controlled – Experimental Engineering

Posted on April 1, 2018March 18, 2018 by The Engineer — 3 Comments

Chinese “1200W” DC-DC Boost Converter DOA Fix

Ah the curse of the Chinese Electronics strikes again. These large DC-DC boost converters have become very common on the likes of AliExpress & eBay, and this time my order has arrived DOA… On applying power, the output LED lights up dimly, and no matter how I twiddle the adjustment pots, the output never rises above the input voltage.

From the usual topology above, we can assume that the switching converter isn’t working, so the input voltage is just being directly fed through to the output. The switching IC on these converters is a TL494,

The switching IC on these converters is a TL494,with it’s surrounding support components, including a LM358 dual Op-Amp. Power for this lot is supplied from the input via a small DC-DC converter controlled by an XL Semi XL7001 Buck Converter IC. Some testing revealed that power was getting to the XL7001, but the output to the switching controller was at zero volts.

The 100µH inductor for this buck converter is hidden behind the output electrolytic, and a quick prod with a multimeter revealed this inductor to be open circuit. That would certainly explain the no-output situation. Luckily I had an old converter that was burned out. (Don’t try to pull anything near their manufacturer “rating” from these units – it’s utter lies, more about this below).

The good inductor from this donor unit has been desoldered here, it’s supposed to be L2. This one had a heatsink siliconed to the top of the TL494 PWM IC, presumably for cooling, so this was peeled off to give some access.
After this inductor was grafted into place on the dead converter, everything sprang to life as normal. I fail to see how this issue wouldn’t have been caught during manufacture, but they’re probably not even testing them before shipping to the distributor.
The sensational ratings are also utter crap – they quote 1.2kW max power, which at 12v input would be 100A. Their max input rating is given as 20A, so 240W max input power. Pulling this level of power from such a cheaply designed converter isn’t going to be reliably possible, the input terminals aren’t even rated to anywhere near 20A, so these would be the first to melt, swiftly followed by everything else. Some of these units come with a fan fitted from the factory, but these are as cheaply made as possible, with bearings made of cheese. As a result they seize solid within a couple of days of use.
Proper converters from companies like TDK-Lambda or muRata rated for these power levels are huge, with BOLTS for terminals, but they’re considerably more expensive. These Chinese units are handy though, as long as they are run at a power level that’s realistic.

Posted on April 11, 2017May 1, 2017 by The Engineer — 10 Comments

Sony PS3 APS-231 Power Supply Voltage Mod

I was recently given a Sony PS3 with a dead disc drive, and since I’m not a console gamer I figured I’d see if there were any handy parts inside. Turns out these units contain a rather nice SMPS, the Sony APS-231 with a high power 12v rail, rated at 23.5A. A bit of searching around discovered a thread on the BadCaps Forums about voltage modding these supplies for a 13.8v output, suitable for my Ham radio gear.
These supplies are controlled by a Sony CXA8038A, for which there is very little information. Active PFC is included, along with synchronous rectification which increases the efficiency of the supply, and in turn, reduces the waste heat output from the rectifiers.

Like many of the SMPS units I’ve seen, the output voltage is controlled by referencing it to an adjustable shunt reference, and adjusting the set point of this reference will in turn adjust the output voltage of the supply, this is done in circuit by a single resistor.

Here’s the regulator section of the PSU, with the resistors labelled. The one we’re after changing is the 800Ω one between pins 2 & 3 of the TS2431 shunt reference. It’s a very small 0402 size resistor, located right next to the filter electrolytic for the 5v standby supply circuit. A fine tip on the soldering iron is required to get this resistor removed.

Once this resistor is removed from the circuit, a 1KΩ 18-turn potentiometer is fitted in it’s place, from the Anode (Pin 3) to the Ref. (Pin 2) pins of the TS2431 shunt reference. I initally set the potentiometer to be the same 800Ω as the factory set resistor, to make sure the supply would start up at a sensible voltage before I did the adjustment.

