I was watching PART 3 : All You Need To Know About SMD Capacitor Markings Codes To Fix Stuff and I discovered this web page for capacitor markings and codes.
Category Archives: Video
Generate Gerber file from Kicad
Today I am going to follow the instructions to Generate Gerber file from Kicad for the first time. Wish me luck!
Update: I also needed to know how to do this: KiCad 6: Add Board Outline to Edge Cuts.
In The Lab With Jay Jay – November 30, 2023 – Teardown of Homemade Continuity Tester
This post is part of my video blog: In The Lab With Jay Jay.
Silly Job Title: Grounding Genius
Old Book: Industrial Electronics Reference Book by Electronics Engineers of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation published 1948 with 680 pages.
Support this channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JohnElliotV
Today we teardown a homemade continuity tester which I put together for use before I had a multimeter, so that was in the early days of my new lab, circa August 2021.
While I was preparing the links for this blog post I discovered that the plastic case I used for the continuity tester was the HB5610 Black Hand-held Electronic Enclosure from Jaycar. I purchased one of these for AU$9.95 back in August 2021, which was around the time that I made this continuity tester.
I subsequently purchased a ten pack of similar plastic cases from AliExpress for AU$64.55 (inc shipping) in March 2022. I went to find the AliExpress listing so I could link you to it, but it’s an old listing and has been taken down. I did search for an equivalent product but didn’t find what I was looking for. The dimensions are roughly 70mm x 135mm x 24mm and there is a facility for 2x AA batteries built in.
The multimeters I use/mention in this video are:
- OWON XDM1041 Bench Multimeter (notes, AU$188.51, February 2022)
- ANENG AN-999S Bench Multimeter (notes, AU$157.04, February 2022)
- DigiTech QM1323 Multimeter (notes, AU$64.95)
- DT830B Digital Multimeter (notes, 5x AU$5.45, July 2023)
The multimeter I mention I want to get is this one: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter.
What I say in the video about active vs passive piezoelectric buzzers is correct. The active buzzer will do the buzzing for you, all you need to do is supply some power. The passive buzzer will need an input signal in addition to power, so some sort of oscillator if you want to generate a tone.
I knocked up a schematic for this continuity tester, something like this:
I’m gonna try getting some PCBs made for this circuit from PCBWay, because I’m still trying to learn everything I can about that process!
Here is a table of products I use which may appear in my video with affiliate links to vendors if you would like to buy. The link given here won’t necessarily have the best price so please do shop around to see if you can find a better deal. If you have thoughts or questions please feel free to let me know. Let’s go shopping!
In The Lab With Jay Jay – November 21, 2023 – Mail Call! Cheap Stuff From China!
This post is part of my video blog: In The Lab With Jay Jay.
Silly Job Title: Science Officer
Support this channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JohnElliotV
Today we’re gonna take a look at what arrived recently from AliExpress. They were having a sale so I purchased some natty tools and a few consumables. Details below. I made some notes at the time of purchase if you’re interested in what I paid for this stuff.
In the video I refer to the workstation I am planning to buy for the studio. When I get this new computer I should be able to improve the quality of my YouTube videos. If you’re interested in the details the new computer I’m planning is ‘victory‘. In the video I say this new computer will cost me AUD$6,000, but it’s looking like it will cost more like AUD$7,500 (roughly USD$5,000), so I will have to save my pennies! The Dell OptiPlex computer that I am presently using is ‘wonder‘.
In the video I refer to “box openers”. If you know what these things are actually called, please do let me know!
The spider who popped up on my bench during the recording of this video was found later. He, um, didn’t make it…
Following are some links to where you can buy any of the equipment seen in this video. These are not affiliate links because AliExpress doesn’t support affiliate links for this merchandise. So you get these links for free and from the bottom of my heart. :)
SolidusCode
Today I discovered SolidusCode on YouTube. Here is some of their stuff:
Large Language Models and The End of Programming – CS50 Tech Talk with Dr. Matt Welsh
Here’s an interesting talk about how we won’t need programmers very soon: Large Language Models and The End of Programming – CS50 Tech Talk with Dr. Matt Welsh.
If refers to the following books:
Joe Armstrong – Keynote: The Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science – Code BEAM SF 2018
I watched Joe Armstrong – Keynote: The Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science – Code BEAM SF 2018. I made the mistake of starting my notes as I went along with the video. If I had have watched the video first I probably wouldn’t have made the notes. Anyway. Sunk cost. Here ’tis.
