In what could be a big step forward for consumer rights, the Texas Senate recently unanimously voted to pass HB 2963, which references the “Diagnosis, maintenance, and repair of certain digital electronic equipment”. If signed by the governor, this would make Texas the ninth US state to enact such a law, and the seventh pertaining […]
White LED bulbs are commonplace in households by now, mostly due to their low power usage and high reliability. Crank up the light output enough and you do however get high temperatures and corresponding interesting failure modes. An example is the one demonstrated by the [electronupdate] channel on YouTube with a Philips MR16 LED spot […]
Recently [Florin] was in the market for a basic uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to provide some peace of mind for the smart home equipment he had stashed around. Unfortunately, the cheap Serioux LD600LI unit he picked up left a bit to be desired, and required a bit of retrofitting. To be fair, the issues that […]
Starting January 1st, 2026, Washington state’s new Right to Repair law will come into effect. It requires manufacturers to make tools, parts and documentation available for diagnostics and repair of ‘digital electronics’, including cellphones, computers and similar appliances. The relevant House Bill 1483 was signed into law last week after years of fighting to make […]
Plenty of readers will be familiar with CRT televisions, not least because many of us use them with retrocomputers and consoles. But perhaps fewer will have worked with CRTs themselves as components, and of those, fewer still will be familiar with the earlier generation of tubes. In the first few decades of color TV the […]
Plenty of consumer goods, from passenger vehicles to toys to electronics, get tossed out prematurely for all kinds of reasons. Repairable damage, market trends, planned obsolescence, and bad design can all lead to an early sunset on something that might still have some useful life in it. This was certainly the case for a sound […]
What can you do if your circuit repair diagnosis indicates an open circuit within an integrated circuit (IC)? Your IC got too hot and internal wiring has come loose. You could replace the IC, sure. But what if the IC contains encryption secrets? Then you would be forced to grind back the epoxy and fix […]
It’s fair to say that QR codes are a technology that has finally come of age. A decade or more ago they were a little over-hyped and sometimes used in inappropriate or pointless ways, but now they are an accepted and useful part of life. They’re not without their faults though, one of which is […]
[Martin Lorton] has a vintage Harmon 4200B selective voltmeter that needed repair. He picked it up on eBay, and he knew it wasn’t working, but it was in good condition, especially for the price. He’s posted four videos about what’s inside and how he’s fixing it. You can see the first installment below. The 4200B […]
Back in the olden days, there existed physical game stores, which in addition to physical games would also have kiosks where you could try out the current game consoles and handhelds. Generally these kiosks held the console, a display and any controllers if needed. After a while these kiosks would get scrapped, with only a […]