Ask Electronics

Which do you prefer? I have the option to do both but milling seems to take awfully long and produces a lot of noise and glass fiber dust. It has the benefit of not needing etch resist which is also messy.

My friend told me that macbooks have their RAMs behind the CPU (or something along those lines) and it got me wondering. Does the distance between CPU and memory really make that much difference? 🤔

I’m repairing an old TV with corrosion on the board. I’m having trouble reading the schematic from the manual. Here’s the relevant section: I have two questions:

I’ve got a vintage HP digital counter, model HP-5216A. It was working, right up until the moment that it fell and broke two of the tubes’ glass envelopes.

So I’ve been using an old repurposed tractor lamp as my bedside lamp. I wired it up to mains (EU 230V) with a well isolated alternative bulb and bulb holder (the original bulbs are impossible to find). This has all been grounded and done the best we could. Now comes the problem, we reused the original switch (as it looks good) which it turns out, does not really appreciate having to switch 230V instead of the 12V (or 24V?) it was designed for. I believe I can patch up the switch to work as designed, however I do want a better solution to switching the lamp on and off.

I have to design a programmable frequency/clock divider circuit using the 4029 IC. Theoretically, the circuit should start to count down backwards from a given number and when it reaches 0, the 4029 should load the data from the ABCD pins.

I’m wondering how practical it would be to drill and tap terminals to add posts to batteries like this: https://batteryhookup.com/products/2x-sunwoda-lf314-314ah-lfp-prismatic-cells-grade-a-qualified-rohs-certified-ultra-long-life-10-000-cycles

Going to try my hand at sniffing the data driving a WS2812 chain for some future projects, and I’m wondering if anyone has tried this or knows of any existing resources for doing this. I’m fairly confident I can implement it with some RP2040 PIO since I have some pi pico boards laying around. Web searches for the topic aren’t turning up much of use, just a billion tutorials for driving the bus.

Or would it need to have 1gpu for every 2 screens, meaning a 2gpu setup? Subsequently, would I also need to be running them on like a threadripper motherboard to avoid pcie down scaling each gpu to x8 each instead of x16?

I saw it is basically superseeded by the vc-5080 and vc-5081, but I am not finding any good comparisons and don’t know enough about this to understand the difference myself.

I don’t need much more than 100Mhz but I’d like to have serial/CAN decoding. I could probably get away with a 2 channel, but it seems like a lot of the extra features like wifi control and digital channels only come on the 4 channels like the 1204X-E, plus it has some waveform generation (though maybe that’s an addon?).

I’m looking for a nice, one night project for a stem youth group I work with and the Cataractapult would be a nice change of pace. But…

I have a HDMI breakout board for a cheap and cheerful projector in a Hush box with some automations (turn of fans, dim the lights and the like). This was great, as whenever we turned on the media player - magic!

I bought a 2nd-hand (but new-in-box) Kenwood radio that requires USB-C @ 9 volt 1.5A. It did not come with the original charger, so I bought a separate universal USB-C charger (145 watt, full range of voltages incl. 9v 3A). The charger is not Kenwood, but it should work, no? Because we have standards, right?

I am looking for advice, on a thought I had. I wanted to combine a fairly simple phone (preferably non gogole) with a tablet for my daily use. I am ok with the tablet running Android, as I more or less am required to have it (or apple), for safe log in, in my country

I bought a cheap Hantek 6022BE to learn with and I’m just trying to measure some voltage to check if it’s accurate. I’m using openhantek6022 https://github.com/OpenHantek/OpenHantek6022 and also hscope on android. I’m measuring a 19v laptop power supply with the 10x setting on the probe and also a set of leads with a 20x attenuator. When I measure the power supply with my dmm I’m getting 19.22V with the scope I’m getting much higher or lower depending on where I set the voltage per division. Both programs have a calibration function which I did.

I recently got a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W.

Hey all. I’m looking into getting a small action cam type of camera. Primary purpose would be for travel and recording music playthrough videos at home. My wife would like something small and discreet that she can use to take short videos while traveling, but not make her look like an obnoxious vlogger. At the same time I’d like to use it in my home studio to make videos. Doesn’t have to be 4k, 1080p would be fine if it doesn’t meet the budget limit. I’m looking into something less than $200.

I have a Logitech MX Anywhere 3 mouse. In the past, my main mouse buttons started getting unreliable. I ordered “gaming” high quality switches from AliExpress and had an electronics repair shop install them. They gave my mouse a new lease on life. Apparently they should last much longer than the original ones. So far, no issues.

I bought a 2nd-hand 12v 2A power supply without branding. I intend to use it on a DVD player. Coming from the street market makes it dicey because anything in that market could be from someone’s dumpster dive. To ensure it’s useable I used a DMM to measure the volts. It started at 18v but continued to gradually climb. When it passed the 20v scale on the DMM, it quit reading. So it would probably go even higher in the next scale.

Hi,

I have an older electrical device which I would like to switch to charging with a USB C cable and a standard USB power supply. The device's power supply unit supplies 14V and 400 mA, so 5.6 W. The device documentation certifies it for 12V with 2 Ah.

I recently got a bunch of old 80's crts which I cant find any information about online. I do have the service manual tho link Looks like standart composite with external Horizontal and Vertical Sync to me but I'm not 100% sure and I dont want to fry anything

(Electrical Discharge Machining) In terms of current, voltage, frequency, rise time, etc. What makes this one special for switching topologies?

