Hi welcome to everyone's favorite segment mailbag. We have a special guest who's dropping something off and picking up. Say hi to Josh Hi, he's um, if you've seen the winner of the um, five dollar Dj car, did you tech? um, special scope and he's local here in uh, Sydney? he's you're 13? Yeah, 13.. And he's got his own lab and making his own stuff.

And um, he's starting to sell boards for the new Framework laptop laptop. So what boards you've got Like several different boards? Um, well. the one I'm about to sell is a Uart board. Yep, um, I have an Ethernet one which failed and then the company came out with uh one.

so I've stopped working on that. I have a serial adapter for networking gear. so it has a Rj45 port along with a basic seal adapter to a Db9 connector. and you've got, uh, pre-orders for these? Uh, not quite.

I have. I have interest. Yep, uh, I think seven or eight people for the you are one specifically. Um.

but otherwise I'm going pretty well. Excellent. And you and you're gonna make these in-house by hand? Yep, Yep. Awesome.

I'll link it in down there. There'll be a link I presume. You'll give me a link to put down below so where people can store starting to get set up. Cool? Well, we'll try and put the link down below anyway.

Awesome. Well done. Um, the framework. What's what's the unified? What's the framework? It's just interface.

Standard. Usb-c Oh, it's just Usb-c Okay, so you're a little adapter boards to convert Usb-c into anything. Whatever. Yeah, Nice.

Awesome. Is there like a like a I haven't looked at really? The framework module? Is it like a uh, Is it like a defined space or volume of? Is it like a plug-in thing? Or is it yeah, it's It's internal, isn't it? So you can swap them out? Yeah, What spot? And then the length of them is. you can't change fat. But the um.

you can extend out the laptop a bit. Got it? Yeah, Nice. Awesome. Well anyway, here is the scope.

You haven't got a scope. How? how are you designing these boards without a scope? So the same way I used to. Well, most of the time the designs are quite simple and the data sheet covers, yep, everything and most timeline signs. As soon as I assemble them, they work.

Oh, I hope they hope your next one fails. Sorry, But seriously, I hope it fails so that you can troubleshoot it with your new scope. and uh, yeah. and then you learn a lot more If your stuff fails.

If it works first time, it's like yeah, it's okay. you've learned some stuff, but if it fails, then yeah. Yep, That's what you really learned. My Ethernet one.

I uh, messed up on the differential pairing. Ah yeah. and I I had these capacitors and resistors for, um, the Usb signals and I just removed them so it would back down to Usb2 and it worked fine. Nice.

Oh okay, so is the signal integrity thing. Oh okay. well, that's even. This is not going to help with that.

Unfortunately, it's too high frequency stuff. But yeah. nice that you figured that out. And yeah, yeah, it drops back down.

Awesome work anyway. Thank you. So enjoy the scope. Yeah, Fantastic.

It's got some probes with it as well. Yeah, so yep. and you're dropping this off. Where did you get this from? Uh, my dad's lab? Your dad's lap.

What does your dad do without giving away too much industry? He's an industrial chemist, right? right? Okay, so it came from an industrial chemistry lab. Yeah, this is Ev blog might know. But anyway, Um, yeah. this is A.

It's quite hefty. It's A. It's a Mettler Toledo made by Wag. It's got two big outputs here.

high voltage outputs. and it's what are seven kilovolts or something. Six point. Six point.

Seven kilovolts at five milliamps. Except it's European. so it's got instead of the decimal point, it's got the comma. Weird Europeans.

anyway. Um, so so do you not know if this works or not? Um, well. I haven't plugged it in, but I did take a quick look inside and it's not. It definitely looks like something has happened.

Oh okay. all right. something's happened. All right.

The magic smoke's escaped, all right. So I I looks like some sort of yeah, it generates high voltage. Um, probably some ionizer thing, something like that. Um, or some other thing, where you when you generate high voltage, you can actually it actually attracts particles.

That's how ionizers work. And um, and that's how the new spacesuits work. By the way, they're going back to the Moon. Do you know this little factoid? They're going back to the Moon.

But the spacesuits actually have embedded conductive fibers in them. So that, um, dust on the moon's such a problem that they have to have the embedded conductive fibers and they charge themselves up to, i don't know what you know, several kilovolts or something. And it, actually, um, it actually repels the dust. so it stops the dust getting on them.

So the new spacesuits have. I don't know they're not going to lug around one of these babies, but um, yeah. Anyway, little factoid there. Yeah, so there you go anyway.

thanks for dropping that off. We'll do a two minute tear down. Well, I'll do it in several days when I'll shoot a mailbag video. so we're just shooting this while you're happy you're here picking this up.

So yeah, Enjoy! Thanks, Josh, Thank you. All right let's crack it open. There it is. 6.7 kilovolts, 5 milliamps.

And there's the, uh, huge tri-axial um app. Well, they're not triaxial, but you know, like big high voltage insulated coax type connector outputs like that. Of course it's going to be a differential, uh thing like this, That's what you know. Both of these are mains earth connected by the big ass stud on the side and that's it.

A switch and it just generates a high voltage. Um, that they use for some ionizing gadget. I guess. Um, in the in the lab, put a day code on the bottom there.

2017 has got a 6.7 here. so I assume that's 6.7 kilovolts. I assume you can get like different voltage. Uh, models.