The pot is secured to the top of the standby supply transformer with a drop of CA glue to stop everything moving around. The supply can now be adjusted to a higher setpoint voltage – 13.8v is about the maxumum, as the OVP cuts the supply out at between 13.9v-14v.

After doing some testing at roughly 50% of the supply’s rated load, everything seems to be stable, and nothing is heating up more than I’d expect.

Posted on December 14, 2016 by The Engineer — Leave a comment

Mercury 30A Ham Radio SMPS

After having a couple of the cheap Chinese PSUs fail on me in a rather spectacular fashion, I decided to splash on a more expensive name-brand PSU, since constantly replacing PSUs at £15 a piece is going to get old pretty fast. This is the 30A model from Mercury, which seems to be pretty well built. It’s also significantly more expensive at £80. Power output is via the beefy binding posts on the front panel. There isn’t any metering on board, this is something I’ll probably change once I’ve ascertained it’s reliability. This is also a fixed voltage supply, at 13.8v.

Not much on the rear panel, just the fuse & cooling fan. This isn’t temperature controlled, but it’s not loud. No IEC power socket here, the mains cable is hard wired.

Removing some spanner-type security screws reveals the power supply board itself. Everything on here is enormous to handle the 30A output current at 13.8v. The main primary side switching transistors are on the large silver heatsink in the centre of the board, feeding the huge ferrite transformer on the right.

The transformer’s low voltage output tap comes straight out instead of being on pins, due to the size of the winding cores. Four massive diodes are mounted on the black heatsinks for output rectification.

The supply is controlled via the jelly bean TL494 PWM controller IC. The multi-turn potentiometer doesn’t adjust the output voltage, more likely it adjusts the current limit.

Power to initially start the supply is provided by a small SMPS circuit, with a VIPer22A Low Power Primary Switcher & small transformer on the lower right. The transformer upper left is the base drive transformer for the main high power supply.

Posted on December 3, 2016October 16, 2019 by The Engineer — 2 Comments

Ferguson A10RWH Portable Colour TV Teardown

Here’s the other TV that was picked up from the local water point having been put of to be recycled. This one is much newer than the Thorn TV, a 10″ colour version from Ferguson.

The colour CRT used is an RCA branded one, 27GDC85X.

Like the other TV, this one is dual voltage input, mains 240v & 12v battery. This TV is a factory conversion of a standard 240v AC chassis though.

The 12v power first goes into this board, which looked suspiciously like an inverter. Measuring on the output pins confirmed I was right, this addon board generates a 330v DC supply under a load, but it’s not regulated at all, under no load the output voltage shoots up to nearly 600v!

I’ve not seen one of these labels on a TV for many years, when back in the very old TV sets the steel chassis would be used to supply power to parts of the circuitry, to save on copper. Although it doesn’t have a metal chassis to actually become live, so I’m not sure why it’s here.

The main PCB is much more integrated in this newer TV, from the mid 90’s, everything is pretty much taken care of by silicon by this point.

This Toshiba µC takes care of channel switching & displaying information on the CRT. The tuner in this TV is electronically controlled.

The video signal is handled by this Mitsubishi IC, which is a PAL Signal Processor, this does Video IF, Audio IF, Chroma, & generates the deflection oscillators & waveforms to drive the yoke.

There are some adjustments on the CRT neck board for RGB drive levels & cutoff levels. This board also had the final video amplifiers onboard, which drive the CRT cathodes.

Posted on October 24, 2016 by The Engineer — Leave a comment

eSynic 2-Way HDMI Signal Splitter

Time for another random teardown, a signal splitter for HDMI. These units are available very cheap these days on eBay. This one splits the incoming signal into two to drive more than one display from the same signal source.

The stamped alloy casing comes apart easily with the removal of a few screws. The PCB inside is rather densely packed with components.

