Hi Welcome to everyone's favorite segment Mailbag. Let's get into it. Hi to all my viewers in the Netherlands. The nether regions in particular are Vogel Dustin.

but I think it's one of those last names goes backwards kind of thing. So I think it's Dustin. first name could be Vogel. Anyway, thank you very much for sending into the mailbag.

P.o Box Set: Yeah, almost forgot, it's only been like a decade. P.o Box 7949 in Norway, New South Wales, 2153, Australia, not Austria. Um, it's been duct taped. So uh yeah, there's no instructions to open it so no whackers.

All right, Here we go. We have a note you have a note. Oh Protective Box Protective Box Protective Box Protective Box Protective box. We have a it is the same Commodore.

There you go. Hi to all the Commodore fanboys. Um, is that Dustin? um with his Commodore collection? I don't know I'd have to read the note. Anyway, we've seen this before, but we had a naked one before.

This time we have. oh it's so cute. It's so cute. It's look, look, look look, it's a pleo.

You remember the pleo? It's even got the munching leaf in it. that plio munches on a leaf. Oh oh look, the battery holder's missing the guts out a little. I've never seen like I've never seen or felt a real.

it's a robotic um. dinosaur. Still got the original naked pleo. There we go.

So that's what it actually looks like with the skin on. And of course I think I got it to do something. uh before. But yeah, I'm gonna have to see if we can hook it up and get it to.

I don't know what it does, it's like like a learning thing apparently. like it's You know it actually learns and stuff and becomes your friend and it's so cute. Feels fantastic. Oh wow.

I think I think Little Huxley's going to like this if I can get it working. This one does have the battery holder so hopefully it can go in there. Although oh no no, that's I thought it was a different design. No, it's got Sd card slot, it's got Usb on the bottom and oh it's so cute.

Sorry not using my good auto focus camera today. This is great! So much fun. All right. I couldn't get Pleo to do anything.

uh, by plugging in the battery adapter that I had. Um, so yeah. I don't know. it could be dodgy contact or whatever.

Anyway, there's three spring terminals uh, down in there, but uh, only two of them are marked so don't know what the deal is. But anyway, um, let's feed in. Uh, six volts. right up the clacker and uh, see what happens? Drew enough all and switch it on.

Oh, 100 milliamps. I think I heard a beep. Come on Pleo. It's got little pad sensors on the feet.

all four at once. No, come on. Oh, come on button. Don't know what the button does.

Oh, come on Pleo. No, it's only drawn 0.2 watts. Um, so it's obviously it's doing something. Maybe if we have the feet engaged when we switch it on 0.7 watts and again, Dustin did say pleo was busted.

Um, so yeah, it just like went into sleep mode or something and that seems to be what's happening. So oh, not sure what the deal is, but bummer. Yeah, I mean we have gone over the innards um in a previous video and I'll link to a which I did in the previous video Donkeys years ago. Um, there's a Ted talk with the designer of this thing actually talking about how it was all designed and everything.

so I'll link that in as a card up here if I don't. Um, please hassle me in the comments and I'll try and find that and include that in. But yeah, it's really cool. Leo is just unfortunately.

um, it failed. Yeah, it was a startup thing and I'm not sure what the why. I don't know. I'd have to watch the uh Ted talk again, but ah, it's nice to have a fully skinned original pleo and trust me, this does, um, feel absolutely fantastic.

It's just I can imagine this just doing its little little baby dinosaur sounds or whatever. So yeah, it's a shame because they you know did put a lot into uh, the design of this thing. I mean just look at the neck mechanism on that. I mean just, you know, crazy.

And the legs are crazy complicated And and just the tail for it to be able to move like that. They obviously pull on, uh, the various rods and things and you can make the tail. Uh, you know, whip around and do various stuff and it's just yeah. it's There's a lot of complexity that's gone into Leo, but I do believe it was a flop.

So anyway, thank you very much Dustin. And yes, this is Dustin with his collection here. um, at thecommodorecollector.com so I'll link that in down below. Um, check out his stuff if I know a lot of people are into the uh, Commodores and whatnot.

So yeah, check out his site. So thank you very much for sending in an original pleo. Ah, it's a shame it doesn't go. Maybe I can do some more work on it and um, try and figure out what's what.

But yeah, I it's so cute. I don't want to take the skin off it. I don't. I don't is skinned pleo one? what? Point Seven I think he was.

He did do something in the previous video I saw, but you can see how like the leg is designed like that. It's it. really is quite. uh, quite an involved effort there.

How to get this thing to articulate properly and do a realistic, um, dinosaur movements? And at least, well, we don't know how the dinosaurs actually moved. I guess we've got a pretty good idea. But yeah, and the workbench of the week today? Famous Xdevs. Um, who is one of the resident vault nuts on the Eev blog uh, forum and he's currently running a the Nano Volta design contest which we've talked about on the Uh Mpower as well.

So yeah, this is an impressive bit of kit. So this is all vault nuttery. This is all ultra high precision, Ultra low, you know, voltage, ultra low current, everything. Uh, measurement and design and measurement.

So I'll look at this thing. this is actually quite a big space. Look at this. and I love the um, the custom like extruded aluminium framed racks and stuff like that.

and uh, interestingly at the front of the bench, we've got the poles which go up like this, so that's kind of. Actually that's kind of handy. you might think they would get in the way, but if you have like stations set up as is common in production facilities and stuff like that, you'll have like individual uh stations so you know you will yourself like everything's set up. So this station here would be for something.

this would be for another. You know this would be like main working and microscope. and yeah, soldering and stuff like that. Another one over here.

this would be a measurement that looks like you know, looks like a lot of the standards are over here and stuff like yeah yeah, there's there's the calibrators and everything over there. So yeah, very impressive bit of kit and thankfully we've got high resolution. We've got a stuffed animal up there and yeah, we've got look like a fluke calibrator there and uh yeah, this is like this is just oh my. This is like the moldy the uh, calibrators calibrator down here.

