As one of my current projects involves a small petrol engine – a Honda GX35 clone, I figured an hour counter would be very handy to keep an eye on service intervals. (More to come on the engine itself later on). I found a device that would suit my needs on good old eBay.
Inductive Engine Monitor
These engine monitors are pretty cheap, at about £4. The sensing is done by a single heat-resistant silicone wire, that wraps around the HT lead to the spark plug. The unit can be set for different firing intervals via the buttons. In the case of most single-cylinder 4-stroke engines, the spark plug fires on every revolution – wasted-spark ignition. This simplifies the ignition system greatly, by not requiring the timing signal be driven from 1/2 crankshaft speed. The second “wasted” spark fires into the exhaust stroke, so has no effect.
Internals
The back cover is lightly glued into place with a drop of cyanoacrylate in opposite corners, but easily pops off. The power is supplied by a soldered-in 3v Lithium cell. The main microcontroller has no number laser etched on to it at all – it appears it skipped the marking machine.
Input Filtering
The input from the sensing wire comes in through a coupling capacitor & is amplified by a transistor. It’s then fed into a 74HC00D Quad 2-Input NAND gate, before being fed into the microcontroller.
Pickup
The pickup wire is simply wound around the spark plug lead. I’ve held it in position here with some heatshrink tubing. Heat in this area shouldn’t be an issue as it’s directly in the airflow from the flywheel fan.
Time foe some more retro tech! This is a 1980’s vintage CCD-based VHS camcorder from Panasonic, the NV-M5. There are a lot of parts to one of these (unlike modern cameras), so I’ll split this post into several sections to make things easier to read (and easier to keep track of what I’m talking about :)).
Left Side
The left side of the camera holds the autofocus, white balance, shutter speed & date controls.
Left Side ControlsLens Adjustments
The lens is fully adjustable, with either manual or motorized automatic control.
Rear Panel
The back panel has the battery slot, a very strange looking DC input connector, remote control connector & the earphone jack.
Top Controls
The top panel of the camera holds the main power controls, manual tape tracking & the tape transport control panel.
Viewfinder
The viewfinder is mounted on a swivel mount. There’s a CRT based composite monitor in here. Hack ahoy!
Camera Section
Process Board Assembly
Here’s the camera section of the camcorder, and is totally packed with electronics! There’s at least half a dozen separate boards in here, all fitted together around the optics tube assembly.
AWB PCB
On the top of the assembly is the Automatic White Balance PCB. Many adjustments here to get everything set right. Not much on the other side of this board other than a bunch of Op-Amps. The iris stepper motor is fitted in a milled opening in the PCB, this connects to one of the other PCBs in the camera module.
AWB Sensor
Here’s the AWB sensor, mounted next to the lens. I’m not all to certain how this works, but the service manual has the pinout, and there are outputs for all the colour channels, RGB. So it’s probably a trio of photodiodes with filters.
Focus & Zoom Motors
Focus & Zoom are controlled with a pair of DC gear motors. The manual operation is feasible through the use of slip clutches in the final drive pinion onto the lens barrel.
Process Board
The main camera section process board is above. This board does all the signal processing for the CCD, has the bias voltage supplies and houses the control sections for the motorized parts of the optics assembly. There are quite a few dipped Tantalum capacitors on pigtails, instead of being directly board mounted. This was probably done due to space requirements on the PCB itself.
Under the steel shield on this board is some of the main signal processing for the CCD.
Optics Assembly
The back of the optics tube is a heavy casting, to supress vibration. This will be more clear later on.
Position Sensor Flex
The position of the lens elements is determined by reflective strips on the barrel & sensors on this flex PCB.
Sub Process Board
There’s another small board tucked into the side of the tube, this hooks into the process PCB.
Process Delay Line
According to the schematic, there’s nothing much on this board, just a delay line & a few transistors.
Piezo Focus Disc
Here’s the reason for the heavy alloy casing at the CCD mounting end of the optics: the fine focus adjustment is done with a piezoelectric disc, the entire CCD assembly is mounted to this board. Applying voltage to the electrodes moves the assembly slightly to alter the position of the CCD. The blue glass in the centre of the unit is the IR filter.
IR Relective Sensors
The barrel position sensors are these IR-reflective type.
Iris Assembly
The iris is mounted just before the CCD, this is controlled with a galvanometer-type device with position sensors incorporated.
Iris Opening
Pushing on the operating lever with the end of my screwdriver opens the leaves of the iris against the return spring.
Tape Transport & Main Control
Main Control Board
Tucked into the side of the main body of the unit is the main system control board. This PCB houses all the vital functions of the camera: Power Supply, Servo Control, Colour Control,Video Amplifiers, etc.
Tape Drum
Here’s the main tape transport mechanism, this is made of steel & aluminium stampings for structural support. The drum used in this transport is noticeably smaller than a standard VHS drum, the tape is wrapped around more of the drum surface to compensate.
Tape Transport
The VHS tape sits in this carriage & the spools drive the supply & take up reels in the cartridge.
Main Control PCB
Here’s the component side of the main control PCB. This one is very densely packed with parts, I wouldn’t like to try & troubleshoot something like this!
Main PCB Left
The left side has the video head amp at the top, a Panasonic AN3311K 4-head video amp. Below that is video processing, the blue components are the analogue delay lines. There are a couple of hybrid flat-flex PCBs tucked in between with a couple of ICs & many passives. These hybrids handle the luma & chroma signals.
Top left is the capstan motor driver a Rohm BA6430S. The transport motors are all 3-phase brushless, with exception of the loading motor, which is a brushed DC type.
