I made three power cables today. Blue for 3.3V, Red for 5V, and Yellow for 12V. I used 4mm lugs and bolted them to my ATX power supply breakout board. So now I have some handy power rails on my bench powered from an old computer power supply.
Well. Turns out you can only chain up to five USB hubs. I know, because I tried to chain six. I feel like this is a life accomplishment, and it should unlock a secret level or something. After finding this limitation myself, ChatGPT confirmed it.
Today while watching EEVblog 1559 – PCB Design: Trace Current Rating I learned about the Saturn PCB Design Toolkit.
For a long while now I have been having intermittent problems with the audio in my lab. I stream the GoaPsy channel from di.fm, and I really love it, but not when there’s skipping! I figured the problem was related to latency and jitter on my broadband connection, and if so, there was little to be done, except to wait for network conditions at my ISP to change.
But this evening I noticed that when I sat close in to my workstation to type the skipping would start. Then if I moved back in my chair, it would stop. I found I could actually cause the skipping to start or stop just by moving around in my chair!
Turns out the problem wasn’t my internet connection, the problem was the bluetooth connection between my laptop and my speakers! To fix the problem I got underneath my desk and moved my sub woofer about one foot to the left. Now when I move around in my chair my music doesn’t skip anymore! Happy days!
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In this video I make an input power cable for my ZKE Tech EBD-A20H Battery Tester and Electronic Load. This power cable connects a DC female input to four male banana plugs, two positive, two negative. This power cable can be used to connect a power source for testing by the EBD-A20H.
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Yum Cha Dual-Purpose Sanding Stick notes |
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I have the info below taped to the front of my bench drawer, but I thought I would put it out there in text format for anyone who it might be useful to, so I made some notes over here: soldering temperature.
This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video on this show’s homepage which is here.
You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV
I was watching EEVblog #168 – How To Set Up An Electronics Lab and Dave suggested using chisel tips instead of conical tips, which inspired me to check what I was using and also to sort the tips I presently own into three categories:
If you’re interested in soldering temperatures I wrote a follow-up post on that topic: soldering iron temperature.
Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe!
Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!
Yum Cha 10pcs Magic Foam Sponge notes |
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I was watching this old EEVBlog video: EEVblog #168 – How To Set Up An Electronics Lab and Dave recommended a Fluke VoltAlert. I discovered there are various versions, such as the 1AC and 2AC, and those alternatives are explained here: Best Non-Contact Voltage Tester.
The Fluke 1AC II Non-Contact Voltage Tester looked like a pretty good one for my purposes and I found one on eBay for AUD$35.40 so I hit the buy button.
For details see: In The Lab With Jay Jay.
Well I figured out how to use my new my ZKE Tech EBD-A20H Battery Tester and Electronic Load. This video was really helpful: ZKETECH EBD-A20H first look . Also I managed to find the software mentioned in the comments for that video: ftp://randomdl:randomdl@oss.quindorian.org/Random/ZKE-EB_software_1.8.5-0320.zip
The reason I had trouble configuring this electronic load is that I thought the “cutoff voltage” was a maximum setting, but in fact it means cutoff if the voltage drops below this value. That makes sense of course, especially as the main use case for this device is testing batteries. Once the voltage drops below a certain level the battery is dead and you can stop testing.
The trick with the wiring is that you can just hook the voltage and current terminals up to the battery / power supply terminals. I think the idea is that you can put the voltage and current terminals in different parts of a circuit, but I don’t really understand that, and for simple battery or power supply testing it seems you can just connect them together.
There are two modes available: Constant Current (CC) and Constant Power (CP). I have managed to get the software working and connected so that should mean I can put this up the back of my bench and control it remotely, which will be handy.
My next video will be me making a cable to fix this mess. Once I have that cable I will make a video demoing the EBD-A20H.
