Hi Welcome to everyone's favorite segment Mailbag. Yes, it's built up again. I Got quite a few items so let's take a look at them. but I do know several of them will require separate videos so eh, we won't get to play with them all here today, but hey, let's see what we got.

We have ourselves a smiley face from Alexa or Axel I'm not sure but uh, there you go from Germany Hi to all my German viewers Gooden Tag and Rtfm. Read the freaking manual so let's take a look. I Don't know, is there a manual in here? Do we have to read the manual? Let's give it a go. We got something.

Oh no. it feels like a calendar actually. There's uh. at the end here.

there's those uh, spiral bound thing. but H let's have a look and we have a note. something's written Tada Psych test pass Dave what's this I can't read that Dave Yet another EV blog year with great information. Thanks! No worries.

Um I can't contribute electronics for you pictures instead of postcards? There we go. Keep on growing. Great good stuff. Thank you very much Ax I think it's Axel There you go.

Oh we have a calendar. Beautiful look. A 2014 calendar with some beautiful Flora look at that! Fantastic! Oh where's the time gone 2014 Unbelievable and that's a German of course. fantastic thank you very much Axel and another German one from Meritz Osberger.

thank you very much from he's from K Thank you very much Meritz if that's how you pronounce your name. We got some printed circuit boards and electronic components. It's pretty, uh, flat so if it's a kit it would be like a uh SMD uh kit or something like that. that because uh well yeah, there's not much room in there for through hole stuff that's for sure.

but let's check it out. I'm going to assume it's like a kit or something like that. Let's have a look, we have a letter and let's go straight to the goodness. Oh lots of adapters.

Excellent. Lots of SMD adapters. Oh fantastic. These are awesome.

Um, maybe if he saw my Rec one where I used a bodged adapter I got one in the mail bag and it was the wrong uh footprint. So this looks a great selection of SMD adapters? You should. Everyone should have a bunch of these. um in their kit to, uh, look at.

Look at this. We got pin headers. Oh look H Anyway, let's read the note. Breadboard Adapter Tragedy.

Yes, it was spurred on by that. um I've seen your recent bread ball drama with crude adap with so I thought uh, why not send you some of mine I designed them in spare space when ordering a fix China a fix sized uh panel from the manufacturer. My goal is not to waste space and make them as versatile as possible. So there are additional SMD pads for bypass, capsu, resistors, lead combination.

Nice. Just solder in short wire and connect the pins. Most of them are dual sided for different package Types on one adapter. just spend uh attention.

To use the correct side for your pin head is awesome. Additionally, the Uh Tqfp adapters have a lot of additional stuff on the back side, including power planes excellent that way. every pin can be connected to one of two power levels via solder jumper nice and or have a pull up pull down resistor. Oh, got to have a look at this.

Um, looks a bit confusing at first, but I think you'll get behind how to use them very quickly. The next revision: World of Wi Traces: uh, heading towards a deadline? more or less. Smash the design together. Brilliant! I Love it.

Throw it together at the last minute and whack it on a panel. That's the way uh, he plans to put the designs on. GitHub Awesome! There we go, Mosburger. So um, you can go there and download the files and get the boards made yourself.

If you're getting a panel uh made, of course a prototype panel, just whack a couple of these things on and put them in your kit. Also, put in some 74 AC N Gates um as I waited. Probably used in my life. Excellent! Thank you very much Meritz and check out this very juicy assortment of adapter boards.

Dip a surface mount to dip adapter boards. Fantastic. They're sort of like a Uh panelized version here. Unfortunately, it's not V uh scored so you can't just uh, snap them off like that so you'd have to, um, really, you know, go to town on those to actually separate them.

but he has provided them separated and there a whole stack of them over here. By the way, there absolute ton of them, so that's fantastic. I Don't think I'll run out anytime soon, so let's take a quick look at a couple of them. And here's the Uh Tqfp adapter.

Now, my uh, initial, uh complaint with all of these boards. By the looks of it, almost all of them is that they don't really have any identifying silk screens on them. I mean what is the PIN pitch of this Tqfp? uh, for example. So you know that's and what is the Uh case tile? you know? is it a Tqfp designed for that? Um, you? you know, you really got to know.

so it would have been nice to actually have some identification on there. But anyway, um, check this out. They've obviously put the uh, the manufacturer PCB manufacturers put their mark on there, which I find really annoying I've mentioned that before, but anyway, this is the one Meritz mentioned that has some neat stuff on the back. Some power planes on here so you can actually connect each pin you can see each pin goes to various Uh Jumper options which allows you to either put a bypass cap in there on a well, a pin or um, tie a pin high or low with a resistor or a part too.