Delay Line
Here’s what is inside the delay lines for the analogue video circuits. The plastic casing holds a felt liner, inside which is the delay line itself.
Internal Glass
The delay is created by sending an acoustic signal through the quartz crystal inside the device by a piezoelectric transducer, bouncing it off the walls of the crystal before returning it to a similar transducer.
Main PCB Centre
Here’s the centre of the board, the strange crystal at bottom centre is the clock crystal for the head drum servo. Why it has 3 pins I’m not sure, only the two pins to the crystal inside are shown connected on the schematic. Maybe grounding the case?
The main servo controls for the head drum & the capstan motor are top centre, these get a control signal from the tape to lock the speed of the relative components.
Main PCB Right
Here’s the right hand side. The main power supply circuitry is at top right, with a large can containing 4 switching inductors & a ferrite pot core transformer. All these converters are controlled by a single BA6149 6-channel DC-DC converter controller IC via a ULN2003 transistor array.
The ceramic hybrid board next to the PSU has 7 switch transistors for driving various indicator LEDs.
The large tabbed IC bottom centre is the loading motor drive, an IC from Mitsubishi, the M54543. This has bidirectional DC control of the motor & built in braking functions. The large quad flat pack IC on the right is the MN1237A on-screen character generator, with the two clock crystals for the main microcontroller.
Erase Head
The full erase head has it’s power supply & oscillator on board, applying 9v to this board results in an AC signal to the head, which erases the old recording from the tape before the new recording is laid down by the flying heads on the drum.
Audio Control PCB
The Audio & Control head is connected to this PCB, which handles both reading back audio from the tape & recording new audio tracks. The audio bias oscillator is on this board, & the onboard microphone feeds it’s signal here. The control head is fed directly through to the servo section of the main board.
Drum Motor
The motor that drives the head drum is another DC brushless 3-phase type.
Hall Sensors
These 3 Hall sensors are used by the motor drive to determine the rotor position & time commutation accordingly.
Stator
The stator on this motor is of interesting construction, with no laminated core, the coils are moulded into the plastic holder. The tach sensor is on the side of the stator core. This senses a small magnet on the outside of the rotor to determine rotational speed. For PAL recordings, the drum rotates at 1500 RPM.
Motor Removed
Not much under the stator other than the bearing housing & the feedthrough to the rotary transformer.
Head Disc
The heads are mounted onto the top disc of the drum, 4 heads in this recorder. The signals are transmitted to the rotating section through the ferrite rotary transformer on the bottom section.
Head Chip
The tiny winding of the ferrite video head can just about be seen on the end of the brass mounting.
Capstan Motor Components
The capstan motor is similar to the drum motor, only this one is flat. The rotor has a ferrite magnet, in this case it wasn’t glued in place, just held by it’s magnetic field.
Capstan Motor Stator
The PCB on this motor has a steel backing to complete the magnetic circuit, the coils for the 3 motor phases are simply glued in place. The Hall sensors on this motor are placed in the middle of the windings though.
Again there is a tach sensor on the edge of the board that communicates the speed back to the controller. This allows the servo to remain locked at constant speed.
Viewfinder
Viewfinder Assembly
As usual with these cameras, this section is the CRT based viewfinder. These units take the composite signal from the camera to display the scene. This one has many more pins than the usual viewfinder. I’ll hack a manual input into this, but I’ll leave that for another post.
Viewfinder Circuits
Being an older camera than the ones I’ve had before, this one is on a pair of PCBs, which are both single-sided.
Main Viewfinder Board
The main board has all the power components for driving the CRT & some of the adjustments. The main HV flyback transformer is on the right. This part creates both the final anode voltage for the tube & the focus/grid voltages.
Viewfinder Control PCB Top
The viewfinder control IC is on a separate daughter board in this camera, with two more controls.
Control IC
The control IC is a Matsushita AN2510S, this has all the logic required to separate the sync pulses from the composite signal & generate an image on the CRT.
Viewfinder CRT Frame
The recording indicator LEDs are mounted in the frame of the CRT & appear above the image in the viewfinder.
Viewfinder CRT With Yoke
Here the CRT has been separated from the rest of the circuitry with just the deflection yoke still attached.
M01JPG5WB CRT
The electron gun in this viewfinder CRT is massive in comparison to the others that I have seen, and the neck of the tube is also much wider. These old tubes were very well manufactured.
Viewfinder Optics
A simple mirror & magnifying lens completes the viewfinder unit.
Here’s a small flyback / Line Output Transformer from a portable colour TV set. Usually these transformers are vacuum potted in hard epoxy resin & are impossible to disassemble without anything short of explosives. (There are chemical means of digesting cured epoxies, but none of them are pleasant). This one however, was potted in silicone, so with some digging, the structure of the transformer can be revealed.
Cap Removed
The cap was glued on to the casing, but this popped off easily. The top of the core is visible in the silicone potting material.
The Digging Starts
A small screwdriver was used to remove the potting material, while trying not to damage the winding bobbin & core too badly. The bulge in the casing that I originally thought might house a voltage multiplier turns out to be totally empty. The white plastic bobbin is becoming visible around the core.
Bobbin
After some more digging & a lot of mess later, the entire transformer is revealed. The primary & auxiliary secondaries are visible at the bottom of the transformer, next to the pins. These transformers have multiple windings, as they’re used not only for supplying the final anode voltage of several Kilovolts to the CRT, but many of the other associated voltages, for the heater, grids, focus electrodes, etc. These lower voltage windings are on the same part of the core as the primary.
