Hi, welcome to everyone's favorite segment Mailbag. Let's get into it. Unfortunately, I have opened this one. so meh.

whatever. Anyway, you may know who this is from if you've watched. uh, if you follow Lewis Rosman, he's actually interviewed the person who sent this. Eric Lundgren.

If I'm pronouncing that correctly, thank you very much from Bigbattery.com or how you may know him formally from. I'm not sure what company it was, but anyway, Um, there was a big kerfuffle about, uh, him going to jail. There's actually a documentary on it. I'll link it in down below.

Um, about him actually going to jail at Microsoft? Um, for like, pirate in uh, Microsoft Cds and like recycling computers and including a Microsoft Cd that you could download from their website. Or was it? yeah? Anyway, I don't know the details, but anyway, interesting story. But uh, yeah. Ever since he's got out, he's formed Bigbattery.com and they actually, uh, recycle like all automotive batteries and all other, like any lithium ion batteries they can get in the industry.

They actually recycle these, and they're absolutely massive. Now, they've got their own factories where they recycle these batteries, retest them, repurpose them, and use them for all sorts of stuff. They've actually got contracts with like half of the automotive manufacturers out there to recycle all Ev car battery packs. and if you don't know, I've got a Hyundai Ioniq Electric car gonna do a follow-up video on that.

And anyway, it's actually been, uh, recalled. Apparently they're gonna recall the Australian ones too, because I don't know. Eight of them caught on fire or something. So they're recalling the whole blink a lot.

and they're going to replace the battery packs in them. and uh, big battery In the Us. They're actually getting all the ones that are being recalled in the Us. They're actually going to repurpose the batteries in those Hyundai Ionics to be used in the charging stations for the new, um, Amazon Electric Truck fleet or something.

Anyway, very cool. So these batteries aren't going to waste. And anyway, totally into Eric's is a totally interesting story. So I'll link in the doco down below.

Check it out what we've got here. Ta-da Look at this. These are actually Tesla Model 3 batteries. Ah, fantastic.

I'm not actually going to do a tear down of one of these bad boys in the mailbag, but if you want to see me like unroll the jelly roll on one of these things, then I can do that on a on the Eevblog2 channel. But yeah, this is a Tesla Model 321 a battery and I've got a whole bunch of them. I'm probably going to have to get uh, one of those, uh, you know, tab welding machines so I can actually connect to these and uh, do something interesting with them. so I've got a whole bunch of them.

Anyway, They manufacture a, uh, a bunch of stuff using, uh, all these recycled Ev and other uh batteries and this is one of their things, which they made for the Indian market apparently. and uh yeah, it's a little portable 300 watt portable battery charging station. I've got two of them, so let's tear one down. So here it is here.

It's in a, uh, extruded aluminium case. It's got that kind of pinky. not really gold, but pinky. uh, the color.

Don't like it. Meh. Anyway, um, 180 watt hour capacity? Uh, 300 watts? Uh. continuous output power 450 watts peak.

So you're not going to be go charging your electric car with this thing. Not that 181 hours wouldn't get you very far. By the way, my Hyundai Ioniq gets anywhere from 10 to 14 kilowatt hours per 100. uh, kilometers? That's kilowatt hours.

So yeah, anyway, this is not going to be a full review of this thing. Let's do a tear down. It's got a little lead display on the front showing you the Uh capacity left: 53 64. Um, yeah, I've I charged this up fully when I've got it.

but it's been sitting here for like a month or something. so as is common with these packs, you will get some self-discharge It's got a couple of 2.4 amp Usb jobbies. Um, this is the Uh 240. Like the more universal um 240 volt? uh well, 220 volt? uh model.

We've got our Ac in also. We've got our solar charging as well, but it seems to only support 42 to 60 volts which is a bit disappointing. This is your uh, regular eight millimeter uh plug which is common, uh to recharge? Uh, like I've got a um, 400 watt hour? uh battery pack. It's got the same connector and I've also got like 100 watt fold out solar panel for it.

Uh, but it's like only like 20 volts. It's not 42 to 60 so I that's probably a bit of a fail. Don't know what's going on there anyway. Small fan? um obviously.

uh, something's heat synced on the side here. So yep. yep, more power devices. Let's open it up.

I was just about to say that this is going to be a problem if we have to like take these off and slide apart the whole thing. but it looks like she might just crack open like this as that battery's on the you have to be very careful. Of course I should have probably discharged this before I took it apart, but yeah. Battery? Oh yeah, let me get the back back.

screws off first, but it'll just lift off all right now. We should just be able to lift this off and nice. That's how you should do it. Beautiful.

And of course what we want to see is battery management. Uh, protection. All that sort of business. And it looks like yep, I can see lots of battery management on there.