I've got the screws off. How does? Oh, There we go. Oh, we, we're in. there.

you go. Just whoa. Big Ass Transformer. and wow, that's some crusty rust.

Yeah, I can. Well, you know you'd expect it because it's like, but it's what ionized off all the rust from the transformer. I, I don't know, but but geez, it's basically um, just a transformer and that's it. There's your primary coil and that's your secondary there and that's that's completely sealed on the output.

Um, so yeah, we won't be able to. I mean, I don't think we can take that cap off, can we? Ugh. Oh man, that's crusty as wow. Um, I don't know if that's a natural consequence of the high voltage and like ionizing the air, Because when you ionize the air particles, like stick to things and that's the whole idea you can get.

Like, you know, the electrostatic air filtration systems. When you ionize, uh, the particle, the dust particles in the air, they cling to the, uh, fabric of your filter. Actually, it just changed my lab filter. the other day.

You've seen this. This is my uh. Blue Air jobby. God.

the filters are expensive and uh, you can see how dirty that is and it attracts all this dust. And mine is an electrostatic uh model. So it does, actually um, ionize the particles in there. Um, and yeah.

And they can. And they cling to the Uh fabric when they're ionized. Then in the bottom of that, we've just got a big ass 1k uh power resistor there. I'm not sure why it's not really across the output.

Um, it's not like discharging the output or something like that. Sure, Why do we need a load there? Geez. Check out the rust on the Earth connection. Look at it.

Oh wow. Yep. this is all chemistry folks. Um, it's a reason why that has accumulated so much rust.

I'll leave that up to the chemists, but uh oh geez. Ah, that's terrible. Muriel. But I don't know.

Like has this been used in an atmosphere that causes rust like this? But it's obviously. I think it's been accelerated by the Uh by the high voltage in this sucker. Anyway, if you know precisely, then, uh, please leave it in the comments down below. But um, yeah, I don't know if there's anything in here.

Is there like an output filter there? or whatever? I I doubt. I think it's just a uh, direct, like, step up, um, transformer. really? I think that's all there is to it. We've got a couple of caps down in there that could be just some mains, um, input filtering.

And that's maybe what the resistor is to discharge those caps? Maybe. Um, but geez, that seems overkill. Yeah, so I'm not going to try and power this up because I don't think I have a high voltage probe that goes high enough for that to see the waveform. And certainly, I don't know how I'd probe down in there.

I mean, jeez, these things are deep. I mean, that's that's the cap that came with it. Um, it had a hard time getting that out, but uh, yeah. um, interesting.

Let us know if you've ever used one of these and for what purpose. So thank you very much Josh for uh, bringing that in and I hope you enjoy your oscilloscope. Um, I've actually filmed this many days, uh, later, and he's already reported a few issues with the scope. Nothing major, but uh, yeah, he's certainly, uh, giving it a workout.

Hi to all my viewers in Norway. I kid you not, this one's from Thor. Yes, Thor who comes from, uh, bloomin' Home? In no way, I don't want my viewers in the Blooming home. Um, so let's have a look what? Uh, I was a bit, didn't have the tongue at the right angle there.

Um, this one contains one of my favorite items and hopefully one of yours too. Let's have a squiz It is protected. I see a name which I wow. It's no.

it can't be. it can't be. There's no note in here. Surely this is not a Casio Vi 98 50 a 9850 Gb.

Or is that the, um, no Tv interface? Oh, is this one of these? um, like overhead projector ones, But it weighs a ton. What? pal? It's pal output. This is. this.

looks new in box. I know they make that. I've got one of the casio projection ones. What the heck? What the heck is this? It's a foldery stand thing.

I don't get it. Um gee. look at that thick ass. Look at that.

Look at the manual. Oh, it's all in English too. Wow, that's a thick ass user guide. Um, here it is.

This is new in box. Um, I must have picked it up. Casio Calculator Tv interface. It doesn't sit.

Yeah. Wow. I had no idea such a thing existed. Look at that.

So it's a regular. You know, 98.50 calculator or whatever it is. And um, but they've added a Tv interface with an output with a composite output. I didn't know such a thing existed.

Let's power it up. Never go. Well, this thing's so big and long I have trouble fitting in the frame. Luckily, this is widescreen.

Check it out. Yes, it is one of these color. uh Jobbies. It's the color model.

And of course, the 9850 is incredibly popular. Uh calculator in Um. schools and stuff like that. And it's got a composite video output.

obviously for educational use. It makes sense. I mean, you can get the overhead projector one. Uh, which I've got.

so why not have one of these? And yes, you've seen this before. which is the overhead projector version where you for those kitties who don't know, right? We used to have overhead projectors which you put a a film sheet on and it would, uh, shine light through and then it'd go through a big reflector and magnifier and put it up on the wall at school. And that's how the teacher could you know magnify and display things to the students. But now it's all digital.

you know? So you plug it in digitally so it makes sense to transition from the overhead projector model to I guess, composite. I mean, nowadays it would be Hdmi, but geez, that'd that'd really chew some power wouldn't it? I mean, this one obviously needs a separate adapter for the Um output. I mean, it's just working from the uh. four batteries.

Uh, at the moment, there you go. 4.8 watts. Oh geez, so that's that's chewing the juice I guess. so if you turn that on anyway, the colors are pretty piss poor on these.