The main IC on the incoming signal is a Silicon Image Sil9187B HDMI Port Processor, with a single input & 4 outputs. In this case the chip is used as a repeater to amplify the incoming signal. the signal path then gets fed into a Pericom PI3HDMI412 HDMI Demux, which then splits the signal into two for the output ports.

The main pair of ICs processing the video signals are controlled over I²C, with this STM32 microcontroller. The 4 pads to the lower left are for the STLink programmer. The main 3.3v power rail is provided by the LM1117 linear regulator on the right.

Posted on October 11, 2016 by The Engineer — Leave a comment

eBay Chinese Chassis Power Supply S-400-12 400W 12v 33A

Here’s a cheap PSU from the treasure trove of junk that is eBay, rated at a rather beefy 400W of output at 12v – 33A! These industrial-type PSUs from name brands like TDK-Lambda or Puls are usually rather expensive, so I was interested to find out how much of a punishment these cheap Chinese versions will take before grenading. In my case this PSU is to be pushed into float charging a large lead acid battery bank, which when in a discharged state will try to pull as many amps from the charger as can be provided.

These PSUs are universal input, voltage adjustable by a switch on the other side of the PSU, below. The output voltage is also trimmable from the factory, an important thing for battery charging, as the output voltage needs to be sustained at 13.8v rather than the flat 12v from the factory.

Mains connections & the low voltage outputs are on beefy screw terminals. The output voltage adjustment potentiometer & output indicator LED are on the left side.

The cooling fan for the unit, which pulls air through the casing instead of blowing into the casing is a cheap sleeve bearing 60mm fan. No surprises here. I’ll probably replace this with a high-quality ball-bearing fan, to save the PSU from inevitable fan failure & overheating.

The PCB tracks are generously laid out on the high current output side, but there are some primary/secondary clearance issues in a couple of places. Lindsay Wilson over at Imajeenyus.com did a pretty thorough work-up on the fineries of these PSUs, so I’ll leave most of the in-depth stuff via a linky. There’s also a modification of this PSU for a wider voltage range, which I haven’t done in this case as the existing adjustment is plenty wide enough for battery charging duty.

The PCB is laid out in the usual fashion for these PSUs, with the power path taking a U-route across the board. Mains input is lower left, with some filtering. Main diode bridge in the centre, with the voltage selection switch & then the main filter caps. Power is then switched into the transformer by the pair of large transistors on the right before being rectified & smoothed on the top left.

The pair of main switching devices are mounted to the casing with thermal compound & an insulating pad. To bridge the gap there’s a chunk of aluminium which also provides some extra heatsinking.

The PSU is controlled by a jelly-bean TL494 PWM controller IC. No active PFC in this cheap supply so the power factor is going to be very poor indeed.

Input protection & filtering is rather simple with the usual fuse, MOV filter capacitor & common mode choke.

Beefy 30A dual diodes on the DC output side, mounted in the same fashion as the main switching transistors.

Current measurement is done by these large wire links in the current path, selectable for different models with different output ratings.

The output capacitors were just floating around in the breeze, with one of them already having broken the solder joints in shipping! After reflowing the pads on all the capacitors some hot glue as flowed around them to stop any further movement.

This supply has now been in service for a couple of weeks at a constant 50% load, with the occasional hammering to recharge the battery bank after a power failure. at 13A the supply barely even gets warm, while at a load high enough to make 40A rated cable get uncomfortably warm (I didn’t manage to get a current reading, as my instruments don’t currently go high enough), the PSU was hot in the power semiconductor areas, but seemed to cope at full load perfectly well.

Posted on September 4, 2016August 16, 2016 by The Engineer — Leave a comment

MingHe D3806 Buck-Boost DC-DC Converter

Here’s a useful buck-boost DC-DC converter from eBay, this one will do 36v DC at 6A maximum output current. Voltage & current are selected on the push buttons, when the output is enabled either the output voltage or the output current can be displayed in real time.