It's just like insane. Um, the amount of gear here. and this is all like second-hand repaired stuff. Like he didn't just buy these? Uh, apparently.

So yeah, um, hats off. there's like a decades worth of like, you know, actually collecting, um, second-hand stuff, actually repairing these standards. And look, he's got. you know, Smas and Uhf and B and Cs and all the requisite uh stuff.

Keithley parts up here. fluke parts, linear Ics, Dax, and Adcs and um, yeah, this is like this is incredible. This is absolutely incredible Trash can for bad voltage references that are 2 ppm out in the trash. can.

They go. This is great. So that's only the first photo. I mean we've got multiple angles here.

It is. Uh so yeah. this is the oh no, that's that's the calibration bench in there. so this is another angle of it in here.

and this is a reference lab thermostat. Yeah, here we go. Yeah, there's this fluke primary standard up there or one of them. There's a more primary standards in Iraq up here.

Wow. Wow. Like I'm not. I can't possibly go through every bit of kit here.

Sampling with the 3458a, There's the uh, yes, the calibrators calibrator as they, um, call it in there. What is it that's a wave tech? um Jobby? Yes, they luster. When I went to like the Keysight Cal lab in Melbourne, they were went. yeah, this is the calibrators calibrator.

um I.e It's better than the 3458a. So yeah, ah, just just ah. Incredible. And he's proudly showing off his calibration certificates.

Look at this: a standard resistor, Dc voltage, standard Dc voltage standard x, Devs uh, 792.. um yeah, it's an Sr104. Um yeah. and here's the references up here.

Like that would be um, Ltz 1000's would they? Ah Incredible. Yeah, well. sampling with the 3458a and I love the thermal chamber here. I love this.

Like probably has like references in here. just running for months and months and months. Ppm's void if tampered Calibration reject. Um yeah, this is.

ah, this is absolutely brilliant. Imagine having all this kit. Oh unbelievable. So yeah, there's there's one of the uh, fluke 734a Dc reference standard that's a primary with two primary references.

Um, this is just nuts. Come on, Have you seen a better home color like this is better than Cow Labs? I've been to actual Cow labs. This is just. this is nuts.

Oh I wonder what. Uh, I wonder what that is down there that looks that looks interesting that looks like a some sort of like ethernet hub or something. You know, like a high speed bit of it. doesn't look like any sort of like a reference, um, bit of kit.

Anyway, he's got a filled fox that right there is worth a an absolute fortune. Probably picked that up and repaired that as well. And you know more. Keithley bits of gear.

and I don't know what this cast is that. Oh, that's A. Is that a Tektronix? Don't know what that is? Is that actually? Tektronix? I can't Can't read that. I love the wooden boxes up here.

Dmm adapters, programming uh things. Hp Lcr Meter very nice programmable Ac source. r Chroma Yes, they make some nice bits kits. Search for chroma stuff on uh, Ebay.

You won't be disappointed. Although you might be disappointed if you see the price of some of their uh stuff. But oh, that's very nice. programmable Ac source.

Um, it's got. You know, the service manuals down here. Ah, this is just that's great. Oh, he's got a couple of those uh, diff probes down there.

They're pretty cool. I've been trying to pick one up one of those up for years, but they go for like oh, like over a thousand bucks each or something like that. So yeah, he's done some real good ebay and although I presume he's based in the Us, you know you can get gear like this. It's more readily available than um here.

And there's this fluke calibrator of course 5720a. Once again, that would have been fully repaired And calibrated. And just like the vault nuttery, it's got a fluke 8508 reference multimeter. Um, you know that's Obvio.

Is that being repaired? Yeah. Repair required. Yeah. So it's obviously in the process of repairing that bit of kit.

He would have picked that up at some surplus auction or ebay or whatever. And uh, oh, what's that agilent, bitter kit that was, Um, Dc multi? what sort? Oh, it's an Smu, Is it? Yeah. Source Monitor unit. It's some.

sort of. haven't seen that before. Wow. That's an obscure bit of kit.

But yeah, it's is that another calibrator? This is. Pico Volt Meter is a custom pico volt meter. Of course. he, uh, designs and builds custom pico and nano volt meters and stuff like that.

Um, it's just like this is just no. come on reference. This is insane. Multiple 3458 here.

Like how many of them Just come on people are just drooling over this. This is insane. Excellent Copyright Eevblog 2020. Yeah, sorry.

a lot of people who send in these. They sent them during 2020 when I made the call and sorry if I haven't used. There's like dozens and dozens of people whose labs I haven't used yet. so sorry about that.

But uh yeah, that is by far the most impressive lab we've seen. I like, no one's going to be able to beat that. No one. Come on, come on.

There's no way anyone can beat that for sheer amount of high-end gear. that's that's unbelievable. Wow, that is dedication to sort. not only source those, but buy them and be able to afford them and then repair them and calibrate them.

Um, it's one thing to repair them, then it's another thing to, you know, calibrate them and it's just yeah and then go to the effort to get them externally, uh, traceably calibrated as well. Wow, Hats off to Ex Devs! Brilliant! Anyway, link down below Xdevs.com I believe it is. Thank you very much T. Noyce from Craigmore in South Australia I know all my South Australia viewers.

Um, they're not in lockdown at the moment, aren't they? and he has sent it to that crazy Aussie guy. I haven't had that before. It's usually that crazy Aussie bloke and she's heavy. 12 kilos.

What's going to be this heavy is gonna have a big transformer in it or something like that. Maybe an old bitter kit? perhaps? I got no idea. Mailbag's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

Oh hey, hang on. I got a note. Dave. I've done a terrible thing.

