Category Archives: Learning

Demo #1: How to Use All the Features of the Fluke 17B+ Digital Multimeter | 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 over here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

In this video I take a look at how to use all of the features of my new Fluke 17B+ Digital Multimeter.

This is the inaugural demo video. We now do an ‘unboxing’ and a ‘demo’ separately. In the demo videos we try to take a close look at each feature of a product. Whereas with the unboxing we just make a record of the unboxing experience and take a cursory look at a few features.

If you’re interested in the Fluke 17B+ then in addition to watching this demonstration video you might also like to see the unboxing: Unboxing #14: Unboxing of Fluke 17B+ Multimeter | Learning Electronics In The Lab With Jay Jay.

The slides for this video are here: https://www.jj5.net/fluke-17b-plus/

In the video we cover:

  • high current fuse test
  • low current fuse test
  • AC voltage measurement
  • DC voltage measurement
  • DC millivolts measurement
  • AC current measurement
  • DC current measurement (including milliamps and microamps)
  • continuity testing
  • diode testing (with forward bias measurement)
  • resistance measurement
  • capacitance measurement
  • temperature measurement
  • frequency measurement (10 Hz to 400 kHz)
  • duty cycle measurement (of regular sine wave)
  • relative measurement feature
  • measurement hold feature
  • backlight usage
  • min/max measurement

We were lead astray by the slide for the current test which indicates the wrong terminal for the current measurement! I got these slides from Fluke in the 15B/17B/18B | Quick reference guide on the Manuals+resources tab on their documentation for the Fluke 17B+ Digital Multimeter. So it is pretty disappointing that the official Fluke documentation led me astray like that! But we figured it out in the end so all is well that ends well.

Errata: at around the 24 minute mark I try to introduce a load across my 9 V AC input voltage but I don’t correctly wire it in. So when I think I’m testing with a load attached there is in fact no load attached.

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 Long Handle Wire BrushThis is an image of the product.notes

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Electronics Project #8: Debugging the Symbol Keyboard Mini Project JMP001 | 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 over here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

Silly Job Title: Component Wrangler

In this video I add improved debouncing logic to the inaugural Silicon Chip and Jaycar Mini Project: JMP001.

Shout out and thank you to Tim Blythman for developing this project.

You can see Tim’s original code and my updates which improve the debouncing implementation.

In the video I mention that we use the pgmspace.h header from Arduino.

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!

Maxitronix 500 In 1 (500in1) Electronics Project Lab KitThis is an image of the product.notes

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Unboxing #14: Unboxing of Fluke 17B+ Multimeter | Learning Electronics 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 over here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

In this video I unbox my new Fluke 17B+ Digital Multimeter.

The hard copy manual which was in the box I received was in Chinese (I think) but I found the English documentation available on the web from the manufacturer over here: Fluke 17B+ Digital Multimeter.

Shoutout to my mate @ElectrArc240 who was the person that made me aware of this Fluke multimeter, I learned about it in one of his videos.

If you enjoyed this video and are interested in the Fluke 17B+ you can see a product demonstration over here: Demo #1: How to Use All the Features of the Fluke 17B+ Digital Multimeter | In The Lab With Jay Jay.

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 29 In 1 Mini Precision Screwdriver SetThis is an image of the product.notes

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Subversion @ GitHub

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I wanted to use Subversion to checkout one of my GitHub repo branches, because an svn checkout only downloads the files it needs, not a full copy of every file ever added. But I discovered that GitHub sunset Subversion integration earlier this year. Sad face. Still, I suppose the economics justify that decision. As a consequence of my research, which was a bit sketchy because there is still heaps of documentation out there referring to the GitHub features which no longer exist, I did happen to learn about:

Old Book Teardown #9: Basic Electronics – Volumes 1 through 6 (1955) | In The Lab With Jay Jay

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I mostly published this ten hour long video just to exasperate Dave Jones. ;)

This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video over here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

Silly Job Title: Buzz Boss.

In this video I take a good long hard look at the entirety of this book.

The book is Basic Electronics – Volumes 1 through 6 written by Van Valkenburgh, Nooger and Neville, Inc. and published in 1955.

The book is about the state of electronics at the time it was written. It was commissioned by the United States Navy, who used it to train their technicians. Later, it was released for civilian use.

In the book there is lots of material on vacuum tubes, which were state of the art at the time. The sixth volume adds material on transistors and frequency modulation, which were bleeding edge technology at the time.

I learned heaps from reading this book, particularly about the various types of vacuum tubes (also known as “valves” by the British): diode, triode, tetrode, pentode, and Klystron, among others.

Also I learned that the name “transistor” is a contraction of “transfer resistor”, I didn’t know that!

If you would like to watch this video but don’t have ten hours to spare, you can find out how to increase the playback speed more than 2x on my YouTube hacks page.

The links to archive.org I mention in the video are these:

Also I found PDFs for Volumes 1 through 5 here:

Oh, and the link for Make: magazine is here: https://makezine.com/

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!

RV77 4K HDMI USB 2.0 4-Port HDMI KVMThis is an image of the product.

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Mail Call #6: More Loot from Amazon and AliExpress! | Learning Electronics 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 over here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

In this video I take a look at the following equipment which arrived in the mail.

The large scales I mention in this video (which can measure up to 30kg) are these ones: Disenkelubo 30kg 1g Electronic Scale.

You can find more info about how to use the screw pitch gauge on YouTube: Stainless Steel Pitch Scale Gauge.

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!

JST XH2.54 Pre-crimped Connector KitThis is an image of the product.notes

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I figured out how to avoid connascence of position

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Instead of passing positional arguments to constructors (or functions), instead pass a list of value objects. The type of the value object will tell you the type of the value, so you don’t need to worry about the position. This is a super powerful means of supporting back-compat within your code base so you can move ahead at speed. Having value objects instead of simple types (bools, ints, floats, strings, etc) might have performance implications, but it also can be quite handy. So far so good for my use cases.