Hi just a very quick uh review and look at this six decade resistance box and this is a bit of Kit which basically every lab should have. You shouldn't be without one and I'll link in up here and down below a video I did looking at a six DEA one I built when I was a kid and I've still got that original Uh unit. The amazing thing about this is that you can now get these. Dirt Cheap you can get this six decade one I've got uh for like normally 27 Australian dollars delivered uh from China but like it's under2 bucks at the moment I Believe like on special and the five decade version of this I believe is like slightly under $6 on special, like 60% off or something.

It's just ridiculous. It's just ridiculous. So I thought I'd look at it now. this one actually uh, has1 ohm so 0.1 ohm increments uh and then 1 ohm increments 10 ohm increments 100 ohms uh 1K increment and then 10K increments so it goes from .1 ohms up to 9999.

Well, you could dial it in. Okay, so it doesn't go up to 11 unfortunately. very special because if you can see yeah the numbers all go to 11 look right across the board. but basically 0.1 ohms to 100K here and well I would have preferred like to have 1 ohm to one Meg that would have been uh, more use like you don't really need 0.1 ohms um especially this power level I'm not sure what power level it um actually is.

We'll find out when we open it up. But anyway, at this price, you get what you get and you don't get upset now. of course You' got two binding uh posts here and this is probably the biggest let down of this. But as I said, for the price, well, these are the cheapest, crappiest looking binding posts I've ever seen and you'll probably want to replace these.

Not only do they not have a banana plug uh, compatibility on on top, they don't even have a hole in the side to put a wire through, so I consider those pretty useless I'd be swapping those out uh, as soon as you get one. But hey, we'll give it a go for now. and the box is probably like the cheapest plastic I've ever seen. But once again, for the price I don't care.

The interesting thing is though, these switches really feel like you know decent quality. There's a nice snap and a click uh to them, but I haven't hooked up a meter yet so I don't know if there's any like jiggling those. Let's try it. Uh, what's going on here I've got that set to 90k.

Um, and I'm getting 45. 38. Don't tell me they've got that upside down. It's like the four on top.

Like, like seriously, okay I'm going to put all zeros on top. What the heck? No. 55 Ohms. Like what the the way these decade resistance boxes work are that they're usually in like, completely in series.

so the highest one is going to, you know, dominate. Obviously. So this should be according to this. Uh, 55.55 555k Um, and I'm getting 55 Ohms uh what? Okay, so let's change by 1 Ohm here.

56 57 58, 59, 60 and it should go back. Okay, you know it's almost as if like these three top ones don't matter. but they do. They sure enough, it goes up by 100.

Ohms 200 What it's like some of what are some of these upside down and some aren't I This is cursed I What? Sorry. I Just realized that this video may be triggering to some viewers. so I'll remove that. Okay, yeah.

I I Think my original Um interpretation was correct. Sorry, sorry about the glare on the knobs here. It's all really hard with the Angles and everything. Um, 0000 555 gives me zero.

Um, so it's yeah. It's like these three are sort of like upside down compared to these three. Um, is this like an episode of Stranger Things or something? What? the? Okay. So we're dealing with contact resistance here, right? So I can actually reel that out so we go up in 1 ohm increments.

Okay, now we're going up okay. now we're talking. This is just ridiculous though. I Mean seriously.

Anyway, it's pretty bang on with the Ohm ski and 30 so I'm not sure what the spec of this thing is so we're good to go. Now up here. we should be able to go 100, 200, 300 I'm going to relabel this I wonder if it's just my unit? sorry I've only got the one unit I don't have multiple units to actually test this and I think that's actually molded into the C Cas So they haven't just done a cut out here and these knobs look like the fluted shaft variety. So I think they're just going to I think they're just going to lift off.

Don't like that? that's not coming. it's coming up, but it's not coming off easily. Damn. Oh, let's actually do the wiggle wiggle wiggle yeah test and see if see if anything changes.