First thing I noticed is check that out. Um, there's a connector on there and the cables have been cut off. Why is that a? Uh? Is that a balance thing? Like to balance out this string? Not sure. So it looks like that's all mounted on a big, uh, custom cell frame and the individual cells in are in there like that.

There's uh, two rows of, well, you know, however many fit in there. Um, these are 18 650s. I would be guessing. yes, they must be because the Tesla ones.

Uh, they look a little bit too long because they're your Um. 21 uh, 70s or 21 700s. But you can take the Zero off the end. 2170 means 21 millimeters in diameter by 70 millimeters in length.

And likewise, 18 650 stands for 18 millimeters wide by 65 millimeters long. So yeah, they're 18650, so not sure where they're sourcing those from. but all the batteries they use apparently are, uh, you know, recycled from somewhere and they individually test each like and uh, life cycle each cell. and you know, make sure they're all, uh, good before they reuse them into packs like this.

And then we've got our main board. Uh, down here, I assume it's uh, I think in men might have mentioned that it's custom designed uh by them. I think, uh, don't uh. quote beyond that.

But anyway, um, yeah, that's a bit how you're doing. There's our 240 volts, uh, mains input, no insulation on that, uh at all. and this is double insulated in quote marks so there's no, uh, mains, earth on this thing and I don't know. Is there adequate clearance between the bottom of the pins on the connector down there and that bottom of the chassis that looks a bit tight? Anyway, what we've got.

Clearly, this is our main side. uh, switcher here. and there's our main switching transformer, bridge rectifier down in there. A cap is uh yeah, it's a nothing burger.

It's a it's a hin cos I never heard of it anyway. Um, yeah, there's our low Esr output jobbie. So there's our secondary side there. We've got a isolation slot cut out there.

but yeah, like there's nothing there. Like there's no common mode chokes or any other filtering on the primary side here. So I there's just one. So the Ptc and they look like our primary side uh, switches there.

Then our secondary power supply. this is going over to the fan over here. It's an isolation slot right down the middle there. and then they've got the wire going over.

So this is the voltage going over here to power all of your uh, charging circuitry over here. So um, yeah, that's that's goes off to our battery pack. Uh, there is A. There is a fuse.

There's like a cartridge fuse down there that looks like it's a that looks like an automotive cartridge fuse or whatever they're called. Um, is that soldered in? It's interesting. Yeah, I think that's soldered down. Wow.

To220 flapping around in the breeze? There, it's a bit how you doing So yeah, this section is going to combine our you know chart. You've got to charge the battery. You've got to charge it from your uh, 240 volt input or your uh, solar input which comes on this side here. So they'd just be diode Or in that are they all.

There's a little current shunt in there. Oh yeah, that could be your diode or in there. Um, and then we've got our sine wave generation over here. So this is our sine wave generation.

Here's our driver. Tranny's uh, heat sunk? Oh down there out? Well, we've got other ones down here as well. There you go. They've got silver held in place with uh, seal pads and ah, grease as well.

Um, why do you need both? Really? Because the whole idea of the sill pads is that they take out all the uh, imperfections in the surface of, um, well, both surfaces, the transistor and the uh case that you're trying to, uh, cool down. You don't need the thermal paste to get in there, so you just squish them down on the sill pad and bob's your uncle. But anyway, put down some thermal compound as well. Geez, and the main, uh, on off switch.

That's just a soft switch over here. So there you go. That's why you know you're going to lose some uh battery over time because you've got a little bit of a standby power. I'm not going to bother measuring or anything.

This is not a review performance, this is just a tear down. and then what's that? Oh, there's our lead display down there. so that'll be our little micro uh control in our Led display. I don't know any micro aficionados.

I don't know. You can read that. I can't see it from here. And then that's probably our other controller up there for our mains generation.

and well, that's about all she wrote. There's not much else to say about it really, but there's our mains. Yep, there's our mains output. So these are these four are our direct mains output switching, which in which then of course goes directly out to our 240 volt out.

Once again, no heat shrinking on there. Not one stuff given well. as it turns out, I can't actually get this out because one of the screws is like, um, stripped down there like the head is actually stripped the Phillips head. The other ones were fine so I'm not sure what's doing there.

but um, anyway, I don't want to cut off the insulation here so I I, well I guess no look, couldn't be bothered. It's just a mailbag. It's not a comprehensive review. Um, anyway, it looks like all right, like this board is designed for something else I suspect because these have got like lead outputs here.