Um, but I guess the whole idea is that you know color does add some uh value in there, but you know, if you're just doing normal operations then it's just your uh, regular, um, Lcd? um and your regular contrast which isn't too shabby at all. Okay, let's just do some current consumption measurements that's a standby power. It's just charging up the caps there. Switch it on.

There you go. In normal operation: 2.4 milliamps. That's with the uh projection off. Let's do it with the projector on.

Yeah, I think the uh projector mark that projector there. Well, you know the the projector output. Obviously, this is designed to go composite. Output is designed to go into a wall mounted video projector which of course displays the screen out there.

So yeah, I think you need the Uh plug pack for that because uh, two milliamps consumption? That would be what you'd get. Uh, just for the calculator itself. There's the adapter. It's got one of those weird ass plugs on it, so I'll have to find an adapter for that.

But uh. there you go. Made in Japan. All this stuff's made in Japan.

4.5 watts. It's got a mysterious sync button there. I don't know. Is that like you put a a pin through and push it? Um, I I don't know.

I have an Rtfm Tilly Funken built by Born Perfectionist. I love it. and well, there you go. It works.

Um, doesn't that look pretty groovy? But it's not a full frame so I don't know what the deal is there. I can switch that off and if we switch it on how long? Yeah, yeah, it just pops up and if we switch the calculator off, it stays on. I've switched the calculator off and yeah, I can't operate it. So I switch the calculator on and now I can operate it.

There you go, hey groovy, huh? And wow, there you go. Check that out. Look at the huge board they've got on there for that, uh, video processing. Obviously this is a standard Um 9850 calculator up here if we tour them down one before, but uh yeah, that's all.

that's all. Bog standard stuff. I love the battery contacts flapping around in the breeze up here. nice that goes into the plastic work and we've got a ribbon cable also going over here to the Um, slide on off uh button on the top and interestingly that says fuse.

So a To92 fuse anyone? Well sure enough, ah, that's an Icp N10 a fuse and uh, I've found a data sheet that has like Rome, um and branding as well. So yeah, there you go. I can't say Sam has seen a fuse in a Ti-92 package. Interesting.

I love how they've gone for that Japanese tradition of just uh saying ah, bugger, we don't need a connector, just a wire straight through. They've used a connector over to here just to um, you know, eat and I aid in assembly and stuff like that. But yeah, just just solder pads on the bottom. Yeah, no worries and you'll notice that the red and yellow wires here.

these are just ground connections going to this grounding pad here and over to here, so not through the connector. so that's an afterthought. They are the blue one as well, the blue ones ground too. So hey, they had some uh, they had some either like layout or, um, even Emi issues there and they needed to join the grounds.

I don't know. Well, absolutely no surprises for finding a couple of Sony jobbies in there. So there you go. custom and then it looks like I'll put a high-res photo over on my Flickr account.

As always. Um, and you can go for your life. But uh, that's interesting. What's that Nec part there? just? I wasn't expecting something.

Um, that denser footprint? It almost looks like it's you know, it's a flash memory or something. Sure enough, that's a 256 kbit static ram. so they're using that to bitmap all the stuff so they transfer it into that and then, um, yeah, that's the that holds the Bitmap image for the Um screen. but that didn't make sense based on the pin count here to actually control that.

It turns out we do have the data sheet for this. It's a video, um sync thingy. I'll put it up here briefly, but anyway, I thought I'd have a sneaky peek on the bottom. I thought there was more to it and my hunch was right.

Tada, there you go. An Altera Max? um, Fpga on the bottom and that's how they're doing it. Interesting. I didn't see that one coming.

So there you go. Yeah, Going old-school implementing all that in the Altera Max. And obviously you know back in those days, they didn't have a huge amount of internal memory, so obviously using the external memory to map that, so that's an interesting design. How they've taken just the basic Um 9850 calculator, made it into a thicker Uh case, and put the Um engineered a big um, you know output, and then bodged it into essentially the existing Uh 9850 calculator.

Like, bodge the data output, and then they use an Fpga to process that bitmap it into memory and then they, um, shoot it out. So yeah, and then they put put in a larger case and extend it up and put a on off switch and external power and stuff. And Bob's your uncle. Neat huh? I don't think they sell, you know, these in huge volumes.

Certainly not like they'd sell to the Um kitties in the class. You know it's it's got to be like two orders of magnitude. So there you have it. That's a great example of how you would like repurpose an existing Uh product for a different or a Sli.

in this case, a slightly different market. the Um, the teacher market instead of the student market. And that's how you would integrate it. That's how I'd probably budget together too, instead of like designing the whole thing from scratch or something like that, they took all you know, all the existing plastics and everything probably and just like and just you know, did a new bottom.

um, shell and stuff and they just re-kept the existing board and then bodged it in by the looks of it and um, and then like made that into a another calculator line specifically aimed at teachers. So thank you, um for sending that one in. That was. that was brilliant.

Um, it seems these are relatively rare out there, you know? So yeah, nice addition to the Uh calculator museum. Thank you very much Jayden from Belmont in Western Australia I don't know why my viewers in Western Australia? Oh no, no, no, I was. it was duped. I thought that was the edge.

there. it wasn't that was just the paper. Anyway, why do all my viewers in Belmont haven't I don't think I've been to Belmont in Western Australia. I don't know.

Lots of suburbs. Australia's a big place. We have a note. we have a shopping cart shopping bag.

