Designed by in California

My Chinese knock-off USB wall chargers say “Designed by in California” on the back. Classic.

I got myself a new iPhone 6s this week on eBay for forty bucks. Gonna use it as an extra small screen on my bench. The features to price ratio is insane. When I was a kid I couldn’t even imagine a pocket computer like this, let alone getting one for forty bucks.

Here’s a happy snap of me getting the new iPhone setup:

John setting up two iPhones and metering the power draw

USB on Hackaday

Some articles about USB on Hackaday recently:

Jan Axelson on USB (and Serial)

This week I discovered Jan Axelson. She’s a tech writer and her website is here: http://janaxelson.com/.

I have ordered four of her books:

USB Cables Drawer

I organized my USB cables drawer. Left is USB 2.0, right is USB 3.0. Front is Mini-B and iPhone cables (including Lightening cables), middle is Micro-B (5-pin and 10-pin) and Type-A, back is Type-B. Conspicuously absent are Type-C which are filed in a different drawer. Also front-right are adapters, switches, hubs, and there’s even a USB light in there.

John's USB cables drawer

Earth leakage hack

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!

UV light

Got myself a USB powered UV light. It came with a few tubes of solder mask:

I’m gonna keep this in my booth where it will be used. Don’t want to use it anywhere near where I keep my UV solder mask because I don’t want to accidentally cure it!
John's UV light, switched off
John's UV light, switched on