So I think they're repurposing this from some other uh product they make. but you know it's probably got all the requisite, uh, protections and stuff like that in it. And you know, cell balancing, All your battery management, uh, stuff. So yeah.

so I have actually, uh, tried this thing and it does work. but once again, uh, not a full review so I'm not going to bother. You know, measuring, uh, waveforms under load and stuff like that. I don't even know if it's a pure sine wave inverter doesn't say anyway.

Um, yeah, just a mailbag. If you do want me to test something specific, I can do that on the second channel. Just let me know down below. But yeah, apparently this is a design for the Indian market.

so you know it's not like they've spared no expense on this thing. It is built down, uh, to a price. But uh, yeah. I like the fact that they're repackaging these, uh, recycled batteries.

They're actually reusing them instead of tossing the damn things. Good stuff. So anyway, check out Eric's website. I'll link it in down below because they're like remanufacturing.

um, like millions of these, uh, batteries. Like recycling millions of these Ev. uh, packs from old cars and doing all sorts of things. And um, like, absolutely like we went from nothing to like the biggest one.

I believe they're the biggest battery recycler in America or something like that. Like they're absolutely huge now. Unbelievable. And they're stuff you can buy.

like massive, like hundreds of kilowatt hour battery packs. Uh, like for home storage. We're using all recycled, uh, cells and stuff. So ah, brilliant.

I love seeing stuff being recycled. Absolutely fantastic. Ah, these bloody self tappers. These are horrible.

Like half of them are bloody stripped now. Ugh. Our workbench of the week comes from Fabian Schwartzu. if I'm pronouncing that correctly, I'm sure I'm not.

Uh, it doesn't say what country, but uh, from the Eu by looks of the email. thank you very much. And obviously this is a Um Rf. uh, you know, test bench.

And sure enough, are these down? Here are 5.8 gig horns here. and we've got a directional coupler amplifier and whatnot. Um, and of course, given that his name, um, he's got Roden Schwartz gear, doesn't he? So unfortunately, he's um, spectrum analyzer only goes up to four gig. and he's uh, it's got a Sig Gen Uh, 300 Kilohertz to 3.3 uh gig there.

You can actually get these. These are quite older units. You can get lots of these fairly cheaply on even relatively cheaply on ebay if you have a good hunt around. So I just got some basic power supplies.

geez, I remember those ones. And those ones. Um, yeah. classic.

Uh, looks like we've got a Bk Precision Electronic load up there. What else we got? We've got A and of course, Roden Schwartz. Yet again, um, European. Oh, we've got the little, which is um, hey Meg, I've got that.

That's a dual branding one. Roden Schwartz Hey Meg, Joel Brandon If they ditched, they just go in for the I yeah because they kept the Hey Meg name for the lower end stuff I think. Anyway, very cute scope. We've got the original, uh, dual channel function Gen there.

We've got some old Philips stuff. I love the old Phil stuff. We've got a old 10 Meg function Gen here and a pulse gin. Geez, Pulse Gens.

They were, uh, pretty popular kits back in the day. you know, obscure bit of kit. I built my own. uh, pulse generator kind of.

I think it only went up to a megahertz or something. or five mega. It wasn't much. Um, wasn't this 50 megahertz job? He? geez.

I would have drooled over one of those as a kid. Unbelievable. Anyway, Oh, we've got an Fsp, uh, spectrum analyzer here. Um, he said it only goes up to four gig, but it says seven gig anyway.

Uh, sorry, three gig he says in his email. um, but it's a seven gig on there so I'm not sure what the deal is. It looks like he he only got one without the Uh generator option. If you are looking for these on ebay, do try and get the tracking Gen option because it's going to be much more versatile.

but he probably picked these up like really cheap second hand would be my guess. And uh, Vector Network Analyzer Vna 4gb jobby. Very nice. So there you go.

Um, that's not hooked up to anything at the moment, but that's a classic Rf bench. Awesome. No, nothing else there, I'd be sure. Yeah, it's probably got more like component bins and all sorts of stuff off to the side.

See no soldering gear, but this is just like a testing Rf testing bench. Cool. Thank you very much Fabian, Hi to all my viewers in the Ukraine. Thank you very much Oleg Kutov.

if it's a silent K I think. Anyway, from Uh. Kyiv, Ki Kiev, Ukraine. I don't I don't know.

Um, thank you very much. let's have a look. No, it's not a hub. It's everyone's favorite segment.

Mailbag. Few people take me to task for saying it's everyone's not my favorite segment. Why do you keep saying it? Take a guess. All right.

What do we got? Pull? pull? Okay Paul, that's it. Oh, nothing exciting happened. No explosions, No nothing. Okay.

Got some capped on tape holding it on. I wonder if it's going to be new or secondhand? Don't know. Mailbag's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.