I'll keep that I reuse my uh, shopping bags. Thank you very much. I've got a um A. That's a very strange thing for Australia.

It's a baseball. Um, I don't know if I've ever thrown a baseball, I don't think so. it's just not a thing here. Um, rocket The trash pandas.

That's a good name for a baseball team. The trash pen. Oh smarter every day. Oh, be a thinker and a doer, There it is.

It's smarter every day. Destin. I've actually met Destin when he, um, came to Sydney. Nice bloke.

Um, what else we got in here Looks like it might be a random assortment. Uh, we've got something. This is like a, um, I don't know something. You plug into the mains and you press it and I don't know.

look. random bit of kit looks like a security doorbell thing. Ah, second sucker. The Sav.

Um, and I swear I'm not using you for E-waste disposal. I had a Cogan Smart doorbell. um that kicked the bucket and took it. Yeah, and to see.

Oh okay, so this is the receiver. Fun two-minute tear-down Yep, Um, there are a couple of screws that went walk about. Better than that, The parts are there. Yeah, Smarter.

Everyday baseball. Because I somehow managed to get two of them. Feel free to keep it or pass it on as a desired. I think I'll keep that.

I don't. I like smarter every day. so I like having some merch. It's going straight to the pool room.

So this is a Kogan Video Doorbell. For those who don't know, Kogan Um, is a Ruslan Kogan I believe his name is he? Uh, started out from his garage selling imported Tvs and stuff and now he's this huge conglomerate um, here in Australia that basically imports and sells everything electronic. Um, and he's the one who actually beat me to buying the rights to uh, Dick Smith's um, the The Dick Smith head, The Dick Smith. Uh, trademark and um, name and stuff.

I've actually officially on as well. in conjunction with, uh, somebody else, we actually made a bid on. Um, when Dick Smith was folding and rustling Kogan, he had more money. So yeah, he got the rights to Tricky Dicks.

Um, Famous Head and uh, trademark and website and stuff. Anyway, let's rip it apart. Well, it's just, uh, full of battery, isn't it? Um, but then again, I guess it is a video. Oh no, they're not that deep.

Um, but it is a video doorbell. There's another. is that the, uh, that looks like a charging board under there? Yeah, I don't know. Is that? Well, there's no button.

That's the buttony doodad interface. Oh, there you go. That one's a bit beefier. Look at that.

Oh, there you go. Whack them in series. They just got. oh well.

this one wasn't quite big enough. So we'll just, you know, whack and use a bit more extra space and just whack another one in there. So let's rip that out. And uh yeah, they've got wires connecting.

Um, this battery ring board and the power board. Is that the secret screw? Or there's a secret squirrel interface on the back? There you go. Miss that? Um, and there you go. Got an Sd card, right? Okay, so you can, um, I don't know.

Does it like detect movement and record it? And uh, like stuff like that? I I don't know. and I'm not going into huge detail here. Those playing along at home can have a look at that part number and decode it. You know it's just like a um, purpose design Asic for this sort of job that would be used in dozens and dozens of different branded products.

There you go. Oh, something's something's cracked off there. Ah, Stodgy little plastic support. Look at those dodgy little plastic standoffs.

They're pretty. How you doing? Wow. Oh yeah. look at that.

just shattered poor quality plastic. Oh wow, that's terrible. Muriel? Yeah, wow, that's they're awful. Anyway, that's just yet.

like a plastic insert thing in there. So we've got a board to board interconnect there and there's your, there's your wi-fi is or whatever. I assume it's like a wi-fi interface. um, type thing.

So yeah, they've got that's on a separate daughter board there and a board to board interface. Can we get this out? You betcha we can. Mr. Screw Tada and there's your camera module.

That's I don't know. Yeah, just oh. there you go. No, it's actually yeah.

It's straight on the straight, on the board, down the bottom. There there's the sensor. Then you've just got your lens on top. That's pretty common.

and uh, that looks like it's all sort of like custom designed to go into this so they haven't like bodged on a uh, like just an existing camera module. They have sort of integrated that into the Usb and I know, no, you would see those in like those little cube cameras and stuff. so maybe no, I don't know. Anyway, there's a per, um, movement sensor.

so yep, yep. so I just I'd say yeah, the per just it just sits there powered down and as soon as the Per detects, uh, movement, it will um, then enable and trigger and uh, record video to the s and or screenshots i don't know, still images, whatever to the um thing and then alert your receiver Doodad. So there it is. Um, there's your receiving antenna.

cool bananas. um yeah, and this just this is the doorbell. When somebody presses the uh button on the front, they uh, but I'm sure it does all that movementy uh job as well. but um, yeah, that's it.

So there you have it. Um, it's just that's just a wireless doorbell and video intercom. I mean, it's not. it's Kogan branded, but um, yeah, it probably is sold under many different names, so I don't know if you know who manufactures that.

leave it in the comments down below. But yeah, it's probably like a little, uh, one of the low end, um, Sony sensors or something like Sony dominate. They absolutely dominate the market for, you know, image sensors and stuff. It's incredible.

But yeah, there you go. Pretty simple. Don't know how long the battery would last, but yeah, that'd be going into uh, deep power down? just? um, yeah. the passive infrared.

Those per sensors don't take much because well, you can get wireless versions of those that last for you know, years or whatever on one like cr, uh, one, two, three battery or something like that. So there you go. Thanks for sending that in. Interesting two minute tear down.

