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The Sangean HDR-1 is a HD tabletop radio which supports digital radio & hybrid signals and RDS functions on FM stations. Other features include dual alarm, IR remote control, multicast capability and Program Associated Data service. Overall, a pretty nice unit. But certain productions runs of this radio had a problem. The radio would quit powering up for no apparent reason. Lets see why.

Continue reading “Sangean HDR-1 Repair” »

LEDs are a part of most geek’s life, in one way or another. It could be changing the color of the LEDs in a Xbox 360′s ring of light, dressing up your PC with LED case lights & LED fans or that neat LED binary watch you just bought. And what true geek wouldn’t love bragging about the all LED lighting in his (or her) humble abode?

LED lights have a few things going for them besides the “cool” factor. They greatly beat the efficiency of incandescent lights and meet or exceed the efficiency of fluorescent lights.  They have a long lifetime and, unlike fluorescent lights, LEDs contain no mercury. LED bulbs are available to replace the bulbs in your standard incandescent/fluorescent light fixtures or your can go with a custom LED light fixture. Here is a look at a few of the available options.

Continue reading “LED Home Lighting, Part 1” »

A RF dummy load is quite useful when working on transmitters. It allows you to test and adjust the transmitter without an antenna, eliminating interference to other radios on your test frequency. It also presents your transmitter with a proper 50 Ω load so as to not cause any damage to its final RF amplifier stage.

A recent project required me to modify and align twelve UHF transmitters. The transmitters had a 25 watt output and the alignment session on each would be short. Rather than buy a dummy load for this project, I decided to build my own.

The central part of the dummy load is a resistor (or resistors) with a total resistance of 50 Ω and a wattage equal to or greater than your transmitter. The resistors also must be non-inductive which eliminates all the common wire-wound power resistors. Acceptable types of resistors include carbon composition and thick film.

Continue reading “Build a RF Dummy Load” »

Viking Modular Systems has announced the availability of its SATADIMM, an Enterprise Class SATA II Solid State Drive (SSD) in an industry-standard DDR3 240-pin DIMM form factor. The SATADIMM SSD derives its power from the 1.5V supply to the DIMM socket (operates from 1.25 – 3.3 vdc) and data transfer is enabled by using a standard SATA cable. New designs have the option of wiring the SATA through the DIMM socket so no external cable is required. The SATADIMM has built-in ARS-128 encryption for data protection and supports Trim commands. The different models include SLC (single-level cell) versions with a 25GB to 200GB range and MLC (multi-level cell) versions with a 50GB to 400GB range. The SATADIMM supports SATA 3Gb with sustained read/write speeds of 260MB/sec., plus sequential and random performance of 30,000 I/O operations per second.

Every electronics workbench needs a power supply. Depending on your experience and type of projects, you might even need multiple power supplies. Converting a PC power supply to bench use is one option, but I needed something smaller with variable output voltage. A variable output of 0-15 vdc @ 1 amp and a built in voltmeter, to more more specific. So off to eBay I went looking for a project case, panel mount voltmeter and some other small parts. One of my eBay searches turned up a new tattoo power supply for $6. Well here was my case, digital voltmeter, switches and power cord for a fraction of the price of the individual parts. If I was lucky, some of the internal parts could also be used.

Continue reading “A Mini Benchtop Power Supply” »

Thanks to a friend, I received 11 non-working Itona VXL thin clients. All exhibited the same symptom, no power. While disassembly is a little more involved than other thin clients, the repair only requires a soldering iron and ~$10 in parts.

Continue reading “Itona VXL Thin Client Repair” »

Recently I acquired 17 non-working Termtek TK-3370 thin clients from a friend who works in the e-waste industry. All were in great physical shape but none of them would power on.  The repair turned out being identical for all 17 units.

Continue reading “Termtek TK-3370 Thin Client Repair” »

Dangerous Prototypes, the people who have brought us such great open source hardware such as the Bus Pirate and the Flash Destroyer, have a little give-a-way going on every Sunday. Simply be one of the first people to comment on their Free PCB Sunday posts and get a free printed circuit board from one of their past, current or future projects. Past free PCBs have included nearly every Bus Pirate version, the Flash Destroyer, the USB RGB Color Changer, Web Platform and others. Don’t forget to check out their current projects while you are there!