I see Sma connectors. Sma connectors usually mean some form of Rfe thing. and based on the ground plane there I would say yeah. Controlled impedance.

That match length? Is it? Uh, yes. Match length. Open source hardware. Oh okay.

It's a clock distribution thing for uh, you know, time reference. Like a one pulse per second clock distribution. You know that you distribute it out to all your instruments. It's a, like, a, uh, a lab reference.

You know you have your Rubidium frequency standard, your Gps stand, or whatever. and this distributes your clocks to all your Uh instruments in your lab. Cool. Let's check it out.

Ah, third sucker. The save for O leg. Um. Anyway, here you go.

Uh. one pulse per second propagation delay? Four nanoseconds? Ten megahertz? Uh. clock propagation delay. Ten nanoseconds.

It's open source hardware and software. Apparently, I missed something in a previous video. Oops. Sorry about that.

Oleg. Anyway, um, check out his website and here is the Open Source Hardware Clock Distribution amplifier. Really, I'll call it anyway. There you have it.

Um, just basically a 10 megahertz reference In It can be other frequencies, but 10 megahertz is the standard used in uh, test instruments. And then um, eight outputs here to drive eight instruments all across your lab. So yeah, if you've got one Rubidium reference standard, you don't need more than one. unless you're like doing comparisons and stuff like that.

anyway. Uh, you plug in your Rubidium reference standard and then you can plug it into your scope and your spectrum analyzer and all your other gear. Fantastic. Of course, not all gear has like an external 10 megahertz reference input, so you've got to check if your scope or a spectrum analyzer has that capability.

Any sort of medium to high level scope will or and analyzer will though. So anyway, Uh, one pulse per second control. Not sure what this job is here because do we have a schematic? Aha, we have an overlay. There you go.

Uh, power 7 to 12 volts and these are all the one pulse per second Cmos outputs if you need that many, I guess. So it's input output. Uh, I'm not sure what type of amplifier is used on there. Um, unless we have a look at the schematic, we won't go that far.

But there you go. That's neat. And as I said, uh, trace length matched here. That's what the Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle years in here are.

Of course, what you'd normally do in this sort of situation. Exactly what Oleg's done here. You know you'd start with just your straight one out here because this is going to be your longest path. So you start with your longest path like that.

Obviously it's a symmetrical uh design. so this path length and that pass length here matches this path. Path path, link path length matches and then you add the extra Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Yeah in here to uh get to. And of course you make them a little bit.

just a little bit us out on this symmetry there. This one's sort of like, oh, it's not gonna matter a rat's ass, it's just aesthetics. So cool. Some labs will, uh, have use for a clock distribution amplifier like that.

You could whack it in a custom case or something like that. That would be sweet. Link down below. Thanks darling! Got one from Australia from Lightning source I don't know.

From Dandenong in uh, Dandenong South? Sorry, I don't insult all the uh, southern endangered on Southernians. I don't know. Is there a rivalry between North and South Dandenong? I don't know. I'm not from Melbourne anyway.

Uh, let's check it out. It looks like it. it's looked like a like a book kind of. You know it usually is shipped like books in this kind of thing.

So let's it Is It is. We have a book. We have a book. Oh, Practical Hardware Pen Testing.

A guide to attacking embedded systems and protecting them. Ah cool. Okay, is this A considering that comes from Australia? Here Is this a local author? Okay, cool. We'll have a quick skim through it.

Um, the dreaded pointer. Ah cool. So a Practical Pen Testing Pin pen testing being penetration testing. of course, a guide to attacking embedded systems, then protecting them against the most common hardware attacks.

Sweet. So for those who are into penetration testing by Gene George's Valley Veil, something like that. Um, let's go looks like it's brand spanking about the author. About the reviewers as well.

I'll be very brief on this so let's just look through the uh getting to know hardware and stuff. Small tools and equipment renting versus buying tools. Excellent Cpu blocks, storage block identifying components Oda Furby opening. They do the Furby do they.

Terrific Yc, not arduino. Introduction to C The stride methodology: planning your attack. And then there are all the requisite buses. I squared: C Spi uarts extracting and manipulating onboard storage Wi-fi bluetooth, Ble, software-defined radio attacks accidents in the debug interfaces.

Usually you can find like a debug port on that system, like a Jtag debug port or something like that. dynamic reverse engineering. Ah, I get a mention and the Ev blog forum gets to mention. You will find a curated list of Dmms with their characteristics and comparisons on the Eev blog forum.

Yes, you will. It's actually an incredible spreadsheet. Sorry, I forget who actually, uh, compiled it, but it's kept up to date. It's got like hundreds of multimeters.

