if you do leave it in the comments, but you know it's got to be pretty decent. and uh, these things aren't uh, cheap. They do sell these for, you know, many hundreds of dollars I believe they're you know, worth a pretty penny.

So they're not your, uh, traditional, you know, five or ten dollar, uh, throw away watch. but um, yeah. impressive amount of tech that goes into just a mud master watch. Thanks for sending that one in.

Brilliant! Should at least have my own merch on. Yes, you can still get this at my teespring store linkedin down below. Anyway, Hi to all my viewers in Germany. thank you very much! Uh, aka Module Bus computer.

Gee, I wonder what's inside here may not be a Module Bus computer, but all right, we have a note. We have another note or is that instructions? Oh, look at this. Oh, we've got some oldie stuff. Oh, look at that.

that is a homemade decade resistance box. Isn't that sweet as Wow? It's um, it's not your usual, um, sorry, Lc, Lcr, Lcr box. All I saw was the resistance knob. I was going to say geez, that's not many decades, but uh, it's an Lcr box.

Wow. Homemade jobby. Um, so I assume like it's a kit or something like that. Sweet bonus.

Here's something you don't see every day. It's a development board. A breadboard development board that supports tubes. And yes, they are tube sockets on the top and we got some that's great for all your hey if you want to develop with tubes, this would be very handy.

Now I've done a video on building your own decade resistance box before and it's something you should have in your lab. Um, this goes one further as well as you can get decay, capacitance boxes and boxes decade inductance boxes. but this one is an uh Rlc box. It tries to do all three in one as well as having fixed value resistors here like this.

so you know if you don't have like a major range. but you know it's good enough for just experimenting and stuff like that. But you also have Verniers up here 10 turn Verniers very nice and you can actually put R and C in like you can isolate the resistance. like that, you can put R's and C's in parallel and R's and C's in series as well, so that's very handy.

The capacitance um is rather than a decade type thing. It's got all your common values but two separate inner and outer ranges. high and low like that. So high would be the larger values would it? but with this inner ring goes from 15 puffs around to 6.8 puffs.

So it's like so the inner ring goes like low to like really high. but anyway, it's obvious high obviously means the higher value of that and you can put the inductors and capacitors in parallel as well. anyway. um, it's open source hardware, so you can download the Eagle files for it so you can make your own.

This one's 269 euros, so it's pretty pricey. If you want to build, uh, buy the build-up kit. It's obviously designed for educational. You know, labs and things like that.

You know, students experimenting with things hence why series and parallel and you know stuff like that. Really quite nice. I really like the uh, binding, uh posts on it. That's really quite neat.

and uh, the box is a bit how you're doing though. like there. I yeah, it's just a bit too big for its own. its own good there.

um I think. Anyway, let's pop it open. Oh well. hello, isn't that beautiful? Wow, I really like that.

Look at the beautiful wafer switches they've got down here and I love how they've like manufactured the board to then just dump solder directly in there and they've got the individual little. This is a really nice elegant design. I really like it. So the Pcb like they've extended the routing out there with the contact.

So what you do, you might think, well how do you get the board in there? Well you shove it between the pins like this and then right so you lower it between the pins like this, all these little protrusions and then you rotate it just like that until it's in the middle of the pins and then you solder it on there. That's just like that's really. Oh, actually you could put it from the other side. Yeah, no, I stand corrected.

You could actually just do it from the front side. There's no need to put it through there and actually rotate it. I was getting all fancy pants in here, that's just no need to do that. Um, but there you go.

They've obviously got room for like surface mount um, parts around the edge here. so obviously yeah, they got them on the other side under there like that. so I don't know why they got top and bottom. This is the deluxe version.

There is a standard version, not sure of the difference, but anyway, so there are all our resistors. They're just like standard. uh, like a 1206 one percent, uh, tolerances. Nothing you know, particularly, uh, fancy.

There's the Vernier for those playing along at home. made in Mexico? Hi to all my Mexican viewers. Um, and the little and the capacitor board isn't that very nice. There's going to be some surface mount ones on the bottom absolute node, yet, yet there's actually two layers of boards down in there like that.