I've got a handle, but I don't think I'm going to be able to pull it out so I'm probably going to have to slice her. Oh look at this. Look at this. You can see the base of it.

Check it out. Check it out. We can see it's got per specs on the back. We can see the Pcb.

beautiful Now what the heck is it? Whoa. This thing's a beast. What the heck is it? That's one big ass cap in there. Look at that.

Wow, it's a H7104 D hundred. Oh Five Volt 135 amp power supply. I assume it's a it must be a switching jobby. Thank you very much Todd.

Normally from New Zealand Um, but of course came to the better country because you're allowed to like like New Zealand's are just allowed to come here. We just let them all in. Um, after two years of Adelaide doing some avionics training when I cleaned out my workshop to pick up, moved to Australia, I sent you the underground pipe and oh, cable detector. Yes, that was interesting.

Thank you very much with the rubbery Pcb. I remember that it is the last remains of a Dexvax 11750 that I bought a surplus computer auction in the mid 90s for 25 bucks so I could tear apart and salvage the parts but never got around to it. Yeah, Five Volt 135 amp power supply has an identical size 12 volt counterpart. There you go.

They would have gone into the racks for the Deck Vac system circa uh, late 1970s see some 984 production date codes. Cool. All right. Thank you very much Todd, let's check it out.

So this has spent 25 years. Um, in a leaky garden shed so it's a little bit crusty. but uh, no, these are all like this is like a welded chassis kind of thing. Like front bars to hold it all together.

It's jeez, what. You really needed all that strength in there. Um, I know it's heavy, but geez. Anyway, we can see some pin diodes there for you aficionados.

No, it's not. It's not hinged, but it's a little bit crusty. Not in bad shape at all. actually.

Chung Hing as a Chung Hing transformer, thank you very much. Um, and it's two big Bad Boy capacitors in there, that, uh, nice looking relay up there. Well, a whole bunch of To3 jobbies down here, a couple of vertical boards, and maybe they'll pull out. So what they've done, it looks like they've fabricated.

That's the reason they got this. They've fabricated these, welded them on as like, uh, board. vertical board supports. Wow.

Like, why would you do that? I know it's the 70s, but like there's got to be easier ways to do it. Surely got one board out, and fair enough. There we go. We've got a card edge, a couple of card edge connectors, um, at the bottom there, but there was only one board in there.

Is that actually a dual card edge? Are they just like two separate ones buttered up together? Don't I? So there's one of the boards. No that, uh, solder mask rubbish either. Just a tin plate. Um, Phantom.

Yeah, oh, it's common for the era. And uh, there's one little one little bodge wire. oh geez, that's a tiny little bit of piss ant wire there. Um, I'm not sure what they're budging.

Yeah, what are they budging? Couple of diodes there. Uh, and that dates it 1984. Oh, Orange Nippon Chemicons. rare as Five Five, Six for the win.

Anyway, the other parts on there. It's got like, uh, some Op amps 301 and 339 comparator. And sure enough, it's got digital on there, so they didn't farm this one out. But uh yeah.

the uh. comparator. There's likely, uh, like testing the various rails or whatnot. This could just be more.

It could be more than a power supply. It could like have a power supervisory uh, roll as well. like checking all the rails inside the system. I don't know.

There could be like a master unit that checks them all. And I'm gonna try and lever the board out of here because it's it's really in bad nick. Big multi-way molex on there and ta-da There we go. There's our other board, not much doing there.

I don't know what. a an Sgs? uh. transistor made in Italy? Oh, I don't want Italian viewers. When was the last time you seen a made in Italy transistor from Sgs? Wow, that's really something.

Oh, we've got leakage around there that looks pretty crusty. Hard to say if those caps leaked or whether or not it has come from elsewhere outside. Yeah, I'd say it's come from outside the system. It's kind of eaten away on the bottom as well.

Bias Control board. I was going to say there's no bodges. Yes, there is one tiny one. Of course there is tracks getting eaten away.

Do you say love their triple fives? Or Five Five Six And there's another one Lm556 everywhere. Oh, the Mallory fanboys go well. Made in the United States of America 4500 Mfd. None of that microfarad rubbish.

This is Mfd 200 volts Dc. So yeah, we're doing the mains here. They're probably in series, all right. So I'm going to presume that these are our output caps because these are our output.

uh, bus bars here and that connects through to um, I like screw terminals on the front anyway. plus five volts and uh, return. So yeah, it's just like, what do they just do? is there's some big plug-in connector. Like, despite like the like, discrete wiring comes out I guess and I don't know what.

uh, low, normal high is? Um, no idea That behind there is our big rectifier heatsink. They're the big diodes we I showed before. um, and we've got a thermal cut out switch there. And gigantic is that just a gigantic choke? Anyway, look, Oh, and this goes over to this switching transformer here.

There's a couple other transformers in there as well. Wow. yeah. Anyway, I'm not going to try and reverse the topology of this.

Obviously it's a some form of uh switching, uh converter to 5 volts at 135 amps. because is this? If this was a linear jobby of course? Um, it would have a massive transformer in it. Um, an absolute monster. and we wouldn't have the high voltage um caps on the uh on the main side of it and that's hard to see down in there.

But those are Italian transistors again, and there's a whole bunch of those, so we won't go into any more detail on that because you could go down the rabbit hole and I could do a 30 minute tear down just on this. but made in Italy transistors, those giant ass Mallory caps on there, and oh, it's just absolutely terrific. I don't know if you've got a skull, I'm sure there's schematics of this out there. Um, leave it in the comments down below if you got it.

Thank you very much Todd for sending that one in that spent 25 years in the his dad's back garden leaky shed. It's actually in surprising condition. You could actually salvage some, you know, usable parts out of this thing. Hi to all my viewers in the Old Dart, thank you very much.