It's absolutely incredible. I also warmly encourage you to watch the videos from any of your blog. Dave Jones style isn't for everyone you think, but personally I like it a lot and his videos are always very educative. Educative is that a word? I guess it is.

So I assume that the author is actually um, because he watches my videos and he's like told the publisher, hey, ship one to the Eev log so I think that's how it's turned up and then uh, yeah, I guess they shipped another one of theirs Opening the furby so it looks like they're going to use the Furby as an example. epoxy blobs and things. Traces of the Spi stuff. This is all good stuff.

Balancing your scenarios: type of actor, kid with an Arduino and a soldering iron amateur, a security researcher, criminal group, state actor, or electronics company. Love it. Attacking the hardware, so I don't know if they have anything on like, uh, side channel attacks. like you know, power supply attacks and stuff like that.

I mean, that might be too specific for a book like this. This is seems to be like going for, you know, like sort of accessible kind of. Well, power supply is accessible. Um, but yeah, it's uh, it's a bit more advanced.

logic, voltage transitions, open bench logic sniffer. and you've got your bluetooth and wi-fi's and whatnot. sniffing raw bluetooth. Oh, they get into uh, transmitters as well.

Nice. And then there's a whole section on attacking the software and things like this. This, uh, it looks pretty comprehensive. You probably should have this on your uh, bookshelf if you want to do any sort of, uh, reverse.

You know, not necessarily like penetration, uh, testing, but just uh, reverse engineering. So yeah, I couldn't uh, readily see anything on like a more advanced stuff like you know, power line injection, uh, attacks and stuff like that. But uh, this looks like a pretty good primer. Well worth checking out.

I'll link it down below. well on a roll. might as well have another book from my Brad Surlys. uh, from Flemington, New Jersey so I don't want New Jersey viewers.

Let's have a Squares. Good to see people still publish good old-fashioned Dead Tree books. Fantastic. Oh, that's a hard cover or marvelous magnetic machines.

Building models. Electric motors from scrap. Ah, that's pretty neat. Just got to be careful.

there's no there's no over unity. Woo-woo in here is there? I don't think so. Hang on. No, I think it smells woo-woo free.

It's okay. So yeah, I think this is just. um. shaft and oh okay.

Wow. For all you at motor aficionados, this could be sweet. You're standing in front of an old card table in a driveway at a garage sale. On that table is one quarter aluminium saucepan, a votive candle holder, pieces of some office machinery, and a wooden awards plaque.

What do you see there? If you did not answer a six cylinder radial electromagnetic attraction motor, then you need this book. This is great or author of the Voice of the Crystal and Instruments of Application Returns this time to explore the principles behind the operation and construction of five simple yet impressive model electric motors. You learn where to find and hunt for materials and where to salvage suitable bearings. Excellent.

So the whole look. I mean this is like in this is what they're talking about. Uh, they're talking about. yeah, that's obviously a saucepan look at that.

and that's the awards plug they were talking about. And like building a motor from this. It's like work of art, really. and it takes you in 150 pages through, uh, designing like seven different types of machines.

So let's let's have a quick, uh, flick through. Oh, okay. We got our yeah, got some electronics uh stuff. and we've got a whole bunch of Cad drawings or some nicer close-up color photos.

Beautiful. Fantastic. Um, like the motor aficionados out there are probably wetting themselves because this is just. this is gorgeous.

I don't know what the Christmas motor is, but you can get the book. You can read all about it. so they're You know, they're not anything practical, I guess, but they're more like building these things just from scrap for like, work of art, hobby. uh, kind of stuff.

The Texas Motor. Yeah, it's like a I guess they call it the Texas Motor because it looks like in a, uh, drilling, like an oil. uh, you know, an old Texas oil rig kind of thing. I guess that's what I get with the big armature up the top and the you know, big piston going down or whatever.

So yeah, vectors and vector math. Wow. Well, that's certainly very interesting and novel. Linkedin down below.

Oh, hardcover. Beautiful. I think this might be the first time we've had a second sucker. The server on the same mailbag it's from Lightning Sauce here has it.

Got a bloody pull tab on it. I'm sure you'd have a pull tab on that. Ah, bugger it. Aussie pull tab.

There you go. Um, no, no, it's another one. So they're happy. They're having two sucks of the Sav: This publishing company? Yes, uh.

Pact. Learn Robotics Programming. There you go for you. A second edition on that first edition? Rubbish.

Um, so yeah. Learn Learn Robotics Programming for all you robotic aficionados. There you go. creating pen and tilt code, finding your Pi on the network, so it looks like we're using a Raspberry Pi building a scanning sonar.

Well, it's all happening. Uh, Open Cv of course. Uh, because Opencv is like the thing for vision. Uh, stuff on robots voice communication with a robot using Mycroft? No idea.

