Hi Welcome to everyone's favorite segment: mailbag. It's been a while, but we've got a bit of a backlog won't be able to get through it all today, but this is a segment where anyone, including companies can send in stuff randomly into the mailbag and we take a quick look at it and if it's interesting enough, might even get its own video later. So let's check it out. This one.

Um, unfortunately I already opened it because they didn't put mailbag on if you're going to send something in mailbag. EV Log mailbag P.O Box 7949 Northwest New South Wales 2153 Australia not Austria So it's got to have mailbag. otherwise I think I've ordered it. So yeah, I've already opened this and uh, let's have a look.

We have a note. sorry I've had this one for actually quite an embarrassing amount of time I didn't get around to it for some ridiculous reason. Anyway, it's been opened by our customs and then resealed by uh with DHL tape. Anyway, comes from a US company called Standard Measurement I'm surprised such a company didn't already exist long ago.

Anyway, um, it's the Pocket Frog Check it out. It's a a lab in your pocket so thank you very much. Uh Bob G'day Bob He's the senior engineer at Standard Measurement, so let's check it out. Looks like it's going to be a data loggery type thing.

Well, I I won't do it. Oh, it's tiny and there you go. Plugs into the USBs and uh, it's got some four millimeter banana Jacks and it does sampling and whatnot. So I guess all the goodness is going to be in the software.

Got a power cord? That's even an Aussie power cord. We've got probes, power adapter but yeah, it's basically a USB loggery measurement doodad thing. Let's check it out. It's all going to be in the software though.

All right. So here's the Pocket Frog and uh, this is actually quite neat. It's actually got a fully programmable uh power supply from 1 to 20 volts at 3 amps. so up to 60 watt capable power supply as well as a meter in it.

So yeah, like it's pretty Jazzy but it's also a jazzy price. It's a 210 US dollars. so have a look at the website in the middle made in the United States of America and it must be connected to a computer. USB port will not operate from a USB charger.

It enumerates as a USB a Serial Port. So uh, presumably that's how it. uh, you get the comms. and here's the external uh, like a power input because of course you can't get it from the regular USB and can't get 60 watts from that.

But it comes with like this little uh DC Barrel Jack to uh, USBC adapter which I would have preferred. Why not put a USBC directly on there? I don't make it like I can Yeah, I Understand the versatility that you can use either a DC Barrel Jack or a USBC but maybe both on there. Um, they've designed. They've made this thing as small as possible.

It's like a USB uh stick. So yeah, that? maybe they could have made it a little bit better. Uh, bigger in that regard. to put the USBC on there.

I I Don't want this flapping around in the breeze? Um, really? So yeah. that's that's the only downside physically. Anyway, you know what we say here at the EV blog? Don't turn it on. Let's take it apart and let's have a squeeze.

There we go. we're in. And yeah, I Was going to say this has to be absolutely chock-a-block I Mean they've done a remarkable job getting everything into a USB stick but a cat? And and that's part of their marketing thing. In fact, I'll show you that so you can see on their website here.

Their Big Marketing thing is that. uh, it's a we pack a programmable power supply, counter, timer and Vault meter in the package. Not much larger than a USB memory stick. Uh yeah.

I can understand. You know you're putting in your little laptop bag and stuff like that. Great. But you know you could have made it a little bit bigger.

There was no need to. Um, sort of. You know it's okay. you've got to double this size and it's It's really the same thing.

It didn't have to be USB stick size. but hey, hat tip two. we're trying to get it into a USB size thing. That's very impressive.

So I can give you uh Power waveforms as well so you can simulate you know, a battery discharge charge. all that sort of stuff. so we'll see what frequency when that goes up. till we saw that in the recent analog.

Discovery Uh, three things. So this is the only Uh product that they do. Let's go to about us: I won't try and pronounce that name in Michigan um I bet they're in Michigan there yo! How do all my viewers in Michigan And as I said, it's 210 Yankee bucks. which sounds a lot but if it does the job then it's worth every cent of course.

And they have software for a Raspberry Pi as well and a Linux and Mac So Beauty I don't know if it's they don't see anything about open source. So anyway, oh no, it's 20 volts at 2 amps I thought I read UH 60 watts somewhere So I'm not sure what the deal is. A voltmeter can go up to Uh 40 volts. Uh, you can express as power supply, voltage or current as equations with your voltmeter Readiness currents.

Nice. run Anyway, let's install the software. This will be a very quick review. It won't be comprehensive and done.

Launch Pocket Frog Too easy. Can't move this from the other screen but it says I have to accept these conditions. The user will not connect any of the Pocket Frog banana connectors to any AC power or neutral. Yeah! so I have read and understood and the cable they supplied is one of those uh, bi-directional insert either direction Jobbies? Nice.