Above those is the main high voltage secondary winding, which looks to be wound with #38-#40AWG wire (about the thinnest available, at 0.07mm diameter. This is wound in many sections of of a few hundred turns each to increase the insulation resistance to the high voltage. The main anode wire emerges from the top of the bobbin.
Output Rectifier
Hidden in a recess at the top is the main HV rectifier, which on this small transformer is a single device (it’s probably not internally, most likely a series stack of diodes to get the PIV rating required).
These solar flowers were being sold off at my local Tesco, a pair of them appeared thanks to my child 😉
They have a small solar panel on top, when they’re exposed to bright light, the flower & leaves move as if they’re being blown in a breeze.
Since one of them didn’t work, I figured I’d tear it down.
Solar Cell
The solar cell on the top is similar if not identical to that used on a cheap calculator.
Controller
Not much to the control PCB. Just an electrolytic for smoothing the DC coming from the solar cell & a COB IC.
Electromagnet Coil
The IC drives this coil of extremely fine wire, glued to the base of the housing. Attached to the green plastic arm should be a magnet – this one has never worked as the magnet is missing. at 50p a piece, a magnet would cost me more than the whole device. So it’s the bin for this one.
Here’s another Sony Flat CRT TV, the FD0280. This one was apparently the last to use CRT technology, later devices were LCD based. This one certainly doesn’t feel as well made as the last one, with no metal parts at all in the frame, just moulded plastic.
CRT Screen
Being a later model, this one has a much larger screen.
Autotuning
Instead of the manual tuner of the last Watchman, this one has automatic tuning control, to find the local stations.
Spec Label
The spec puts the power consumption a little higher than the older TV, this isn’t surprising as the CRT screen is bigger & will require higher voltages on the electrodes.
Certification Label
The certification label dates this model to May 1992.
External Inputs
Still not much in the way of inputs on this TV. There’s an external power input, external antenna input & a headphone jack. No composite from the factory. (Hack incoming ;)).
Power / Band
The UHF/VHF & power switches are on the top of this model.
Back Cover Removed
Removing some very tiny screws allows the back to be removed. There’s significant difference in this model to the last, more of the electronics are integrated into ICs, nearly everything is SMD.
RF Section
There’s the usual RF tuner section & IF, in this case the VIF/SIF is a Mitsubishi M51348AFP.
Tuner Controller
The digital control of the tuner is perfomed by this Panasonic AN5707NS.
Deflection / Sync
The deflection & sync functions appear to be controlled by a single Sony branded custom IC, the CX20157. Similar to many other custom Sony ICs, a datasheet for this wasn’t forthcoming.
PCB Top
There’s very little on the top side of the board, the RF section is on the left, there’s a DC-DC converter bottom centre next to the battery contacts. This DC-DC converter has a very unusual inductor, completely encased in a metal can. This is probably done to prevent the magnetic field from interfering with the CRT.
CRT
Here’s the CRT itself, the Sony 03-JM. The back of this CRT is uncoated at the bottom, the tuning scale was taped to the back so it lined up with the tuning bar displayed on the screen.
Electronics
Here’s the electronics completely removed from the shell. There’s much more integration in this model, everything is on a single PCB.
Phosphor Screen
The curve in the phosphor screen can clearly be seen here. This CRT seems to have been cost-reduced as well, with the rough edges on the glass components having been left unfinished.
Electron Gun
Here’s the electron gun end of the tube. There isn’t a separate final anode connection to the bell of the tube unlike the previous model. Instead the final anode voltage is on a pin of the electron gun itself. This keeps all the wiring to the tube at one end & shortens the high voltage cable.
Electron Gun
Here’s the gun in the neck of the tube. Again this is pretty much standard fare for CRT guns. It’s more similar to a viewfinder tube in that the anode connection is running from the pins at the back. (It’s the line running up the right side of the tube). I’m guessing the anode voltage is pretty low for this to work without the HV flashing over, probably in the 2-4kV range.
Hacking the Sony FD-20 to accept a composite input is easy – the tuner receives the RF transmission, produces an IF, this is then fed into IC201, a Mitsubishi M51364P Video IF Processor. The VIF IC then separates out the composite video signal, which is output on Pin 13 (in photo above, left side, 3rd pin from the top). The audio is separated out & sent via Pin 11 to the Audio IF processor.
In the above photo, the VIF IC has been removed from the board with hot air, as it was interfering with the signal if left in place. The RF tuner was also desoldered & removed. Unfortunately I managed to mangle a pad, which is the ground pin for the VIF IC. This isn’t much of an issue though, as an identical signal ground is available, just to the left of the IC.
Audio Input
The audio can be tapped into in a similar way, the circled pad in the centre of the photo marked SIF is the place, this is the output of the Audio IF processor to the audio amplifier. The Audio IF processor didn’t interfere with the injected signal, so it was left in place.
Here’s an oddity from the 1980’s – a CRT-based portable TV, with a very strangely shaped tube. Sony produced many types of flat CRTs back in the 80’s, with the electron gun at 90° to the curved phosphor screen.
Front Panel
The front panel has the display window, along with the tuning & volume indicators. Unfortunately since analogue TV transmissions have long been switched off, this unit no longer picks up any transmissions off the air, but it can be modified to accept a composite video input.
Back Panel
The back panel has the battery compartment & the tilt stand.
Certification
The certification label reveals this unit was manufactured in May 1984, 32 years ago!
Spec. Label
Rated at 6v, ~2.1W this device uses surprisingly little power for something CRT based.
Battery Holder
The battery holder is a little unique, this plastic frame holds 4 AA cells, for a 6v pack.
Battery Compartment
The battery holder slots into the back of the TV, there’s also an extra contact that the service manual mentions is for charging, so I assume a rechargeable 6v battery pack was also available.
