Hi welcome to everyone's favorite segment: Mailbag where I open my mail. Yes, I'm back at the bench. If you want to send something in P.o Box 7949 Norway, New South Wales 2153 Australia not Austria. Thank you very much to Andy Harville from Los Alamos should know that name.

I haven't been there myself. I would like to one day though. Tongue at the right angle. Let's see what Andy has sent in.

These aren't open in any particular order. This just happened to be the biggest. So we're going to start with that first. What do we get? Oh, digi-key packaging.

Oh, we've got lots of stuff. Um, individual bubble wrap for our protection. So one item? A Jeez. Yep.

Yep. look at this. It's a bonanza. This thing's quite heavy.

Oh, I see a breadboard. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

Check out this bad boy. Oh 3m. Thank you very much. This is a crimper.

Look at the mechanical advantage on that. Whoa. Oh man. That's if you have to ask the price for a crimper like that, you can't afford it.

So yeah, I don't have to read the note because it looks weird. It's just got a tip. Oh no, that's a uh that that looks like my my guess is going to be that is a ribbon cable that is an Idc ribbon cable. Uh, crimper.

Which brings down for yeah because the clamp force is in the center there. and it's wide. It's as wide as like a 50 way Idc ribbon cable. I reckon that's what that bad boy is.

We've got a note. Oh oh, you're going to know the name If you shouldn't. Be a shame. Heath Kit: Wow.

Is it eight? Is it? I assume this is like, is it going to be like new old stock? This could be more exciting than the crimper genuine 3m. crimper. Handling wear and humidity make cartons unfit for reuse. Look at that.

Ah. 120 volts Ac. Yep. Okay, I'll be careful.

Oh beautiful. Oh thing of beauty. It's a joy forever. Look at this heath kit.

Um, when there's logic, Is it a logic? Is it the logic trainer? Yeah, it's the digital design experimenter. Oh, that's just beautiful. These if you don't know if you've never used one of these bad boys. Um, engineering schools would have these and uh, they often.

Um, sometimes they'd you know, get a name brand like this heath kit. or they'd uh, roll their own. They'd actually design and uh, and build their own. but there were.

There are still a lot of these are digital. Uh, well. you can get digital analog. You can even get Rf these days, and all sorts of fancy fancy stuff.

But yeah, these are designed for students. Um, you build up your circuits and they got you know, test signals and everything else. And and uh yeah, this one's got some data switches, power supply, logic switches, 100 kilohertz clock. Ah, beautiful.

There's so much stuff here, thank you very much Andy it was. He was cleaning out his closet, came across some old vintage hardware, so yeah, we'll go to the Bench. We'll check it out. Thanks Andy! This is great.

Look at this bad boy. Isn't this incredible. Genuine 3m Idc assembly tool. I was right.

I should have just read the label. Um, not. It's only for light. Uh, non-manufacturing use is not meant for high volume or industrial production use.

Of course, you know, high volume production you'd um yeah, you'd have like a a lever clamp, um kind of thing. Yeah, you wouldn't just have a free roaming thing like this. Um, yeah, it's too unwieldy on the bench. It's just for doing like individual things.

And obviously you can take these out because you've got different width Idc connectors. so you just whack that in there little plastic clip. That's a bit how you're doing. Um, that one's broken off by the looks of it and it's got a stop on there.

But obviously the, uh, the center point of the the axes of the stress. I don't know, I'm not a bloody mechanical engineer. Um, the center point is on here. so it comes together.

So they come together parallel like that. Well as parallel as possible anyway, because that's uh, that's obviously not parallel. But yep, you put it in there and it'll go squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze and bingo. You can get perfect pressure on your 3m.

Of course, you've got to use genuine 3m Idc connectors with it. Hands up, If you still use one of these, I mean this would have been this would cost a fortune back in the day. These tools still do. I mean you can still buy.

I do believe you can still buy them from the manufacturer. And yeah, it was a pretty penny. And check this out. Ah, I had no idea this existed.

It's an Accutron. You might have seen that before. A division of the Belovea Watch company. Ta-da You remember my Belovea Accutron? Um, Skyview Watch.

I've actually got. uh. two of these. one got crushed.

Unfortunately, it needs to be repaired. and yes, my battery has, uh, run out in this. But yeah, that was I like. these are just awesome.

Um, I've done videos on the teardown of this and how. the tuning fork. I've even done high speed footage of the uh tuning fork in there. This is a specific test set for Belovo Acutron.