Anyway, it didn't finish looking at the hardware here. So we've got uh PCB Mount uh banana Jacks there just sold it on. That's fine and dandy. Uh, we've got some protection diodes here and over here as well.

Not sure what's missing there those cap is. let's see and see it. Missing a couple of caps, but that's all right. And uh, they've got a free scale jobby I don't know what? Mp27 pivot Anyway, you can look that up yourself.

Um, this is not an extensive uh review. Reverse engineering some more protection there. There's our five volt that's just uh, serial com. So all the power.

So that's uh, input, uh, protection. so that'll be reverse polarity protection on the input art. We have to got two more screws. So yeah, they've done well to squeeze it in here.

but I've got to like think oh, you know you probably don't have to, but maybe you know I don't know. leave it in the comments down below if you think oh yeah, yeah, it's the size of a USB stick. Damn I want that but I can appreciate the um yeah, having that as a design goal and as no surprises for fighting the other side, it's your problem. Dual side populated and they've got a bunch of stuff on the other side.

I've got some uh, big uh, polymer caps here. You can tell they're polymer because uh, they don't have the vents on them. the um, the square vents there so they're not regular wet electrolytes. Um, and yeah, like there's not much else.

Okay, genuine. Molex Oh yeah, it's got a few test points on there and once again, you know there's a few missing uh, components and stuff like that. So I'm not sure if I don't think they have a number one. I think this is the only model so I'm not sure what's uh, doing there, but there you go.

Um, that's a power supply and a voltmeter basically. Anyway, that's very impressive to fit an adjustable current limit uh, 40 volt? uh, power supply in there, two amps and and also the voltmeter capability and into a USB size stick. Nice work So there might be a power curve limitations in this, but I haven't read the manual so it might be in there. Okay, let's plug our Pocket Frog in and see if it detects.

sorry I won't show you this oh something went Windows is telling me it's setting it up. device is ready. it's just a com Port com5 Pocket Frog none. Oh there there we go.

Com5 Okay, there we go. we're in. Uh I just disconnected it because I wanted to reconnect in my National Instruments virtual bench and it's not responding so I'm not sure what's going on here. might have to restart It Yeah, I'll get a flashing green lead so let me disconnect.

Nope. Still nothing not responding. Close the program. Ah yeah, Restart it.

We're good to go again. No worries. Okay, let's turn the power supply on default values here and I've got it hooked up to my National Instruments virtual bench. You can see that 1.04 volts.

we've set it to one uh, volt here. This pretty National instruments virtual benches pretty Schmick specs. So it was. It's uh, yeah, so that's exactly what we get in.

and yeah, you can't go below one. Oh yeah, I can use my uh, mousy wheel to zoom that up. No worries. Would have been nice to have uh presets here for like 3.35 volts.

you know, stuff like that. But the interesting thing is is that I don't have my uh external power connected to this thing. so it's doing that. It's getting that power from the Uh, just from the USB connection.

um itself. Okay, so what happens if I short that bad boy out and we've got over current? There we go. So it says over current. No workers.

Now here's where it would have been nice to tell you whether or not you're using the USB power or the external Uh Power because the new analog Discovery uh does that. It can tell you which uh one you're actually using because clearly it works I didn't expect it to work I thought it needed the external power. so that's good. There we go.

The current down there on the analog Discovery matches that. So where is the ability to program the power supply? Uh, is that is that coming? Options enable diagnostic login reverse scroll Direction Nope, We can do calculations, but I want to be able to like program my power supply output. Powerful automation features. Oh I did get the USB stick.

Um, and it's supposed to have an introductory video applications. uh, calculation workbook. Okay, so it's got applications, applications. What do we got? Oh, that's the actual no, that's the actual Pocket Frog Software calculations workbook.

Oh, it's just a spreadsheet with a calculation on it. Okay, right. that might be useful for login and stuff like that. Um, but yeah, we're not going to go into that so that just yeah I Assume that it tells you that allows you to calculate get the data specifically out, although it should spit it out in like ASCII form.

So anyway, I'm not gonna. This is not a Four review I'm not going to go into that. Now here's the thing: I Don't expect this to be able to go above. uh, the five volts because I don't think there's a boost converter in there.

So if we want 10 volts, yeah, it's going to give us 5.05 out to do that. Yeah, we need to connect the external. Supply Not surprising and again, I Plugged in the external power and it's locked up. so software's still under development.