Like, and there's your surface mount inductors down there. There's a lot of work that goes into building this, so you know. But as I said, like, you can actually build this yourself. You can download all of, uh, the files and things like that, so it'd be nice if I you could engineer this to be like smaller.

Like my first thought when I got this is, geez, this is a really big box. Um, you know, why does it have to be so deep? Well, you know that's why there's a lot of depth in there for the caps and the inductors and other, uh, stuff later. But the switches as well, you know. So if it could be engineered in like a lower, um, form factor solution, uh, that'd be very nice.

But geez, isn't that like? that's really, that's really nice. That's one of the nicest implementations of an Rlc box, just from a physical construction point of view that I've seen. I really like that approach. Anyway, it turns out, Roger Leafert thank you very much.

Has he started? uh, Kanka Labs? Anyway, it's got a Youtube channel, so I will, uh, link that in down below. So uh, yes, it's in the mailbag. Everything that's sent in makes it under the mailbag. Yes, they do sell worldwide.

And there's the online shop linkedin Uh, down below as well. And uh. we've got the vacuum tube kit here. Oh, by the way, he's up to ten thousand subs.

Absolutely fantastic. So uh, yeah. give him a, uh, subscribe. I'll link the Youtube channel down below.

But anyway. um, yeah, we've not only got that, but we've also got this. Um, this is the Rt 100. Um, you know, valve experimenters? Uh, kit? model module bus, Modal bus? I'm not sure how you actually pronounce that, but this is really nice.

We've got the screw terminals over here. We've got various side jacks because of course, one of the things you want to do with valves is you want to design like audio, uh, stuff, and things like that. So you want, uh, you want your power and you want your audio in and out. and um, yeah, it looks like we've got a big pot over here and then we've got a couple of other pots over here and all of this, all the pins for the valve sockets here.

various different types. I don't know my particular valve socket types, it's not my thing, but anyway. um, yeah. and then you've got a basic, uh, breadboard to have a play around with it and all come to uh, standard headers that you can just use standard solid jumper wire to transfer over to the breadboard.

And it comes with a kit. This is a 106 Euros kit and it comes with various Um, valves, tubes, and various parts you can have an experiment with, so that's quite neat. Anyway, thanks for sending those in. I'll link them in down below if you're interested.

They're a nice bit of kit. Not sure if this one's a mail bag because it doesn't have mail bag on it. Anyway, it was sent to my old address, one set to my Po box. It was sent directly to the office here.

I guess we'll find out if it's something I've ordered or not or whether or not it's something a company has sent in. No, it's a yeah, they've sent this in. It's another mini ware product. It's A.

it's a Preheater. Geez, when they say when they say mini, they really mean mini. That is tiny. That is tiny.

Look at it. That's the tiniest preheater I've ever seen. That's fantastic. Oh oh oh.

it just came out. Oh, that's rather nice actually. but that's all you know. Like it's not designed for a whole board unless your board happens.

unless you're designing a watch, Pcb, or something like that. Um, then you wouldn't really need a preheater because there's no thermal mass in something like that. and this is like for getting under Bgas and stuff like that. So yeah, that's like it's all practically exactly what you want just for.

like, single. Like, you know, isolated component heating. Because you don't want to heat up your whole board just to get one part off. you only want to heat up just under the component you're trying to get off.

In this case, you know, square form factor. It's obviously designed for like Bgas and stuff. Okay, this is uh, designed by E-design Mini where you'll know those, um, from, of course the famous Ts-100 and Ts80 soldering irons which I've done videos on. This is the Mhp 30 and it's got a little, uh, temperature display.

It's a preheater you can stick your board under Anyway, I'm really quite nice. It's like a retar. Get it on Aliexpress for about 85 yankee bucks. Rubber off the top.

there. There you go. It's like a a ceramic plate on top and that actually pops off. That's really quite nice.

I like the interconnect system there that's really neat. So is that to light it up? I think that's a is that a lead is it? And then there's a light pot. Yeah, I think it's got a wanky light to light it up and a little, uh, display. There we go.