Another quick quiz. So Packet Publishing having another sucker. The Sav here with that. Robotics Programming.

Second Edition Build and Control Ai enabled autonomous robots using the Raspberry Pi and Python. Oh, Packet is searching for authors. There you go. I do actually have an open uh invitation with a publishing company if I ever want to write a book on engineering or anything else.

But yeah, writing a book is a metric crap ton of effort. And in the end, I'm actually because I've got such a large audience. I'd be better at self-publishing and promoting it myself anyway. So, but for those who don't have a large audience like mine, then yeah, a uh publishing company like this will, uh, will get your name out there preparing a headless raspberry Pi for a robot backing up code with git.

Oh yeah, all that newfangled get stuff Rgb strips, drive and turn Python. it seems all you know, elementary and then they work their way up to advanced stuff like Opencv and things like that. I don't actually know how easy it is to implement open Cv, but I've heard that you know it's It's not too hard at all because a lot of people have worked on that and uh, they've taken all the hard work out of it. Who's the book? For someone with little programming experience or someone with more experience looking to apply their skills in the hardware project, you do not need to be an expert level programmer.

What does robot mean? So yeah, it starts off pretty basic controllers, Pwm stuff, planning the physical robot. There you go. so it's good to give to like I don't know. you might give this to a young teenager or something like that who's interested in, uh, doing robots.

I mean I would have killed for a book like this when I was a kid but then again, we didn't have like raspberry pies and stuff like that. Back then it would have just been like a a line following robot with a couple of uh, transistors in there as a you know and a uh, photo, a cell and that's you know. Like that's about as advanced as robots got when I was a, kid. Yeah, lots of stuff in here, programming, wiring up sensors, so it really is.

Yeah, it's quite a big book. It's actually, uh, lots of step by step looking inside servos, so that's really good. absolute and relative positions, counting. Oh, we're getting into Pids now.

Are we correcting Veer with a Pid? Oh yeah. okay, Pid stuff. Excellent. I don't think they go into yeah, they don't go into heavy detail on that.

It's like just using uh, Pid programming modules or in program modules or whatever to do the job. Which is fine. You know you don't necessarily know, have to know the intricate details of how to write, you know, Pid loops, and stuff like that. you can just, you know, use pre-written modules, magnetometer stuff, all that sort of stuff.

So as you can see, yep, it's actually quite a thick book. We're talking like 550 odd pages of robotic goodness linkedin down below. Check it out. Finally, we've got one from the United States of America.

Thank you March. Robert Alexander. Uh, from Northwood, Um, Nh, Where's Nh? Uh uh. New Hampshire.

I think I need to check. Yeah, I think I'm right. So this is a homemade something or other which could be interesting. Most people don't home make one of these things.

Um, they normally just buy them all right? What do we got? Got a note? Real? Oh wow. Wow. I've gone to a bit of effort. even got like a silicon rubber I'm out of thing.

Um, it's no, it's not as advertised on the box. It was supposed to be homemade multimeter, but obviously that's more than a multimeter. Uh, well. it does.

multi staff so I guess it's a multimeter. Who says a multimeter has to mess your electrical stuff? This does Utility. Tbid, whatever that is. Logic Logic Analyzer Gps simulator, Servo Pwm you add in, you are there.

Oh, look at that. You aren't in, You are. It's a like a special purpose So like you know there's your Pwm and it's got like a graphic representation of the A Pwm signal showing you the duty cycle and whatnot. You aren't in, You are out.

Wow. Gps simulator. Look, it's got a world map on it. Oh, this is terrific.

It's the Bobby Desla. The first issue is like, um, there's a four-way pin header on this and it doesn't like there's no key on it so I don't and there's no uh uh plus no be a negative ground. Okay, no this labeled. Yep, There we go.

That's cool, really. I mean a homemade special purpose multi-test tool like you know, I wouldn't call it a multimeter because that's obvious. The obvious connotation is an actual multimeter. Oh no, it's called a logic meter.

There you go. because of the logic means it's sort of a mashup between a logic analyzer and a multimeter. The idea is to take certain tools that you might need when developing a microcontroller based system and make them as quickly and to easily make them as quick and easy to use as possible. I think this will make a great commercial product, but I don't want to do the work.

I'm hoping someone will see the demo and decide to, uh, produce it. So hey, if you're out there and you want to go into partnership with Robert, Bob, good on you, Bob Another Robert Rubbish Bob. then on, If you like this, I'm getting contact down below. So there's Bob's letter.

Uh, and yeah, I've had it for a while. Sorry Bob. There's a lot of stuff that's been sitting on my mailbag bench for a while and as I said, he is looking for someone. um, to if you like this to, then um, contact Bob.