I think oh I stand corrected. They do actually detect external power external power available Beauty There you go. Um, they should have just said like yeah message into USB USB Power only Voltage Current limited Etc Aha I Was trying to figure out why the voltmeter wasn't uh, showing anything I plugged it in I've got I'm output and you can see on the National Insurance down here I'm out put in four and a half volts. Um, it's because I plugged it into the negative one and it can't measure negative voltages unfortunately.

so it's not multimeter capable like if I if I switch that over right if I reverse the polarity there, it just says zero zero, right? So yeah, unfortunately, um, it will only do positive voltages. so it's not full multimeter capability. But you know, for a data logging usage, you know, not for general purpose use. it'd be okay.

Yeah, so we're getting enough four and a half volts and we're getting 4.481 That's near enough. There we go. 22 and a half. Yeah, so it's working.

25 is the maximum I can go up to with the national instruments so that works. but um, yeah, like a I'm not going to test the counter time or anything. but yeah, where are the automation capabilities for the power supply? Hang on I think I figured out how to do the power supply programming. You go into calculations here and then the output voltage.

send Revolt result to Output voltage and then you can go one unit I Don't want a unit I want a voltage? Is that why you have to use that spreadsheet converter I Hope not. Okay I got it working. You just put in the formula here: five plus sign s running times four times Pi so he's copy and pasted the example that they had in the manual there. and sure enough, okay, it's running.

You send a result to Output I Don't know what this table here is or how to add anything to the table I've got no idea how that works, but you can see it is actually doing its thing and I'm sure if we hooked it up to a scope, you would see the sine wave. You know, 5 volts. So I should be able to change that to two volts like that. And down here you can see that Yep, it's now changing two volts.

so it's going above and below. so it's a two volt offset with a sine wave on top. So it's working. but oh, it's it's clunky and convoluted.

I'm not I'm not a fan of that at all. I can appreciate the ability to do that. Obviously, that's great, but yeah, no, they need to work on the interface for that. Hmm, yeah, it talks about s running micro seconds, running micro seconds, running timers, but it is powerful.

A calculation can allow you to control the output voltage from another measurement, so like the analog Discovery can do, it can send its upper feet up its own clacker, which is really nice, but uh yeah, it's It's non-obvious and convoluted calculation workbook. Yeah, so that's why they provide that calculation workbook thing. Ah yeah. okay, so it's got all these built-in functions and operators.

but like, why would you go to all this effort to build in all these functions and operators for a power supply like I I can appreciate the effort put in, but I'm just wondering why I mean granted, it looks like you can do maybe those operators on the measure on the measurement input as well. but really? I don't know. Just export. No, just leave it to excel.

just export the allow allow the user to log the data in uh, you know, text format, right? Okay, it's 1.01 volts or something and just log it at a fast rate as as fast as you can allow the user to dump that and then they can play with it later in. Excel There's no need to build this into your uh program really? So yeah, block diagram and the lead on the front does give you uh, error of things and overload and stuff like that. uh, it doesn't. Looks like it's not going to tell us anything about the power envelope.

No, no, there's no power envelope so you don't know how much power it can dissipate when it's in. like when it's shorted and um, stuff like that. Oh look. log select log by date, Siddid knows where I am.

Oh wow. Okay, that's really right. So that's like an error. No that that's like an error log or something like that's a log of what it's actually doing.

So that's not a like a log voltage thing. So yeah, I would have liked to have seen like yeah, data login. um, proper multimeter functionality. as I said, like it could physically be larger.

If yeah, you know, um I'd rather have the extra capability in there. Okay, so with the external power available, um, it would have been nice if that if that maximum there just jumped up to the maximum external power available. So let's try that and 40 volts. Nope.

21 20.1 volts. And that's not surprising because the plug pack is only uh 19 volt plug pack. So uh, 20? maybe it's actually measuring that. But anyway, we can switch that on and the actual voltage 5.004 And of course, if we try and put 40 in there, it'll limit it to maximum of 20.1 volts.

No surprise there at all. So that is all right. Um, I'm not going to try the USB C thing, so can we actually change that? So 2.1 is the maximum current? It'll actually, uh, do so? let's go to Max there? Well, 2.1 and let's short that out and boom over current. Why is the actual current showing zero? Uh, let's try that off the national instruments.

Uh, we'll short it out and oh hello, something's something's gone wrong. It's not on off. Something has gone horribly wrong. External power available on over current.

There we go. So why it didn't show before I don't know. It just like shut off or something. 0.76 So yeah, it's it's matching.

Um, so it's it's real. It's dropped that down. So yeah, this is not the like. If you're after the world's best, uh little uh.

power supply, this is. uh, it's obviously not going to do it. so it can't do the 2.1 amps if we drop that down to 10. Is that going to make a difference? No, that's not going to make a difference, is it? Yeah, it's just not.