Uh. batteries. By the looks of it, you whacked a little um. cell in there.

See, it's got a little contact on the bottom like that right under there. You whack it in there and um, yeah. and then it gives you a like it's got a split scale. here.

it gives you a voltage. Um, on this waist. Oh yeah, I just realized, uh yeah, there's the needle. It's just it's literally broken off.

Um, so maybe the movement still works. But anyway, you work your coin cell in there and um, then you can read, um, your voltage if you sell, and then, um, you can put a load on the cell and you can measure the microamp. You put a little load on it, and uh, it's got the individual part numbers up there. Wow.

Very specific bit of kit. The watch master. Wow. But if you're a watch service tech in, you know, the 60s and 70s or something, you would have had one of these.

and well, there's inside. Um, yeah, it's a bit how you're doing. uh, point-to-point wiring, couple of carbon trimmers in there just to adjust it, and bob's your uncle, right? And um, then you've got a lead set over here as well where you could make attachments to, uh, batteries outside. Um, the circuit, or maybe in watch or whatever.

But yeah, isn't that cool? Specific bit of industry kit. Hands up. If you ever had one of these or used that is the coolest thing ever, look at this Westinghouse run button. It doesn't even push straight in, goes at an angle because it's got a big clunking micro switch on it like that with a lever arm.

Oh that. I wish this was filler vision, but you can hear that. That's just. it's just that's just gorgeous.

Really? is I wonder what that did? If anyone knows, please leave it in the comments. but isn't that gorgeous? Oh, hands up. If you had a Continental Specialties corporation from New Haven, Ct, Connecticut, is it the Proto Board 100? You only got your strip in the middle, though you didn't get the extra strips on the outside. That's a bit how you're doing.

Um, but yeah. interesting. Notice how the coloring is that is changed on those. I don't know if that was it was like that when you got it or whether or not.

uh, that's you know something has, um, changed with age. hmm and I presume this came from the same bit of Westinghouse kit. look at that type. a three five one 25 to 500 cycles thank you very much.

And um, yeah, that is a non-linear of course. none of that linear rubbish. Um, Old Daddy Ac, um, ammeter and you can see inside here. there's none of that, uh, rectifier rubbish.

It's just a direct uh coil straight on. So this would be a what's called a moving iron or uh, iron vein. um, ammeter. So there's two little um, iron veins in there and when you pass current through, uh, they, uh, produce opposing magnetic fields which are then puts um tension on the uh spring and turns one of them like this.

And it's non-linear like this because um, it's actually moving I and meters like this. they're actually proportional to a square of the current. So if you don't do any compensation, um, you actually wouldn't. It wouldn't look fairly linear like this until it actually gets down below about two amps here then it becomes non-linear down here.

Uh, right at the bottom end. So what they do is they, um, just, uh, tweak the the vein in there. the physical construction of the vein to try. and uh, linear or linearize it? Is that a word? Yeah, I think it is linearize it.

Uh, for most of the scale like this, Um, it's only at the lower end does it become non-linear So they've done a few little, uh, hardware tricks in there to do that. But yeah, it's a that's a moving iron meter. Cool huh? Look at this beauty. Analog devices made in the United States of America, Usa.

Um, Type 970 dual power supply plus minus 15 volts, 200 milliamps. I'd love to take it apart, but given the weight of this, um, and um, the lack of like screws on this, I think this sucker is, uh, completely potted so I don't think that thing's coming apart, but it's just a gorgeous. and how can you not love this? Bobby Dazzler? Look at it. Digital Design Experimenter once again.

Uh, you didn't get any. uh, power strips. uh, top and bottom down here. but oh geez, like you just got regular switches, single pole, double throw jobbies by the looks of it.

Um, and you can get a clock. One One hertz you know you want to flash lead and one kilohertz or a hundred kilohertz. Oh, we're screaming now. Um, and you can get negative clock as well.

So you can get dual polarities on your clock. And you know, for doing your Jk flip floppies and whatnot. Um, experimenting with those. So ah, classic.

Um, it's got one of these weird-ass Yankee plugs, but uh yeah, I can deal with that. There's the bottom for those playing. look at home and it's like it is like a bought one. It really is.

Um, like is this like new old stock or something? Um, because yeah. it's like in first class condition. Looks like there's only two screws holding the front on. here? Here it is.