Um. M. Walker from Grimsby, Grimsby sounds like a lovely place. Sounds like a very British place, so somewhere in the old art I don't know where Grimsley is.

I'll put up a map here you go. Um, I can't say I've been to Grims, Um, Grimsby. I've been to the Uk a couple of times, have not been to Grimsby. I spent like a week or two in Bridlington, which is on the um.

east coast. There, it's uh, what do we got? Oh, that looks cool. You know? I I assume that's a, uh, that's a product kit. Something like that that looks really groovy.

And we've got another thing add to player Lcd. I assume this is a tear down. Surely surely this is a tear down. I assume it's it.

Looks that looks brand new. Yeah, it's brand new. It's a wrap for our protection. Hi Dave! Been following channel for a few years.

Really enjoy your video so much you inspired me to start my own channel. Mike's Lead Shed Awesome! Check out Mike's lead Shed down below. Not to be confused with the other mic in the old dart. Mike's Electric stuff.

Who does leads? Coincidentally, in the box you will find uh. circuit board. This is from an alarms. Oh, alarm system that uses a 4g Sim to communicate.

Okay, so two teardowns? Okay, Yep. Yep. Looking at it now I can see the telltale signs of an alarm system design. Ah, Lcd screen board at a local auction? The story goes, the do-it-yourself company bought a load of these for their stores, but there was a fault in the order was cancelled.

I bought this for just two pounds. I've been meaning to see if the screen could be used for other do-it-yourself projects. Awesome two-minute teardown. Thank you very much Mike From Mike's lead shed.

And there's Mike's lead shed address, but I'll link it in down below. So let's have a look at this Pcb, shall we? Yes and uh. on the second look, it does appear exactly like you'd expect an alarm panel to look like. And I've done of course the Uh Nes alarm panel.

uh uh. repair. Well, I analyzed like it blew the crap out of it. And then they invited me to a tour of the Nest Factory that was absolutely fascinating which is just near here.

anyway. Um, yeah, you can tell at a glance this is an alarm because it's well, it's got inputs like this. Uh, then some relay outputs like this and you know you'd expect to see like a comparator. Inputs like this because uh, they detect a threshold on the line so that you can't just like, uh, you know, like cut it open or something.

like you can't just cut the alarm wires open. If you do, then it unbalances. You know it's got to have a certain resistance on the line and if it unbalances it, then uh yeah. it sets the alarm off so they do some.

Oh, there's actually three extra inputs there. and uh yeah, it's got some Tx output and stuff and telemetry comms device. Um, I don't know. Is that a Yankee thing? This one here is obviously a wireless.

There you go. a cinterion. uh, chipset. Never heard of it, but um, got a can.

Got a metal can under there. Usually you don't see them metal shield because these aren't high frequency things. they just need like a micro controller running it. You know, bugger all.

And they've put shielding tape around the bottom too, so I'm gonna have to peel that off first. Yeah, you gotta quote the joker in this one. Why? so serious? They have actually soldered the can down. but uh, we can.

Yeah, I'll break that off. I'll just bugger it. I'll just get the flat head under there. We're not going to reuse this puppy.

anyway. There we go. And oh, that's an aptmelt. A bit fancy.

pantsy. Uh, why that needed the metal can? Uh, I don't know. It's an 1891 Sam Joby for you 80 uh, Atmel fanboys and it's got a fair bit of memory there. And what's that other chippy over there? Uh, it's an Ip101a uh, ethernet transceiver.

So this, uh, this is Ethernet over here. I was wondering what that is. It could have been anything. they could have just been using the Rj45 for any you know, a whole bunch of stuff.

But um, yeah, it's nothing much to it. What's under this? And if you're wondering now why they have this, this is for, uh, you can put a Sim card in here. This would be, uh, you know, 3g or whatnot to, um then call your mobile phone if your house gets broken into or whatnot. So and this under here telemetry communications device.

This could be for like, wireless sensors or something like that. And they have to be ridiculously low power too. Um, yeah, okay, right. so Trt1.

I don't know. I'd have to look up the details on this, but there's some analogy stuff on there. don't know what it's doing. and that Joby down there is a Silicon Labs Energy Micro might be one of those, uh, wireless? Um, you know, low power? uh, transceivers? Something like that.

That'll make sense. Yeah, there's not much else on here. you know you've got a lead display to show you. you know, alarm and setting codes and uh, stuff like that.

But yeah, there's not much else I don't see. Uh, there's no ones for dedicated numeric keypads. I think everything. um on this one is, uh, wireless I suspect.

and we've got this ad player thing, corner tape apparently. uh, that's uh, brand new look at that. Still got the sticker on the front and uh, I don't like. is this yeah, one of those things that you'd um have in say they're quite common here now, but they use regular Lcds, but I've seen uh, like a regular, like uh, Pc monitors and stuff, but like a like a little uh display thing for like a real estate agent or something.

They might have like a picture of the house and then it might cycle through and it might have some wanky. obviously some speakers here. so it's you know, probably designed for at least um you know, sheltered outdoor use perhaps. Oh, two-button interface.

So yeah, there's nothing else in it. There's got like a Dc barrel jack and that's you know. and the two buttons and that's it. Aha, there's our Sim card that would have our uh, 256 megabytes a whole megabytes.

Wow. So yeah, that would have our photos or our video slideshow or whatever it is that they displaying with this thing I can. I'll have a quiz. So as you saw on the video there, uh yeah, this was used for like an ad for some silicon sealant, probably in like a hardware store or uh, you know, something like that or that or that was just maybe a test one that came with it.