It's not going to do it. I Mean it. You're not going to damage it. But anyway.

yeah, why it didn't do that right off the bat. I Got no idea if I short it out again. Yeah, if I short it out directly like that in, instead of putting it through a current shunt it, it actually shows zero If I Oh, and and yeah, there you go. It's so.

maybe that is some sort of protection thing I Don't know. but really I Want my power supply to like, you know, be a constant current power supply I Want it to be able to put the two amps in there? So that's interesting. So it resets so it's protecting itself which is good. but no, if I do that, it's no good.

But if I plug it into a 10 amp multimeter current shot which has some resistance, but the leads have resistance too. um, we get 0.75 So that's interesting. So that's some sort of software protection thing I would imagine. But yeah, no.

I want my power supply to be able to Output Um, you know what? I tell it to into a dead short. That's the idea. What about one amp? Can we do one amp? No, it drops down to point three two. So I yeah, Like you know, the power supply is rudimentary.

Let's let's put it that way. it does, uh, protect itself. which is good. but yeah, it's not the best power supply by the looks of it, but of course more characterization required.

This is not. This is my first play with it, so this is not a full review. As I mentioned, it presumably will go up to 40 volts if you have a 40 volt external supply for it, but they Supply only a 19 volt uh plug pack here which is plenty. you know you don't.

You usually don't need to go uh to those higher voltages, especially in sort of like a pocket field use. uh thing like this if you do, um, a more external Supply or maybe USB PD which I'm not going to try because the thing with USB power delivery can in fact the new 3.1 can go up to 48 volts I think it is 30s, 24, 36, and 48 volts or something like that that. but you've got to negotiate that to be able to Output that and this can't negotiate with just that little DC Barrel jack adapter. um thing, it's unless it's actually you can't see that.

but uh, it specifically says 19 volt power delivery so it looks like this has a negotiation chip in it I Would presume that once you plug it in, negotiates with power and it's only going to give you the 19 volts. Um, so yeah, exactly the same as the plug pack, but I think it is capable of more than 40 if you actually put 40 into it I'm not going to test that and it looks like the cable I've got's a little bit dodgy so it, uh went Windows thing uh when I touched it so it's it doesn't automatically reconfigure. So yeah, they need to fix that in software. But there you go.

that is the Pocket Frog It's still in the early stages of software development I think and it's at 200 and just over 200 bucks. It's pretty pricey like you know it's You can get a an analog, an older analog Discovery for that now can you I think they lowered the price on the analog Discovery So yeah, it's harder to compete, but this is Tiny form factors. So if you want that tiny USB form factor. this could be really good.

but yeah, but the power supply with a minimum of uh, 0.6 amps current limit and as you saw there, it's not actually capable of like doing like the set Power uh, you know, constant current? Yeah, and you can see it's like it's in constant voltage mode. There it says um and not constant current even though like one amp like can I even set like half an amp for example. Nope, it's well, 0.6 I know because it's a minimum of 0.6 Um, yeah. so it's got limitations like that and there's no like data login I Want to see data login? I Want to be able to log data to an Excel file? Please just dump out the you know at the fastest sample rate uh, possible.

And the power supply modulation? it does work. but those those calculation things that's that's all. kind of as flexible as it is. I've got to say, it's kind of clunky and it can only do up to two Hertz No 10 10 Hertz I think uh, maximum power supply modulation thing.

So um, it might be handy for some uses like for slow ramping and stuff like that. Maybe you know, set up a ramp or I don't know how you set up a discharge curve mathematically because that looks like how you have to do it. It'd be nice if it had options in there. That simply said, simulate a lithium ion battery for example.

And you know, stuff like that. But all that sort of stuff can come with time in the software. But yeah, it needs a bit more work Anyway, that's the Pocket Frog I do like the little logo there. That's really cool.

anyway. I'll link it in down below. but yeah, I think that's a still a work in progress, but it's interesting. They did a really good job fitting in the USB form factor.

Beauty Next up, we've got one from Australia in fact Hoxton Park Just a stone's throw. Uh, thrim here. so uh, thank you very much. Okay, DNA Electronics I Got no idea what this is, so let's get in here.

All right. All right. So there we go. All right there we go.

Oh, what is this brown paper wrapping? It's the uh Onif EXO Mata's third Maker's third hand. It's the onific stove. The Maker's third hand. Um, like I presume I would guess.

Um, it's like one of those. like a PCB holder or something like that. Um, because you know you've got to have three. Every engineer has three hands.