Here’s the display PCB, which also has the STM32 microcontroller that does all the magic. There appears to be a serial link on the left side, I’ve not yet managed to get round to hooking it into a serial adaptor to see if there’s anything useful on it.

The bottom of the board holds the micro & the display multiplexing glue logic.

Not much on the mainboard apart from the large switching inductors & power devices. There’s also a SMPS PWM controller, probably being controlled from the micro.

Posted on June 27, 2016 by The Engineer — Leave a comment

Sony Xperia T Teardown

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Posted on May 29, 2016 by The Engineer — 4 Comments

TS100 12-24v Soldering Iron

When I ordered the tiny USB soldering iron, I decided a proper iron upgrade would be a good idea. Looking around for something that didn’t require AC mains power turned up the TS100, a Chinese design, that unusually is actually very good! Above is the handle itself, with it’s small OLED display & two operation buttons.
This iron is controlled by a STM32 ARM microcontroller, the firmware & schematics are completely open-source.

The bottom end of the iron has the main DC input jack, designed with laptop chargers in mind (DC input range from 10v-24v). Above that is the micro USB port for programming.

The iron tips slot into the other end, many different tip types & shapes are available. The one supplied was the simple conical tip.

Plugging the iron into some power gets a standby screen – it doesn’t just start heating immediately, for safety.

The left hand button starts the heater, which on a 24v input voltage gets to operating temperature well within 10 seconds.

The right hand screen icon changes when the temperature has stabilized. The control PCB has an integrated accelerometer, leaving the iron hot for a few minutes triggers a timeout & it powers down. Once picked up again, the heater instantly restarts.
The operating temperature is adjustable with the pair of buttons, from 100°C to 400°C.

Here’s a selection of bits for the iron. The design is very similar to the Hakko T15 series of irons, but these are a much shorter version. Like the Hakko versions, the actual tips aren’t replaceable, once the bit burns out, the entire assembly is replaced.

Here’s the iron fully assembled. The entire device is about the same length as just the heating element from a Hakko T15!

Posted on March 23, 2016 by The Engineer — Leave a comment

“SolarStorm” eBay 4x 18650 Battery Pack

Since the 4×18650 battery pack supplied with my Cree head torch is pretty shit, even by China’s standards, I figured something I could put my own cells into would be a better option. An eBay search turned up these battery boxes, not only with a direct battery output for my torch, but also a USB port for charging other devices when I’m low on charge.

The output to the lamp connector is directly connected to the battery, through the usual Lithium Ion protection, but the USB output is controlled from a single power button. Battery charge condition is displayed on 3 LEDs. Not sure why they used blue silicone for the seal & then used green LEDs… But it does work, even if a little dim.

Essential information. Does claim to be protected, and from the already existing electronics for the USB this would be expected in all but the cheapest crap.
An IP rating of IPX4 is claimed, yet just above that rating is a notice not to be used in water. Eh?
This is sealed with an O-Ring around the edge of the top cap & silicone seals around the cable & retaining screw. I did test by immersion in about 6″ of water, and it survived this test perfectly fine, no water ingress at all.

The casing holds a PCB at the bottom end with the cell straps.

Someone wasn’t that careful at getting the brass screw insert properly centred in the injection mould when they did this one. It’s mushed off centre, but i’s solidly embedded & doesn’t present any problems to usability.

The top cover holds the cell springs & the electronics.

Removing the pair of screws allows the top cap to open up. The cable, button & LEDs are robustly sealed off with this silicone moulding.

Here’s the PCB, not much on the top, other than the power button & battery indicator LEDs.

Desoldering the cell springs allows the PCB to pop out of the plastic moulding. There’s more than I expected here!

Bottom left is a DC-DC converter, generating the +5v rail for the USB port, this is driven with an XL1583 3A buck converter IC.