Front Panel Removed
Removing a pair of pin-spanner type screws allows the front glass & screen printed CRT surround to be removed. Not much more under here other than the pair of screws that retain the CRT in the front frame.
Back Cover Removed
Here’s the back cover removed, after unscrewing some very small screws. As per usual with Sony gear, the electronics is extremely compacted, using many flat flex cables between the various PCBs. The main PCB is visible at the back, this has all the deflection circuitry, RF tuner, Video IF, Audio IF, video amplifier & composite circuitry.
CRT Electron Gun & Flyback Transformer
Lifting up the main board reveals more PCBs – the high voltage section for the CRT with the flyback transformer, focus & brightness controls is on the left. The loudspeaker PCB is below this. The CRT electron gun is tucked in behind the flyback transformer, it’s socket being connected to the rest of the circuitry with a flat flex cable.
CRT Rear
Here’s the back of the CRT, the phosphor screen is on the other side of the curved glass back. These tubes must require some additional deflection complexity, as the geometry will change as the beam scans across the screen. There’s a dynamic focus circuit on the schematics, along with extensive keystone adjustments.
Sony 02-JM Flat CRT
Here’s the tube entirely extracted from the chassis. The EHT connection to the final anode is on the side of the tube bell, the curved phosphor screen is clearly visible. The one thing I can’t find in this CRT is a getter spot, so Sony may have a way of getting a pure enough vacuum that one isn’t required.
I’d expect the vertical deflection waveforms to be vastly different on this kind of CRT, due to the strange screen setup. Not much of a beam movement is required to move the spot from the top to the bottom of the screen.
HV Module
No doubt to keep the isolation gaps large, all the high voltages are kept on a separate small PCB with the flyback transformer. This board generates the voltages for the electron gun filament, focus grid & the bias to set the beam current (brightness) as well.
Bare CRT
Here the deflection yoke has been removed from the CRT, showing the very odd shape better. These tubes are constructed of 3 pieces of glass, the bell with electron gun, back glass with phosphor screen & front viewing window glass. All these components are joined with glass frit.
Electron Gun
The electron gun in the neck looks to be pretty much standard, with all the usual electrodes.
Viewing Window
Here’s a view from the very top of the CRT, the curve in the screen is very obvious here. The electron beam emerges from the bell at the back.
FD-20 Schematic
Here’s the full schematic of the entire TV, I extracted this from a service manual I managed to find online.
More to come on hacking this unit to accept a standard composite video input, from something such as a Raspberry Pi!
Here’s another battery charger designed for lithium chemistry cells, the BLU4. This charger doesn’t display much on it’s built in LCD, apart from basic cell voltage & charging current limits, as it has a built in Bluetooth module that will link into an Android or iOS app.
Above the charger is operating with 4 brand new cells, at a current of 500mA per cell. If only a pair of cells is being charged, the current can be increased to 1A per cell.
LCD
Not much in the way of user interface on the charger, a tiny LCD & single button for cycling through the display options.
Dataplate
The usual stuff on the data plate, the charger accepts an input of 12v DC at 1A.
Bottom Cover Removed
Removing the 6 screws on the bottom of the casing allows the board to be seen. Not much on the bottom, the 4 cell negative connections can be seen, with their springs for adjusting for cell length.
MOSFETs
There’s a couple of P-Channel FETs on the bottom side for the charging circuits, along with some diodes.
Main PCB
The main PCB is easily removed after the springs are unhooked from the terminals. Most of the power circuitry is located on the top side near the power input. There are 4 DC-DC converters on board for stepping the input 12v down to the 4.2v required to charge a lithium cell.
Second Controller
Not entirely sure what this IC is in the bottom corner, as it’s completely unmarked. I’m guessing it’s a microcontroller though.
DC Input Side
The top left of the board is crammed with the DC-DC converters, all the FETs are in SO8 packages.
DC-DC Converters
One pair of DC-DC inductors is larger than the other pair, for reasons I’m unsure of.
Bluetooth Module
Bluetooth connectivity is provided by this module, which is based around a TTC2541 BLE IC.
Microcontroller
Below the Bluetooth module is yet another completely unmarked IC, the direct link to the BLE interface probably means it’s another microcontroller. The Socket to the left of the IC is the connector for the front panel LCD & button.
LCD PCB
There’s not much to the LCD itself, so I won’t remove this board. The LCD controller is a COB type device, from the number of connections it most likely communicates with the micro via serial.
Here’s another piece of commercial gear, from an industrial air conditioning unit. These pumps are used to drain the condensate from the evaporator unit, so water doesn’t end up raining down from the ceiling.
Pump Head
This is a peristaltic pump, with a silicone hose forming the pumping element.
Rear Panel
The test switch & electrical connections are on the back, along with the data label.
Power & Sensor Socket
The electrical connections are all on a single 5-pin socket. Along with 240v AC mains, there are a pair of thermistors connected to the unit, which switch the pump on when a 5°C temperature difference across the evaporator coil is detected. When air is cooled, it’s capacity for moisture drops, so the water condenses out on the coil.
Roller Wheel
Here the front cover has been removed from the pump, showing the silicone tube & roller wheel. The wheel was originally Cadmium-plated, but exposure to the elements has oxidized this into highly toxic Cadmium Oxide.
Pump Rollers
Here you can see the rollers. These pinch the tube at the inlet, and the rotation carries a slug of liquid through the tube to the outlet side.
Pump Tube
Here’s the tube itself, the main wearing part of the pump. This is replaceable as a spare part.