Or or just short it. Um, so that's really quite handy to be able to do that on the adapter level rather than actually at the bread ball level. So for example, you could have like an RC uh Power on circuit on the reset uh pin for example, something like that. or you can have bypass caps uh, closer directly on the board here.

so that's really quite neat. But of course, to have like a bypass caps on here, you would have to um identify which is the ground pin you're actually going to use and actually short that pin through to the power plane on here. And then you could, uh, bypass individual pins on that so you know that is really quite flexible. I I Like that, it's pretty neat.

and then we have a smaller board here for a 44 pin or up to 44 pin. uh, tqfp and you'll notice it's up to because you can put smaller chips on here just like the other board. That's why these uh pads extend into the middle like that. so you know if you've got a smaller pin count tqfp, you can just solder it in there.

No problems at all. So this is a very common, uh, sort of universal footprint and it does work quite well. and on the back, of course, exactly the same um, Uh pin Arrangement that you can strap individual pins down to layers and looks like we have a wide so package down here. not that common and there's a couple of uh, other bypass and other uh, stuff available on the side there.

One of the things that immediately strikes me though is these holes seem almost too small for a pin header, so let's actually check it out here. No, they work. They're a really tight fit though. very tight fit.

They're just big enough I would have made them a fraction bigger. Then we have a nice little at ISP Breadboard adapter there that just converts the uh, both the six pin and the 10 pin uh ribon cable adapters uh, cables through to a single inline pit hander that you can just plug into your breadboard. So that could be pretty handy if you're into um at mail stuff and programming them on breadboards. And yes, I have checked.

They do look to be the correct width to fit on a breadboard here and that was the problem I had before in the previous video. If you haven't uh seen it? I Got these little adapters in the mail bag and they were actually the wrong pitch like this so they didn't fit into precisely the holes across there. I Had to bend the pins and it was, ah, was really ugly. It was a huge fail and then we' got this smaller one here for standard uh so packages.

of course this is the wide version. smaller pin count. What is that? 2, 4, 6, 7. Oh, would have been nice to go to eight there actually.

so that's a bit of a bummer. Um, because you know it sort of jumps. you know, 14 and 16 pin uh packages are the most common and uh, of course and we've got some extra goodness on the back here. Looks like we got a little uh, six pin.

uh so 20, no six pin? so 23 here. We got a um S8 adapter here and another six pin um package here. So this is really quite a nice little adapter board. I Rather like that once again, there's no identifying uh marks at all to tell you exactly what they are.

and hey, I would have liked to see 16 pin and I could have used this one the other day actually a dpack adapter and here I was desperate. So I made up this little thing which actually worked really well cuz it's got, you know, a nice little lever like this, you know, little handle, uh, self-contained and acts as a heat sink as well. I got that uh tab off my uh, microcurrent um, screw, uh, terminals actually my 4 mm binding poost so that actually worked quite well. but a nice little adapter like that.

There's not much heat sink ability on that, but you can, you know, solder on something like this. uh, little lever if you really have to. My only complaint with that is that these are power devices and they got little wimpy like 10th hour tracks connecting down to there I would have made those tracks much, uh, wider and on the back here. Hey, we've got another package that looks like a So 89 or something like that.

and we got a So 223 here. One of my favorite little packages, but once again, um, you know, pretty wimpy traces. Look, they got the nice heat sink going around here and a little wimpy tenow trace or something going down in there. but hey, that has, uh, been corrected on the bottom half here where they've got that going down there.

and we have a couple of little S So8 adapters plus what looks like A5 mm pin pitch I haven't actually measured it? Um, and you can put a bypass cap on there and just strap that over. They haven't done that with the So package, so you know, probably would have been room to, uh, squeeze in a tiny little bypass cap or some pads on the bottom side or something. And I think Meritz is into Avrs cuz here's a little AVR tiny 10 adapter like that? There we go. complete with little bypass cap on there Nice.