Bottom right is the protection IC & MOSFETs for the Lithium Ion cells. I wasn’t able to find a datasheet for the tiny VA7022 IC, but I did manage to make certain it was a 7.4v Li-Ion protection IC.

Top right is a completely unmarked IC, and a 3.3v SOT-23 voltage regulator. I’m assuming that the unmarked IC is a microcontroller of some sort, as it’s handling more than just the battery level LEDs.

A pretty decent 4-core cable finishes the job off. For once there’s actually some copper in this cable, not the usual Chineseuim thin-as-hair crap.

Posted on January 18, 2016January 18, 2016 by The Engineer — 4 Comments

Eberspacher Controller & Remote

The Eberspacher heaters can be controlled with a single switch, but it’s more convenient to have some temperature control & the option of a timer. Above is an ex-BT 701 series controller, with built in 7-day programmer. Being an ex-BT van version though, it’ll only switch the heater on for 1 hour at a time.
To get around this slight niggle, I fitted a bypass toggle switch.

For a bit of extra convenience, I got an RF remote controlled relay module from eBay (£5).
This allows me to switch things on remotely, so I can return to a nice toasty tent while camping.
There is an official RF remote for Eberspacher heaters, but I’ve no doubt they’re hideously expensive.

Here’s the receiver PCB, there’s an EEPROM & a microcontroller onboard for handling the codes the remotes send, but as the number has been scrubbed off the micro, no data there. This uses a standard RF receiver module.

Here’s the remote itself, this uses a 12v battery instead of a 3v lithium cell. A little of a pain since these batteries can be a bit pricey.
As this RF system operates on 315MHz, it’s technically illegal in the UK, but I was unable to find a 433MHz version with the features required. Nevermind ;).

Here’s the module installed in the controller casing. I have since run the antenna wire around the edge of the case to try & get the furthest range on receive. The relay contacts are just paralleled across the bypass switch, so when the relay energizes the heater fires up.
Luckily the thermostatic control portion of the 701 programmer is operational even when heating mode is not active.

Posted on December 9, 2013 by The Engineer — Leave a comment

nb Tanya Louise Hydraulic Generator Update

Finally, after months of messing about with the original seller of the generator unit, (Mike Webb from hydraulicgenerators.co.uk, more to come about the nightmare I had dealing with this man), we have had to purchase a new hydraulic control valve for the genset, as the original unit supplied was missing parts.

Thanks to Martin Bullock from BSP Hydraulics for supplying this at short notice!

This unit contains a pressure relief valve, to set system operating pressure, a throttle/flow control valve to set generator motor speed & a solenoid controlled spool valve to control general oil flow to the generator. This last section effectively operates as an ON/OFF control.
System pressure will be ~175 Bar at 21 litres/minute.

More to come soon with the final assembly, hosing up & system commissioning.

Posted on August 26, 2010 by The Engineer — Leave a comment

Nokia 7110

Another phone from the mid 90s. This is the nokia 7110.

Here the slider is open showing the keypad.

Here the battery is removed, a Li-Ion unit.

The battery cell & protection circuit removed from the casing.

This is the rear of the PCB removed from the housing. Data & charging ports on the right hand side f the board.

Front of the PCB with the RF sections at the left hand side & the keypad contacts on the right.

Closeup of the RF sections of the board, big silver rectangular cans are VCO units.

Closeup of the top rear section of the PCB, with SIM cnnector, battery contacts, IR tranciever at the far left. Bottom centre is the external antenna connector.

The logic section of the board, Large chip is CPU, to right of that is the ROM storing the machine code. Other chips are unknown custom parts.

The Mic & the loudspeaker removed from it’s housing.

LCD from the front of the unit, SPI interfaced. Flex PCB also contains the power button, loudspeaker contacts & a temperature sensor.

The scroll wheel removed from the front housing.

Tiny vibration motor removed from the rear housing, alerts the user to a text or phone call.