I went to the effort to put metal threaded inserts into there. What a Bobby does. Look, There's the fuse cover under there and the mains connection. Um, and yeah, that's it.

And well. here you go. Yeah, look at this tin plate all the way. Another solder mask.

Rubbish. I think that's going to be good to power up, I reckon. Very discreet, Isn't it? incredible? What sort of caps we got in there? I see Mexico. All the best caps are made in Mexico.

All right, let's power it up. 110. Oh ah, there you go. Had it the wrong way.

Um, I can't see anything. let's jump or something across. now. The thing is, I don't know if these leads are grounded or not or whether or not.

like because there's four terminals. But like, I got no idea. Anyway, let's set it to one Hertz clock. Oh yeah, yeah, there we go.

works. Winner winner chicken dinner. Look at that. so it must all be common ground in there.

Um, yeah. Well, we did see that giant, uh, ground plane in there with that, um, like ground plane bodge wire going over. So yeah. there you go.

And of course. uh, we can alternate that. Uh, hang on. It stopped flashing.

Um, yeah, it went dimmer. But it's it's stopped. Uh. viewer? Okay, let's repair it.

Well, there we go. Ah, it did work. Now it's tired. Oh yeah, I can.

Yeah, I can smell something. Um, yeah. yeah. I'm going to.

um. yep. okay. I'm going to leave.

I'm going to leave that off. But yeah, there you go. Cool and there it is. Uh, beautiful socketed look at this.

so we could, actually, uh, you know, troubleshoot and uh, fix this. triple five timer of course. Um, 74 7403. None of that Ls or Hc rubbish.

Genuine old-school 74. Geez, that white, uh, white solder mask has really, uh, let me turn the exposure. There you go. you might be able to read the chip numbers now.

there you go. And a whole bunch of discrete trendies over here just driving and that's it. So yeah, pretty simple. Um, there's our Ac input, there's our bridge rectifier, and uh, yeah.

I did sort of like it. just had that old, sort of like bernie smell to it, so I don't know whether or not that was just the transformer. Uh, just Uh, releasing some of the magic smoke or not. But um, yeah, it, you saw it.

It did work for a brief period. Look at that trimmer up there. Oh man, and some just some bent metal for heatsinks. Absolute classic.

Um, awesome. Thank you very much Andy for sending in all this classic stuff. Absolutely fantastic. This heath kit's just a classic.

We're going to put it back together and uh, it's going straight to the pool room. Hang on. I forgot the manual and because it's a Heath kit, um yeah, we've got everything. Look at this component overlay and we fold it out.

Oh oh no, do we? Where's the schematic here? it is Here it is. Ah, terrific stuff. 7805 They why they didn't use like a 78 one two here and a 79 one two here. but no discrete transistor solution.

like okay, there you go. Um, and yep, we've got a uh, flippy floppy up there for your logic switches. There's your triple five for the win. and uh, you saw the date code in there at 44th week 1980 I think it was.

So even though this is uh, 1975 vintage, they were still making this in the 1980s. Hands up if you use one of these at school 90 day limited warranty manual. looks like it's never been used. It's like a bought one.

There you go Component identification: This is just beautiful. For good solder connection, you must keep the soldering iron tip clean. Um, yeah. okay.

well even though it's a breadboard based system they're telling you about Soldier. Oh oh no. You actually assembled this. Did you right? I just realized I think yeah, it's yeah.

I presume you could have bought. this one's like built up. Um, or you you buy it as a kit and you you do it yourself because this is heath kit of course. Um, but I'm sure they sold it built up to uh, educational institutions, Ttl to Ecl level translation because yeah, that was still a thing in 1975.

Oh, there you go. Absolutely classic. Wow. Litho in Usa as well.

Usc thank you very much. Postal Service returns at Matriville here in Sydney. No, I don't know why they like. do they reship it or something? Anyway, this one's already opened.

Spoiler alert. Um, because they didn't put mailbag on it. If you're gonna send something here, put mailbag in the title so I don't open it until I get here anyway. Um, thank you very much.

Mini ware. You know the Ts-80 Um. soldering iron. Ts-100 Soldering iron.

They make lots of other stuff they sent other stuff in. This is their new Es15 Motion Control screwdriver. Look at that sexy case. It's just a little bit pornographic.

look at that. I think it's a bit much. Uh oh geez, that's got some heft in it. Wow.

Well you'd expect Wow, that's that's. really nice. Anyway, it's an electric screwdriver. Is there anything? There's got to be bits in it, right? Well, uh yeah.

okay. the bits were in there. The end. Are they magnetic? They they go in nicely.