And there's an So8 adapter that suits the wide and standard body format. and what it looks like. a harmless So 23 adapter is also a look at that. a So 323 and So 416 adapter as well for those tiny packages.

Nice! So thank you very much Meritz that is a huge score. And as I said, if you're getting a panel made or something, grab these files and just, uh, whack them on your panel so that you've got some spares. And by the way, here's a nice little uh Nxp cheat sheet for all different types of packages like this. and I'll provide a Uh link for this.

uh down in the description below, it's well worth. uh you know. sticking on your wall, laminating and sticking up. Very handy.

Next up we have one from Colin worth in Roseville from the United States of America and it is a Nintendo video game cartridge I Just um by coincidence I just uh tweeted it's cuz somebody posted on the Forum I saw so I tweeted it a uh link to somebody who paid some collector on eBay who paid 100,000 000 I kid you not, it was $99,999 is cleaning at home? yeah I've done some of that myself. came across a box of old Nintendo goodies as a fellow Back to the Future fan I figured you might appreciate the included item I must warn you how to not actually play it. Oh, is it absolutely horrid. Oh, I was just going to rush to eBay and buy an NES console so I could play it.

Oh, imagine a poorly executed version of Paper Boy with an even more vapid plot. Cheers from Frigid Minnesota Where today's temperature is -9 Oh gee, it's like 30 here here today in Sydney Oh thank you very much Colin Well, considering that we've been warned not to turn it on, uh, we will take it apart and what's in it? Just some uh ROM uh chips or something like that cuz these are rom based uh cartridges aren't they from the Nintendo Entertainment System oh jeez, so bloody space. Look at that. There's nothing in it.

Just yeah. A couple of Um Mask ROMs and Bob's your uncle. jeez, that's pretty boring. That reminds me I haven't finished my uh Back to the Future game on the PC I've had for ages I haven't gotten all the way through it yet.

Oh, next up: Darna Scendi if I'm pronouncing that correctly from Copenhagen in Denmark Hi to all my Danish uh viewers I Had a uh Skype call with somebody from Denmark the other day, which um, they're going to send me a really interesting in uh uh product to use here on the blog Anyway, that will be uh coming and one a Danish manufacturer of some really pornographic stuff I won't read the note. let's just be excited here. We go here, We go here, we go in the oh yes, Excellent! I was queued up about this Awesome. It is a HP 41 calculator classic.

I've been lusting after one of these since I was a kid. Oh and now I'm the proud owner of what looks like to be one in very good condition. The rubber feet have, uh, come off there's only oh, there's only the front two. No, there's one rubber foot missing.

Oh, that had dropped the price by 50 bucks on eBay Um, guess these things? Uh, do go for quite a well. They used to go for quite a significant sum I haven't checked them recently. Got any batteries in it? No, it doesn't. We'll have to put some in, but um I believe.

He assured me this thing was working and it had of course the St the um Fam. Oh, it's got a math pack in it. It had the Uh had had the packs in there and look look at that. look at the connector.

you probably can't see that I have to get some light down in there. but uh, that looks like a very interesting arrangement with some flat Flex contacts down in there. that is fascinating. Separate tear down I think because well, I'm a search engine optimization and people love this sort of stuff.

But just to tease you, look at that flat. Flex Battery contacts. Unbelievable. And there is the battery holder on the back there.

What? Um, n cells I I think uh, possibly or are they a bit too big for n cells anyway. I can't remember. off hand? Um, but yeah, that is really interesting And the and the packs in there? well I can probably I can probably take it apart a bit better. There you go.

look at the flat Flex contacts inside there. that is fantastic. I mean there's the there's the pack itself and look at that. Unbelievable.

Who thought to do that? That is genius. And for those HP efficien AOS Playing along at home, there's the serial number if that has any meaning. I'm sure the HP fans will be able to know exactly what Factory that came from and uh, what? guy with a gray beard assembled this thing and Donna has thoughtfully included the um N cells four N cells here. thank you very much.

Um, you would think that they all go in. uh, negative uh end towards there I would have actually printed on the inside which way they go, but you have to look on the end there to actually see which way around they they go. That's a bit tricky, but this is a really nice design. You can see the little levers inside there that, uh, just add uh, tension to the the battery there so that one's negative is it? Yeah, that one's positive and that one is negative.