You've got to have at least three hands. Sometimes you need more. Oh no, no, no, that was a fail. I should have should have actually sliced that open and uh, what is it? What is it it's got.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a clampery thing. I've just falling apart that it's got It's got magnets, magnets, magnets, magnets right? So it's got yeah, magnet. Ah, cool, right? So it's got four magnity things which sit on the middle base which has a convenient ruler on it. but I'll show you up close and nope, there we go and wow they're they're quite novel I don't like ball joint with the magnetic base plastic magnetic base bottom I like that and these are just and they're and and they're Clips like like that for holding your board that is novel I'll show you up close wow I haven't seen something quite like that before like I've seen similar things that the PCB out for example, no it's not PC byte because if you wanted you would have put the capital in there anyway.

I've done a video on that so Anthony uh from K A Electronics there actually are the Australian distributor uh for this omnifixo of M4 uh PCB holder. So thank you very much for sending this in and check it out. If you haven't got a magnetic uh PCB holder like this, you should definitely get one. Uh, and this is uh, different to the other PCB All right ones are that I've shown before those similar concept: you've got a metal uh base plate in this case, it's you know, relatively small, about 150 mil long.

Um, it looks like it's got a Earthen bonding point over there that's uh, quite handy. inches for you Yanks up here, so that's uh, useful and maybe maintenance on the bottom. But instead of just being a regular like a crocodile clip or something like that, they've got these funky, um, big large jaw opening spring clips like this if you know what they're called. um, leave them in the comments down below because like I may like I've seen similar things, but I have no idea what they're called and they've got nice insulative things on the end.

it means that you can actually put and no like not only just have your board Edge but you can also put them over large components like this. So this is like this is going to be terrific. Let me try it. Oh oh, it's just not big enough for an Ethernet connector.

look at that. But right, That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. like you can put it over existing components like that. like I've got it over the HDMI on this Raspberry Pi here and we should even be able to go over this pin header.

Check it out and we're not going to damage the pins so we can have our board and put it on an angle like that. Fantastic! Now the only downside that I can see from this is that it doesn't need much force like I'm putting my pinky on there and it really doesn't need much force. so I'd like to see stiffer stiffer balls. Trust me, the stiffer your balls are the better.

I'd really like to see those balls are stiffened up so that you know, like it so you can't solder on that like for example, right and so you couldn't put enough pressure on your soldering iron, it'd just fall over like that. But of course that's not a problem, right? If you've got it mounted vertically like that and then you've got it in in like that, right? No problems whatsoever, right? You can do your soldering and your whatnot. but if you are like having your board an angle for some reason like probing, uh, for example, I've shown those flexible probes in a previous Uh video so um, yeah, and that would be more than that would be enough pressure just to have let your probe come down gently on there like that and then Pierce through any extra oxidization. I can say that word with uh, your sharp um oscilloscope probe and then all your meter probe and then probe your board like that at an angle so that's that's really quite Jazzy So yeah, um, apart from the ball stiffness which is like it's good, but maybe a bit sniffer might have been a maybe it's had more useful perhaps, but this is incredibly useful board you definitely.

If you have not got um, like a magnetic holder like this, something like this, then you need one of these things because they're so darn useful. um I probably would have liked it. Maybe another version with a larger plate? I've got the larger plate. uh, the other one that I've got has a larger plate here.

if I want to do like really big boards and uh, stuff. but this is this is just absolutely terrific. So yeah, maybe slightly opening Jaws wider. but then that's a trade-off between the height I Guess you know if they get too high then your board gets you know and too high off there and you can't work on it properly or whatnot? But um yeah like this is great.

This is great. This is a winner winner chicken dinner. You definitely need one of these magnetic holders. they're They're really terrific.

Um, and the build quality seems really terrific on these. So yeah, really happy with that. Well fun. Um highly recommended.

So I'll leave our K A Electronics link down below and this is worth every Aussie dollar redo. Got another one for the United States of America Thank you very much John Nichols from ERC Incorporated ERC Inc So open this up. What do we get? What do we got? It's a it's some sort of frame. No, there's no note, no note.

We got a t-shirt Thank you. Always enjoy the t-shirts um. size small or medium? I'm none of that large. American Rubbish.

Um, thank you very much. But uh, we uh. we showed up. We showed up.

Somebody showed up. Yes, they did show up. Oh I think I know what this is I I think I've had this for a while. sorry I think I know what this might be oh I'd forgotten about this sorry yeah I've had a few like buried in the shelf for quite some time.

