Till recently, I have been using custom circuitry whenever I needed to backup some firmware. But the process was rather tedious as for each kind of EPROM or EEPROM I needed to study the protocol and timing requirements and then…
I got this broken Beats Solo2 BT wireless headphone from one of my colleagues. In fact, it was broken once before around two years ago and I fixed it for him back then. The issue was because of a broken…
In my previous blog posts, I did a teardown of the Symmetricom/Datum 8040 Rubidium frequency standard and modified the 1PPS output by expanding the pulse width from just around 10µs to roughly 50% duty cycle. There were some questions regarding…
Last time, I did a teardown of the Datum 8040 Rudidium standard. As I discussed, the 8040 has a 1PPS output but the pulse width is very short, at around 20µs. In this blog post, let us take a look…
I finally got my hands on a Rubidium frequency standard. I have been wanting to get one of these for my lab for quite some time now but have not encountered a good one at a reasonable price. Most rubidium…
I picked up a non-working Racal-Dana 1992 Frequency Counter on eBay a few weeks ago. The symptom is that only channel C seems to work correctly and neither channel A or channel B produces any measurements. Since the majority of…
I got myself an HP 5350B microwave counter a couple of years ago and did a teardown of it. The backlight on the LCD is pretty weak and does not provide much contrast however. So I thought I would upgrade…
I bought a couple of IXYS linear MOSFETs (IXTK90N25L2) a while ago to test their capabilities when used as electronic load, and the result was quite impressive. So I decided to build another electronic load using both MOSFETs. As you…
In this blog post, I will show you a simple hardware hack to make your mouse capable of rapid firing (or automatic continuous clicking). Of course you can always resort to software mods to achieve the same goal, but admittedly…
I just picked up a charger along with a couple of NP-FW50 spare batteries for my new Sony Alpha A6000 mirrorless digital camera. The Sony branded charger is ridiculously expensive, so I opted for an aftermarket Vivitar branded one (VIV-QCB-104),…
I just picked up another high voltage power supply, this time it is a working Bertan/Spellman 225-20R 20kV one. Unlike the Bertan 205A-05R that I did a teardown with last time which was entirely analog, this one can be controlled…
I got a non-working Bertan 205A-05R 5kV high voltage power supply and did an attempted repair video a while ago (see video towards the end). But I forgot to post my teardown pictures somehow. So here we go, better late…
I have always wondered how the clean/dirty indicator on my Hoover vacuum cleaner works. So when it was time to replace it with a new one, I opened up the old vacuum and took out the “dirt finder” circuit board.…
In my previous post, I discussed why it is beneficial to use linear MOSFETs in electronic load and performed a couple of experiments using a single IXYS’ IXTK90N25L2 linear MOSFET. The electronic load was able to dissipate around 150W before…
Power MOSFETs are widely used in switch mode applications such as pulse width modulated electrical motor controllers and switching mode power supplies. While they are also routinely used in linear mode applications such as power amplifiers and linear power supplies,…