They feel magnetic. Whoop. And uh. it's an electric screwdriver and it's got you.

Don't need an Lcd screen for an electric screwdriver or is that one of those oled rubbish? Well, if you're into your stickers, knock yourself out. but let's have a squeeze. Here you go. Safety Instructions: We don't want to damage ourselves with our Motion Control Electric screwdriver.

What's motion control? Does that mean it has like, you know, soft start and uh, does it have like a a talky thing at the end? Oh, does that mean you can put the um things inside there? I'm not sure. No, that's just the uh pattern that they've got on there. huh? There you go. There's all your tips after all your requisite ones.

Yeah, you got your tri-wing Yep. Couple of flat heads as well. No workers. Okay, that should do the business.

General safety rules. There's your specs. Um, no load, Six hours battery life? Well, that's no good. You want to know how long it actually goes for? um? well, you won't know unless you actually put it under physical operation.

I guess I don't think you're going to get six hours of continuous screwing. Anyway, as I said, it is, uh, quite hefty, but that's what you'd expect. Um, with, you know, an all-metal uh body like that. It's got laser etched.

there. E-design is the actual uh. company, but they call themselves mini ware. But E-design is the actual group I believe.

Um, it's got a little. Um. Lc? Oh oled. There we go.

We'll take that off. As I said, it's got. oh yeah, there we go. Uh long.

Press set button to unlock button on the end. No. So you got to turn it on and then press that. There you go.

All right, we're in. All right. There we go. It's got a little light that that could be handy.

Oh oh no. Now I'm getting into the menu. See, this is just no. no, no, no, no, No, you don't.

Electric screwdriver. You just want to pick it up and it works. You don't want any of this menu? Okay, so you hold down the button. Oh no.

See, See, no, no, it's gone back into the bloody menu now. And and no, no, no, no, no. The thing is, if you just use this thing periodically, I reckon you're going to forget how to use this damn thing. Look, if I press the set button on the top, this, um, sets the torque I believe.

Okay, so if we put it down in one. okay, yeah, I can, I can just hold that. I can. Just whoo.

It's gonna spin itself. There you go. Um, yeah, but I can. I can stop that with my fingers.

Okay, but if we go into, say, you know, go right into five. Yeah, I I ain't stopping that, right? So it's got electric torque. Okay, but now, how do we, um, change the direction of the thing? Okay, we've got to like. Press set.

We've got to hold down. Set. What speed? Oh, here you go. We can get into the bloody speed of the thing.

I swear. This instruction manual. I'm reading the freaking instructions. Firmware update for your bloody electric screwdriver.

Give me a break. What's the world Comedy: When I was a boy, um, this is the operation. It's got some smart mode, so obviously it's got like an accelerometer in there to detect which way it goes. Um, but that's not the mode it's in at the moment.

but like there's no like button operation thing. Where's that? Like this has a complicated menu system. Like where is the buttony thing to how do I change the rotation direction? How do I get in there and and set it? There's nothing in here. Are you kidding me? I was just able to change the direction then, but I don't know how I did it.

I just got into the menu. What? So now now it's in auto mode. So I don't know how I've put in auto mode, but I have. Okay, so if I push down on this and I go like that, Yeah, right.

And if I put it in like this and I go like that, it's supposed no because I've gotta up the torque on that there. There you go. It worked. Auto Mode.

Now if I hold down the button and spin that way, it undoes. if I hold down the button and spin back that way. and nope, there we go. It did go back the other way.

But ah no. what do you want this fiddly piece of crap for? I don't get it. Like I can understand the good intention of that Auto Mode And if it worked absolutely perfectly, then that could be valuable, right? You should never have to like it. like it shouldn't need any of this, um.

interface at all. It shouldn't need anything. It should just automatically if you're gonna do that auto thing. Um, but then again, like it should have just a dedicated left and right button.

That's it. Maybe left and right and adjust talk or something like that. But I know I. I still haven't figured out how this bloody menu thing works.

Okay, so I'm getting there with this menu system. Hold down set like this. Okay, we get into speed and then we can adjust the speed like that. 220 rpm, 360 or 470, right? We go in there like that and then we press it again.

There you go. we're in okay, sensitivity high. So we go. I guess that's that auto sensitivity thing.