I'm going to I think it's the right way up Am I going to show it correctly I think it is I Remember them emailing me this and sending this is going to be good? Look hopefully no. Is that is that the white? Ray There We go. It's yes, it's the red team. Yes, it is with the national administrator himself.

It's the yes, the red team that made the SLS um that saved the SLS rocket made it go up. um oh fantastic and signed thank you very much. This is Awesome! Um and there he is. There's the legend himself.

Billy I've done a video on Billy and it's signed by the members of the red crew. Thank you very much Ah that's going straight to the pool room. so that's Billy Chad and Trent the uh red team or red crew I think they uh, call themselves and with uh Bill Nelson and the NASA administrator of course and um I do believe that uh Billy actually was there. He was the one who worked on bill because Bill Nelson Bill Nelson's an astronaut and Billy actually worked on uh Bill Nelson's shuttle launch back in whenever.

that uh was so yeah, um, they got that leakage thing uh, fixed and of course um Artemis One Flew and did a perfect Mission Beauty and we've got one from Austria not Australia Hi to all my Austrian viewers. Thank you very much! Uh Peter true Muller Um, you know the U with the two little dots on top? anyway? um, it's a oh spoiler alert. Okay, yeah, sometimes the Box just spoils it and well, um yeah, we've got lots of paraphernalia. Got a manual.

Wow, that's a pretty Schmick uh printed manual I don't include. By the way, if you buy one of my multimeters, one of my EV blog multimeters I don't include uh, the manual. just trying to save paper because most people just end up tossing it out anyway. so you know what was the point Anyway, um, this is all fancy panty and it's a there you go.

It's a USB cable test at USBC cable tester. so I'll show you up close not included a battery Vada made in Germany Uh, Brilliant. Oh, there's another one is it? Uh no, that's the USB that's a uh c2a that's a seat away. Anyway, we'll take a close look at these up front.

I'm always very handy USB Like cable testers and stuff like that. Very handy piece of Kit So Peter Tron Muller Ah, there's the website. uh, Cabacue.com I'll link it in there down below and um, set in these two USB tester boards. Incredibly handy because especially the USBC to USBC cables can be very complex and actually have lots of different modes.

You can see all the different Uh leads here and look at these manuals. this is actually really impressive. Check out this like beautiful um of photos in here and then how to hook it up and the measurement and everything. and the Beautiful overlays really professionally produced and then we have a decoding table so we'll check that out and oh wow like yep, yep, this is the most thoroughly impressive manual I've seen in a long time, let alone for you know, something simple with no active circuitry.

It's just basically a bunch of leads and a battery and but you know it's quite good and this is USB a uh to USBC and the same thing and not going to be as complicated yet. There you go and not as many uh modes. But anyway, let's check it out. So we've got two boards here and I tried to put my battery into here and it wouldn't go because look, check this out! This is actually a beautiful touch.

There's actually a screw in there which holds the battery in and it's even got its own little metal threaded insert. Isn't that a Bobby dazzler That is beautiful? I Don't think it's actually needed though because these usually have quite a lot of force on them. although. I Guess if you want to throw this board in like your kit bag or something like that, then eventually it might vibrate out.

but usually these are quite Force full. So anyway, I'm going to take that out and we'll give it a ball. so we plug that in and it doesn't chew any power if you're not, uh, doing anything so it requires connection. So let me get a few test cables and I have quite a lot of problem with USB C cables and actually getting like an incorrect type.

You know, I'm trying to connect my phone into something and then it's like a charge only cable and doesn't do data or it doesn't do USB uh, you know, power delivery or something like that? Really annoying. So hopefully this is going to give us and a thing here. oh hello, that is. That's that's for the shield.

Oh nice. It's actually got the shield that is beautiful. Okay, wow, okay that's terrific. So The Shield is connected and then we plug that in and Bingo! Um, this one.

it looks like I Thought this cable was really good because it's like a real huge thick ass cable. This is the one that came with the portable uh, soldering iron. That portable soldering I know. Reviewed recently: I think um so yeah, there's quite a few of the stuff there aren't um, actually connected through so that's not good as like a high speed, uh data cable because it's missing, um, some pairs.

So it's got the old school, uh data pairs. in here and uh, hopefully we'll should see those. Yeah, yeah, D plus and D Yeah, they've actually flip those around. So let's actually flip this connector up the other way and will that change? Yes, it does.

There you go. so they flip around there and if we change that, no, it stays that. But yeah, they do actually flip from side to side. but this cable I thought it was connected all the way through, but it's obviously not.

That's why it's light and flexible. So yeah, that cable um, is not used for a lot of stuff, so I can actually label that now exactly what it's capable of. Next cab off the rank is this real fat, inflexible one. So I'm going to assume although I don't know, are all the connectors connected on this one and you like? is it a full yet? Yeah, it's got the shield.