So let's snap this in place and see if we can resurrect this. Beast Dar assures me it uh, works. but look at that. that's just a nice designed battery compartment.

Look at that just Clips in place and you can pull it up like that and it pops out. Oh it's gorgeous design I Love it. Here we go. Will it work? Yeah.

Memory lost of course. but it works. And of course we get the famous uh 14 segment LCD on the thing I don't uh no. Oh, there we go, we're in.

We're in like Flynn beautiful hi Dave Here is the Vintage calculator as agreed. I've always love these old HP calculators. I bet that I am not the only one who wrote my first program on this kind of device. No, not at all.

In 1979, the price was 295 bucks. What? What's that today? I don't know for inflation I was 11 years old at the time, but my granddad was thiss year one by the Royal Danish Navy So I had access to one rather early on. That was a real bargain for a programmable device. Yeah, it probably would have been back then.

Uh, real home computers were 5 to 10 times more expensive. Um, I'm not sure how much memory this thing had, but you know it, it's still usable. I mean you couldn't you know display graphics on the screen or anything fancy pancy like that? But uh, still pretty good. And for several years HP 41 was yes, famously on the Space Shuttle backup computer that could calculate re-entry dories if the main computer failed.

That is cool. That was one of its famous uses back then. the production was stopped after 11 years, but that's still long life for a calculator. Really is.

Uh, however, you can still purchase and upgrade a new main board. Really? 50 times faster? Wow! I Have to check it out. so the HP 41 is still alive. He is no affiliation of course.

Um I have not included the magnetic strip reader because I have only one functional unit. That's cool. um and I do not have enough spare parts to build another one. You would have love to do a tear down of the car reader.

It's an ODed to shitty engineering and poor to sign decisions. Really, because the HP 41, as far as I'm aware, is a brilliant design. This particular calculator is working but is rebuil for several non-functioning units. Ah, so date codes and serial numbers do not match.

Interesting, Thank you very much. Donna This is awesome. I've always wanted one I totally lusted after one of these. you know, see the ads in the magazines for this and it just look it was just so futuristic with its 14 segment LCD and its magnetic stripe uh reader and a just I've got one now and look, it's got a little um, little clip on there that's to hold like a front panel uh, template, um overlay thing in place so that really is awesome.

Thanks! Donna There's the famous 14 segment LCD and the viewing angle is actually pretty darn good on this thing. I Don't mind it. it all is a bit hard to read though. I mean just you know the way those uh, the center digit in there with the two and three is uh uh made up uh the center segment uh sorry is you know is a little bit Dicky but um still that was a fantastic Innovation for the day.

this was the first Uh calculator to use um to have an alpha numeric uh 14 segment display. and here's a name many of you will be familiar with uh Ryan Ohara Um, he's been on the amp hour before um of open Source Hardway Fame He does stencils, um and things like that and various Kickstarter projects and it contains merchandise. But I know what's in here and I can assure you that it is some engineering porn, but in this case it's going to be some engineering documentation porn or custom engineering documentation porn. Wait until you check this out and uh, we've got ourselves the digi key.

The famous Digi key uh wrapper stuff which has a a name actually. um, hang on sorry t look at this. You can see the Ow logo keep current. Look at this.

Oh look at that Beautiful the Ow keep current. It's an engineering lab notebook personalized with my name on the side Dave Jones and um so thank you very much Ryan This is awesome I believe he's going to actually be selling these I'm not sure whether or not it's a Kickstarter or something like that, but you will be able to uh, get one in some way, shape or form. um so yeah. I'll post details on that.

uh when it's available. This is awesome And he got a custom uh big I think it was made out of magnesium. it was a big stamp that is used to uh, do this gold embossing I don't know whether it's gold I'm not exactly sure of the manufacturing uh, process used to actually. uh Stamp Those out but oh, it really looks fantastic.

and uh, here we go. It's an engineering lab notebook. Look at this with complete with grid lines on one side and just, uh, blank pages on the other. Oh fantastic.

Exactly what you need in an engineering notebook. and it's um, these are standard, uh, squares? Of course that'd be 5 mm uh, per square. So that is just a beautiful engineering notebook. so if you want one, I will endeavor to uh, put the links down below, but that is just gorgeous.