Perhaps um something like that. but yeah, it looks like it just uh. default plays there's no other files on there, just default plays um the first Mpeg that's on there and presumably you could put more and maybe it uh, plays them in sequence so you can still use this thing. I mean, you know what is it like 12 volts in or something? But anyway, let's crack it open.

just be a single ball computer and a Lcd. got some nice little speakers in there and some uh, somebody had fun with the uh silicon gun didn't they? uh. anyway, where's the boards all the way under the Lcd? Can we? just yeah. I think we there's nothing holding that in.

We can just pop that off and ta-da yeah we're in. Interesting that they, uh, just used a like a button, uh interface board. They've reused it and just run extension wires out to the buttons on the side of the case. But it's all done nicely.

They've heat shrunk it and they've siliconed up the connectors. So they you know this is a rugged little thing. but there's our little single ball computer. Have no idea who runs that? It chips upside down, all the electrons are going to fall out.

but um, yeah, it's just a single board Mpeg player. That's it. So Mike was wondering if you could reuse the screen for something else. Um, I don't know.

It's got no markings on it whatsoever. So yeah, I I don't know. Can anyone identify the screen? There's there's nothing on the side. Maybe you'd have to take off the uh, maybe the outer shield might actually reveal something or something like that.

Um, I've been meaning to do the Lcd upgrade for that uh, scope that I found in the dumpster. Um, and yeah, it's it's Crt was gone. I thought, oh yeah, look, I can do an Lcd upgrade. This might be an ideal size.

Hmm. Unfortunately, this is not a Vga input thing. it's just standalone Mpeg player. But if you Can reuse the screen, get one of those Vga boards then maybe so.

Thank you Mike for sending those in. and check out Mike on the Youtubes. Mike's lead shed, why do all my viewers in China? There's probably not that many of them considering that. Well, you're not allowed to watch me there.

Um, anyway. uh, thank you very much. Um, Zhong Wang Wang from Gengzhao. In China.

It's mailbag. I know what the item is, so it's going to be interesting to see the flavor we do. It's one of our favorite items on the mailbag, so you can probably guess that it's about that size. Make you guess now that size.

It comes from China and it's a regular thing that we have on the mailbag. Big surprise. I don't know what type though, so I presume it's the uh manufacturer or the seller. Ah yes, right.

Okay, we've got a smart A Gvda. We've had these had this Um brand on the uh mailbag before, but this is like a wanky color screen. Why do you need a wanky color screen? I wonder if it's actually really got a color screen in it? So thank you. Um, Tommo Tommo Lee.

Thank you very much Tommo Gvda. Um, let's see. I don't know. Uh do right? Does it have an on off button? Yes it does on the top.

Let's see if it powers up. Probably got to install the battery which comes with it. Probably in here. Oh well, let's go to the bench.

So here it is. wanky color and they've obviously gone for like the mobile phone form factor and well, I don't know. I mean, are they standard, uh, spacing? But I you know you. Maybe I don't know.

You're either going to be a fanboy of that or you're not. Um, but yeah, it's like a big thick brick mobile phone. And compare the size your Bm235. you take the 235 out of the holster.

and yeah, it's thicker. but you know it's it's on par. But a giant screen? Okay, it's color. The digits are probably huge, but uh, no power anyway.

Um, yeah. it's got a lead light on the back. You either like that or you don't. uh.

non-contact foldage detector. That's yeah, not a button. That's just. they're making it look like it's a like, that's the actual contact point.

Yeah, there's no rotary switch. It's all push button detection. so I'm interested to see if they've got any relays in there. Auto Auto power off button on the side.

That's interesting, but yeah, I don't know. This won't be a review. so we'll simply power it up and do a couple of tests and then tear it down. Oh, it is actually a whole.

It is actually a holster. Yep, that's the only way to get the batteries in. It's not easy to get off. Ah, there we go.

Cat. Three thousand volts. Cat Four. Six hundred volts.

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's a bit how you doing. Anyway, it is. Double Fuse 600 Milliamps Only 250 volt.

Uh. fuses though rated, not a thousand volts. Well, it does have a metal threaded insert for the screw, so that's all right. Three Triple A's We'll whack those in.

But you know what you say, You're on the Ev blog. Don't turn it on. Take it apart. Self tappers to get in and change your fuse.

It's pretty disappointing that you know they went to all that effort to put a gigantic cover on the back and not provide fuse access. Um, that. Just like that's a huge oversight. All they had to do was leave the cutout in there.

I I don't know what's doing there. Okay, so they've got a few tabs on the side. Had to pry it. pry it off.

Don't know what's stuck. Oh no, nothing's stuck. Yeah, there we go. Fuses are on the side like that.

They are ceramic jobbies. Actually, I don't mind the look of that. The big high voltage resistor there. They've got multiple, uh, smaller 1206s in series.

Uh, like that. and uh yeah. what's doing? They've got three different strings over here and multiple strings. Multiple strings.

Um, yeah, Oh yeah. that's actually a um input probe detection input. There you go one Ptc. I don't see any mobs, but you know I'd on these sorts of handhelds.

you don't really expect protection, but then you know they just give you the rating of you know, they even put the Um Iec standard on there. and like Cat 3, Cat 4, 600 volts and these are only Uh 250 volt fuses? Are they even right? They even got anything on them. Oh wow Wow. They don't even have any branding at all.

Wow, it's a bit how you doing anyway. that does have 600 milliamps, 250 volt written on it and I'm sure that one's like the 10 or 11 amps or whatever it is. um, but you know it's it's adequate for the front end on a like a pocket in meter in quote marks. But anyway, uh, relay of course.

Yes, no worries. um got some the big diode array there. um what are they doing with the diode protection there? a bunch of along there I reckon there. Yeah yeah, it looks like yeah.

Relay driver? um a couple of those might be protection as well, maybe. But and that looks like our current shunt resistor is it. And that's a Uh protection diode by the looks of it. And it's interesting how they've done the Uh stepped Pcb design here.