Hold down, set, Press again. Impact off. I don't like the manual. doesn't tell you what impact is.

retreat. What? What is all this stuff? Okay, And then that's that's the menu progression. Okay, I get it now. Light on Okay.

and then beep on and beep is barely noticeable. Uh language English battery M off and there's our version number for our electric screwdriver. 35 degrees C then. but how do we like change between the auto mode? Okay, I I understand this is the settings.

Okay, fine, right. stupid electric screwdriver. But fine. Um, then how do we? How do we adjust our mode between auto? Because I was able to get it.

Oh there there. look. I. I just suddenly got it.

How does that work? So now it only goes in a single direction. It won't do that. Um, you know, auto sense. So we've overridden that and we're going in this direction like this.

I found out how to change the mode on this thing. It's a Pr triple press on this button. I had to, actually, um, go to their uh. website like their website video and actually watch their video to see this.

It is not in the manual at all. And like I don't like. I still can't get. I can kind of sort of get in there right? Three like that.

Okay, now I'm in there right? and I can set which? Oh right. It just timed out. Geez. One two three and I'm in.

Okay, Oh no no no no. What fresh hell is this? Okay, I'm just going to try it in auto mode. Uh, talk of four. So that's like second highest.

I'm going to hold the button and I'm gonna go like that. and okay, that works. Let's try it again. Okay, that works.

It's all right In auto mode so far. Yeah, okay. and the bits are magnetic, by the way. Just.

but. it's only designed for small screws, so they probably wouldn't pick up anything heavy. Okay, so that seems to work. Okay.

if you just leave the damn thing in auto mode, let's try and go. Yep, Yep. there we go It talked up. put in like that.

That's all right. Okay, so if you just leave it in auto mode, if you don't dick around with a stupid bloody menu system at all trying to put it in, um, some manual mode, it it probably. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so it hasn't false started yet. but we are in the vertical position. There you go. So I did all those.

Okay, that wasn't actually a lot of torque for being in fourth mode. I'd actually put that in five. Um, it just didn't feel like a lot of torque. Okay, so let's see if it works.

If I put something on an angle like this. why is that going slow? Am I out of battery? Well, wait, no. it just. it started undoing and then it redid itself.

Why did it just go slow? Okay, okay, that's all right. Now if I want to put that straight back in there, you go, There you go. it's doing the business. This is set to max talk now and well for some reason it just went slow.

Did I like, did it just change the speed or what? There you go so that auto mode does seem to work vertical and down. But I did. Nah. The interface is absolutely atrocious and to have like a screen with firmware and everything else? No, this is just set.

I can understand. you know, changing your talk on the end like this because you would don't want your talk control to be be accidentally operated. Uh like that. Maybe I don't know.

um some people prefer like having their torque ring you know, around here or whatever. But anyway, um on on the end is fine. but no, it should just have forward, reverse and auto controls on there. and the interface is just dicky as looks like the end screws off like this.

Wow, it's a long thread. don't really want to spend any time doing a full teardown, but there's the there's the battery inside there. it takes up most of it and then the motor will be in here and the uh talky uh mechanism has got to be in there as well. Um, you know, look it.

It feels like it feels like it does the business when just whacking in auto. And it. does seem to do the business in like real world operation. But I don't know.

I'd have to do some more extensive testing on the thing. and it's just, I'd like why you'd have an electric screwdriver with firmware and whatnot? I don't know. Look, it's 120 odd bucks or something like that. Um, I don't know how that compares with other electric screwdrivers, but like it feels like it's like it's not going to break.

Like it feels decent quality except for the uh, plastic interface. Um, of course. and the button is just it. Did let you think that that is like a multi, like like a little joysticky thing.

It's not. That's what I first, uh, thought and I, it's just inexcusable. The manual doesn't tell you that this is triple button press. I don't know.

I I must be Stevie Wonder or something. It's not there. Where does it say triple press to get into the menu? Actually, I was going to give that a solid thumbs down before I actually started using the thing in operation on that laptop there and in auto mode. To be fair, it did actually work.

Um, the talk isn't that? uh, great. Even on the maximum talk of uh, five, it didn't feel like it was like almost enough. Even for that laptop, it was probably just enough. Um, so yeah.

it's probably more designed for like, uh, screws into like you know, threaded into like a plastic inserts or or something like that. Certainly not for big screws, but of course the um set you get in there is just like it tells you. um, all you need to know. it's designed for getting into laptops and you know other little uh things like that and it's got adequate torque.