Uh, Linkedin down below. if I got his email address? Well, oh yeah, I'll try and include something. but um, this is one of the coolest things we've gotten on the mailbag. It's a do it yourself look.

We'll switch it on utility, connect the Usb and we can do help. Oh, can we to be determined in Tbt? It's literally Tbd to be determined unimplemented. Oh, that's great. Logic analyzer and displays up three digital logic signals.

And there's the Gps simulator. So the helps. Oh yeah, it helps. Very simple.

Oh, it didn't switch from Gps sim. Ah, is that a bug? look. if I go Help and I switch it. Ah, it doesn't immediately go out of help.

I did. I declare that a bug. but you know, no wackers, you are stuff Sbi in you are in and yep, I mean we just have to hook it up. And Pwm this is really cool.

So yeah, period. Duty cycle. So how do we? Oh yeah. arrows? Okay, well oh Mr.

Key stroke there. Yeah, you could argue that like this sort of resolution screen's not really needed. I mean it's like the fonts like it's really quite small on the screen. So I would say that yeah, not particularly.

You can get away with a much, uh, small. although I guess if you've got a lot of data though with uh, you know, uart and uh, you know, stuff coming in Ascii data and things like that. I guess you know. Yeah, the more display real estate uh the better perhaps.

But uh yeah. I like. I don't know what to think like. I'm not generally a fan of a Jack of all Trades tool.

I'm more of a fan of like just specialized. You know, bits of kit that do that. Like why have a Gps simulator in there? Like how many people are going to need a Gps simulator in a product like this If you're just you know, buying it for its uart and Pwm and logic analyzer capabilities and stuff like that. Although once again it's software, so it comes for free, right? But but the good thing is of course is that the uh, schematic and source code is all available.

It's open source hardware so you can go. Oh, I'd really like really like how he's implemented the uh, you know, the uarts and you know stuff like that, Then if you just want that and a smaller Lcd, you could actually just take the existing schematic and design and software and uh, just repurpose it into a like a more simple, simple, specialized uh tool and stuff like that. So yeah, what have we got on our utility? Connect the Usb to Pc for data access. Oh okay, oh, I didn't us.

Oh yeah, there we go. A Usb port hacked into the side of the case. Nice. This is classic prototype stuff.

Of course we're going to take it apart And the thing with this sort of stuff is a lot of people don't bother building things into cases anymore. You know, with the the artifruits and the spark funds and all those uh, sort of things. they're all just like, um, everything you buy on tindy. They're all like just bare board, uh kind of stuff.

So yep, oh there's our big yeah One board. That's what I expected. Big lithium polymer battery in there. Oh yep.

stuck down with a bit of silastic. And of course that's all you expect is a micro because I haven't looked at the schematic. Oh, I can't even. no, I can't even.

read that. What's an Mz2o4? I don't know. Aha, it's a Pick 32 Mz2048. They just don't put the 32 on there.

Thank you very much Microchip. Um, yes, all the microchip fanboys that go wild. It's still a very powerful uh micro. You know everyone's gone over to the bloody Arm micros these days, but yep, they're good old microchip uh architecture.

Still a winner. Winner chicken dinner. Although yes, I know Pick 32 is Mips. so yes, it should be absolutely trivial to, uh, take this existing work and then you know, adapt it.

uh, for your own use in any way you want. On the hardware side of things though, it looks like the inputs here just, uh, straight into the micro here. So yeah, it's got no, uh, logic, is it? That would be 3.3 volts? wouldn't it is. The Pic32 got, uh.

5 volt logic thresholds? don't know. Do have a genuine bodge wire though. Gotta have a barge wire on a prototype. One of the problems is I have no idea what B A and P means.

Uh, Beulah Bueller. I am getting something, but the software leaves a lot to be desired. It has got auto board rate, but I can't seem to ah, change stuff. Clear up that.

Okay, 9600? I'm not sure actually what board rate I'm actually generating. There we go. I am successfully receiving data and it just ended. So yeah, I'm not actually sure what I'm transmitting.

Uh, but it's certainly receiving stuff. and if we put it into uart out mode, it's just generating Ascii here. I've got it. 9600 board.

And sure enough, Bob's your uncle put in single shot capture mode. Oops, the ground's come off. Let's try that again. And start.

Boom. There it is. Starts with space and then it's It's going up in the Asciis. So there you go.

If you're interested in all or part of Bob's little uh, or do-it-all um, a kitchen sink, a multi-tester thing, then check it out down below at Galactic Galacticstudios.org The logic meter? good on you Bob! Hi to all my viewers in Japan. We don't get many from Japan, so thank you very much. Uh, Keith Sear. Uh, let's check it out.