Thanks! Ryan And I was dying to open this one when I got it, but no. I've left it for the mailbag because it's from uh CNC Design in Finland and uh, they sent me a sign before which I've currently got on the front I'm sure it was them anyway. Um, and this contains signage and it's really, really quite large. so I'm going to open it up and uh, see what we've got I'm hoping it's some sort of custom Eev blog signage cuz that would be awesome.

but it's bloody huge so you can probably bet your bottom dollar that it's uh, it has been Cnced. Oh man, holy crap. Oh, there's chocolate. There's chocolate.

Hold on to your hats folks. Oh for your use when packing microcurrents. Brilliant finish. I've never had finished chocolate before.

There you go are they are the Finish renowned for their chocolates. Can people tell me is this good chocolate? Well, I'll be able to tell you. In fact, I'll tell you right now. H Here we go.

It's milk obviously. M that is good chocolate. All right. I'm going to attempt to do this while I'm eating.

Please excuse me. but I can't help myself and this is, uh, packed fairly well I'm not sure how uh delicate this thing is. Oh look, we got mounting hardware mounting hardware. Oh hey, oh that's neat.

I'll show you that in a second. we've got a letter but I Want to see what's inside here? Oh oh no way way. Check this out. Wow.

Oh my goodness. Okay, this probably ramps up to the be the uh, best mailbag item ever. Oh well. the sexiest look at that.

oh that is gorgeous Eev blog Electronics Engineering Video blog that folks is is going straight to the pool room only Aussies will understand that. Look at that. What is that glass under? It's got a is that a glass? No, it's a Ppex. Uh yeah.

I Don't think no, it's not glass, but it's U acrylic underneath there with EV blog on the top. oh that is gorgeous and then laser eded on there that's gone straight on the door. Oh Hi! Dave We sent you a sign about a year ago. Yes, it was and since they recently required a laser cutter, so we thought it was time for a new nicer one.

I Hope you like it I Do It is awesome. This one is made by laser cutting pieces of AC acrylic and gluing them together to form a three-dimensional sign. We weren't sure about how you'd attach it to the wall, so we left the back. uh blank.

Yeah. Industrial strength double-sided tape. Yep. I've got some double-sided tape here I'm not sure if it's industrial strength stuff, but that's what I used on the uh previous sign.

Um, you can also use the supply spaces in case the cardboard template to Mark where you glue the plugs. Acrylic glue is blessed, but not really that common. strong general purpose plastic glue should do the trick because the sign is transparent from the back. It's even possible to backlight with a few leads.

Yes, I'll have to do that. That will be awesome! Love the blog keeping coming thank you very much! Frank from CNC Design in Finland If you want a sexy sign like this, oh, these guys are the guys to do it. Look at that. I Mean that is beautiful if we peel off the protective tape on the front T We get the EV blog colors.

Not that the EV blog really has a proper logo. sort of. you know, official font and color and everything. anyway.

I'm not that, uh, fussy. It does sort of change a bit. There's no sort of standardized, but oh, that's just. that's just pornographic.

It really is. Oh, look at that oh so look at that. Oh, that's just fantastic threedimensional sign. and I'm actually not sure how well it's going to backlight.

I've got a red uh filter on the back there I switched the lab lights off. it all looks, uh, pretty horrible. but yeah. I you know it's it's very spotlike.

I've got my uh torch behind there and yeah, it's not the greatest. so I don't know how well that would backl up. but I I don't know if anyone's got ideas on the best way to do that without getting that uh spot effect and getting it uh, diffusing out the sides or something like that. Let me know.

And for those curious, on the back here, you can actually see the uh, glue lines for the individual uh 3D cut blocks on that. but I'm going to stick this straight on the wall ta and the shiny new one that looks tongue at the right angle. that looks pretty right? Yeah, I'm happy with that. Got to live with it.

Ah, look at that Beauty Check that out. that is awesome. It's almost professional. it's not very.

EV blog like is it and a couple of envelopes which maybe postcards I don't know. um anyway, one from Bulgaria from Mirv and another one from Justin in Illinois in the United States which one first? let's go Mirror Slav, let's have a look what we got here and oh, it's a Christmas card belated. Christmas card. Oops sorry, they could both be Christmas cards Merry Christmas Dave Keep up the excellent work you do! Thank you very much Miror Slab! And I hope this one isn't another Christmas card because oops, it could be.