And I do like how it has, uh, torque adjustment via the end. So I was going to give it a solid thumbs down until I started using it and then you know it, that auto mode did seem to work so you could leave it in that and it could be useful, but it just pissed me off. the operation of it and I'm not even going to bother, uh, to charge the thing or do a complete tear down of it. Um, you know, the light at the front might be useful so I could see what they've tried to do, but I know just the execution of the user interface of the thing is just it's just terrible.

but it feels pretty solid. It feels like it's you know, it could last a while. Yeah, no, just firmware in your electric screwdriver with a dicky oled screen and a user in effect. No, no, like at best.

that's going to get a thumbs sideways for like some people might find it very useful. I don't know. I'll keep it here. The good thing is is that it is quite small and slim so it can actually just sit in my Um thing here.

so I will actually leave that um sitting in the middle like that so I can whip that out but there's no place uh to put like the um the bits for it like I want to like this thing but I I just can't Maybe after I use the thing a bit more but I I don't know just would have been much nicer if they just ditched all the plastic interface and everything and it just had Usb charging. The torque on the Um end is just fine or even like you know if it had like a like a ring adjust. I mean I much prefer just the simplistic user interface of my other um, we are uh one here made in Germany and like you just go like this and you got your fingers and you just twist like that and goes in that direction. You're twisting that and goes in that direction like that's it.

Like it's vastly nicer, but it's not small and designed for like little screws which this one is so I don't know how much competition there is in this. sort of like you know, miniature um small electronic electric uh screwdriver. This is for more you know, like large size um phillips and stuff like that and it does actually have an impact mode which you can go in and which is supposed to give you like little micro sort of things at the end of it. Sort of little.

okay, what? Oh, it went the wrong direction. Again, great. There we go. It's supposed to go.

well. why is it going slow? I think the bat is the battery dying? Yeah, you couldn't see that, but I could feel that there's little micro d like that. Um, so you can see it in their uh, promo video better. They've got a better uh, example of it.

But anyway, it does have that function, which is kind of neat. Maybe I'm being too harsh on this thing. I don't know. leave it in the comments down below, but it just it just rubbed me the wrong way.

But I do like that it feels like a, you know. Otherwise, it feels like a quality, uh, bit of kit. and um, and it can get into narrow spaces. It really is, um, you know, remarkably small for what it does.

It's a, you know, really quite amazing little beast. But yeah, I don't know execution. But yeah, I'd be very careful over recommending this thing. But if it's the only thing on the market, um, that of that size, I don't know.

Um, and then perhaps they've got the market to themselves, but they've just like failed at the last hurdle. That's my verdict. Thank you very much, Gabrielle Galazzi. If I'm pronouncing that correctly, from Italy.

don't get Maddie from Italy. So hi to all my Italian viewers. Um, let's check it out. I got absolutely no idea what's in here.

I usually don't have much of an idea of mailbag unless it's like on the invoice or something like that. You know, don't spoil it for me. Just put like used crap or something like that on the invoice so it's okay. We got that.

What? Jeez, What's going on here And cheese? Okay, it's one of these foldy things. Geez. Oh, there's lots of lots of dead tree in there. Oh gee, tronics.

Um, shop. Yes. Oh, it's a new version. Yeah, yeah.

okay. We've had this on the mailbag years ago and I've used it. um, a few times. You might have actually seen it, been used in videos and stuff, but this is obviously a new version.

It's a proto board. These are always handy. Always have these in your kit. I've got a whole bunch of these.

These are pin headers each end, but I've got ones that go from pin header to the female one, and female to female or male to male. Um, pin headers and they're just very handy. Yeah, the uh. we've seen the G-tronics ball before, but wow, that looks upgraded.

Doesn't that look fancy pants? He's got like wi-fi type stuff on it. So yeah, we'll have a look at these up close. These are very handy. Um, once again, great for education and it's great for like preset lessons and things like that.

You build your lesson plans around these and uh, this has got yeah, all the displays and the Wi-fi So this is good for like an embedded Um learning type environment. and well, the Uh documentation looks comprehensive. Yeah, no worries. Well here's Gabrielle's note with all the Uh details after the success of the uh, previous one.

Um, this one is the Internet of Things Iot grown, uh, protoshield. Plus, um, it's designed to work with the Esp and the new generation Arduino Nano 33 boards. I know the Esp. I don't know the Nano 33s, but it still works with the good old Arduino.

um, only nano form factor at the moment. Um, anyway, it's got all. so it works with all of these different Uh boards. and it's got all of these features.

