EEVblog #1097 - Mailbag

[EEVblog]

Mailbag - With the worst soldering job ever!



SPOILERS:
A giant outdoor flippy dot display.
The worst soldering job ever
Avometer Model 7 Mk2 teardown
Video enhancer teardown
Cheap-arse soldering iron teardown
https://www.youtube.com/user/brotschuh
Ancient Sony Handycam
Elektor Magazine
Elektor 6 digit VFD tube clock kit
https://www.elektormagazine.com/news/new-elektor-labs-kit-vfd-tube-clock-with-esp32

$1M Pandora Pixi professional TV color grading system teardown!

Nordic Thingy:52 IoT development system:
https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/Nordic-Thingy-52

Potato Demiconductor 1GHz TTL logic

Jaspers STM32 based Electronic Load:
https://www.tindie.com/products/jaspersikken/jaspers-electronic-load-r2/

[cengland0]

Okay Dave, we get it.  You have a fancy new 4K camera.  Congratulations.  You mentioned it in the beginning of the video and you don't need to keep bragging about it all throughout the video to keep reminding us that we can see the inside of that meter in 4K.  Our attention spans are not that bad we cannot remember.

[ggchab]

Isn't it normal to have fun when playing with a new toy 

[Rolo]

Looks like the focusing is slower with this cam. I find the whole viewing experience more tiresome. Or is Dave moving the objects too quick? Will look at an older mailbag to compare.

[rsjsouza]

I loved the AVO teardown; certainly a lot of mechanic ingenuity went into that product - and much more than what we are used to see in electronics these days.

Despite the soldering iron is cheap, its plastic edges remind me of a toy that I had when I was a kid and the solder spool replacements will be hard to find, it is a massive improvement over any soldering iron I used for the first 20 years on my electronics hobby. 

The solder job on the board is really not great, but not the worst either... I recall having similar look when in emergencies I had to use really dirty solder that didn't flow very well.

The Nordic thingy is interesting, but it looks quite bulky when compared to the Sensortag kits from TI.
https://www.ti.com/ww/en/wireless_connectivity/sensortag/

At any rate, thanks for another mailbag.

[MT]

The Parkside soldering iron is a "LIDL" foodstore brand in europe.

[TheSteve]

Comparing to older Mailbag I find the picture better on the previous ones, almost like the contrast is off with the 4K camera - your skin looks a little washed out/shiny. Or maybe you just shine in 4K

Also could just be me or the specific monitor I am using.

[GabYoung92]

Ah the flip dots again!
Just to make things clear (not that I was worried anyways) - that was not my soldering job. I would never leave anything like that. No wonder why the thing was always failing. Didn't even really look at the thing before boxing up and sending off.

We were brought in to update the sign which was constantly failing.  (The day we took it out only about half of the segments were working.  We put the sticker on the box to track the box when brought back to the workshop.  We thought the black stuff on the boards was simply black spray paint. Didn't flake off here, must be the NSW weather 

The picture attached is the all "new" LED sign that instead of running on about 2km of wires in a 40m space, now runs on RS485 to a RS485-TCP/IP converter.  The rest is over wifi.  The most reliable the sign has ever been. Even the controller is now software based.

[SilverSolder]

The 4K video looks crazy good on my calibrated NEC monitor (1080p) - like working on a high res image in Photoshop.  Unbelievable quality.

[rain]

Modern versions of Android make you grant the "location" permission to do any BTLE/wifi scanning.

This is because any app with those capabilities would technically be able to surreptitiously (without showing the location indicator in the status bar or showing up in the list of recent location requests) determine your rough location (in the same way that the official location services use signal strengths from WiFi/BTLE beacons to estimate your position when you can't get a GPS/GLONASS fix).

[Fungus]

Comparing to older Mailbag I find the picture better on the previous ones, almost like the contrast is off with the 4K camera - your skin looks a little washed out/shiny. Or maybe you just shine in 4K

Also could just be me or the specific monitor I am using.

I think so too: Color was better before.

It might be camera settings.

[Brumby]

I have to agree...  there seems to be some over-exposure, visible in washed-out highlights.

[Kleinstein]

The cheap soldering Iron was sold in Germany by a discounter somewhere in the 5-10 EUR range.  The small spools of solder are about the only good thing. "Parkside" is just a discounter specific branding for different tools.

A simple test for the GHz logic would be a ring oscillator.
If one needs GHz logic, there is still ECL around.

[maelli]

RDE was a german manufacturerer of capacitors. Now they are part of Vishay, the brand still exists:

https://www.vishay.com/company/brands/roederstein/

[Yogi89]

hey Dave is there any way you could sent those small flip dots my way if i pay for the shipping?

[IanMacdonald]

Parkside are an own-brand sold by LIDL. They are a bit of a mixed bag, some products good, some not so good. I've a Parkside battery drill that's given excellent service. A supposedly professional glue gun never did anything but jam and block-up though. The soldering iron is very cheap so the fact that it's a 'fake' temperature control is maybe par for the course. You would be better off with a 'Yihua' which at least has a transformer and proper regulation.

[yaputya]

Dave, I've attached some info on the Signalex products FYI.
They were widely used in petrol station pumps and outdoor signs that showed time & temperature.
I used the 18" seven-segment units back in the 80's to make clocks for boat racing meets. (The ETI-653 16-channel Driver project was really designed for those displays!)
I also bought some of the 1.5" 7-segment displays which I still have and still work perfectly. They're good for clocks because they use very little power (none unless changing) and are very visible.

The main advantages of Signalex displays are:
(1) They are electro-mechanical so only need a short current pulse to change the vane position. You can use some software smarts to only drive the vanes that need to change to drop the power further.
(2) The vanes passively reflect light, so are great for bright ambient conditions i.e. direct sunlight.
(3) They are available in large sizes, up to 24 inches high, visible up to 300 meters.
The main disadvantages are:
(1) They are mechanical and the bearings will eventually wear out.
(2) They are useless in dim light - need illumination at night.
(3) You have to use a clear cover to protect them, and this causes heat problems in sunlight (needs a fan).
(4) The larger displays take tenths of a second to change and are noisy.
(5) You need 2 separate outputs for each vane (segment) - one for the SET coil and one for the RESET coil. You can use a bridge driver and drive just one coil bipolar. Displays that are changed infrequently can parallel up the RESET coils, but it looks a bit funny when changing.

[David Hess]

The 4K video comments remind me of the Monochrome Boys from Space Quest:

"Well, lookee here! If it ain't Mr. 'Look-at-Me-I'm-in-VGA'."

[rrinker]

    I remember those games.

[AG6QR]

I had a Sony 8mm Handicam very similar to the one you showed.  I purchased it new, I believe it was around 1990.  Sony made several very similar models, varying in the zoom range of the lens, and whether they supported PAL or NTSC.  The controls and connectors on mine look identical to the model shown on the video.

[aqarwaen]

would love to see that camera teardown.and maybe dave can shoot some videos clip or pictures before he teardowns it??

[Brumby]

I didn't spend a lot of time fault-finding on that Handycam - but it would only play back.  I couldn't even get it to show a live image in the viewfinder.

Of course, I could have missed something obvious.