Project planning

I’ve got some equipment laid out to remind me of four different projects I will be doing soon for In The Lab With Jay Jay.

From left-to-right they are:

  • Demo the WeAct Studio Epaper Module on one or more microcontrollers
  • Do an unboxing and demo of my IC clips
  • Demo my power supply tester with an ogxbox power supply
  • Install the capacitor discharge circuit I recently ripped out of its tweezers into a new case with terminals to attach probes

Loot from WeAct Studio

You might remember that last month AliExpress had a sale and I ordered a bunch of stuff. That stuff has started to arrive and I wanted to show you the things I picked up from WeAct Studio.

I don’t know anything about WeAct Studio, I have never heard of them before. But I like what I see so far!

Here’s my WeAct Studio kit which arrived today:

Unboxing #8: Unboxing of Mini Classic Game Console | Learning Electronics In The Lab With Jay Jay

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: Power Provider

It’s the In The Lab With Jay Jay Halloween Special! This evening: another unboxing video! This time we’re taking a look at my retro gaming console: The Mini Classic Game Console. Complete with 620 odd games!

I picked this thing up at Vinnies (the thrift store) for fifteen Aussie buckaroos.

The main circuit board looks like this:

I found the S71PL256NC0HFW5U2 which is a 64Mb flash memory. The details of the other circuitry was obscured.

Here is the list of games on this thing:

And this is the manual:

I managed to get this thing wired through an AV to HDMI adapter, then a HDMI to USB adapter, so in the last half of the video you can see me demoing a few of the games and scrolling through the full list of games.

Oh, and in this video I read “NTSL” on the manual and say “they got that wrong, it’s NTSA”, but *I* got that wrong, and it’s “NTSC”. The American video standard. In Australia almost everything is PAL.

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!

aToolTour Black Hexagon Deburring Drill BitThis is an image of the product.notes

Let’s go shopping!

Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

Reading counts as productivity but 100% reading is problematic.

“Raise your words, not your voice. It’s rain that grows flowers not thunder.” — Rumi

Johann Hari wrote Chasing the Scream and recorded this famous TED Talk: Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong. We also discussed Hari’s other book Stolen Focus.

I did a quick search for pop3 email migration for iphone which suggests you can’t salvage POP3 email from an iPhone. I find that surprising. I’ve emailed a mate to see if this is true or not. Stand by.

As promised my keyboard unboxing video: In The Lab With Jay Jay – October 31, 2023 – Uboxing of FILCO Majestouch 2SS Edition 104-key and tenkeyless keyboards.

The USB HDMI adapters I have are these ones: 4K Audio Video Capture Card USB 3.0 HDMI Video Capture Device for Live Streaming. They have HDMI in and both USB and HDMI out. Which means you can have my old Forty7 AVerMedia BU110 ExtremeCap UVC, Multi-Colour, I will bring it next time I see you.

I found Dr Peter Brain on the web.

Economists talk about normative and positive.

Here is the article about organizational structure The Tyranny of Structurelessness and the article about bureaucracy Inside Bureaucracy.

I am one day closer to being the man I will ultimately be. (A dead man!)

Checkout Last Splash, a 1993 album from The Breeders with the fan favorite Cannonball. “I’m the last splash!”

We mentioned No Surprises by Radio Head.

My hard core dancing video is here: jj5 feels hardcore!. Let me know if it doesn’t play for you and I will find the original.

The video about suicide is here: “Why Do People Die By Suicide” – Lecture by Thomas E. Joiner, Ph.D..

I found Outkast – SpottieOttieDopaliscious but YouTube won’t let me watch it because of my ad blocker.

John Perkins has a new version of his book out: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 3rd Edition.

Check out Mr Inbetween.