No, it's pretty good. No, it really stays inside that indent really well and it doesn't air and doesn't uh, change until you snap over. so that's really good. If I try and lift that knob up.

it's actually springy so it's going to be interesting to see inside. Aha! Not Only was I completely wrong about that knob. I Just assumed it was a fluted shaft. it's not so you can guess which one is the one that I um yeah.

oops uh and we know how they get the cost down. Look at this interesting. It's just bare copper. PCB Like that.

Like just bare copper. There's no plating at all so it's pretty how you're doing So it is built down to a price. But interestingly look, they've got a little 0805 resistors in there and they've got an unusual Arrangement Usually you would have 10 resistors and you would have like a single tap off, but they got this jewal um wipe Arrangement here which they can get away with five resistors per tap and there we go. There's there's the Y going off to The Binding post there so it looks like to change the binding post.

we're going to have to get this whole board out and we have to disconnect all of these that Copper's just going to oxidize. So look, you can see it over here already. but if there's enough force in here, it'll wipe through like you can see the you can see the wipe mark on there already. You see both wipe marks across there so you know, but still.

uh it's pretty how you're doing. but what do you want when I like I even said like the five gang one of this I can currently get this for like six bucks. Delivered. delivered.

It's insane. Seriously. And that one I butchered there. You can see the ball under there.

so that's how they get the indent on. the ball just goes in and then looks like they got a little spring on the back of that. You can see the ball physically spring out and then into a notch on the back of, uh, the knob there. So yeah, that's interesting so that's really good.

Um, but yeah it's This is how they get the price down. It's all just you know, stamp metal and bare. PCB And there's not your traditional uh switch. so like you know, the traditional switch housing and the through hole.

uh, you know, pin connections and everything else. So that's how they got the price down to a bare minimum. So I'm just wondering: Is it a matter of like having these like if I take them off and actually flip them around? install them in the have they been installed in the wrong orientation? So there's the ball Arrangement and got a little spring there? Yeah, so there you go. that's all part of the molding.

and they've also got that in there for the uh spring and the ball bearing. So you know, like it's I Really Kind of like it. The only problem is the uh plating really or the lack of it. And also these screws are just self tappers into plastic there.

so no thre metal threaded inserts for your five bucks or your 20 bucks. but you don't expect that. So yeah, check it out. Like if I put them all on zero here like this.

okay and I flip them over. You can see that they're actually indifferent. Like the short one is like up the top here. So I'm wondering: can I like just unscrew these and rotate that around and fix that problem? Have they just install like I Can't understand why? you know you wouldn't? Why they wouldn't all match like that I think maybe some maybe the person who's installed has put this on backwards will I I haven't thought about this Arrangement yet.

but if I flip it around, that might solve it and the shaft is uh, flattened like that of course so it can only go there or it can only go like that. So I'm going to flip it around, put it back on. Will Bob be my uncle and yep, that seems to have fixed it. So 0000 five5 and zero up here.

so this is the only one I've changed and if I change that, we should get 10K And we do. And yep, and we go up. So I reckon someone at the decade resistor box Factory has installed those upside down and Murphy ensured that I got it. Um, but so yeah, I'm going to go change those.

So great that fixes that problem. And the other interesting thing is is that well, what's to stop you from Simply like cuz I really like this housing. it's really good. I really like the uh, the switch Arrangement feels absolutely fantastic, you know? I of course the lack of plating on here, but um, if you want to up the resistor rate, this would be great to modify.

You can simply desolder these and solder in your own like you can put in like you know it. like. There's plenty of room in this box. There's a ton of room, right? so you could like solder in like five wat resistors or something.

Um, like you could have a high wattage box. No problems whatsoever. So you can mod it and you know if that's the case, it's worth it just for the box. Of course you, you know.

Change over The Binding post and you got these nice knobs and everything. Everything looks fantastic. It feels fantastic when you turn it and you can put turn it into a high wattage box and as much precision as you want. Oh, you know, you usually don't want better than 1% so you just go byy 1% Jobbies? No worries.

All right. So you might be wondering how this, uh, dual wipe Arrangement here. Works How you can get 10 different resistor values with five resistors? Well, you might notice that four of them are between two of the contacts like this and the fifth one is actually from the common. So of course these are all in series like this.

so it'll snake out like that and around and around. and that one goes over to there and through like that. So they're essentially all in series. but this particular one here, they they are in series as well.

but this one here. okay, it's on the Zero position at the moment. Okay, see, this is where it comes in. so it goes through here and straight out.

