What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[gamalot]

NF ZM2393 Test Fixture 

[Specmaster]

A flux pen and a jar of tip restorer plus a new desk chair.

[Mr. Scram]

A flux pen and a jar of tip restorer plus a new desk chair.

How fast does it go?

[Specmaster]

A flux pen and a jar of tip restorer plus a new desk chair.

How fast does it go?

I don't know until I road test it, I'll let you know when I get 

[Cubdriver]

Where are the seat belts & shoulder harness?

-Pat

[djos]

A flux pen and a jar of tip restorer plus a new desk chair.

Nice, I have a very very similar chair in my study ... it's super comfortable!



https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/bathurst-chair-blue-jbbathchbe

[neo]

My desk chair is just a plain light blue chair with memory foam. Best chair ever.

[McBryce]

Those Amazon $10/4-pack DC/DC modules are actually quite efficient -- they run very cold, not even warm to touch, while stepping down 19V to 12V, ~1.5A, without any thermal solution, wrapped in electrical tape.

It would be the EMC they're spewing out into the computer case that would worry me more than thermal issues.

McBryce.

[Specmaster]

Bad news. My previous RX 560 purchase was proven to be wrong. My old R9 nano is not faulty, and the fault was a WiFi card shipped with my motherboard. 15% restocking fee down the drain.

Lesson learned: never buy cheap motherboards from AsRock. I knew $200 for an X99 mobo with WiFi and USB3.1 can't be good, but anyway. It's indeed very stupid to put a $200 mobo in a multi-thousand-dollar dream setup.

Arrived today is a Mediasonic external HDD raid box which I'm using in my NAS setup. I no longer want my HDDs to be in my main computer chassis, so I need to find a place to plug them into.

I did 2 modifications on the enclosure, first by adding a DC/DC module in fan cable to step down the noise, then by adding another DC/DC module to convert 19V to 12V, so I can tap power from my Intel NUC power brick to power my HDD enclosure. The NUC PSU is a 65W unit, and the NUC will never suck more than 25W from it.

Those Amazon $10/4-pack DC/DC modules are actually quite efficient -- they run very cold, not even warm to touch, while stepping down 19V to 12V, ~1.5A, without any thermal solution, wrapped in electrical tape.

I've had a few motherboards from Asrock in the past and they've been OK.

[Decoman]

Hakko 633-01 Soldering iron holder

Being a newbie to soldering, I am confused as I find so called "brass" products for cleaning soldering irons, but then later down the page I see the same product being described as "gold" "color" "steel". Looking for a tumbled brass ball, I am having difficulty finding it on eBay. Update: Ok, I finally found a sales listing that at least clearly promises brass, and not steel.

[edgelog]

An adjustable isolation transformer. Seems to consist mainly of two regular transformers and a toroid variable transformer. I haven't figured out how they make this work, though. Anyone knows? The beast weights 25 kg, BTW.

[Free_WiFi]

I bought for my self this awesome set of screwdrivers!!!
https://www.banggood.com/XIAOMI-Wiha-25-in-1-Screwdrivers-Kits-With-24pcs-S2-Steel-Screw-Bits-and-Aluminium-Alloy-Screwdriver-p-1187158.html

[Mr. Scram]

Bad news. My previous RX 560 purchase was proven to be wrong. My old R9 nano is not faulty, and the fault was a WiFi card shipped with my motherboard. 15% restocking fee down the drain.

Lesson learned: never buy cheap motherboards from AsRock. I knew $200 for an X99 mobo with WiFi and USB3.1 can't be good, but anyway. It's indeed very stupid to put a $200 mobo in a multi-thousand-dollar dream setup.

Arrived today is a Mediasonic external HDD raid box which I'm using in my NAS setup. I no longer want my HDDs to be in my main computer chassis, so I need to find a place to plug them into.

I did 2 modifications on the enclosure, first by adding a DC/DC module in fan cable to step down the noise, then by adding another DC/DC module to convert 19V to 12V, so I can tap power from my Intel NUC power brick to power my HDD enclosure. The NUC PSU is a 65W unit, and the NUC will never suck more than 25W from it.

Those Amazon $10/4-pack DC/DC modules are actually quite efficient -- they run very cold, not even warm to touch, while stepping down 19V to 12V, ~1.5A, without any thermal solution, wrapped in electrical tape.

Expensive motherboards aren't any better. I've seen people having huge issues with Asus, Gigabyte, Intel and other motherboards. If you get a bad hand, you get a bad hand.

A lot of people seem to be using Asrock motherboards with few issues, so YMMV.

[bitseeker]

An adjustable isolation transformer. Seems to consist mainly of two regular transformers and a toroid variable transformer. I haven't figured out how they make this work, though. Anyone knows? The beast weights 25 kg, BTW.