Tons of them. I won't even bother to read them all out. And it's got all of these extra add-on boards as well. some of which we've actually got here.

But check out this. I mean it is very, very comprehensive Mp3 module over here. we've got a little uh, breadboard in error area. We've got a little uh oled uh display.

it's made in Italy, thank you very much. Now that made in China? rubbish. Um, and we've got the Um Esp module here. but of course you can just take that out and you've got the different form factors under there.

Um, and it's got all the requisite stuff. There's a touch sensor uh switch which it has an interface I don't know which one it actually uses, Got a rotary encoder and then it's just got it. Breaks out all of the stuff near the breadboard so that you can just like jumper all this stuff over. So here you go.

you've got I squared C over here. Is that Spi in there? It's a bit shadowy, it's hard to read, but uh, it's got like a stepper motor. a driver board interface that's actually not actually on here. It doesn't If you have a look on the back, there's actually no circuitry on the back.

it's all populated on the front. It's basically just a good, gigantic breakout board that you can, you know, plug everything into, and then all of the outputs and stuff come near the breadboard. as I said, and that allows you to just jumper stuff over to the breadboard. It's got, uh, footprints for um, some uh, Dc to Dc convertible and it's just got a whole bunch of other stuff down the side.

We've got some Rs-232 action happening there. Oh, there's a little footprint for a microphone anyway. Very comprehensive borders, so let's pair it up. And um, uh yes, he says.

I think he says a quick demo. So I've got a relay board here. This looks like one of those, uh, temperature, humidity things. We've got a microphone.

uh, what's that? oh, coin cell battery? I don't know what that is. Is that like a real-time uh clock thing? And we've got an ultrasonic distance sensor. so let's plug it in, see what's what. There is an external power up here, but there's no actual connection.

You put it through the Um, Arduino E or your Esp module here and Bingo Are we going to get anything? There we go. Hey, we're in. Hi Dave, thanks for testing the Iot Proto Shield plus. Press the encoder switch to start.

Ok. Rotate encoder to scroll. Click it to select the demo. Oh there we go.

Look at that. Ah Bobby Dazzler leads, touch panel or the pot. Let's go the leads. Yeah, there we go.

Red, green, red, green, red, green. No wackers. and we've got touch button. Touch demo.

Yep, Oh oh, one zero. There you go. One zero state. But I'm sure you can get all the like code to do this.

This is great. Uh, example code. if you want to play around with the touch button like that, Just a pot. There we go.

is that the that's the pot position? Is this the pot here? Yep, there you go. So it's just reading the voltage from the pot and we're just getting a bit of noise there because hasn't implemented any averaging routine on that. but of course you could add your own. This is just a demo to show you that.

4096 There you go. So it's a 12-bit interface there. Neat. So it's 80 Euros for the Esp kit so it includes the Esp.

just have to solder the headers on and stuff doesn't include like any. includes the wires but jumper wires but none of the extra modules I don't believe but you can buy those and but of course the value is in uh, the extensive uh, documentation and uh stuff for this and all the example, uh, source code and everything else. But yeah, I've found the previous version of this very handy and I think I'll find this one very handy as well, so well worth checking out. So I'll leave the links down below for the uh, G-tronics board.

Highly recommended! Thank you very much Alex, Jen Dragaza I totally butchered that. Thank you very much. From Mexico! Wow. Italy, Mexico, Hi to all my Mexican viewers.

Um, I think we have had something for the mailbag before from Mexico, but geez, it'd be rare. So yep, let's crack this sucker. Open pool to open? Well no because it's got the uh that's had some tape put on it. so thank you when you've got individual items.

Oh oh oh yeah. Yep. Yep. Win a winner.

Chicken dinner already already I just 50. Oh yes. Calculator kit: um 15c and 16c. Geez I wonder are they going to be Hp compatible? Wow it is like a kit.

There It is the 15c Voyager format, um kit calculator but this one like oh this has got like real through-hole buttons on it. Oh oh that's going to be fun. Okay, I wipe it and then and then the 16c of course, which is the uh, digital, uh programmers uh version because it did you know, really like binary outdoor hex. um, all that sort of jazz.

Oh no. Sent one fully assembled so we can have a play with it. So here's the fully uh build up version of the 41rc, which this is pretty cheeky. Some would say sacrilege because it was never available in the Voyager landscape form factor like this: um, it was your traditional uh portrait type.