I found There She Goes, My Beautiful World by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

And the last thing I have in my phone is: “Who beautiful?? It’s an ugly word” — and I have no idea what that means, I suspect I was quite drunk by that point. :P

Unboxing #7: Unboxing of FILCO Majestouch 2SS Edition 104-key and tenkeyless keyboards | In The Lab

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: Sparky

Happy Halloween! Today: another unboxing video! This time we’re taking a look at my two new mechanical keyboards from FILCO (affiliate links):

As I mention in the video I usually like to purchase my mechanical keyboards from WASD Keyboards in California. They make excellent keyboards but just a bit too pricey for me at the moment. Instead of purchasing from WASD Keyboards I picked these keyboards up from Amazon Australia and I paid AU$202.55 (US$130) for the 104-key keyboard and AU$188.89 (US$120) for the 87-key keyboard which was roughly half of what I would have had to pay if I purchased from WASD Keyboards.

Both of these FILCO Majestouch 2SS Edition keyboards come with Cherry MX Speed Silver switches. If you’re into mechanical keyboards definitely give these switches a try; now that I’m used to them I will accept nothing less.

It was a bit disappointing that while doing the unboxing I discovered some of the keys had fallen loose during shipping. I have since plugged in and tested the keyboard (I’m using it now in fact) and everything seems to be working okay, so no harm no foul.

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!

Miniware DT71 Digital TweezersThis is an image of the product.notes

Let’s go shopping!

Stolen Focus

I have finished reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari (affiliate link).

I went into this book much more worried about the state of attention in our communities than I was when I came out. Having read about it I kinda don’t feel that we really do have an urgent problem with so many people on earth being constantly engaged with their smart phones.

I might have trouble now starting a conversation with a family member because they are engrossed in their phone, and I might think this is new or different, but thirty years ago it would have been the same thing if they had their nose in a book or a newspaper.

I think by and large it’s good when we’re paying attention to things and engaging with them. That’s not only how entertainment gets done, that is also how work gets done.

I suspect one of the driving forces behind the surge in ADHD diagnoses (and Hari didn’t say this) is that people are getting the diagnosis deliberately because they want access to prescription amphetamines.

Anyway. I would still recommend reading this book. Hari does a good job of covering all the bases and investigating all the topics, including:

  • context switching and its effects
  • effects on flow
  • physical and mental exhaustion
  • sustained reading
  • mind wandering
  • tracking and manipulation
  • stress and its triggers
  • diet and pollution
  • ADHD
  • physical and psychological confinement

Unboxing #6: Unboxing of K-CEVE AM-KVM401-K and KC-KVM401A 4-port HDMI KVM switches | In The Lab

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: Current Commander

Today: another unboxing video! I do these, not because I think that my regular viewers are going to be particularly interested, but because you really only get the opportunity to do these on the day that new equipment arrives, and I figure it might be helpful for people who search for unboxing videos for a particular product, so they can see what’s in the box before they make a purchasing decision.

This video is an unboxing of two different 4-port HDMI KVM switches. I would give you affiliate links but these don’t seem to be available in the USA, so here are the non-affiliated Amazon Australia links:

For the record I paid AU$64.56 for the AM-KVM401-K (US$40) and AU$84.14 for the KC-KVM401A (US$55). I don’t know what algorithm is in charge of pricing at Amazon but the prices seem to have gone way up since I purchased these things two days ago, now the AM-KVM401-K is AU$75.96 and the KC-KVM401A is AU$98.99, so not sure what’s up with that (but I do NOT like the idea that Amazon has a pricing system that isn’t offering all shoppers the same price all the time, which this smells like).

I reckon the K-CEVE marketing department is going to bit pretty upset with engineering or manufacturing about this, but when I was unboxing the AM-KVM401-K the front panel push button switch just dead set fell out! That’s gotta be embarrassing for someone.

Having done the unboxing I’ve decided I’m gonna try the larger KC-KVM401A unit first. Its larger size is a disadvantage but I like the fact that it has USB-A instead of USB-C inputs and I’m also happy that it has a dedicated 5V power rail, the AM-KVM401-K is powered off the USB bus which is less desirable.

I will post another article later to let you know how I went when I actually plug these things in, which I haven’t actually done yet.

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 TE-801 Third HandThis is an image of the product.notes

Let’s go shopping!