Motor & Gearbox
Inside the casing is a shaded-pole motor, connected to a large gearbox, to give the slow rotation for the pump head. The rated speed is 51RPM.
Control PCB
There’s not much to the control PCB. The large resistor forms a voltage dropper, to reduce the mains 240v to a more suitable level for the logic. There’s a TL062C Low-Power JFET Op-Amp & a CD4060BCM 14-stage binary ripple counter forming the logic. The set point is adjustable via the potentiometer.
Pump Triac
The pump motor is switched via this Z7M SMD triac, not much switching power is needed here as the motor is only a very small shaded-pole type.
Here’s a modern LED bulb, that unfortunately decided to disassemble itself within a few minutes of being installed in a light fitting! The base plastic snapped off the main aluminium body at the screw posts!
Input Rectifier
The PCB in the base holds nothing but the input components. Above is the bridge rectifier.
Fusible Resistor
The other side of the PCB has a 10Ω fusible resistor, for protection.
LED PCB
The LED PCB itself has the driver IC, which is a CYT3000A linear constant current IC, that runs direct from full-wave rectified mains. The single resistor sets the LED current, but there aren’t any smoothing capacitors on the DC rail, so this bulb would flicker a lot.
Looking through eBay recently I came across a great deal on some Helium-Neon laser heads from Melles Griot. While definitely not new, these gas lasers are extremely long-lasting & I figured the tubes inside would make a nice addition to my laser collection. Doing some searching on the model number, these heads are rated at an optical output of 4mW, but depending on how much milage is on the tubes, the output may be a bit higher.
Data Label
I got a pair of the heads, this one was manufactured in July 1988, the other March 1989.
OC End / Classification Label
The OC end of the head has the laser classification label & the beam shutter. Once I’d tested the laser heads to make sure they survived the post intact, I set at extracting the plasma tubes from the aluminium housings.
The end caps are fibre-reinforced plastic & are secured with epoxy resin, so some heating & brute force released the caps from the housing, giving access to the laser tube itself.
Glue Holes
The laser tube is secured in these heads by hot glue – this was squirted into the housing via two rows of holes around the ends. (Some are secured with RTV silicone, which is substantially more difficult to remove).
Copper Tube
I’ve no photos of the actual extraction process as it’s difficult enough as is without at least 5 hands. A heat gun was used to warm up the housing until the glue melted enough to slide the tube out of the housing. Since everything was hot at this stage, a piece of copper tubing (above), was slipped over the OC mirror mount, so I could push the tube out of the housing while the glue was soft. This also protected the mirror from damage while the tube was being removed.
Extracted Tube
After a few minutes of gentle pushing while keeping the housing hot, the tube was released! It’s still pretty well covered in the remains of the hot glue, but this is easily removed once the tube cools down to room temperature with Isopropanol. The line of Kapton tape running down the tube to the cathode end is insulating a start tape electrode, which is supposed to make the laser strike faster on power-up. Instead of being metal though, the electrode appears to be a carbon-loaded plastic tape.
Start Tape & Adhesive
Here’s the HR end of the tube, which also serves as the high voltage anode electrode. The start tape is clipped onto the mirror mount, but all this will be removed.
OC End
The OC end of the laser, where the beam emerges. What I think is the mW rating of the tubes is written on the end cap, probably from when the tubes were manufactured.
Tube Energized
Applying power from a He-Ne laser PSU confirmed the tube still works!
Another random teardown from the junk box time!
Here’s an old Motorola DECT landline phone, no use to me as I’ve not used a landline for many years.
Battery Compartment
Not much on the back, other than the battery compartment for a pair of AAA rechargables. The base unit contains the charger.
Main PCB
Here’s the main PCB removed from it’s casing. There’s not really much going on, one of the main ICs, which is probably a microcontroller, is a COB device, so no part numbers from there. There’s a row of pads for programming the device at the factory. The RF section is on a dedicated IC, a DE19RF19ZCNC from DSP Group. I couldn’t find much on this part, but it’s one of a range of DECT/VoIP DSP devices.
Base Unit PCB
Inside the base unit is a similar board, just without the keypad. Main microcontroller is again a COB device, the RF IC is under the shield.
Main Chipset
Removing the shield reveals the same IC as in the handset, only this PCB has a pair of antennas.
Here’s another bit of commercial gear, a catering thermometer. These are used to check the internal temperature of foods such as meat, to ensure they’re cooked through.
This was given to me with some damage, the battery cover is missing & the plastic casing itself is cracked.
Battery Compartment
Power is provided by 3 AAA cells, for 4.5v
Main PCB
There’s not much to these units, the large LCD at the top is driven by the IC in the centre. A programming header is also present on the board near the edge.
Microcontroller
The core logic is taken care of with a Texas Instruments M430F4250 MSP430 Mixed-Signal Microcontroller. This MCU has onboard 16-bit Sigma-Delta A/D converter, 16-bit D/A converter & LCD driver. Clock is provided by a 32.768kHz crystal.
The probe itself is just a simple thermistor bonded into a stainless steel rod.
Time for another teardown! I managed to fish this Sky+ box out of a skip, but to protect the guilty, all serial numbers have been removed.
These are pretty smart devices, with DVR capability on board.
Ports 1
There’s a lot of ports on these units, from RS-232 serial, POTS modem, eSATA, HDMI, USB, Ethernet, SCART, Optical, digital outputs & even composite video.
Ports 2Ports 3Top Panel
Removing the top plastic cover reveals the operation buttons & the built in WiFi adaptor, which is USB connected to the main logic board.
Front Panel
The PCB on the front of the chassis has all the indicators, and the IR Receiver for the remote.