It's likely we have puppy dog love watching your videos. Thank you very much Justin Merry Christmas it is. Oh sorry guys, thanks. but you know the mail bag stuff tends to sit around for a while unless it's marked urgent.

but even if marked urgent, it sort of tends to sit around for a while. H this one's from John B the solder Shack used singair TV part woohoo yes I was uh, clued up on this one. that uh, and you can probably guess if youve seen my video on the Sinclair pocket. TV it was missing a chip and John has finally donated one in a huge packet.

And this is not frustration free packaging. Here we go. Um, an old True Data Memory products when when you bought you went to your computer shop and you bought Sims and they came in a nice case like that. Oh look at that.

Excellent in the UK Tada Oops there it is. Tada that's a um uh, is that the battery door. Was that missing a battery door or something? I can't remember exactly but I now have a chip that's the fan Ula the uncommitted uh logic array the ZN 401e. It could actually be rather annoying to get in there cuz this thing of course is uh, solded in the CRT there.

So I've got to sort of sneak it into its socket down in there. Oh, do this. I'll get the camera out of the way and do it. Otherwise I might goof it up.

there we go. I think I've got it in the right way around there, no identifier on the bottom and the top has a not the typical Notch taken out of the socket but I think I've got that right. Anyway, the writing's upside down. There you go so all the electrons might fall out of that, but it should still work well.

I Decid to double check that and I think I'm glad I did because I think I have that chip in back to front. Um, the pin one is supposed to be over here I believe Based on the back here, looks like we've got VCC connected to pin Uh 12 over here. which um, well, it should be uh, pin 12. There's the bypass cap on the VCC there so oops, better swap that around.

see look I swear there's a notch in there and there's no Notch out the other end. What do they installed the socket back to front or something that should normally be pin one over there, but it's not and I suspect the power connector here may not be a center positive one, it might actually be Center negative. Why? Because this is the onoff uh switch here. and here's the outer uh switch contact here and you follow the trace around here that zigzags through there like that and goes down to that pin down there which is the outer part of the Jack There you go.

So I reckon um, that is outer positive with Center negative. go figure. So yeah, I'm just double checking some stuff. The other side of that switch contact goes through to pin 12 which I know is VCC on the chip there.

It also goes through to uh, the positive side of this 470 microfarad electrolytic capacitor. So and um, exactly I've checked the schematic as well and and it shows that uh, the switch is in the positive line so everything matches up. So that bastard there that power connector is Center negative. So here we go, let's power it up.

Uh, I've got no antenna attached and unfortunately they've Switched Off the local analog uh TV transmitters. so I'm not going to be able to easily get an analog uh uh video signal out of this anyway. uh 5V Power supply: I've got my external power supply limited to 100 milliamps just for uh, bit of protection. so we'll switch on Channel 3 and see what happens.

There we go. Got something out of the speaker? We've got static. It's drawing 37 milliamps at 5. Vols So yeah, we're getting our static there, but I was hoping to at least get some sort of uh, you know, static image on the screen I don't know.

Maybe it's too, uh, dim or something. let's turn the lights off what? nothing and I've up that uh power supply to 5.9 volts. or even though the uh service manual says um, it can operate down to like 4 and 1/2 volts up to 6. Vols But justing the tuner and unfortunately I'm getting nothing on the screen.

so H I don't know I'm uh, really, haven't got the uh time to troubleshoot this thing unfortunately. But anyway, thanks for the chip. Maybe I'll be able to get this Beast here working and actually, um, hack the thing to have like an external uh, composite video input or something like that. That'll be nice.

Oh Oh I totally forgot to show you this from CNC design that they included as well. Look at this nicely laser cut and bent triple 5 timer. Oh that's just a thing of beauty and a joy forever that is going straight to the pool room. and sorry in advance for this one.

I won't be able to do anything with it for this mail bag, it will be a separate Uh video. but I Did a recent video on uh USB m microscopes and somebody who had an A a very cool looking one uh contacted me and this has been talked about on the Forum from Do-it-yourself Hong Kong or Do-it-yourself in Hong Kong or sorry I'm not exactly sure how they call themselves, but check out this puppy Ta I can get it out. Here we go we have a Microsoft um Life Cam. Basically what it is is a hack to convert a Microsoft Lifecam web camera which is Apparently one of the best webcams you can get into a very supposedly um, very decent USB microscope and it has the same stand as my um as the USB microscope that I reviewed.