So it comes supplied with the really nice, uh, lightweight, flexible, uh, silicone Usbc cable that is supplied with the Ts80. Uh, so it looks like the same one supplied with the Tx80 soldering iron. and we get a dodgy adapter here. let's have a look.

Um yeah, it's the Usb Power Delivery. Uh one. I think we did. We get that with the Ts80.

But anyway, weird ass plug on it. Um, and it's get like completely not labeled, like there's nothing on it. Um, I. I've actually never.

I don't think I've ever seen a plug pack that like, like has absolutely no labeling. like usually there's some bogus markings or something. but geez, I don't know. Anyway, yeah, that is Usb Power delivery and you get a little manual.

This appliance can be used by children aged from eight years and above. Okay, yeah, my Preheater needs a firmware. Update: Great specifications: 100 to 350 degrees Celsius. It's got various, uh, preset temperatures, 60 watts output power max, and uh yeah, it's of course it uses the Us 20 volt Usb Power Delivery heating part.

I love that. Well, it's accurate. Stainless steel heat insulation, bracket controller, Oled screen, and Bob's your uncle. So you know it's like like it's really incredibly simple.

but I like the way that they've engineered that. That is just that. You know it's perfect. Doesn't take up any space on your bench at all.

You could store that anywhere. Of course, you know, like the plug pack's bloody bigger than the thing, but um, yeah, that is quite nice and does exactly what you want. Of course, like the hard part is often, um, like getting your board, but you've got to have like a stand to get your board. Uh, you know, one of those helping hand things or some other frame type system to get your board on top.

And then once you've got your board raised up. Um, you can just sit this under there, like that. You know, a little minimum distance away. Um, from the board that you're high trying to, uh, heat up.

and um, it should work. a treat. And just as a reference or the Pcb. Oh, that's a coincidence.

That's a coincidence, isn't it The Pcb? Aight. Although, um, this is the new one. Um, I think I've got another one which is, uh, slightly higher than that, but that looks bang on. No, no, it's slightly under so you would have to.

Yeah. The board. Yep. So if you use your uh, Pcbi, I'm sticking to it.

I'm sticking to it. I'm not going to call it Pc bite. it's Pcbite. Um, and yeah, so you might have to, uh, just raise these up a little bit more.

And yep, there's my older one. That one's higher so I'd use that. That'd work a treat. But then you'd have to raise this up a little bit to get to your board.

But that's easier than trying to raise all four of those. Okay, I've powered it up and uh yeah, you might recognize the interface. So yeah, the buttons are on the back. So there we go.

Here's our temperature scent. Uh, temperature. Let's just go for 220, shall we? It's got a sleep timer anyway, so let's give that a bow up. Oh, it started.

Oh, I must have accidentally touched it. I was gonna say there we go. it's heating up. It's heating up.

You don't expect it to be quick. This is not, you know, doesn't need to be soldering iron quick. So however long it takes it takes, No wuckers. I like how it's got a little timer on there for how long it's been on.

That's kind of nice. Can you like set? It'd be nice if I had like a you could like set a timer. Um, when you're like just put it under and started. But I guess you know, like usually you just put this under your board and then you turn it on.

So it's the amount of time, but you know ultimately you want to know. I guess the amount of time it stays at that temperature so it's hard to tell unless you've got a temperature monitor on your actual Pcb. So of course. so even if you've got this, uh, directly touching the bottom of your board, then you don't know what the board's actually at because the thermal coupling is going to be meh.

Anyway, let me get the, uh, whole thermal camera out and see if we can measure it. There we go. It did, uh, it is set to 220. It did like it's overshot a little bit.

no walkers and it's going back down kind of, yeah, slowly. And there you have it. 225. that's good enough for Australia, no worries.

So yeah, that seems to regulate fairly well. And yeah, I look, I won't. um, experiment in this mailbag video with doing a pre-heater uh, stuff. You've seen me use preheaters before and they work.

They're unknown technology and it's all in the art of for what particular device that you're using, what particular board, density and material, and the amount of cop embedded copper in there. And there's all sorts of what type of solder you're using, all sorts of, uh, stuff, which goes into the complexities of, uh, like, desoldering, Bgas and things like that. but this is just really cute and handy. I I really like it.