So anyway, that looks like it's a Pcb front panel. um, and the interesting thing about this is that they're all, uh, it uses all through-hole uh components. Yes, he's aware of the uh, Swiss micros ones, the excellent Swiss micro ones, but he says oh, they're too expensive and um, yeah. So he decided uh to design his own series and then it got onto a hackaday and everyone said they wanted one.

Um, so he started selling Uh kits of these things and uh, it's got a 192 by 64 uh display. It's uh, twice as fast as the original Uh units, and it's got a real time clock and apparently on the Voyager models when in programming mode, the key card codes are decoded in plain English, runs on a standard 1 20, 32 coin cell battery, and so this is the 41 and they go on the back. These aren't Uh buttons, These are just, uh, a legend um thing. So there you go.

let's turn her on, shall we? So it's been asleep? There you go. So of course the originals are had uh, seven segment uh displays. none of this top matrix, uh rubbish. So we've got the uh, time and date up the top and it looks like we're not doing any multi uh line stuff to look at the uh registers and stuff like that.

So one, two, three and we can uh, enter that and it's We've got a fixed uh number of decimal uh places by default and then four, five, six and we can just go plus like that and we get our result. Beauty. and then we can just square root that puppy. There you go.

So it works. a treat. And yes, obviously these aren't um, Hp calculator keys. These are just regular tactile, um, through-hole buttons as we'll see in the kit.

but you know it's pretty cool. and it's a 3d printed uh case. But you know, like it's much cheaper than like the Swiss micro ones and it's a nice little form factor. It comes with some rubber feet you can just whack on the bottom so it doesn't slide around on the bench.

And and of course you have the kit. This is the Uh 15c and of course this is uh, the original uh voyage. So here it is top and bottom down here and it's all through-hole components. There you go, all the through-hole um switches and not sure what micro it is.

It's an Atmel something or other and that's the 16 C. It's practically identical, but it just has different operations and different silk screen legends on there. because, um, this was the programmers calculator because it did uh yeah. hex and decimals and octals and binaries and stuff.

Um, and of course, the price you pay for all through-hole is the thickness of this. So yeah. but still. you know, I don't mind that it's it's the uh, the thickness doesn't really matter unless you're trying to put it in your shirt pocket.

But if you leave it on the uh bench, then you know, No worries. And inside, Um, yeah. I was fooled. I thought that was just a piece of beef.

front panel. It's not. It's aluminium. None of that aluminum rubbish.

Um, and then that's just dumped silk screened on the front. Or is that an aluminium backed easy? Done. That is an aluminium backed Pcb? Perhaps not entirely sure, because I thought, you know these strips in here, I thought they would, just, um, you know, raise copper on the top anyway. Um, there's nothing much doing there.

There's an off the shelf Lcd module and the micro is just buried under that, so I won't desolder that. but that's all she wrote. There's a reset switch in there if you absolutely need it, and just your regular tactile buttons and that's it. All the magics.

Oh, there we go. All the magic is in the firmware. I love how it puts shift the actual word shift and we can get into the setup by holding down percent and pressing that version 0.88 There you go and it's got like lots of advanced stuff. I won't show you at all, but uh yeah, it's got lots of advanced settings and extra display options.

Of course that you wouldn't get on the original, but uh yeah, it it emulates um, the original. So apparently, um, Alex has written all this, uh, himself rather than just, uh, you know, repurpose someone else's emulation. So that's pretty cool. And the full kit is only 50 Yankee bucks.

So I'll link in Alex's uh, tindy store down below, so that's a bargain. This would be a fun kit to build and I get runny, but you can actually build it yourself. You can download all the files on his website, including like the 3d, uh case files. so if you want to just build it and uh, print it all yourself, you can do awesome work Alex.

I love that. So it'll be fun to assemble the, uh, kid versions of these. Um, it would be perfect for Sagan and Huxley. or you know, for kids and beginners.

uh, whatever. and they can get a nice little we can teach you all about Rpn reverse Polish notation. None of that, uh, algebraic rubbish. Anyway, top effort.

Alex Will, uh, I'll leave the links down below. but uh, thanks for sending those in. Love it! So that's mailbag. if you liked it, please give it a big thumbs up.

As always, discuss down below: Leave your thoughts. Um, and if you want to send something in P.o Box 7949 Northwest New South Wales 2153 Australia, not Austria. Catch you next time you.