In fact, it's modified to uh I'll link in that video down below by the way. Anyway, um there's a there's just a lead light with it on a goose neck I don't know if that uh actually comes with it, but what he's done is um, hacked well. added some Optics to the Microsoft There we go. Do it yourself in Hong Kong and this is the good one.

He sent a good one and a bad one which we can tear down and we can have a look at the Optics um inside this thing and as you can see it's got uh, the basically the same uh stand except it's uh, extended that I had for the other uh USB microscope. So I really like this one because it, um, it allows you to. It really is quite nice. although you can't just twist that there's not enough Force the whole thing just moves.

it is quite stiff. um but anyway, this apparently is a webcam with some nice hacked Optics and check that out. There you go. It's got a like he's uh, got just a machined aluminium uh bracket there to mount in this thing and he's got his own custom uh PCB in there.

by the looks of it, little uh, lead a little switch in there for the lead light. buil in. So there you go that just, uh, slides on the end like that I think I don't really like that that it's uh, really, quite. Oh no.

there we go. It's pushed all the way. It's like a bracket inside that thing. It's pushed all the way in.

Don't like it. It's not that, uh, it's not that robust. There's a clip here to put the yeah, it's a bit Dicky I Don't know, that's just not. It's not a staining place.

Now we go. I managed to push it in at I guess you know the right position and it is reasonably okay. now. so and this thing is like on its own custom.

uh Mountain it It is very do-it-yourself It lives up to it, certainly lives up to its name. do-it-yourself in Hong Kong and um, but you know I mean if it does the business then okay, um, but anyway, I'll be doing a separate video on this. There's a reasonable, uh, working distance out from here and I think it gets a quite a reasonable working distance down like this. and of course it doesn't have adjustable.

Uh Optics in the thing, it's going to be fixed. um Optics So, but hey, the idea is, uh, use it as like a, um, a fixed magnification uh, soldering microscope. It's about uh, 300 odd I think for the whole hacked thing. um, but I believe he will just, um, sell you like just the camera or just the optic head or something like that.

And you can get your own camera. So here's the actual Uh Microsoft Life Cam And it does come with this rather, uh, neat design which has a tripod mount on it as well. It is quite neat. I I Rather like that that Microsoft.

Lifecam. Not sure how much they are, um, off the shelf, but I was under the impression that he was going to send me the uh separate Optics so I could uh hack it down or something like that. but uh, no, it's just sent me a a dodgy, you know, a bad uh, webcam and we can take that apart. but uh yeah, that's not the point of this thing.

I Mean the point of this thing is to is that he added these custom Optics on the front here, which you know it's all about the Optics and how well that actually works and that lead ring uh board there as well. So um, you know, unless I hack this one apart and he said it's not really easy to take this apart once it's all together. So I'm definitely not going to uh, try and do that there. but anyway, that's the Microsoft uh, lifecam and I will be doing a separate uh video on this to see how well these additional Optics actually work.

It'll also be interesting to know whether or not he's actually taking out the you know, the main Optics inside there and is just relying on these external ones or whether or not it's just a direct retrofit over the front I Don't think so cuz obviously there's a you know, it's been hacked in some way cuz there's got to be power coming through for this board here. it's got the little onoff uh, switch there. uh, presumably for the leads there. but yeah, I don't know.

So maybe he's actually taking out the internal Optics and replace the whole thing. That's the most likely scenario. And last but certainly not least, I'm going to be a total tease with this one too because it's going to require a separate video Anyway, this is the Uh I am the first backer of this project and it is. Wait until you see it I haven't actually seen it myself yet, haven't actually taken it out.

We got a few little things in here but is from a company called Ufactory they're in China and they've got a Kickstarter run in right at the moment for this and it's h gone Gang Busters I think they're only asking for 5 grand and they've already up to 50 Grand with uh, 30 days left or something like that. So congratulations guys and what it is Hang On we're getting there. the suspense, the suspense I need to be very delicate with this because it's uh, rather convoluted and we're not there yet. But you can probably start to tell what this sucker is I don't even think I'm allowed to.