I think it's very well worth having in your kit. Um, like because I've got like a giant preheater, which you've seen me use to do all sorts of stuff. and it's absolutely enormous. Takes up so much room.

It's great for heating up an entire board, but usually that's not what you want. You just want to heat up like one part and that's it. and something like this. Absolutely tiny.

Uh, does that and that's not getting really. it's getting a little bit warm, but nothing. uh, hot to the touch. And that.

That works really well. And I like the way that they've implemented the contacts and everything else. and it's probably like I can't imagine you're needing anything really bigger than that. like there are, uh, Bgas that are.

I've used Bgas that are physically bigger than this, but not by a lot. Um, and it'd still work as a, uh, pre-heater So yeah, I like it. It's really cute. Check it out! Hi to all my viewers from Deutschland again.

Um, thank you very much Thomas Mayer butchering that one. But anyway, this one sounds intriguing. It uh, did Spoiler alert. Historic Electronic components.

Not just vintage, but historic. So I didn't want to be like, I don't know, was it used on like the Apollo Moon landings or something. The Snappista: a new way to trim your circuits. Classic.

The snappiest stuff. You snap it off. I presume what you get, your plot, is it like serrated and your pliers? Or you tr trim it because you've got a snap. Like if it's a snappy start, you have to snap it so what? I don't see any score marks on there.

Oh wow. In original packaging? Fantastic. Yeah. You trim the sections by breaking them off with the supplied pliers.

This is not going to end well. The snappiest. This is just fantastic. Thank you Thomas.

Um, he said. he tried to snap these off and it wasn't really that reliable. Wonder how many you get in your kit? You want to get a decent amount in your kit? Jeez, so we don't have anything else on there. Let's have a look to see what you get in the snappiest kit.

Um, like who actually does this? I'm not entirely sure. Hang on. There's still nothing that indicates who manufactures this at all. Hang on.

Oh geez. Oh, this is all. Wow. Look at this.

Look at this. Wow. Finland hi to all my Finnish viewers trimming a Snappista Helsinki. Can anyone date this? Please leave.

Or if you've used these, please leave it in. the comments down below. Snap history is trimmed by snapping pieces off the substrate. Some comments on snapping and handling my I've used notch pliers like those in the kit to ensure one piece is snapped off at a time.

Ordinary pliers will also do, but you can improve them by grinding a transverse notch across one of the jaws. Oh wow, that dates it, doesn't it? Look at those gigantic axial resistors. And yep, and yours. Your snap is stuck.

Just mount it vertically and then just snap it off. The value you need to trim your circuit. Oh, it's just. this is gold.

Oh, this is how to modify your pliers. Do we get? Do we actually get the modified pliers? Yes. Look at that. We actually get the modified pliers? the special snappy suppliers.

Oh, this is just this is gold. Proper grip of the pliers before snapping pliers vertically properly placed on the other side of the snapista. What off to one side like that? Oh, really. You don't put it on top and you don't hold it.

gentle. Squeeze the pliers. Oh, we'll break this right along the scrib line. Okay, so we'll have a look, um, final resistor trim to see you trim one at a time until you've got the value that you want.

It's a new and different trimmer component. Before starting your experiments with it, we suggest you read some essential facts. The Snapista is a thick film resistant network on a ceramic substrate. prescribed lines on the backside of the Stratum straight, divided into ten parts.

These parts can easily be snapped off one by one. Each snap is increasing the resistance of the snappister by 20, right? So they've got them all in parallel. and well, you can see that you can see them physically, all in parallel and snapping off one at the top. And of course, the length means that they got different Uh values and snapping off the one at the top.

It looks like increasing the resistance by 20, giving a five-fold increase in resistance when all nine parts are broken off. Best use when the cost of summit trimmers is too high. Yeah, these pesky sermon trimmers are expensive. Does it actually give you a temp co of these bad boys? Um, uh.

initial value Tcr 100 ppm. There you go. Not exactly going to set the world on fire, is it? Um, for a ceramic substrate? Hmm. reliability.

with thick film technology, you can set the gain of a transistor. I love it. Um, the designer snappistickit initial resistant, right? So we've got like the hole so you get the whole kit. So anyway, this is.

this is groovy. I love this groovy baby. So check this out. Look at this.