I don't think this extends any further under here because it's all it's all screen at that point. So yeah, they've dropped this down to give room for the Uh two standard 3ag fuses in here. and uh, of course, you know, like the relay. um you would have thought they'd put that down here.

maybe to like to give it smaller because that's like by far the biggest part on there so they could have made it slimmer. But then you've got like the jacks and stuff so like there's probably not much you can do there. But um yeah, so it's yeah. there's no point taking it out any further.

We'll just see the Lcd. Uh, what is the chipset? I don't know that Sd Ic? um, that one doesn't ring a bell. The that's the Sd 750, 7502 or 750.2 Uh, this might be a dot in there and the other is just a uh Lcd driver up there. but uh yeah.

just the main chipset. or the main micro. that's a Tm 1729, presumably just a It could be one of those little uh cheap ass um you know, no name and micros. uh from China.

Or it could be like the Lcd driver. but either way. um yeah. that's the chipset and not much else doing but the non-contact tester up there.

It's just like just the actual pad sticking out of there so you know. Look, it's it's okay. it's not gonna. you don't buy it for its cat rating specs.

You buy it because you like the the price and the function. I don't even know what this cost. What is it? Probably 20 or 30 bucks or something. Like it's probably not much.

Um so yeah. but like internal construction is okay. I mean you know the relay. If you had like a magnetic um thing that might you might be able to flip that or something.

but you know it's just it's basic for a cheap ass. you know, 20 30 meter with the pocket meter with like the one Ptc and no mobs. and yeah, whatever. Where's the 10 amp current shunt? That's our 10 amp input there.

it's going into here which pops up through to here. Anyone seen the 10 amp current shot could be on the bottom. Uh look, this is not a full review. I've seen enough.

One thing I do like is the battery contacts here go down onto the Pcb. That's nice and then they just ruined it all with these two wires. Um which B plus is that like the battery voltage wires? Like why? like you went to all the effort for the nice board board connectors and just I have two wires flapping around the breeze. I didn't get it and well there it is.

There's our wanky color display. I don't see how the color adds anything at all really. and if we care, compare the digits. Um yeah, they're actually the Bm-235 I think is slightly bigger.

These are 20 millimeter I believe. These are probably oh no, it's close and of course they've had to like simulate the dial and I guess well, familiarity. But um, like auto function? can we? Actually yeah, we can manually. I don't like I don't trust the auto modes and stuff.

So yeah, there's the Ohms keys. Continuity Diode cap, millivolts. Oh, 50 millivolt mode. That's handy.

It's got temperature probe. It does come with a temperature probe so that's good on a little cheap compact thing like this. Non-voltage contact detector and internal temperature as well. Look little flashing leads down here.

they're telling. that's that's kind. I. I like that actually look there you go.

10 amps. It tells you that's you know, that's that's pretty funky. I like that. So if we go through to the Milliamps again, we'll get the Milliamps.

No lead lead detection. So and flashing leads in neat. Wonder if they come up a different color when you've got overload. Oh, I didn't spot 10 000 count.

That's pretty nice. Well the building Led lights going to get you out of trouble, but it's not going to set the world on fire and well, the first fail is that they provide right angle uh probes which are nothing to ride home to your mum about. Um, and they're right angle. Why? like That's just dumb on a meter that like you have them coming straight out the end.

That's just no, no no no. Completely and utterly wrong. Anyway, let's test continuity buzzer. This bad boy is uh 30 and um 7.50 um Yankee bucks.

So oh geez, that took forever. Nah, that is hopeless. It's got visual alert, but that's a hopeless continuity buzzer. Terrible.

Muriel: Give it a go with gold-plated probes. No, no, at least it's latched. It's loud enough. My standard cap, which is supposed to be bang on no 10.19 It's a little bit out, but yeah, whatever.

it's good enough for Australia. One of the annoying things is like you can't go backwards if you're manual ranging, like you've got a cycle all the way through. and if you overshoot, well why did that go back? Well it's and like if you overshoot, you're gonna go all cycle through all the way around again. So anyway, here we go it.

It'll have yeah. 50 meg right? 99 meg range. Sorry. So that's all right.

The update rate is only a couple of to twice a second or something. ready. Go! Hey, that's really quick. Auto ranging.

Slow back. Wow. Super quick auto ranging though. A lot of people will be happy with that.

And the bar graph is a gimmick because it just updates the same as the screen. It's useless. The whole idea of a bar graph is that it updates like order magnitude quicker than the screen so you can see like fluctuations. No, yeah, most will not have it.

and the contrast of the screen might look good at this angle, but you turn it face on, completely. face on. it might still look, oh it's flickering. It's flickering.

That's I can see it on my camcorder screen. That's got to be the Lcd refresh because I don't have flickering lights here in the lab. All my lab studio lights. They do not flicker.

So um, yeah. and it just vanishes when you turn it up. you know, at any sort of angle. But even 90 is not that great.

You've really got to view it at maybe like it's shallow angles like that. I mean, it's really good at these sort of angles like this, But yeah, the other way is just. it's just awful. It did.

You know it almost vanishes. Like like I can still read. Yeah, that's probably equivalent on the camera to what I'm seeing. But yeah, it's It's not great.

You're paying the price for that stupid color Lcd screen. It's useless resistance 1k. it's a little bit above 10k. spot on.

And the non-contact tester oh hi, low, low. Why doesn't it show the bar graph? So, but if we twist that, rotate that? Yeah, yeah. Rota. I can get that to a point where it's not even detecting that it's shielded by the earth.