Cover Removed
Removing the top shield of the chassis reveals the innards. The PSU is on the top right, 500GB SATA disk drive in the bottom centre. The main logic PCB is top centre.
Logic PCB
Here’s the main logic PCB. The massive heatsink in the middle is cooling the main SoC, below.
SoC
The main SoC in this unit is a Broadcom BCM7335 HD PVR Satellite System-On-Chip. It’s surrounded by it’s boot flash, a Spansion GL512P10FFCR1 512Mbit NOR device. It’s also got some DRAM around the left edge.
Smart Card Reader
The smart card reader is on the PSU PCB, the controller here is an NXP TDA8024
PSU PCB
The PSU itself is a pretty standard SMPS, so I won’t go too far into that particular bit. The logic PCB attaches to the large pin header on the left of the PSU, some of the analogue video outputs are also on this board.
There’s also a Microchip PIC16F726 microcontroller on this PCB, next to the pin header. Judging by the PCB traces, this handles everything on the user control panel.
Power Supplies
Some local supplies are provided on the logic board for the main SoC, the IC in the centre here is an Allegro A92 DC-DC converter. I didn’t manage to find a datasheet for this one.
LNB Front End
The RF front end for the satellite input is a Broadcom BCM3445 Low Noise Amplifier & Splitter, again not much info on this one.
RS232 Section
The standard MAX232 is used for the serial interface. I imagine this is for diagnostics.
Modem
The POTS modem section is handled by a Si2457 System-Side device & Si3018 Line-Side device pair.
Going through eBay recently looking for parts for a couple of CRT-based projects, I came across these DC-DC converters.
Apparently rated from 45-390v DC output at 200mA, these should be ideal for driving some of the electrodes (focus, screen, grid) in a CRT.
Above is the top of the board, input voltage header on the left, output voltage adjust in the centre & output voltage header on the right.
This module has a mini-automotive fuse, at 10A for input protection.
On the heatsink is mounted the main switching MOSFET, a RU7088R from Ruichips. This FET is fairly heavily rated at 70v 80A, with 6.5mΩ on-resistance.
PCB Bottom
The bottom of the board has the control components, with a pair of ICs. Unfortunately the numbers have been scrubbed off, so no identification here. The output from the transformer is rectified with a single large SMD diode on the left side of the board.
There’s also plenty of isolation gap between the HV output trace & the low voltage logic side of the circuit, the two being bridged only by a resistive divider for output voltage measurement.
Here’s a quick teardown of an ignition transformer, used on gas fired ovens & hobs. This unit takes mains 240v AC & uses a transformer to step the voltage to several kV, at a low current to ignite the burners.
Bottom
The transformer section is completely potted in Epoxy resin for insulation, but the driver circuitry is exposed, with a pair of leads from the primary winding exposed
Driver PCB
The drive is very simple. The incoming AC flows through a series resistor through a half-wave rectifier to charge up a 2.2µF film capacitor. Once the voltage on the capacitor reaches a certain level, a DIAC in series with the transformer primary fires, discharging the capacitor through the primary.
The current spike induces a very high voltage on the secondary winding, this then arcs across a gap in the gas flow to start ignition.
Things are coming along nicely with this year’s drydock operations.
Blacking – Second Coat
Shes looking much better, the second coat of bitumen blacking is on, we’re going to continue at a coat a day until we’re due back in the water.
Shaft Tube Damage
I’ve now removed the shaft from the stern tube to gain better access, now the full extent of the damage to the tube can be seen. There’s nothing left at all of the old bearing, which on this boat was simply a nylon bushing pressed into the end of the tube. (I knew it was crap the last time we were out, but ran out of time to get a fix done).
The stainless shaft, having lost it’s support bearing at some point, has been running on the inside of the steel tube, and has neatly chewed straight through it.
Prop Shaft
Here’s the prop shaft removed from the boat – possibly the longest shaft I’ve ever seen on a narrowboat at 6′ 2″. Unfortunately, the fact that it lost the bearing has also damaged the shaft itself, this will have to be replaced.
Prop Taper
Here’s the end of the shaft that would run in the end bearing, it’s badly scored & fitting a new bearing to this shaft would cause failure very quickly. The taper on the end isn’t much better, and a loose fit in the prop has done some damage there also.
Old Prop
Here’s the old prop – a 16×12 that was only fitted a few years ago. This will be replaced with a new 4-blade prop, as this one is far too small for the size of the boat & installed power. Installing a larger diameter prop isn’t possible due to clearance from the swim, so I’ll have to get a more steeply pitched prop, with 4-blades for increased contact area with the water.
Here’s another Eberspacher control unit, this time from an ancient D5W 5kW water heater. The system in this case is just flaky – sometimes the heater will start without fault & run perfectly, then suddenly will stop working entirely.
The error codes are read on these very old units via an indicator lamp connected to a test terminal. In this case the code was the one for Overheat Shutdown.
Considering this fault occurs when the heater is stone cold, I figured it was either a fault with the sensor itself or the ECU.
Temperature Sensor
The temperature sensor is located on the heat exchanger, right next to the hot water outlet fitting. I’m not sure what the spec is, but it reads exactly 1KΩ at room temperature.
ECU PCB
The PCB is held into the aluminium can by means of crimps around the edge that lock into the plastic terminal cover. Inserting a screwdriver & expanding the crimps allows the PCB to be slid out.
Casing Crimps
The factory date stamp on the microcontroller dates this unit to March 1989 – considerably older than I expected!
Unlike the newer versions that use transistors, this ECU has a bunch of PCB relays to do the high current switching of the water pump motor, fan motor & glowplug.
