I made some notes about my 300in1 diodes. I have switching diodes, rectifier diodes, zener diodes, and germanium diodes. One thing to note is that germanium diodes are supposed to have a forward voltage of 300mV. One diode I thought was a germanium diode (it was clear with two black bands but no other markings) had a forward voltage of 600mV, I’m not sure what’s up with that, so I put it in my “unknown parts” drawer.
Category Archives: Electronics
UPS batteries from Battery World
Note to self: my mate Mitchell from Battery World, Penrith hooked me up with new batteries for my PowerShield Defender 1200VA systems: ‘LOVE UPS’ and ‘ORAC UPS’. The batteries have a 12 month warranty if there turns out to be problems.
3-cent microcontrollers
These look pretty interesting! What’s up with these 3-cent microcontrollers? (A review of the Padauk PMS150C and friends).
Everything You Need to Know about Designing a PCB Layout
The title says it all: Everything You Need to Know about Designing a PCB Layout.
Renesas Enters FPGA Market
Via HN today: Renesas Enters FPGA Market with the First Ultra-Low-Power, Low-Cost Family Addressing Low-Density, High-Volume Applications. It says they will sell for around 50c, so that’s awesome and definitely something I need to look into in the future.
Ben Eater
So I discovered this guy Ben Eater after watching his video How do hardware timers work?. It looks like he has some cool stuff.
SMD soldering by hot air
Today I learned about SMD soldering by hot air.
JLCPCB for printed circuit boards
So in my travels recently I discovered JLCPCB. They can make custom circuit boards and their prices seem very affordable. I don’t know what other companies might be out there offering similar services but I don’t think I’ll need to look further…
Update: 2021-09-24 jj5 – also check out the service from Seeed Studio. Thanks to my mate Raz for the suggestion.
Chinese AM/FM radio kit (attempt 1)
So I got myself a 1set AM / FM stereo AM radio kit / DIY CF210SP electronic production suite. Here’s me preparing to put it together…
And here’s me failing with the surface mount integrated circuit and ruining the circuit board:
I think now it’s time to learn more about SMD soldering and to check out those who came before: CF210SP.
Here’s a picture of the PCB I ruined:
SPI: The serial peripheral interface
This via Lobste.rs today: SPI: The serial peripheral interface.