EEVblog No Script, No Fear, All Opinion

A time lapse installation video of Dave’s 3kW home solar power system using LG MonoX panels.

Dave looks at his 3kW home solar power system after being in operation for 18 months and analyses the results. How much energy was produced? How does net and gross metering work? What is the payback period? What is solar insolation? The 3kW system uses 12 x 250W LG MonoX …

What’s inside Keysight’s new 34470A 7 1/2 digit Truevolt bench multimeter? What are the PCB changes from the 34461A? What voltage reference does it use to get 16ppm nominal accuracy? 34470A Datasheet 34470A Operating & Service Manual LTZ1000 Voltage Reference AD8638 Chopper Amplifier Forum HERE High resolution teardown photos: Podcast: …

A monster Mailbag, with extra waffle and advice for youngsters. Amp Hour T-Shirts Forum HERE SPOILERS: GPS based Back To The Future speedometer display from Firmtec Manual SMD Pick & Place reeling tray on Kickstarter Cypress Semiconductor PSoC Bluetooth Low Energy demo kit PCB Backlit calendar Geoaching waypoint altitude decoder …

What’s inside a 2000 vintage Globalstar GSP1600 Tri-Band Satellite Phone? Behold the Erectile Antenna, a helical designed extending antenna. Thanks to: Electronics Responsible Recyclers Forum HERE Analog Devices DSP Intel 386EX Embedded Processor Podcast: Download

Dave opens his mail. SPOILERS: Chip Whisperer KickStarter Supermicro Xeon Server Motherboard RF Solutions transmitters and receivers. Bogey Board KAPPA BRAVO PICop II PIC Development board Automatic Voltage Regulator for an alternator. Forum HERE Podcast: Download

Sony have released a new Audiophile / Audiophool “Low Noise” SDXC memery card. It’s only 5 times the price of a regular card! The SR-64HXA will really make your music sound superlative! And even better again on Sony’s new $1100 ZX2 Audiophile grade Walkman! Forum HERE Podcast: Download

2014 Sydney Maker Faire Power House Museum 17/8/2014 Trends in Hardware Innovation Fireside Chat with David L. Jones from the EEVblog and Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin from Blue Chilli How to get venture capital funding for your startup, crowd funding advice, and the state of the Australian electronics industry among many thing …

What’s inside the Keithley 2400 Source Measure Unit? Forum HERE Service Manual Datasheets: AD7849 DAC AD847 opamp Photomos Relay Max7000 PLD LT1097 LT1007 Differential Amp AMP03 AD712 High Res teardown photo: Podcast: Download

Dave explains what Vacuum Fluorescent Displays (VFD’s) are, how they work, and then hacks an interface and reverse engineers a surplus display from an industrial machine to make it work with an Arduino. UPDATE: Found the datasheet Another page with info on a different model: Forum HERE TI TL4810 VFD …

Dave investigates and explains the Raspberry Pi 2 Xenon flash problem. Where the Pi2 will reset and lockup when a photo is taken of it from a Xenon flash camera. How and why the photoelectric effect is responsible. UPDATE: I have tried a UV filter in front of the flash …

Mailbag Monday Dave opens his mail. Warranty VOID T-Shirt Forum HERE SPOLIERS: ARM Arduino Pro Mini Atmel AT89C2051 NanoBeam Kickstarter module, T-Slot construction Elektor T-Board Arduino Breadboard modules Wireless RF energy harvesting module Awesome woodworking projects TI Voyage 200 Calculator Data Precision Multimeter teardown Podcast: Download

How does a metal detector work? Dave teardown and reverse engineers the circuit in a $17 Harbour Freight wand type metal detector, and also explains how to do basic reverse engineering of a PCB. Forum HERE Podcast: Download

Dave breadboards a 1988 vintage Tandy / Radio Shack VCP200 speaker independent voice recognition chip from Voice Control Products Inc. Will it work after 27 years? Will it recognise his Australian accent? Forum HERE Radio Electronics magazine April 1991 MC68HC04 Datasheet M6804 User Manual Podcast: Download

Dave shows why Uni-T multimeters generally suck in this teardown (and a little bit of a review) of the $180 UT71E 0.025% accuracy multimeter with power measurement capability. He also opens the UT71A, UT61E, and compares the input protection and rating with a Brymen BM257. MAX6190 Voltage Reference OP1177 Opamp …