Okay, so it's it's short circuited this whole Arrangement so it's zero. Ohms. But if I switch that to one right? So the position one, whether or not it's 0.1 Ohms 1 Ohm You know 10 Ohms 10K or whatever, it makes no difference. just change these values.

These are all the same. This here is actually the 1 Ohm range. so these will be 1 Ohm uh. resistor vales can't read that on the LCD uh screen here, but they should be 1 Ohm a pop and you can see that.

Okay, comes in here and it goes across here, through onto this contact and through one the 10 home resistor here and out. So we've got one. and likewise if we go to two Okay it comes around here, goes through and it goes through two series resistors out. So we got 2 Ohms and does the same for three and four.

Like that and you'll notice on the fifth position here. Uh, this resistor is simply, uh, shorted out. Okay, so it it doesn't. You know it doesn't play any role in this uh, switch, uh position here.

it's just completely shorted. But when we go to Six like this. Okay, what we're doing here is we're going through this resistor up here which is not 1 Ohm but that would be 5 Ohms I Don't even need to read it to know that that's 5 Ohms. but I'm sure you can see that on your glorious 4K high definition There, You're able to uh, read that and that will be 5 Ohms there.

And then it goes through like that. And likewise, 5 Ohms. And that's why they've got the number five next to it. Like that to know that you need four, one 1 Ohm resistors and one 5 Ohm resistor and in the sixth position here.

Of course, it comes through this resistor 5 ohms over here and adds another Ohm there for 6 ohms total 7 ohms, 8 ohms, 9 ohms and then back to zero cuz there's no 10 littleone 11. What a bummer. So that's the benefit of der rolling your own uh PCB Solution like this, you can have that weird half cycle, uh, dual wipe. uh, system like that.

Essentially, you know it wraps around and you know it's It's really quite novel. You can't do that with a normal 10 position switch if you do your own. uh, solution like this. So it's really nice.

There's fewer resistors, but it does potentially impact uh, the wattage here. because let's assume we're in the 1 Ohm position at the moment. whereas let's say we were passing 1 Ohm constant current through this thing. Okay, constant current.

That means you get 1 amp Time 1 ohm One watt. You'd have one watt dissipation. Uh, in any of these first four switch positions like this. But once you go to your 5 Ohm position, here, your this resistor, this poor 5 Ohm resistor has got 1 amp flowing through it.

Uh, instead of five separate resistors that you'd get on a normal Arrangement so this has to dissipate 5. Watts So yeah, just be aware of that. But uh anyway. um yeah.

I like the arrangement. it's cool and it's easier to and cheaper to mod too. So there you have it, that was more interesting than I thought it would be. I Got this one from a local seller on eBay so I paid a bit more for it, but you know I didn't want to wait the weeks to get it 25 bucks Aussie or something like that for the Six Gang I Would recommend the Six Gang They've also got five and four uh as well and they might even have smaller ones.

but you know you're really like go for a decade resistance, get the Six Gang So that's actually amazing for the price I'm going to have to. it's uh, check it over time to see how long on um, those contacts and the self- wiping ability of you know these switches, how they actually do uh with time so you know then because that copper is going to corrode of course, but you know the self- wiping nature might I don't know. Um, will see. We'll see there's no pla in on it whatsoever, so like you could potentially take it all off and cod the board yourself.

perhaps. but you know if you're that. Keen Um, but I think this is a good platform to build yourself a decade resistor box. You know you can just use it as is.

but I think putting some higher wattage resistors in there, plenty of room and you can increase the accuracy uh to whatever you desire. And I like the switch Arrangement it's really positive. there's no Dicky play around on it or anything like that which upsets like in terms of uh, contact. like how can you go wrong? Unbelievable anyway.

uh if you want one, I will uh, link them in down below I It's just amazing for the price. Unbelievable. Damn. Anyway, if you enjoyed that video, give it a big thumbs up.

As always discussed down below, catch you next time.