Oh, there we go. There's one that uh Tom has, uh, snapped off. Brilliant. So yeah, it looks like we have a whole kit of these.

like 10k to 52k. Oh no yeah, they're all 10. Yet they're all 10k to 52k. We've got 1k to 5k.

2.. and we've got oh, they're They're why. Why are those ones green? They've got like a a, um, a mask on them. Um, that's a hundred ohms.

So they're actually a different physical type than all the rest of them. 47k to 240k? Neat. That's terrific, isn't it? There is the snappista. Oh, this is just.

this is fantastic. Ah, why didn't this catch on? And there's the other one with the uh, solder mask there? So oh yeah, you can see. You really see the score lines on the back of that. You can't really see it on the other side.

I reckon there's green one. Oh no. okay. oh, if you hold it maybe at the right angle, you might be able to see.

Get the light at the right end. you might be able to see some score lines. But yeah, I think they've improved the design in this model here, right? So here we go. I'm going to try and snap this side.

It shows to one side, doesn't it? Oh oh, that that? That came off really nicely actually. Wow. that's actually that's really groovy. Do it again.

Yeah, uh. Thomas said he had problems. I I had no problems whatsoever snapping those. No worries.

All right. So let's just measure this one before 105. Ohms, there you go. Let's get in there with our special pliers and once again, uh, to the side a bit.

Yeah, yeah, that that snaps off beautifully like a ball one. What? does it measure now? 125. Nice. Thank you Thomas for sending that in.

That is absolute classic. Um, hands up. If you knew about these things, did you use them back in the day? When did they first come out? How long did they last? Um, did they ever make it out of Finland? Was it? I don't know. The snappist.

Beautiful. Oh oh, it's from Aliexpress. Um, it has come in the black wrapped plastic like this. Um, yeah.

so straight from the Shenzhen Market. Oh God. Oh no. Oh well.

no no, it wasn't quite. It wasn't all right. Yeah, no. we had one of these.

Oh geez, didn't we I? I'm sure we had one of these just a little bit ago. We had like, is it almost identical one? Yeah, I don't think it's the same one though. So oh oh, that's oh, that's crusty. Oh, that's just skin crawl.

Terrible Muriel. But okay. quick. Yeah.

one minute tear down. Do I have to? This is just like, oh, really, Oh god, that's the worst case clip I've ever seen. Oh, it's just no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I just hate everything about this. Anyway, some people are fans of the form factor of these, uh, kind of meters, but this one does actually have non-contact voltage detection.

Wow. fancy, pantsy. And then you open it up and it's actually not too bad at all. I guess they've got a ceramic fuse in here? They've got a Ptc? Uh, it doesn't look like there's a mob unless it's on the other side.

But anyway, nice attention. Like the battery compartments integral with the uh case. Like this, they've attention to detail with the silicon down there, don't necessarily like the, um, no the or the lack of, uh, strain relief on that. Well, there's some kind of sum going around the bend there, but you know, not terrific.

but it might do an okay job anyway. Um, there's your non-contact uh detector over there on that side. Um, but you know we've been blobbed. But and it's got metal threaded inserts.

So up. Like as far as the form factor it goes, these are. This actually almost seems okay. Anyway, it is very interesting that it's a single triple a.

Um, like yeah, it's a there's your it's got to have a boost uh converter to um, get this thing working. But there you go. There's our Ef detection and it's got the Milliamps Beeps rotational. Not, you cannot or you can get it to a point where it doesn't work at all because the ground is in between there.

So you know, not the best. But it does a visual as well as audible and it's beeping at me just picking up um and just touching the probes and doing stuff. Yeah, okay, so I'm going to push our function button there. Continuity tester.