I know all my viewers in Tasmania, which is like an optional part of Australia. Thank you to Justinvk7tw for those amateur radios out there in South Hobart in Tasmania. So let's have a squiz pull up up up. I ripped some.

I hope it's not valuable documentation. I ripped it. I cut it. So what do we got? Shoestring packet radio? Oh Tom Moffatt? Yes, yes, Tom Moffatt.

Um, sadly passed away like I don't know. five six years ago or something like that. Um yeah, yeah. Used to enjoy Moffat's Madhouse column in um, Ea and I think he had in other publications as well.

Um, so yeah. so this is a listening post. Oh, it's a listening post kit. Okay, because this is the listening post um, project.

I remember seeing that back in Ea back in the day and thinking, oh, that's pretty interesting and I wouldn't mind getting into that, but I wasn't really into the ham radio stuff. Aha, another name I know you can blame Peter Parker Vk3y for this package. G'day Peter. Um, well this.

uh while he was down in in Vk seven visiting family got to talking about the Moffatt's manhouse column in the Ea Magazine. I mentioned that I ended up with Tom's uh, box of kits. Oh, you actually inherited Tom's box of kits? Um, because he was selling these kits? Was he? I presume? he was. I didn't know he was selling them direct, but that makes sense to remember a little.

Electronics Australia Royalty? Yes, indeed. I have dug out the Ea articles, include them in the kit I used to read with great interest, Moffat's Madhouse, and even build a pack of, uh, pocket packet modem back in the 90s when I got into amateur radio. Um, thank you very much Justin. So was this, um, actually packed by Tom himself? This is this is one of his one of his kits and he'll sell his radio.

Like still a thing like can you still like, are they still transmitting? Can you still get stuff? Can you still receive stuff? I don't know. There you go. Um, yeah. I wonder where he got his board from.

but this was um, part of Tom Moffatt's original kits. you know, from 1992 94 and oh awesome. I've mentioned this many times. Ah, back when I was a boy.

like you know, in in the 90s, like this or in the 80s, you take it for granted. You get your double-sided solder mask plate through. uh you know Pcb with you know, six, six thou, uh rules for you know, a couple of bucks delivered straight from China which is insane. You get five of them or something.

You know it's insane. but back then you either had to roll your own boards if you got them made commercially. um just even getting like a single sided one um would would cost you very significant coin. It could cost you like hundreds of dollars for the setup fee and then just getting like a panel made there was not a shared panel.

Rubbish. that was. Geez. Shared panels.

Maybe came around mid to late 90s, something like that. Then when I used my first shared panel I think. but before that you had to buy the whole panel and it was. You know it was pretty costly to get a board paint.

Anyway, Yep, nice single sided tin plate Jobby? you would? you wouldn't get the solder mask. Oh that was fancy. pantsy. So you just got the um tin plate and yeah, just the rolled tin finish on your Pcbs.

Nice good idea Tom. Thanks for all the articles mate. So that's just brilliant. Some original Tom Moffett uh kits here for the listening post.

Please leave it in the comments. Hands up If you built one of Tom Moffett's listening posts, it was a hugely popular project I think back at the time that spurned like many variants I think and um, yeah. and Tom Moffatt Of course he wrote Moffett's Madhouse. He used to love Moffitt's Mad House, but Morse ready weather facts, transmissions and stuff like that you hook it up to your computer I think, didn't you and you decoded it.

Yeah, there it is. Ibm compatible world. Uh, full Atp picture quality. Must have a Vga system that uses analog type color monitor.

That's good. The false colors are not normal ones in the Ega system as well. And they talk about Cga3. 20x200 doesn't hold a candle to the Vga images and stuff like that.

Um, oh, that's just that is just great, right? Weather Facts: Is it like do they still transmit this? Can you still receive it? I don't know. Sorry, I'm not going to go to the um oh there you go. Wow orbit followed by the meteor or meteor satellite. Wow.

Like you could Real? that would be really funky. Back in the day I was tempted to get one I think. but um, yeah. I I never did get around to it.

I have no idea what this article's about here, but I just found this funny. Um, just completed the presentation from New South Wales Department of Administrative Services. Sir Edward, a portly, bolding expert, gave a talk on behalf of the Department. Eccles explained that a routine like this can go for a couple of minutes.

I get like, what, What is this? There you go. You typically put in a do-it-yourself box like that and hook it up to the computer and uh, it's We've got some scope waveforms there back when. that's how you actually got way scope waveforms back in the day. Actually took a photo at the Crt.

Yeah, One of the most popular electronics construction projects in recent years was Tom Moffatt's listening post. Yeah, Tom did this one as well. but it looks like Jim uh wrote the article and uh oh, they talk about the micro B computer and stuff like that. Groovy.

So there you go. like there wasn't a huge amount, uh to it. um, facts, weather things, and I don't know a satellite, geosynchronous plots and stuff like that or something. So I'll uh, leave it in the comments down below.

I'm sure someone will know if this thing if these things would still work, but uh yeah, you would have to like get I don't know. Can you get like new software if it does still work? I assume like there's new software and receivers that just receive it or you just get it on the interwebs or whatever. But there you go. Tom Moffett would have packed these kits himself.