Two papers to read:
Four old tools to learn:
- emacs (vi)
- bash
- make
- shell
Four really bad things:
- Lack of privacy
- Attempts to manipulate us through social media
- Vendor lock-in
- Terms and conditions
Three great books to read:
- Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs by Niklaus Wirth (PDF)
- The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks (PDF)
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (PDF)
Seven reasons why software is difficult now:
- Fast machines
- Huge memory
- Hundreds of PLs
- Distributed
- Huge programs
- No specifications
- Reuse
One fun programming exercise:
8 great machines from the past:
- Baby SSEM
- PDP11
- Vax 11/750
- Cray 1
- IBM PC
- Raspberry Pi
- iPhone/iPad
- Nvidia Tesla P100
3 performance improvements:
- Better algorithms (x6) (Interpreter -> Compiler)
- Better programming language (x50) (Prolog -> C)
- Better hardware (x1000 per 10 years)
5 YouTube videos to watch:
- Alan Kay at OOPSLA 1997 – The computer revolution hasnt happened yet
- Ted Nelson — Computers for Cynics [full version]
- Free is a Lie
- How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day | Tristan Harris
- Matt Might – Winning the War on Error Solving the Halting Problem and Curing Cancer
6 things not to do:
- Backdoors
- Violate privacy
- Put microphones in everybody’s houses
- Hijack our attention system
- Hijack our social systems
- Sell crap that we don’t want or need
5 sins:
- Crap documentation
- Crap website
- Crap dependencies
- Crap build instructions
- Group think
4 languages to learn:
- C
- Prolog
- Erlang
- Javascript
4 great forgotten ideas:
- Linda Tuple Spaces – David Gelernter and Nicholas Carriero
- Flow based programming – John Paul Morrison
- Xanadu – Ted Nelson
- Unix pipes
6 areas to research:
- Robotics
- AI
- Programmer productivity
- Energy efficiency
- Precision medicine
- Security
2 dangers:
- Group think
- Bubble think
4 ideas that are obvious now but strange at first:
- Indentation
- Versioning
- Hypertext across machine boundaries
- Pipes
2 fantastic programs to try:
7 distractions:
- Open plan offices
- The latest stuff
- Twitter/Facebook (social media)
- Notifications (turn ’em off)
- Links (don’t click on them)
- Ban Scrum etc
- We can only do one thing at a time; our brains are terribly bad at context switching
3 general laws:
- Software complexity grows with time (because we build on old stuff)
- Bad code crowds out good (Gresham’s law)
- Bad code contaminates good code
3 laws of physics:
- A computation can only take place when the data and the program are at the same point in spacetime -=> get all the data + program to the same place (can be client or server or someplace in-between) (problem – easy to move data – difficult to move programs) This is why PHP is good :-)
- Causality – Effect follows cause. We don’t know how stuff is we know how it was (the last time it told us)
- 2nd law of thermodynamics – Entropy (disorder) always increases
6 common problems:
- Does not know how to delete files – when the system runs out of space they buy a new computer
- No idea of what MBytes, Mbits, Bits/sec, quad cores, etc means
- If the app doesn’t work immediately gives up
- Does not search for fixes – or does and does not understand the answers
- Does not want to try the latest things
- Uses a method that works (not the best) – e.g. to copy a file open it and then save it with a new name
5 more problems:
- The UI changes
- Passwords
- Stuff doesn’t work
- Terms & Conditions
- non-reproducible errors
Things can be small:
- Forth OS 24KB
- Forth compiler 12KB
- IBM PC DOS < 640KB
- USCD Pascal
- Turbo Pascal
- Turbo C
The old truths:
- Keep it simple
- Make it small
- Make it correct
- Fight complexity
Web is broken:
- It’s not symmetric; users read data but write very little
- Can every page be changed?
- Can I make new data by combining fragments from other data in a flexible manner? No.
- The Web is dominated by a small number of companies (Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook) using huge data centers, it should be controlled from the edge network.
- The original vision was a Web controlled by “citizen programmers” (Search for Ted Nelson talks)
HTML and HTTP have several problems:
- Non symmetric
- Easy to read/difficult to write
- Pages get lost (disappear)
- Links are wrong (404-problem)
- Re-use, attribution, IP rights, payments is a mess
- Controlled by a very small number of companies
The Divided Brain
Here is a presentation of the work of Iain McGilchrist: The Divided Brain.
McGilchrist has written a number of books, including:
Sharing PCB designs on PCBWay
Over on An Absolute Beginners Guide To Designing PCBs using Easy EDA – Make PCB From A Schematic I learned about How to Share Projects in PCBWay Community. Seems like a good service to me, haven’t used it yet but do intend to check it out.
In The Lab With Jay Jay – November 4, 2023 – Uboxing of Sudake SDK07 and SKD08 IC Clip SMD Gripper Test Probe
This post is part of my video blog: In The Lab With Jay Jay.
Silly Job Title: Hack In Residence
Support this channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JohnElliotV
Today: another unboxing video! This time we’re taking a look at the Sudake SDK07 and SKD08 IC clips / SMD grippers / test probes.
Originally I was going to demo these things in this video too, but the test circuit took like two hours to make, and then when I turned it on it didn’t even work, so I cancelled that and now this is just an unboxing video and not a demo. Stay tuned for the demo which I will do, just when I can find some more time.
These test clips are really great, they let you attach a probe to the foot of an integrated circuit or a surface mount device.
Be warned: there’s a bit of swearing and bad language in this video. What can I say? I’m just a passionate individual, ya know? :P
Here are some affiliate links to where you can buy these test clips if you’re interested:
Equipment | Affiliate Link | Notes |
---|---|---|
![]() Sudake SDK07 test clips |
10X Universal Chip clamp micro IC clamp SOP SOIC TSOP MSOP SSOP SMD IC Test Clip pin Socket Adpter Programmer for logic analyzer | notes |
![]() Sudake SDK08 test clips |
10pcs x Universal Chip IC clamp SOP SOIC TSOP MSOP SSOP SMD IC Test Clip Socket Adpter Programmer for logic analyzer | notes |
And here is a table of products I use which may appear in my video with affiliate links to vendors if you would like to buy. The link given here won’t necessarily have the best price so please do shop around to see if you can find a better deal. If you have thoughts or questions please feel free to let me know. Let’s go shopping!