Look, it's contacting that and twist it and it works. So yeah, that's that's. pretty piss-poor and the automatic function it does kind of work so does like that. but it looks like the auto function mode only works between volts, ohms and continuity so it doesn't work between cap like it.

just it just doesn't do it because it's a it's only searching those modes there. So yeah, I look, I don't know. I don't like these things. I don't like the color screen on it at all.

It adds absolutely no value. I'm not a fan of having to like cycle through every different mode like that. and the thing's just too darn big. You don't get any value out of it.

All that screen space wasted for what a stupid thing like to simulate your um, your range switch When you know you got like these huge buttons that take up a lot of space. There's just, and it's not a pocket meter. It's like, I don't know, it's some half-assed solution, but it might suit some people. You might like the form factor.

I don't know the price point at like 37 yankee bucks or whatever it is, but uh, neither screen it's It's probably sucks outdoors too. I'm not even going to bother to go outside and try it, but I'm not even going to test this true Rms function. If you want me to do a full review, I don't know if there's enough people commenting a full full review. please? Maybe I can add one on the second channel or something.

But yeah, I don't see the point in the color screen. I think it's an absolute waste and it's just too big. Um, yeah, nah. It's my official verdict.

And the specs are absolute bare bones. As you get, you know, half a percent? um, plus three? You know, 0.8 for current and one percent for resistance. It's just yeah, it should. There's better value in the 37 range for a meter than this thing and you get a pouch with it.

But you know, look at the size of this thing. This one's been here a while. So sorry. uh.

anonymous person actually? Um, it's I can safely do that. so have a guess what that is. Don't even need the knife for that one. But we do like these.

What have I got? We do like t-shirts. I think I'm gonna like this one. Check it out. Ah, this is good.

I like this. Oh well. I'll put it out here. It's got all the different screw heads.

There's something written down the bottom. I don't know. I've I void warranties. I avoid warranties.

This is awesome. Thank you very much. Um, there's no note. I have no idea where it comes from.

Um, I'll try and find it and link it down below if you want one, but that's very cool. Thank you very much. We've set that in. Sorry to Hugh Glassy uh from New South Wales.

Um, Madawi. It says open before Christmas. Well I am. um yeah.

sorry. It was like back of the rack So uh yeah, sorry about that. I feel bad when people send stuff in and I just don't get around to it for some reason. in this case just um yeah.

Odds like just the odds of it like falling down the rack. It's delicate Is it open before Christmas? Um, yeah. It's capacitor. It's a Denon Cap 12 000 mic, 63 volts.

It's got a couple of diodes. Oh, I think it's supposed to be a tree ornament. I think it's supposed to be a nerdy tree ornament. It, It's got to be.

It's got to be. It's a genuine den on for all you Denon fanboys. Look at that. There you go.

If this camera will focus. Nah, it won't. My um, regular mailbag cameras at home. And the or my and my regular bench camera is actually I'm down at the bunker.

Um, because I shot the Sinclair C5 stuff. It's still down there. So yeah, I'm using my Um. Nx Nx70 here.

Cool. Thank you very much. Also, apologies to uh, Lucas Schmidt from Austria. Hold on Hi to all my viewers in Austria, not Australia.

Um, this one has also. Yeah, been there a while. There's a few. I've got two more here that have, uh, slipped between the slit between the cracks.

Okay, what do we got? What have we got? It's a some sort of little um, little board we've got. the Ethernet is there's a uh chip on it with the heatsink and I don't know why it needs a heatsink. It's an Sdm32 Dev board with built-in Ethernetes cool. We'll take a squeeze.

Okay, Lucas has this little jobby which is uh, Stmf-103 It's the same Mcu as the Blue Pill I have no idea with a Blue pillow. I don't keep up with these single ball computers these days. There's 10 million of them, but it's um, apparently you can use it with the Arduinos. uh, which is kinda cool.

and um, it still doesn't say why it needs the heatsink on there. I guess. super powerful is it? Anyway, it's uh, pre-configured Apparently we can flash some Leds from the Uh from the web browser apparently a board design file, schematic all there, tindy and ebay linked down below of course. So check it out so I'll see if I can get it to do something.

Anyway, it just uses the St Um supply with St Link over. well, I don't know if it comes with that, but it's got an St Link uh, V2, and uh, you can program that board, but presumably uh, well, it's not power over Ethernet. so yeah, we can't do that. Don't know what these two pins here are.

They're not actually labeled. Are they just mounting pins? Uh, that would make sense because you know the physical position of them here. That would make sense to actually have that because if you put this in a breadboard over here, then, well, it's just going to flap around in the breeze with the Ethernet cable over here. So yeah, presumably.

uh, we have to power the thing up. and um, it's does that turn it into a circus? This is not a serial thing. this is a St Link programmer or a clone. Anyway, trying to power it from an external Uh pack here.

I'm not getting anything so I'm not sure if this feeds 3.3 volts uh through to it. One thing I don't like is that these aren't labeled at all. and if you look at the labeling on there, I can bare I can't even barely read that. Plus 3.3 volts over here for these pins like I would have liked to have seen.

Like there's plenty of room out here for the silk screen and just have like an arrow going in there and put the silkscreen labels out here for what these pins over here are. Otherwise, um, you've got no clue at all. and I'd label those ones Nc for not connected. If they are not connected, otherwise they're probably ground.

I have powered it on now and I think we are getting we must be getting yet 3.3 volts on there. So connected through and we are getting our. Ethernet is fleshy flashing so maybe I can access this thing now locally. Unfortunately, I searched all the available Internet devices locally and I can't find this at all so I'm not sure how to access this via my browser.

So yeah, sorry, I can't do that, Lucas, I'm not gonna uh, spend any more time. Nice little color-coded little uh info, obviously multiple Uh uses given the uh micro on there. and uh, I don't know if you're into your Arduino e, um, a kind of blue pill kind of um. interfaces.