The two regular transformers are probably back-to-back to end up with 1:1 turn ratio. I'm not sure why they didn't just do that with a single 1:1 transformer. Perhaps to be able to change the input voltage and/or range.

The auto-transformer (a.k.a., Variac) provides the adjustable output voltage. The front panel knob appears to be attached to the auto-transformer shaft, but it could also go to a pot or rotary encoder and use a servo or similar mechanism to enable electronic control.

Kerry Wong did a video on a voltage stabilizer that used a servo-controlled auto-transformer to control the output.

[tooki]

My latest purchase, if you will, is about $2500 of tattoo work. So much left to go... ::sigh::

[edgelog]

The two regular transformers are probably back-to-back to end up with 1:1 turn ratio. I'm not sure why they didn't just do that with a single 1:1 transformer. Perhaps to be able to change the input voltage and/or range.

That makes sense.

The auto-transformer (a.k.a., Variac) provides the adjustable output voltage. The front panel knob appears to be attached to the auto-transformer shaft, but it could also go to a pot or rotary encoder and use a servo or similar mechanism to enable electronic control.

The knob is physically connected to the shaft, adjusting the position of the roller tap. There's no servo in this device.

[Mr. Scram]

My latest purchase, if you will, is about $2500 of tattoo work. So much left to go... ::sigh::

I'd be willing to stab you for half of that. PM me for details. 

[Macbeth]

The two regular transformers are probably back-to-back to end up with 1:1 turn ratio. I'm not sure why they didn't just do that with a single 1:1 transformer. Perhaps to be able to change the input voltage and/or range.

That makes sense.

My latest purchase, if you will, is about $2500 of tattoo work. So much left to go... ::sigh::

That makes no sense whatsoever. 

[Specmaster]

The two regular transformers are probably back-to-back to end up with 1:1 turn ratio. I'm not sure why they didn't just do that with a single 1:1 transformer. Perhaps to be able to change the input voltage and/or range.

That makes sense.

The auto-transformer (a.k.a., Variac) provides the adjustable output voltage. The front panel knob appears to be attached to the auto-transformer shaft, but it could also go to a pot or rotary encoder and use a servo or similar mechanism to enable electronic control.

The knob is physically connected to the shaft, adjusting the position of the roller tap. There's no servo in this device.

It could also be that transformer 1 is a step down transformer feeding a small low voltage variac which then feeds into a low voltage primary on transformer 2 which is a step transformer. This way round I think that they will require a far smaller physical size of variac to help keep the overall size of the unit down?

[Cubdriver]

The two regular transformers are probably back-to-back to end up with 1:1 turn ratio. I'm not sure why they didn't just do that with a single 1:1 transformer. Perhaps to be able to change the input voltage and/or range.

That makes sense.

The auto-transformer (a.k.a., Variac) provides the adjustable output voltage. The front panel knob appears to be attached to the auto-transformer shaft, but it could also go to a pot or rotary encoder and use a servo or similar mechanism to enable electronic control.

The knob is physically connected to the shaft, adjusting the position of the roller tap. There's no servo in this device.

It could also be that transformer 1 is a step down transformer feeding a small low voltage variac which then feeds into a low voltage primary on transformer 2 which is a step transformer. This way round I think that they will require a far smaller physical size of variac to help keep the overall size of the unit down?

If anything, at a lower voltage you'd probably need a bigger, heavier variac - remember, as voltage goes down, current goes up for a given power.

-Pat

[Specmaster]

That is correct but you would also need fewer windings as well surely?

[bitseeker]

The auto-transformer (a.k.a., Variac) provides the adjustable output voltage. The front panel knob appears to be attached to the auto-transformer shaft, but it could also go to a pot or rotary encoder and use a servo or similar mechanism to enable electronic control.

The knob is physically connected to the shaft, adjusting the position of the roller tap. There's no servo in this device.

OK. That works fine and is certainly simpler having the knob just turn the variac. With the digital displays, I just couldn't tell how far they went with digital-ness.

[BU508A]

I bought for my self this awesome set of screwdrivers!!!
https://www.banggood.com/XIAOMI-Wiha-25-in-1-Screwdrivers-Kits-With-24pcs-S2-Steel-Screw-Bits-and-Aluminium-Alloy-Screwdriver-p-1187158.html

The genuine ones can be found here:
https://www.wiha.com/

[BU508A]

The Xiaomi one is a collaboration between Xiaomi and Wiha, it's basically made in China under Wiha's license and Xiaomi's branding.
The handle and case are definitely made by Xiaomi or its OEMs, the tips are likely to be made by Wiha. I have a set of these.

I've bought one set and will check it out.

[neo]

Blueskull, i just plugged my headphones into my sony amp and turned it all the way up, way past anything i would ever play through.

You were right there is alot of noise actually, high pitched squealing and digital static. Though below volume level 28/75, a sane listening volume, it is inaudible.