Good on you Tom. Thanks for all the fish mate! So we've got the listening post. We sat uh station here if that's how you uh, pronounce it and there's the schematic for it. Looks like it's only a uh uh, Hc404 a regulator, a couple of Op amps, and uh, bob's your uncle there.

so that interfaces um, two. that would be go into the parallel port of the Pc and that's you know, that's all she wrote or um, but I. The software was available in an Amiga version and a Pc version too. So so yeah, that's the Pcr port interface.

And there you go. ordering the kit. This is what I used to do when I publish my things. If you want uh, this, uh, software or kit or whatever, then you'd put your address in there and then people would send you like a money order or sometimes a lot of the time.

I got, uh, cash in the mail and I'd ship them a, um, stuff back. and that's how it was done back in the day. So there's also the shoestring packet radio, the pocket packet, uh, modem here, and oh, look at that. Is that an original um, Toshiba T-1000 series? Oh, do I want one of those? I want one so bad.

they um, some of the models, um, have dos in rom. Absolutely fantastic. Ms-dos in rom in boots? Instantly. Absolutely brilliant.

I totally remember this article. I remember this photo and there's what you can get out of these things. And the schematic for this one, quite significantly different, Uses a Tcm 3105 modem chip. I wonder if you can still get that? I might never.

I doubt it. Um, anyway, yeah, hands up if you built one of these as well. but these are the kits here. So we have an original pocket packet uh, kit from 92 and includes all the parts and like, alfoil down in there wrapped in alfoil.

Absolutely brilliant. and uh yeah, that would still work The tin plate Pcb jobby in there was that like a from Rcs radio or something? maybe. And there's a 94 listening post kit although the original article was 1992, so maybe he updated it or something like that. But uh yeah, there you go.

Classic kits from Tom Moffatt. Oh geez, that's a real blast from the past and I really enjoyed Tom's um, Moffat Madhouse column as well as his uh, project articles. even though you know I would read every project article and like, you know, consume them even though I had like, really, you know I thought, oh, that'd be cool, but you know, like and I had no interest in actually, uh, building one or whatever. Um, yeah, that's just what you did when you're a hobbyist.

There was no internet back then. I won't do the research now, but uh, somebody will no doubt tell me in the comments down below if these things would still work and if I could actually build them up and uh, like and get the old Dos software or is there you know, I'm sure there's more. If they are still transmitting, um, this sort of stuff then I'm sure there's like better ways to get it these days. But hey, that was the early 90s so you know we're talking like 30 years ago.

Anyway, Tom Moffatt absolute legend of the Australian Electronics Industry. Hi to all my viewers in Germany and thank you Ak Module bus computer that rings a bell. So uh, we might have a second sucker. The Sav alert alert Will Robinson.

So let's check it out. You have a note. aha yes I think I they said they'd email me to this and then they'd email an email from them. I think saying that they would send one of these because we've seen this before and I've used their Um Lcr box on several videos.

This is a reference capacitor box, so it's no, I don't think it's a it's not a decade capacitance box. It's a like a literally a reference capacitor. so I don't know if they've included like you know, a cow sheet with it. reference capacitors.

Uh, one percent tolerance jobbies. Although the 100 mics are five, uh, percent tolerance and they've measured them. Um, doesn't say uh, measured with the Mastec Um, Ms 5308. I'll have to look that up one up, but I assume that's a serious Lcr meter with much better tolerance.

As a rule of thumb, you generally want. When you're doing calibration, you generally want like an order. if you can, an order of magnitude better accuracy than what you're actually measuring than the device under test that you're actually measuring. But you know, in the ultra high-end uh, metrology end of things, which you can read all about on the Ev blog forum, you know you might only get a couple of times and then it's all voodoo magic and you know.

But anyway, cool. So we've got a knob on there and we've got reference caps that'll be handy for very handy for like, testing multimeters. And apparently it sells astonishingly well considering the very limited, uh, market. Yeah, well.

people love their calibration stuff. Seriously, people are obsessed with, uh, calibrating their multimeters and having standards to check against them. Well, why not, right? So here it is and it's just got a bunch of, uh, different types of uh, one, mostly one percent, uh, reference, uh, caps on here. and then, of course, um, yeah, there's nothing in there.

it's just yeah. a couple of banana plugs and a switch to connect them through. Uh, and they're through-hole jobbies so you don't have any issues with, uh, potentially, uh, damage them due to, uh, reflow soldering that you get with surface mount parts. So anyway, it comes with this sheet here.

and uh, they're They're using a Mastec Msr5308 Lcr meter and that's that's the nominal spec of that Lcr meter. So they're not using a high-end Lcr meter at all to actually measure these. Um, unfortunately. so I'm a bit unfair.

Like, I don't have my good Hp uh, Bench jobby anymore. I sold that quite a few years ago. I shouldn't have done that really. Um, anyway.

so they've given us up measured values here. But because, um, you know, we're using one percent caps here for anything one mic and below, and five percent? Um, above that? That's nominal of course. Um, you know, the whole idea of getting buying one of these is that you actually get the measured values. Unfortunately, with the Lcr like it's going to be better than 0.5 percent, right? It could be an order of magnitude better than that, but you don't actually know it's not.

You know, a really high-end uh, benchtop Lcr meter with like point one percent? um, Ac nominal? Um, accuracy or something like that. But anyway, these are the measured values here. So unfortunately, um, as I said, I don't have a good Lcr meter, So the best I can do here is actually I use my Agilent Uh one and could also try out my Iet or one as well. But anyway, there you go.