It's yeah, like fourth suck of the Sav in the mailbag. Well, in terms of books, it's his book. but there's something else in here. There's a toy as well, so let's have a look.

That's our book. This is our toy. So a quick look at a book. This is a book bonanza.

Learn multi-platform assembly language, beginners, introduction to assembly language for Arm and 68 000 and all the rest of it are sweet. Z80 85 6502 Is this new? Or is this like just old? Don't know. No. Yep, this is his own book.

He uh, took the plunge and uh, it's a publish on demand. This is one of these. Um, Amazon publish on Demand print on Demand. So if you don't know about that apparently, like you upload your uh, your manuscript, you know you upload your print files for it and they'll only, uh, print a copy of the book and send it if somebody orders it.

So if you order one, they'll actually print one and they'll send it to you. It's like it's very cool. I'd love to see their system in in place for actually doing that. So that's very cool.

So a lot of work publishing a book? Absolutely, uh. fantastic. It's also included in Ichigo Jam for your amusement. It's a Japanese.

Why didn't we think of that? Answer to the Raspberry Pi. Okay, so it's really okay. It's a kit. It's a Japanese raspberry Pi, A kind of sort of kit you'd go assemble yourself.

Well, oh, we've got a build-up version. Okay, okay, yeah, we've got a build-up version There it is. Check that out Learnasm.net if you want to pick up one of these bad boys. First Edition 2020 and cover Z80 6502, 68, 000.

So if you're into your vintage uh, processors and 8086, Um, that's pretty much uh. the first one I started on was 8086 and then I only got into the others later. And then for you arm aficionados, there you go. So you know what is assembly language? let's have a look.

Oh I like I'm liking the drawings. This is pretty cool. Yep, yep, this is nice. Did uh, Did Keith do the drawings? Oh, a Youtube channel as well for video tutorials.

Cool bites and words of long doubles and floats, Conditional computation, comments in direction, pointers, jumps and branches. Graphic. Oh, it goes into your graphics stuff you. So if you want to do your assembly language like you know, any vintage assembly language, Uh oh.

talking about the Sega Mega and Master system and stuff like that. So looking good? this could be a handy little reference. 6502 references: 68 000 Where do we get into the arms? I've never done arm assembly language. don't know.

Here we go For you arm aficionados. Hello worlds. Where to go from from here? Not a bad reference. There you go.

Keith's the creator of, uh, Cheeky Accumus. It explains what that is in the book. Um, in assembly language and uh. I'll link in his Youtube channel down below.

Check it out for tutorials and stuff. And I just checked out his Youtube channel. I can't believe he's only got 8 000 subscribers. Come on, let's get him up to at least ten thousand.

Maybe we'll get him to a hundred thousand for the Youtube silver award. Um, trust me, there's some awesome content over there. Tutorials, retro programming, stuff. There's just tons of it.

Looks like it's very well done. Hats off to Keith! So this is what Keith calls the Ichigo Jam. But it's got Skyberry Jam trademark. Um, Skyberry Jam.

There you go. It's a yeah. it's a Japanese little uh computer that um yeah is like based on like 1980s uh computers and stuff like that. So it's not up to like a Raspberry Pi standards and things like that.

But yeah, look, it comes in a do-it-yourself kit that could be a this school holidays, maybe with the lock down. Um, this could be a Sagan assembly kit, perhaps. Aha. Surface mount micro already pre-programmed presumably and soldered down there.

That's a bit of a bummer, isn't it? Anyway, it's got it's an Lpc, uh, triple one, four and uh yeah, everything else is. basically. yes, everything's through-hole although they do have like a couple of uh, surface mount, uh, one surface mount, uh, alternative there. and check out the instructions here.

it's in Japanese, so it's pretty pretty comprehensive though. Pretty impressed. Um, that's great. I yeah, I don't know what I'm reading, but of course it's electronics, is electronics.

Um, what is that is that? Yeah, that's some sort of for loop, step instructions, programming basic. So yeah, it's like one of those little basic computers which we've uh, built up before. Sagan enjoyed uh building the last couple that I think and I think he's done at least two of them. Um, so maybe we can build up another one and give it a burl.

What's uh, what's the output? Uh, it just hooks up to Usb, Does it? Is there a? like actual video output? Don't No. I think I found it Rca Jack? There we go. Surely that's uh yeah. composite.

Yeah, it's composite video out nice. Would it be nicer to get like Vga output or something? So thank you very much Keith. Definitely check out his Youtube channel. Trust me, it's a gooden if you want uh, programming, tutorials and vintage uh programming and gaming stuff.

Wow, that's very comprehensive. You.