Yeah, no, yeah, that's it. Oh, visual visual as well. Oh you know, look, oh god. I'm not gonna review this thing.

but yeah, I don't know. I might have to get a grudging pass on this for its um, form factor. Like, if you're you know, really set on these form factors. The non-contact tester might come in uh, handy or something.

but you know, like I've done a review on pocket multimeters and I like, yeah I there's better ones out there. So Germany again. What is that third sucker? The Sev hi Dave I got a digitized digital test something. It's from an in-circuit test system.

thank you from Aaaa. That's all they got their name as um, so let's have a squeeze. Oh okay, it's a looks like ah, ah, that's interesting. Ceramic Hybrid Jobby There it is.

a ceramic, uh hybrid and I used to work at Uh, Gc Marconi at Meadowbank here in Sydney and they actually had their own ceramic, uh, hybrid manufacturing uh, facility. And anyway, like it's torn down, it's like the whole place has gone. Now it's some bloody. It's just some stupid residential, uh, complex now.

Anyway, I do. They do have, like, I think there's a lane called faraday lane or something and that's like the only thing left of it anyway. Um, that was quite sad. But yet the reason you use uh, ceramic hybrids is so that you can mix, uh, like, you know, ceramic hybrid technology, including like, resistors and capacitors and and stuff onto the ceramic substrate.

and there's various advantages. Uh, to that, which you know at the real, uh, high end. That's why they use a ceramic hybrid resistor divider. uh, networks.

Uh, For example, in like your real high-end seven and a half, eight and a half digit uh meters and stuff like that. Well actually not just the high-end meters. my new Uh Bm786 a multimeter. It's got a ceramic hybrid resistor divider in it just gives better temperature coefficient more even.

You know everything else, you can match them better. But yeah, and typically the only reason you do it is and you wouldn't just solder regular components onto a ceramic substrate board like this. There's almost practically no real advantage, uh, to doing that over like, you know, fiberglass board. But where it comes in as you can see, looks like they have combined some little itty bitty teeny weeny um, ceramic and they resistor networks.

But it almost seems like you wouldn't go to the trouble. Why would you not just use your regular off the shelf parts and a fiberglass board? So I don't know. Maybe there's some sort of like thermal uh, performance reason for it? But anyway, you can see down below there have they done some uh, trimmy trims? It's almost seems like a waste. But anyway, if anyone has any idea what this uh puppy's doing, it's a, um, yeah, just a mix of hybrid, uh, technology.

You know there's maybe some thermal performance reasons they're doing it something like that. What it is, I don't know, is that a H bridge. If you get right in there, you can actually see the laser trim marks on those components. So if we got some caps and some resistors in there and there, they just laser trim those out.

You can see the Ernie Bernie marks in there on them. So yeah, they've trimmed them out. but uh, you know, I don't see like any big massive arrays or anything like that. Okay, they've They've individually trimmed them and maybe that's like probably the reason that they've gone to uh, ceramic hybrid Technology to, be able to like trim these circuits.

It's probably a critical aspect of it, and they decided laser trimming on a ceramic hybrid is better than select on test parts or sort of laser trimming parts in some other way after the fact. So there's a reason behind it. But yep, let us know in the comments down below. If you uh, know exactly what's going on with this bad boy, I'm sure you could get some part numbers and maybe do some sort of reverse engineering on that.

I know all my viewers in New Zealand, I won't do the sound effect. this is from Magic Dac. Geez, I wonder what it is. Magicdak.com can't possibly guess what this could be.

Not that I have any idea what a magic deck is, but you know, usually the name's a giveaway multiple thing. We have a, um, acrylic cut things or you know, all the rage. These days all the kitties are doing it. Geez, that's a fairly hefty feeling Usb called good Old Pin Header Thermocouple is.

We have extensive documentation. By the look of it, it's thick as bro. It's the magic Dac there it is. Got some proper relays on there.

now that solid state rubbish. Hang on. That's just the interface that is your magic Dac and I don't mind these plug packs. You've seen them like it saves like inventory and stuff like that.

When you're manufacturing around the world, you just supply the required adapter. I hate it when companies like supply all the adapters even though they're only going for the one market and you just snap it in like that and you got yourself your plug pack suitable for your intended market, rather like them. So Sean is the Ceo at Magic Deck. hi Dave.

I found I was wasting a lot of time constructing custom test fixtures for development and end of line test purposes. Yeah, been there, done that. Uh, so I created a generic test module that contains all the commonly used features. I also developed super easy to use Python api for a 14 bit Usb Dac to pair with the module.