Overall the board looks to be solidly constructed, with silicone around all the larger components.
ECU PCB Solder Side
Here’s the solder side of the PCB, which has a generous coating of sealant to keep moisture out.
Bad Joint Closeup
Looking at the solder joints for the row of relays on the top side of the PCB, it looks like that there’s some dry joints here.
I suspect that years of vibration has taken it’s toll, as the relays are otherwise unsupported. It wouldn’t be possible to use silicone to secure these devices as they are completely open – any sealant would likely stop them from operating.
Resoldered Joints
Using a very hot soldering iron I managed to get the joints to reflow properly, using lots of flux to make sure the conformal coating didn’t interfere with the reflow.
Recently my phone decided it was going to die a battery-related death, and having not found much useful information on the Great Google, (all the information I could find, was hinting at many issues from firmware to a faulty motherboard, nobody seems to have actually done any investigation into similar issues), I decided to dig into the phone to try & repair the problem.
Broken Flex
The phone would work correctly for a while, then with the slightest movement or knock, would spontaneously switch off, and not turn back on without being whacked on a hard surface.
This symptom pointed me at a power connection problem. After removing the back of the phone (glass & heavily glued in place, so an awkward process), This was what I was presented with on the cell flex PCB.
In the above photo, the positive connection to the flex is fractured just after the solder joint with the BMS board.
Flex Repair
I managed to scrape some of the insulation off the flex PCB & solder a jumper on to restore power. Unfortunately, this repair generated another fault, where the battery level was always shown at 50%, and plugging into a USB supply wouldn’t charge the phone. The other two pins on the cell are for communication & temperature sensing, clearly one of these traces was also broken in the flex.
The above photo has a pair of very small wire tails as well, for connecting an external charger.
50% Battery
Here’s a screenshot of the phone with the original cell, even though it’s at about 4.15v (virtually fully charged). The battery management is having trouble talking to the phone, so for safety reasons, the charging logic refuses point-blank to charge the thing up.
Flex Cable
The connector on the cell & phone motherboard is absolutely tiny, so I didn’t fancy attempting to solder on any bridge wires to try & bypass the broken flex.
Battery BMS
The cell BMS has some intelligence on board, besides the usual over-current, over-charge & under-charge protection. The very small IC on the right has a Microchip logo, and the marking FT442, but I was unable to dig up any datasheets. The current sense resistor is directly connected to this IC, along with the main power FET to the left.
BMS Reverse
On the other side of the BMS board is another IC, again unidentifiable, and what looks like a bare-die, or CSP IC.
At this stage I figured the only way forward was to buy a new battery, eBay turned one up for less than £5. Above is the new battery fitted to the phone, datestamped 2014, so definitely old stock.
100% Battery
Booting the phone with the new battery quickly lets me know the fix worked, with a 100% reading & the ability to again charge properly!
Since this phone has been in my drawer for some time, I figured it was time for a teardown. (It’s never going to see any more use).
The back cover on these phones is easily removed, as it’s just clipped on.
Motherboard
Once the back cover is removed, the Li-Polymer cell is exposed, along with the logic board. Pretty much all of the PCB is under RF shields.
Motherboard RemovedBattery Management
Under the small RF can on the back of the board is the battery management circuitry & the charger. There’s an extra connection to the cell for temperature monitoring. Just under that circuitry is the eMMC flash storage.
Just to the left of the battery circuit is the NFC transceiver IC, from NXP.
Battery Flex
The cell is connected to the main board with a FFC, with a very small SMT connector, although not as small as the more modern Xperia series phones.
RF Section
The other side of the mainboard holds the large RF transceiver section, with a Qualcomm RTR8600 multiband transceiver IC. In the bottom corner is a Skyworks SKY77351-32 Quad-band power amplifier IC, along with 3 other power amplifier ICs, also from Skyworks.
Gyro & Audio Codec
The top corner of the board holds the various sensors, including an Invensense MPU-3050 3-axis gyro. To the right of that is the Audio Codec, a WCD9310 from Qualcomm.
Logic & CPU Section
Everything is controlled from the last section on the board, with the main CPU & RAM in a PoP (Package-On-Package) configuration. Under the main CPU is the main power management IC, also from Qualcomm. No datasheet for this one unfortunately, but it gives it’s purpose away by being surrounded by large inductors & capacitors.
To solve some engine oil overheating problems on board nb Tanya Louise, we decided to replace the air-over-oil cooler, with an water-over-oil cooler, with separate cooling drawn straight from the canal, as the skin tanks are already overloaded with having to cope with not only cooling the engine coolant, but also the hydraulic system oil as well.
These units aren’t cheap in the slightest, but the construction quality & engineering is fantastic.
Tube End Plate
Unbolting the end cover reveals the brass tube end plate, soldered to all the core tubes in the cooler. An O-Ring at each end seals both the end cover & the interface between the tube plate & the outer casing.
End Caps
The end caps have baffles cast in to direct the cooling water in a serpentine path, so the oil gets the best chance at dissipating it’s heat to the water.
Tube Stack
The oil side of the system is on the outside of the tubes, again baffles placed along the stack direct the oil over the highest surface area possible.
Outer Shell
The outer shell is just a machined alloy casting, with no internal features.
Here’s a useful tool for the kit, a digital angle gauge/protractor. These use a silicon sensor to show the number of degrees the unit is out of level.
Magnets!
Magnets are provided in the base, so the tool can attach to any ferrous surface.
Battery Box
Power is provided by a single AAA cell.
Main PCB
Removing the rear cover reveals the brains of the unit, and there’s not much to it at all. The main microcontroller is a CoB-type device, so no part numbers available from that one.