Then a new matrix is, uh, coming out soon, isn't it? And anyway, um, check it out. I'll leave the links down below. It is, uh, open source. You can get the boards and the schematics and the whatnot.

Thank you very much Lucas Linkedin down below. Thank you very much Kevin Lutzer from California Another one, which is I, I don't even want to read the date. it's too. It's too depressing.

No, no, no. Let's see what Kev said in we've got a blank board keycard. Oh okay, right. and this is a fully assembled no, this is different.

Oh, okay, right. Yeah, okay. We've got two different boards. One is a business card, Pcb, this, uh, you know, plug it into the Usbs.

probably got the resume on it, and uh, and in Pdf format or something like that, and um, it's got a lead matrix as well, which lights up sweet. Let's check it out. So this is Kev Lutzer from Canada. I'm going to call you Kev because that's what we call Kevin here in Australia.

Kev good on you. Um, Kevin Lutzer be Electrical Engineering and Bs Computer Science. Um, the website Kevin Lutzer.california Linked down below, there's his email that says his githubs, There's his linkedin and everything else and it's got a little, um, yeah, it's a flashing Led card. It's open source designed with keycard.

anyway. Um, yeah, if you hand these out to, uh, it's going to impress people at the job interviews. so I'm going to put that in upside down, don't I? Oh, there we go. There we go.

Yeah, I probably have to turn my studio lights off a bit. It's actually brighter than it looks on camera. Yep. Night.

smiley face. Hi and webb? Yep. Kevin Lutzer.ca Yep. Beauty Nice.

Yes, He got the idea back in 2015. Jesus, Six years ago. Now Yes. The idea.

After I mentioned in the video that engineers should bring something to, they built to an interview. Absolutely. This is something you can bring and say yeah. Look, I designed this, I programmed it, I assembled it, and you know everything else.

And like that just shows. like that. You're a cutter, but that puts you up above like 95 percent of other applicants right off the bat. And then you've got something to talk about in the interview.

Of course, you can talk about the, uh, how Charlie Flexing works? You can go. Oh yeah, look. I did this with Charlie Plexing. Let me explain how this works on the whiteboard.

There's probably a whiteboard in the boardroom. Bring along your own whiteboard marker, pro tip, and uh, yeah, just like, explain how Charlie Plexing works or explain how like I did, I don't know. Explain something. Have something ready at your interview to bring along, not only bring along, but also discuss as well.

And it helps that it's your own stuff. And he also played around with the Bed Nails type program, the Pcb of which is included and they can be found at the githubs as well. So yes, he says, thank you for the inspiration. No worries, Kev, there's the programmer board for it.

converts a tiny little pin pitch pain-the-ass connector over here. and um, yeah, you can program all these business cards. Once again. take that along as well, explain how it all works.

Bob's your uncle. Thanks Kev, I am just hopeless. I really am. I'm sorry to people who send stuff in and I just don't open them inside.

Open by 25th of the 12th. Um, well actually that's Christmas Day. open by Christmas Day. Um, thank you very much.

Uh, Ryan, Ryan Weinsley from the Uk The old Dart Again, Um, thank you very much. But I is it this Christmas? I'm sure. Oh, it's a snow pie. It's a snowman.

Um, I presume like a well, no, it can't be a rosemary pie so I don't know. a rosebud does it. Roast a raspberry pie? Um, it's a snowman kit. Um, I like all of the uh, Christmas, um.

tree flashery things. Um, the kids love those, so I've got many of those in the mailbags over the years. So let's take a look. This is the Snow Pie Rgb.

None of that just white flashing rubbish. three colors. and this one's from Ryan. And let's have a squish at the little kit.

He says he's designed a few projects, but uh, this one he's happy with. Oh, I like the uh yeah they've added. Like the one, the black up the top and then the white. That's that's pretty jazzy.

I like that and it matches the black connector down the bottom. That's that's pretty neat in the Snow. Pi Rgb. How do you? Uh oh okay, how do you power it? Oh, it's designed to go into a micro bit.

Oh okay. Yes, I do have a micro bit, but not one readily available to run. Okay, it's just a lead interface, right? There's no actual programming circuitry on here. There's no like Cr2032.

That'd be a nice addition to have it. uh, standalone of course. But yeah, I'd so I'm obviously not going to get out a micro bit to program it. but that's how you interface with the micro bit and it's designed to go like that.

Isn't it cute? I just like the look of it. Neat. good work, Ryan. I'll link in the website down below the Snow Pie X Y Z presumably open source.

Um, so that you could, you know, probably design like a standalone version. If you like the look and feel of it, then take it and add your own stuff to the back. You could you know, add a coin cell to that. and uh, with the coin cell, you might have a bit trouble uh, driving the full Rgb, but I know you can like do some deep stuff.

I reckon that's cute. Thanks Ryan. This one sent into Davey Jones's locker. I think it's just drop shipped.

I think this is just a two dollar special. uh, delivered from China. I wonder if they're going to end up losing their, um, cheap postage from China? It's cheap for a reason, and it's political. It's not.

Uh, the fact that things are just naturally cheaper in China? It's uh. anyway. what? what? There's nothing. There's no description.

What is it? Um, Oh yeah. okay. I do believe that's that's pretty darn small. Um, I.

I don't think I'm gonna be able to try that out, but I reckon my guess is that goes around something and that bit vibrates. Um, yeah, that's that's my guess. So yeah, right. No, I was wrong.

This isn't too small. It was actually too big. Um, so yeah. poor design there.

so I had to put it through sideways here. But what it does? Yeah, it vibrates and it gives you a dithering averaging on your probe. It works really well. Listen, and it's got a pretty butterfly on it too.

like it works. A treat. Highly recommended. You can pick these up for like, a butt delivered or something.

You.