There you go. So you know api. You can do all sorts of uh, scripting and interfacing. It's got a test module plus minus five amps, low current measurement into the micro switching relays and stuff like that.

That's the board and main board that we saw. Static power output, variable power output voltages um, you know, to power sensors and whatnot. Uh, voltage measurements Uh, plus minus 10 volts input digital I O, analog output, Pwm and sine wave pulse counter And there you go for battery life testing. Yes, you could certainly use it for that.

um, battery charge discharge and all that uh, sort of stuff. But of course you know you've got to write your own scripts. I don't know what ones he actually uh provides, but basically end-of-line test fixtures. Yeah, I built test fixtures that look pretty much like that.

Custom built for holding down boards and probing them and and uh, testing them and automating them and stuff like that. So Sean at Magic Deck he is offering a discounts. So for Eev blog fans, so go check it out along with educational discounts. So here's the board that we're actually looking at: 1.1 I like the logo with the magic hat with the traces coming out of it.

That's pretty groovy. So yeah, I can see I'm having one of these. um, handy to do production tests. Yep, could have used this over the years for sure.

Okay, so the current uh sensing is designed for uh, various uh, resistor current shunts. They even give you the part numbers. Fantastic. So yeah, you just hook those uh to your circuit under test and then you can use the magic dac to measure it.

Low current measurement plus minus 100 microamps, 25 nano amps resolution by the looks of it. Yep, Yep, yep, Yep, it's all just you know, basic current shut stuff and things like that. Geez, this is all pretty comprehensive documentation. I'm liking this.

measurement resolution. all sorts of stuff. Anyway, yeah, we won't go to town. Provides the mechanical interface as well which is very nice.

and then you've got the Usb adapter thing itself which we'll take a look at. Benchtop Automation Uh, testing has it got uh I assume like you can do well. You know it's got trigger capability and stuff like that, but it looks like it's all. I don't think there's like a just a like a general purpose off the shelf app.

The idea is that you know it's like you can't just use this off the shelf, You've got to use the api and it looks like, uh, compatible with Magic Deck off the Shelf test jig. Is that that thing? We saw a physical one we saw before? But so yeah, it doesn't say anything about a general purpose app. It's just, uh, Python api type stuff. I have to check out the website, but anyway, there you go.

That's a groovy little case. Um, I like this. It comes with a adapter that plugs that in there, so that's rather nice. Oh, that's a din rail mount, is it looks like it? So yeah, there you go.

The din rail mount just screws in there like that. I like that. That's neat. There you go.

Got that apart. There's inside the magic deck and there's not much else to it. There's an arm. uh yeah.

Stm32 micro and uh, Bob's your uncle. Doesn't look like this. Usb isolation though. So yeah, it's all electrically connected.

Just be aware of that. Uh, if you've got any, uh, grounding issues, how not to blow up your oscilloscope video and all that, uh, sort of stuff. So yeah, it's an Stm micro with a uh, there you go. There's our Adc interface.

I can't actually read that from here. I'm sure you can on the screen. Hang on. I just realized it claims to be an isolated Usb Dac.

Um, sorry, but I'm not seeing any isolation electrical isolation from the Usb there at all. That looks like it probably goes straight in. Does it not? I'm not seeing it. Anyway, that's 185 a Yankee bucks for the magic Dac, plus, uh, extra for the additional board if you want that.

Although you know you don't need and necessarily need that, you can just interface your own stuff and things like that. and uh, yeah, I don't still don't understand the um, isolation aspect of it. but uh. anyway.

the website looks, uh, quite comprehensive with the Api interface and also, uh, they will just develop, uh, like have services to develop custom test jigs and stuff for you and things like that. so they'll work with you so you know it's kind of like a full service uh, kind of thing. So it does seem quite professional. So yeah, I won't have a play around with it in this video.

but if that's up your alley, then certainly check out Magic Dac down below. And of course, like 185 bucks is nothing burger cost when you're setting up custom test jigs and stuff like that. So yeah, to have like all the Api interface stuff done for you? Yeah, I could have used that over the years. You.