So there are tons of 12"x9" magnetic grids out there for dropping screws onto when taking apart electronics, but my projects typically involve integration into other materials.

Hi, hope this post is fine in regard of rule 2.

After playing around with some greeting card modules to modulate sound onto a LED i found out that the driver part of said greeting card modules are not audio drivers but PWM drivers (oscilloscope confirmed).

I have a simple circuit where 5V signal is fed into a buffer (Nexperia 74LVC1G07), then from the buffer into another device. The buffer is fed 5V by a switching DC-DC (R-78HB5.0-0.5/W). After it's been off for a while, the buffer works, the signal is recognized by the receiver. This continues for some time, minutes, to tens of minutes. Then the buffer stops working. The DC-DC still works as well as the source. If I unplug it and let it sit for an hour, it resets back to working for a while until it stops.

I just found out I can buy a decent 400W solar panel in the local hardware store for around 90€ these days.

I'm using an Arduino and through a library working with an IC (MCP2515, a CAN controller) over SPI. The IC indicates interrupts by causing a falling edge on an interrupt pin.

It's the trace going towards the mode button, so I'm pretty sure resistance won't exactly be critical over a ~3mm gap, as long as it recognizes when the plunger button is pressed down.

Not sure if this is a dumb question but this has me quite puzzled.

Hello everyone !

Hi, Any1 have experience with this usb to TTL 6 pin converters? I just want to know if I have a dodgy one that I bought from Ali or normal behaviour.

I'm making a driver for a small 15V, hall sensored, 9-slot BLDC motor I got off of AliExpress. It has u,v,w inputs. Three hall outputs and Vcc, Gnd for them. No datasheet :)

So I'm not sure what the right community for this is but I'm hoping yall can help. I'm a refrigeration service tech and recently I was tasked with replacing a sensor in a room used to store ethanol drums. Due to the nature of the room every device in it had to be rated explosion proof and I couldn't use any tools that could pose any risk of ignition (no heat gun, basically nothing with an electric motor, and definitely no open flames) while working in there. Normally when I splice wires I use heatshrink to cover the splice simply because it looks far more professional than electrical tape and it holds up better over time. However in this case I could not figure out any way of shrinking said heatshrink without posing a potential ignition hazard so I was stuck just wrapping the splice in tape. We do a lot of work for this company so I'm hoping to find a better solution for the next time I am in a similar situation.

Hi all! I'm a firmware developer with little knowledge in analog electronics.. I deal with firmware for IOT projects all the time.

I'd like to build a small light that i can use to cast a shadow to a wall.

Why do you like it? Why did you choose it? Would you recommend it?

I have an UPS with two 12v 7ah lead batteries. If I want to change the batteries I would typically go with lead batteries but here's my question, can I use some portable mobile power banks to use it?

I have a pet project I've been working on to modernize an electric organ console, and one of the final things needed are toggle switches. On a modern organ these are able to be manually toggled, or they can be flipped up/down programmatically using electromagnets (video). The ones purpose built for this are obscenely expensive but I can't find anything even remotely similar. Am I crazy for thinking this kind of switch are used in more things than just organs?

Hi all,

I've got a used riello ups recently and it was not working since the beginning. The UPS was switching to batteries most of the time, but sometimes it just don't switch to batteries and makes a continuous beep (riello manual tells that it's a UPS fault anything except an overload).

I've got a few projects on the list which will be battery powered. I'm thinking of using 18650s just because of how ubiquitous they are, but I know there's other options out there. Are they worth it?

So, I had some issues with installing the GPU in the case, and the GPU bottom (those metals things at the bottom) ended up scratching part of the motherboard. From what I can tell, there's a bunch of similar components all the way up, so I'd think there's redundancy, so I guess it's not that important. Here is a picture (I was told some people couldn't open postimg, both links have same image):

Hey I need your help.

I’m working on driving a very finicky lcd. I have it working now with an FPGA dev kit. I had to use an FPGA because some of the timing requirements are in the tens of nanoseconds.

I wanted to learn more about electronics, and I found this https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/an-introduction-electronics/content-section-0 to start from so I can have a grasp on theories first, and I want to try learning microcontrollers afterwards but I can't afford to buy any IRL atm, are there any softwares to simulate them to assist on learning without having the physical hardware? I'd be happy if anyone could give me any tips toward that, thank you if you read this far

I have a Snap Grip Luxe on the back of my Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, which has wireless Qi charging but is not magnetic. On phones, the Snap Grip allows for passthrough wireless charging, so when I mounted it, I held my Kindle up to a wireless charging stand until I found the spot where it started charging, marked the top of the back with some tape, and mounted it roughly where I thought the charging coil might be (though there's some uncertainty because I don't know exactly where the charging hardware is inside my stand). It doesn't work.

I've been wanting to experiment with Wireless Charging for a bit now, for which I need a qi standard Transmitter and a separate single Female USB C input that I can use for soldering.

So i built a outdoor hoop antenna to replace my cheap and crapy walmart antenna. IDK if the pre-amp fried the 5g/LTE filter or it wad my diy antenna. Is it possible for a 5g/LTE filter to stop working and filter out every channel. I orderd a new filter to see if it is the problem. Here is the antenna tutorial I followed: https://youtu.be/Tg0JjeotXq4 And the 5g filter: https://a.co/d/gwpNo2g

I recently got a nice deal on a stereo microscope, and leapt at the chance. I've had a few projects in mind that would entail SMD soldering, and now all I need is a proper soldering station.