Sensing Element
The IC to the left of the main microcontroller is the sensing element. There’s no markings on this inclinometer IC so I’m not sure of the specs, but it will be a 3D-MEMS device of some sort.
Power Supply
The other side of the PCB has the power supply for the logic, and a serial EEPROM, probably storing calibration data.
Here’s a novel little gadget, a USB powered soldering iron. The heating tip on these is very small & might be useful for very small SMD work. Bigger joints not so much, as it’s only rated at 8W. (Still breaks the USB standard of 2.5W from a single port).
These irons aren’t actually too bad to use, as long as the limitations in power are respected. Since nearly everything has a USB power port these days, it could make for a handy emergency soldering iron.
Heater Socket
The heater & soldering bit are a single unit, not designed to be replaced separately. (I’ve not managed to find replacement elements, but at £3 for the entire iron, it would be pretty pointless).
Above is the socket where the heater plugs in, safely isolating the plastic body from any stray heat.
DC Input Jack
The DC input is a 3.5mm audio jack, a non-standard USB to 3.5mm jack cable is supplied. Such non-standard cables have the potential to damage equipment that isn’t expecting to see 5v on an audio input if it’s used incorrectly.
Touch Sensor & LED
There isn’t actually a switch on this unit for power management, but a clever arrangement of a touch button & vibration switch. The vertical spring in the photo above makes contact with a steel ball bearing pressed into the plastic housing, forming the touch contact.
MOSFET
The large MOSFET here is switching the main heater current, the silver cylinder in front is the vibration switch, connected in parallel with the touch button.
PCB
The main controller is very simple. It’s a 555 timer configured in monostable mode. Below is a schematic showing the basic circuit.
555 Monostable
Big Clive also did a teardown & review of this iron. Head over to YouTube to watch.
Magnetic tape is the medium of choice for my offline backups & archives, as it’s got an amazing level of durability when in storage. (LTO Has a 30 year archival rating).
For the smaller stuff, like backing up the web server this very site runs on, another format seemed to suit better. Above is a HP DDS4 tape drive, which will store up to 40GB on a cassette compressed.
I picked this format since I already had some tapes, so it made sense.
Data Plate
Here’s the info for those who want to know. It’s an older generation drive, mainly since the current generation of tape backup drives are hideously expensive, while the older ones are cheap & plentiful. Unfortunately the older generation of drives are all parallel SCSI, which can be a expensive & awkward to set up. Luckily I already have other parallel SCSI devices, so the support infrastructure for this drive was already in place.
Option Switches
On the bottom of the drive is a bank of DIP switches, according to the manual these are for setting the drive for various flavours of UNIX operating systems. However it doesn’t go into what they actually change.
Controller PCB
The bottom of the drive has the control PCB. The large IC on the left is the SCSI interface, I’ve seen this exact same chip on other SCSI tape drives. Centre is a SoC, like so many of these, not much information available.
Drive Frame
Removing the board doesn’t reveal much else, just the bottom of the frame with the tape spool motors on the right, capstan motor bottom centre. The bottom of the head drum motor is just peeping through the plastic top centre.
Head Drum
Here’s the head drum itself. These drives use a helical-scan flying head system, like old VHS tape decks. The top of the capstan motor is on the bottom right.
Cleaning Brush
Hidden just under the tape transport frame is the head cleaning brush. I’m not sure exactly what this is made of, but it seems to be plastic.
Loading Motor
A single small DC motor with a worm drive handles all tape loading tasks. The PCB to the bottom left of the motor holds several break-beam sensors that tell the drive what position the transport is in.
Tape Transport Mech
Here’s the overall tape transport. The PCB on top of the head drum is a novel idea: it’s sole purpose in life is to act as a substrate for solder blobs, used for balancing. As this drum spins at 11,400RPM when a DDS4 tape is in the drive, any slight imbalance would cause destructive vibration.
Tape Transport
Here’s the drive active & writing a tape. (A daily backup of this web server actually). The green head cleaning brush can be better seen here. The drive constantly reads back what it writes to the tape, and if it detects an error, applies this brush momentarily to the drum to clean any shed oxide off the heads. The tape itself is threaded over all the guides, around the drum, then through the capstan & pinch roller.
For my latest project, I needed an easier way to paint without messing about with brushes, and the associated marks they leave in a paint job. eBay provided me with a cheap airbrush & compressor.
Airbrush Kit
For less than £30, this kit doens’t look so bad. I’ve never used an airbrush before, but I’ve had no problems with this as yet spraying both water based paints & solvent based paints.
Compressor
Here’s the compressor itself, this runs on 12v & has an output pressure of 1.5 Bar, which is supposed to be adjustable.
Compressor Internals
Removing a couple of screws reveals the internal components. Nothing much unusual here, a DC diaphragm pump, pressure switch & outlet fittings. There’s also a thermal cutout fitted next to the motor for protection.
The pressure switch attached to the manifold trips at 1.5Bar, keeping the pressure to the brush pretty much constant.
Air Block
Next to the air outlet fitting is an adjustment knob, supposedly for varying the pressure. However it’s just a piss-poorly designed adjustable relief valve that vents to atmosphere. There’s not much of a control range.
Messy Wiring
The wiring gets a bit messy where the power LED is concerned, with no heatshrink over the solder joints, but it’s adequate.
Airbrush
The airbrush itself isn’t too bad. It’s solid Brass, with a very nice Chrome finish. I’m not expecting miracles from a very cheap tool, but it certainly seems to be reasonable.
Water Trap
A moisture trap is supplied for the brush, to prevent water drops being sprayed out with the paint. Very handy.
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