So that's our one Nanofarad one and that is substantially above what we measured. Uh here. Um, 0.999 So I'm measuring 1.0107 uh, Nanofarads. and we got 0.99 on the data sheet.

So that is a difference of you know, about 1.2 1.1 something like that. But once again, like you don't know, right? We don't have a serious instrument, but I do actually have the only reference capacitor I have here in the lab is this Arco one and this is um, this dates from 1967. this is actually a serious bit of kit. This is what you'll find in this is a transfer standard.

a reference standard capacitor. Very expensive. These are these go for hundreds of dollars each and these are incredibly stable with time. You could argue that the older it is, the more stable it is.

Anyway, this is a nominal 0.1 uh tolerance. but I have actually measured it on uh things and it like it seems to be bang on So I can actually um, give you that on my Agilent job here and we are measuring at one kilohertz by the way and it's bang on right? So it's bang on so I'm you know, I'm fairly confident in this agilent meter. Once again, this is not good metrology. You know you'd have to go to Ex-devs um someone like that to actually, uh, do this kind of stuff.

But the whole idea is that you use something like this. not as an absolute reference, but more like a just a reference over time so that you can compare different instruments and stuff like that so you can you know see if your meters are drifting over time and stuff like that because generally yeah, these will have a temperature coefficient. So these are our Pp types. These are our polypropylene types except for uh, pet types down here in the high values, there are more stable dielectrics and stuff, but these will have a temperature coefficient.

and maybe I can demonstrate that. Let's see if we can freeze it. There we go, she's going up, she's going up. It's got a negative temco which yeah, don't freeze your uh reference capacitors please because you'll come a gutser so.

but that will come back down like if you. The whole idea is that your lab is at a relatively stable temperature and you can use your aircon to keep it like plus minus a degree or something so you know it's it's pretty good. So what does that measure on my Iet? uh, higher, higher again on the Iet. But I think my uh agilent one is the higher uh spect meter Here There you go 0.999 and we got 9.995 there.

So this is actually reading a bit low according to my Uh meter here and 99.85 But once again, right, it's the whole idea is that you can use it to see if your uh meter's drifting and or your if you're comparing different instruments. And of course I don't have the best leads here right? So again, these are relatively long. I don't have short leads. There's the one microfarad jobby.

There's the 10 microfarad jobby and 100 microfarads which is this big beast here. Wow, look at that. Wow. 100 Mike thank you very much.

Um, and yeah and there are different dielectrics so you can go into the whole argument about you know what's the proper type to use And I have looked at the data sheets for these. I couldn't find the F4, Six four, six, one in a one percent tolerance so I don't know where he's getting a one percent tolerance from. So there might be a special order, but uh, the data sheet, um didn't seem to indicate but that but the other ones are like, um, you know you can actually order them special order. Normally they're not a one percent uh, tolerance so you have to read the data sheet and probably get a special order for those anyway.

That will be very useful here for the labs so that I can compare uh meters and that's you know. that's one of the cool things you know. Capacitors are really hard to get like absolute ones, like in as you can see here, right? Point: One percent, right? This is basically one of the best reference capacities you can get on the market. Point: one percent, um, initial tolerance.

But the whole idea is that you, you know, use them as transfer standards and you can do your metrology magic and you can, um, you know, certify them to a greater uh, standard than than that than their marked value. Of course, the whole idea is stability. with time and temperature. the absolute value doesn't actually matter as long as it doesn't drift with time and temperature.

Unfortunately, these polyprop ones do, Then they're not the best dielectrics. You probably can get better, uh, more stable dielectrics. but a lot of them these days are like Smd ones. Which, as I said, you know you can cause issues if you don't reflow solder them properly.

You could damage them and and you just don't know. so it's a bit how you're doing so. Any reference capacitor box. I would much prefer through-hole jobbies anyway.

thank you very much Roger. Um, I'll link in the Uh Module A Ak Module Bus D E I always forget the url because it's quite hard. Um, and I'll link it in down below if you want mine. it's 46 euros that? So yeah, it's an interesting and useful, uh bit of kit to have around the lab, especially if you're like, um, you know, evaluating instruments and uh, doing all sorts of other things and you care about.

you know, if your meter's drifting or something like that, it's you know, obviously like you can. Once you get it, get in a stable temperature. you record the values. It doesn't even matter what the reference values are.

once you record them on your own instrument, and then you can, you know, come back in a month's time. You can measure it every month and see what's drifted. It's unlikely the caps have drifted or aged much in terms of that if you use them at the same temperature. but even then, temperature doesn't make a massive difference.

but it can. And I've already opened this one up because they didn't put mail bag on. If you want to send something, input: Mailbag Po Box 7949 Norwest, New South Wales 2153 Australia not Austria. Thank you very much.

Creative, um, they've sent me these uh whiz bangy bluetoothy thingymajig earbuds. So I've got a wanky little uh packet here and I really despise these little like hearing aid kind of um, silicon things which are supposed to sit in your ear. I just i, uh come. I like the earbuds that just sit on the outer bit of the ear.

So anyway here it is up close and this is actually rather funky design. It's got the Usbc's in there and then a uh battery uh level for the because it does have internal battery so you can take it anywhere and charge them and left and right. and if we open that, there you go. I'm not sure where it's a bit.

