Category Archives: Hardware

Propagation of electricity

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Thanks to Craig for referring me to Brian Haidet’s AlphaPhoenix channel.

I found the following four videos on the AlphaPhoenix channel explaining various aspects of the propagation of electricity, which goes some way to explaining how the high impedance headphone might work in my 10in1 2/10 project.

While watching the videos I discovered that Brian’s oscilloscope is a Siglent SDS1104X-E (100 MHz) Oscilloscope, a pretty nice looking bit of kit!

6 Horribly Common PCB Design Mistakes and AppCAD

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Today I enjoyed watching 6 Horribly Common PCB Design Mistakes and the follow-up video Design Mistakes You Must Avoid on Your New Electronic Product.

In the first video I learned about AppCAD Design Assistant which is a free tool which boasts a broad bunch of features (and, particularly, it can help you design an antenna on your PCB):

  • S-Parameter Analysis and Plotting
  • Active Circuit Bias Design
  • Cascade Noise and IP3 Analysis
  • Transmission Line Analysis
  • Signals and Systems
  • Complex Math Engineering Calculator

I haven’t used AppCAD yet, but I will check it out soon.

BIOS settings for ‘verve’

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I went hunting in the BIOS for ‘verve‘ which has a ASUS PRIME B550M-A motherboard and I found I needed to change two settings.

The first setting was Advanced -> CPU Configuration -> SVM Mode = Enabled. This enables AMD-V and allows the CPU to function in a hypervisor.

The second setting was Advanced -> Onboard Devices Configuration -> USB power delivery in Soft Off state (SS) = Disabled. This fixes the problem with the power button not working as discussed here: Earth leakage hack.

Earth leakage hack

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Happy New Year! Best wishes to all my friends for 2024.

I have this weird problem with my new studio computer ‘verve‘. When I press the power button, it doesn’t turn on. It does have 15 USB cables plugged into it, and quite a number of those are powered, which seems to affect the system.

The power for most of the devices on my bench goes through a PowerShield Defender 1600VA UPS battery, and then through an Arlec PB91 Residual Current Device (RCD).

The RCD has a test feature so you can press the button on the RCD and it will trip the safety which will disconnect the power. If I do this most of the equipment on my bench will turn off (but, importantly, not my workstation ‘verve’) including all the powered USB devices which are interfering with my computer.

After I trip the RCD I can power on my computer, and then once it’s powered on I can reset the RCD and bench power is restored. It’s a bit fiddly but at least it works!

Interlude #3: Demo Of The New Studio Cameras – Now In 4K! | In The Lab With Jay Jay

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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

Silly Job Title: Charge Charmer

Old Book: Vest Pocket Guide To Electrical Testing And Troubleshooting by John E. Traister published 1987 with 130 pages.

Today is just a quick video to demo my new camera setup made possible by my new studio workstation ‘verve‘.

In the video I demo the new mat/bench camera which supports various zoom levels. Then I demo the iPod touch camera for showing some of the bench equipment. Then I demo the HDMI system which supports two microscopes, the MSO5074 oscilloscope, and the AV switch which usually would show the Xbox among other things (but I couldn’t get the Xbox to work in this video, drats). Finally I demo the thermal cam.

Sorry for the dodgy audio in this video. I will try to make sure that doesn’t happen in future videos.

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe!

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3ELIGHTING 14″-42″ VESA Wall MountThis is an image of the product.

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