Let's have a look and Bingo. Bingo. Yep where they're all lit up and of course we'll see the data. If we do that swappy swap again, we should see the data swap to the other side.

Yeah, yeah we do, but this is interesting. You'll notice that the Cc2 there is not lit up as much as the other one, so hopefully you can see that. Let me change the exposure on the camera. Yeah, you can see that that's not lit up as much as the others, so it must have like a resistor in the cable.

So yeah, because this is just directly going through. so this will show you by way of the lead brightness, whether or not there's actually a resistor um, in the cable and that should transfer over to CC1 I Would think Yes, yes it does. There you go, Cc1's not lit up as much. There you go.

So, but anyway, there you go that cable. I Can now label this as fully compliant for all the different modes and if we have a look at the manual and there you go, the manual tells us yeah, if they're all lit up, then it can support all these different modes. but you're talking about your power delivery USB 2 USB 3 right up to you know uh, three, three point two, and all that sort of whether or not debug accessory mode supported dual Lane is supported alternate mode or audio adapter accessory mode and you know all that sort of stuff would have been really nice. I Tell you what if that was printed on the back here because the back unfortunately.

um, it's kind of a waste of silk screen there. Yeah, we know to plug the cable in. so if we had that handy table on the back then that would have been uh, like, really? Schmick But as it stands, that is beautiful. I Can now go through and test all my cables and then label them um for exactly what they're capable of.

And then we've got the USB 8. USBC It's going to have far fewer leads and far fewer modes because of the limitations of the USB A. But let's try that. Look at that.

no shield. No. Shield Connected, right? So if that's yeah, and there you go. no Shield if we flip that, we shouldn't get any difference there.

Nope. and we can tell that's a USB 2 cable. There you go, so that's handy. but uh, it's yeah.

So well. maybe I can find a USB 3. Okay, one thing I wanted to test is this cable here, which I've actually been using with my uh USB Scarlet interface that drives my Uh speakers and on my main desktop and no shield. No.

Shield That's probably why I've been having issues with this thing. like I swear like sometimes it resets and cuts out when I get up off my chair like a static interface thing. there's no Shield at all I like so I think that's the reason why I've been potentially having issues with that guys. So I'm going to swap that for a proper I should have known look at the little pissant bloody thing in this anyway.

I'm gonna tag all these. Wow. So I think that's found the problem with my Scarlet interface. no shield and there's another short little uh lead.

they're only USB uh two, not three point one having a hard time finding USB 3.1 lead here in the lab actually. but anyway. um it also shows the uh power source uh as well which uh side which line the resistor is connected to uh CC1 or cc2 uh I think I might have found a USB 3 I mean look at the braid in on this and the thickness and just like yeah you can kind of tell. Anyway, will it be shielded and will it be USB 3 Yep, yep we got our Shield there you go.

Look at that beautiful and you can tell that the ground is the same as the shield. There you go and bingo USB 3 for the win! Ah these boards are so handy! Seriously? um yeah. get yourself over to a cabacue.com and uh Peter uh Mueller Muller will Muller I think it's Muller he'll send you these very useful bad boys I don't know what the price I can't put a price on these. it's so useful.

Damn! um yet these are going straight into my uh USB cable tray after I uh extensively test and label all my bloody cables. so I don't get caught out again. uh under level. Anyway, that's fantastic.

Thanks Peter thank you very much Daniel Cole Cool, um not double O L. but from Finland I know all my viewers in Finland Let's check this out. No idea, it just says PCB so it could be anything. Sure enough, we have a little board.

We have a note but we don't look at the notes until we've taken a look at the thingama. Bob It's got a barcode, so what is it? It's got a SD card. the micro SD card thing on it. Okay, it's it.

Looks like a battery charger. Like a battery charger with an SD card. Ah, it's a flight computer. It's called the Rocket.

It's designed for water rockets and model rockets. It measures altitude, acceleration, and can actuate two. Servo Motors could be used for deploying parachutes and staging the flight computer. Detached launch automatically and different settings such as Servo motor position are adjustable through the rotary switch.

Yeah There is a little rotary switch on there I Thought that was a trimmer, but no, that's a that looks like a rotary switch. All the best from a Spanish physicist and electronics designer living in. Finland So there you go, the rocket. We'll take a look up close.