Oh yeah, I can probably manually move it. it is a robot arm. it's a three AIS robot arm kit and uh yeah, here we go ta look at this. oh it's in black black acrylic.

They've got another one which is in um uh, laser C wood as well you know, kind of make aot H style buty look at that, look at that and my one is the only one I'll show you in a second. In fact, let's get a closeup of that. Mine is the only one which is oh no. hang on there suction cups here I can't bloody W and I can't get down here I'm not sure if you can see that, but no, you can't.

You got to get the right name but it's personalized. Dave John's John's I think they got my name wrong. Do suction cups are look at? Oh, it's got a life of its own. It's got a life of its own already, but unfortunately they got my name wrong.

Look at that. It's Dave Jones j o n e Yes, not Dave John's oops and I stand corrected. Uh, it's not a three AIS arm. It's a 4axis arm because it can rotate around like that.

It can extend like that and then it can also bend down like that and it can also rotate its head like that. And yes, that is a uh suction cup on the end. I Believe this is optional uh, part of the kit you can get like a Gra Rber or or a suction cup or various other uh attachments for the thing. and I Got to admit, it looks really quite nice and the finish of it is quite decent.

They have actually assembled this uh for me so it usually comes as a kit so I don't think it comes up fully assembled like this and I think it's quite reasonably qu priced. Don't quote me I think the basic kit is like $170 on Kickstarter at the moment or something like that. And as I said, there's various options and uh uh, they got and it has actually quite a large operational uh, envelope, threedimensional uh envelope on the thing. so as you can see, you know it can go, can sort of start down like that, depend and it can go all the way out like that and then all the way around like that and oh, it's not bad now.

Unfortunately, the main limitation uh of this thing is going to be that it uses DC Servo Motors these are not proper stepper Motors So unfortunately you know I don't expect the uh Precision of this thing to be. You know the the repeatability of this thing to be uh that great because it doesn't use steeper Motors but apparently they are working on a steeper motor uh version of it as well so you know it's it's not a serious instrument, It's not like you're going to be able to put a a micro uh nozzle on here and convert this into a pick and place machine or something like that. It's probably not going to have that sort of repeatability anyway. Um, it does come with a phone I Haven't got the software for it yet.

Um, they're going to send that to me by email, but uh, yep. I'm going to do a separate video on this and show you how it works. but anyway, that is the first delivered. um uh, uarm they call it.

but uh, it's you know, like my microcurrent uh projects they don't use the Me symbol. they actually call it U but you know, I might call it the micro arm perhaps. but they definitely want it to be called the Uarm in you. it's yours.

Ah, neat. I like it. It looks really sexy. I think San's going to have a lot of fun with this if we hook it up to the phone app.

um, you know, tablet app to uh, actually, uh, control the arm, then yeah, I think he's going to have a lot of fun. Oh, and I forgot to mention it is Open Source Hardware as well. Excellent and it is um Arduino uh, controlled on the bottom down here. So I I think it's really, uh, quite neat.

You know it's it's the rigidity of it. You know it's not great. I mean this thing is not going to be repeatable for Pick and pick and place I'm sure any you know, really good task like that, so it's it's more of a toy than a serious uh T um uh. tool.

really? Until they get the uh stepper Motors on there and you know a nice uh, you know, a really rigid mechanical uh, frame and stuff like that. but hey, it's it's not bad. it's I mean if I hold that steady that you know it's it's not a huge amount of play in that I don't think um, but anyway, it's it's not bad. I'm reasonably impressed by that.

It's really quite good, especially for the price point. I think I mean I know there's other uh robot arms out there, but anyway, I am the first backer of this and uh, they have Del this is the first delivered micro arm. so anyway, I'm going to have to do a separate video I will get the software for it, hook it up, and uh, try and make it do something h something useful anyway. and there's the Arduino on the bottom with their own um micro arm shield on there.

There you go Open Source Hardware logo. By the way, this is just a beta uh unit. The final production versions may actually be, uh, you know, different to this in, um, you know, a couple, of, uh, probably minor ways or something like that. So improvements will be made.

um, possibly before the final. uh, the final release cuz the Kickstarter has got another 30 days to go obviously and there's one of the uh DC Servo Motors Yeah, pretty ordinary, but hey, this thing is built down to a cost. Headed home to edit Catch you next time.