I got bright studio lights here. There you go. you can see them actually slowly flashing there. which means they're charging and you can see that they sit in these little this little charging cradle here.

I know, you know, this is like everyone's doing this these days, aren't they? We've got two little pin contacts in there left and right and they sit in the cradle and they just start charging from the internal battery. So that's uh, pretty groovy I assume. like that's in the back, uh, part of it here, the battery and uh, whatnot. anyway.

um, that's all there is to it. Super x5 ready or whatever. Anyway, I spent like an hour or two, uh, using these the other night, hooked them up to my shoe phone and um, they like sound wise. What can I tell you like? They're you know, sounded pretty good for dialogue and stuff.

Listen to some music as well and they sound pretty decent. Ordinarily, I use these ones. These are diecast and they just like earbud ones and they sit in my ear and they're great. The only problem is, uh, when you've got metal conductive like this and you do move around if you do have static charge on yourself, I can zap myself in the ear.

but uh, these are. I don't know if you can read that, but all glamour or something. All glamour, uh ones. and you know they're not quite as good as these.

I don't think. I don't know, like it's like uh, this is not going to be an audio review, uh thing. And yeah, I can't really get you the proper audio output of these things unless you had like an artificial ear or something and then like a microphone plugged into like an artificial ear and then you can plug it in. But yeah, I don't like how I just don't like this style of silicon thing which goes inside my ear.

I don't like having my ears plugged up with these things, it just it just feels weird. I'm not comfortable. that's just a totally personal thing. I know other people just absolutely despise these things and think they're horrid and old school.

and they love the bass they get with the nice sealed ear plugs and wank wank wank wank wank. Okay, no, not really a fan, but they do sound okay and they do work. And I do like the mechanism uh here and the fact that you know you can just take this I don't know. like the specs of how long it, uh, you know the battery lasts and stuff like that.

I assume you know you get quite a few probably dozens of charges out of the internal battery. I would have thought. so you can just take it with you and they charge and you take them out and it keeps them in there and they don't rattle around and that's really neat design. I don't know what else to tell you.

Um, obviously on a mailbag. I'm not going to do a tear down, but I don't know. if you want to see a micro tear down of one of these mic, you know the micro electronics inside these things I don't know. Leave it in the comments.

but yeah, they're okay. Um, I don't have. This is the only bluetooth earbud thing I have, so it might come in handy. So they're supposed to be sweat proof as well.

They I don't think they're waterproof, so you know, sweatproof instead of waterproof for a reason so you wouldn't want to swim with them. Um, and apparently it's got active noise cancellation. I didn't try that. I don't like.

uh, noise canceling stuff. I don't need noise cancelling stuff. I don't like tuning out the world. I like listening into the world.

Uh, which is why I prefer like open back. uh, headphones. And why I prefer, um, unsealed earbuds like these. Ah, there you go.

900 milliamp hour capacity, 85 milliamp hour capacity in the earbuds? Um, is that both combined? That would be each? Okay, yeah, so you'll get you know, a few charges out of that. That's all right. And wireless range up to 10 meters. I I actually got more than that.

I was getting like on the other side of my house before they, uh, decided to, uh, drop out. So yeah, I was probably getting 20 meters. Something like that, I'd say before they were dropping out. so I think that's a bit conservative.

Yeah, I had no problems with the range at all. I was able to walk around the house no worries. and I didn't read the manual that I've got here, but I figured out that you touch them and it speaks to you as well. Um, and you can and you can just touch the sides that got capacitive touch sense and you can increase and decrease the volume.

I figured that one out and looks like it's got some other functionality as well. Or you can master reset. Just hold them both down. Next up, we've got a classic brown masking tape from Hong Kong.

Uh, thank you! Hi to all my viewers in Hong Kong. So let's crack it open. I won't tell you what it says on the uh front. it's a bit of a mystery.

I don't know. Um, we have a note. I won't actually read it yet. I just want to have a look.

Well, spin Spin Spin Spin Spin. It's I don't know if it's new or it looks. yeah. Look, it's shrink wrap.

But what do we got? What do we got? It's a two-in-one oscilloscope. Ah, for nursey. Nursey. again for nursey.

again. What's this? Like the third of the Sav and a Sig Gen? Whoa. Look at that. Um, that looks pretty funky.

It's kind of like colorful, you know? Um, all right. Well, uh, yeah. they might have to be separate videos. Like when you get stuff like this in the mail bear you can't like.

Do it in like five minutes. Not even a tear down. Really, it's addressed to the handsome and humorous Dave Jones. Well, if you insist, Um, Isil from Uh for Nursey I look, come on, we we need an official pronunciation.

I'm sure somebody's told me, but anyway, I am a sewell from Fersi may you remember? Yes, I do remember our R D slowed down the first two years, but this year we released because you know something happened of some unspecified unknown origin happened for the last two years. Then we release a lot of devices. This time we bring you our Dso2c2 combination of transistor detect transistor detector and oscilloscope. Please don't tell me they've put a transistor tester in an oscilloscope.

It's bad enough when it's in a multimeter in an oscilloscope. Do they mean curve tracer? They might? no. Oh look, it's got oh yeah, look, it's got a zest socket on the front. Best wishes, Thank you very much! Well, let's check them out briefly because yeah, it's going to require a second channel video if people want to see the Full Monty.