I'm not going to be like I'm not going to power it up or anything, but I'll put the pertinent info up. Let's check it out of the bench. So Daniel Sent in this rocket and there you go. You can scan the barcode but I will link it in down below the locket.

rev1 rocket rev one uh for all you like rocket and uh, flight you know water rocket model Pockets or whatever aficionados I know there's a lot of you out there and isn't this? Jazzy Nice little board. We've got a micro USB We've got a uh, that's the lithium uh, polymer connector and it looks like we've got the rotary switched here to select as I mentioned those different uh, flight controller modes and launch automatically in Servo motor position and all that uh, sort of jazz and it looks like there's another little switch on there I won't go through all the details of this. uh, bad boy. but yeah, it's got the castellated edges there so you can hook all your external stuff up to it.

and I'm sure that's going to do the business for your model rocket. so I'm not going to pair it up and play although it's got another is that a reset switch or something over there? but um, if I can get some details I'll whack them up here. So if you're in the market for a flight computer thingamy Bob then this thing could be a Bobby dazzler for you. It's a nice little like compact, uh layout I like it and not much size, not much a weight.

Um, is that that's a 1.6 millimeter board? Could have made a 0.8 millimeter shaver a couple of grams off the weight there. Maybe for your bottle rocket, but uh yeah, that's that's really good and it's got the position tells you which way is up because it's got all the uh accelerometers and Compasses and whatnot in it. Um, and is is there an air mesh's altitude as well? Yeah, and it's and it. can control uh two? Servo Motors So yeah, that'll uh like and do like a stage thing to deploy your parachutes and your your you know your release.

uh stage. you're like released from the rocket and then you like your nose coming, comes back down or something like that. So yeah. Jazzy Anyway, thank you very much.

Daniel I'll link that in Down Below Open by the Australian Border Force Um, thank you very much. David Hunt From the Old Dart in the UK which the old dad is the UK not old in the UK the old dad is the UK Okay, anyway, um yeah, let's see what we have. So yeah, they opened it because they didn't like the look like the look of the dodgy FIFA caps turned up on x-ray. Apparently there it is.

They didn't like the V for caps and obviously turned up on the X-ray I Thought this looks dodgy and yeah, they decided to open that puppy up. but uh, we have Reefer Reefer Madness Why? He's been watching my channel for over a decade. Oh jeez, thank you very much as a volunteer at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park Oh man. I So want to go there? I've prepared quite a few vintage computers uh, late 70s? Yep.

and the inevitable capacitor choice is the reefer cap, which of course, fills the room with that lovely magic Reaper smell. It's not even the Magic Smoke it's the magic reefer smell. It has a smell all of its own. Um I used to replace like with like these are actually not old ones.

These are brand new because you can still apparently buy these reefer paper capacitors. Um, and he got these from finals and these are brand new. never been used and they're cracked. Let's take a look at them.

Unbelievable. Oh my God. when I still make them. Oh, this is terrible.

Muriel Check it out. These have all failed. Oh all of them they've They've failed. Practically identically.

split right along the top. They're all split down the sides like that other side. Yeah, look, you can. You can just see the cracks in there.

Unbelievable. Oh, look at it, look at it. Look. it's even split right down the side there where it presumably where the like the glue attaches or or something.

Uh, that's just no. Come on. Seriously, these were new Farnell stock. Well, presumably they're okay when they came from Farnells, but then they um stored in wherever they were, uh stored for a while and and they've just cracked on their own.

No usage whatsoever. And these don't date from like the 70s or 80s. These are like new ski. Come on.

So thank you very much Dave for sending those in. Unbelievable! And Dave wants me to test these with the high speed camera to see and watch the match, see if the Magic Smoke escapes not not abusing these things, just doing what they're designed to do which is their X-class caps. They're designed to go across the mains, so I'll put them across the 240 volt and Aussie Mains here and see if the Magic Smoke escapes, but only if this video gets enough thumbs up. Leave it in, leave it down below.

Big thumbs up and I will get the high speed camera out and I'll have to go outside. I'm not going to do it in the lab obviously because I don't want to stick my lab up with the um, not so nice smell from the reefer caps are Reefer Madness Unbelievable. Yes, the legend is real, even in the new ones. I Can't believe they kept making them after they knew they knew that they do this with age.

It's just it's just unbelievable. These are paper caps, but whatever. like actual process they put into manufacturing these, they just they just crack. It's ridiculous.

So it'd be interesting to see if they do actually blow. Can we blow them without stressing them at all? Anyway, um yeah. I'm gonna do that in a lab because if I do actually uh set the fire alarm off here, it's going to cost me 1800 bucks by the way. um we've got a back to base alarm system which goes back straight to the uh firehouse and yeah, as soon as that alarm goes off they come a running and then they give you the bill anyway.

leave it in. The comments foreign thank you.