The timer mechanism of the Vend-o-Vision. (Credit: SpaceTime Junction, YouTube) There was a time before portable TVs and personal media players when the idea of putting coin-operated TVs everywhere, from restaurants to airports and laundromats, would have seemed like a solid business model. Thus was born the Vend-o-Vision by Mini-TV USA, which presented itself as […]
Recently [ElecrArc240] got his paws on an Intel-branded 3 kW power supply that apparently had been designed as a reference PSU for servers. At 3 kW in such a compact package air cooling would be rather challenging, so it has a big water block sandwiched between the two beefy PCBs. In the full teardown and […]
The RF section of the ESP32-C6 die. (Credit: electronupdate, YouTube) With the ESP32-P4 not having any wireless functionality and instead focusing on being a small SoC, it makes sense to combine it with a second chip that handles features like WiFi and Bluetooth. This makes the Guition ESP32-P4-M3 module both a pretty good example of […]
Apple AirTags have speakers in them, and the speaker is not entirely under the owner’s control. [Shahram] shows how the speaker of an AirTag can be disabled while keeping the device watertight. Because AirTags are not intended to be opened or tampered with, doing so boils down to making a hole in just the right […]
More molten plastic spacers between the bus bar and terminal. (Credit: Will Prowse) Because size matters when it comes to statistics, [Will Prowse] decided to not just bank on his handful of failed Battle Born LFP batteries when it came to documenting their failure modes. Instead he got a whole gaggle of them from a […]
Looks just like the real deal in a dark cabinet. (Credit: Big Clive, YouTube) These days, you can get fakes, bootlegs, and similar for just about anything. While a fake handbag isn’t such a big deal, in the case of a DIN-rail power supply, you’d better make sure that you got the real deal. Case […]
There are a few possible ways to do a teardown of new electronics like the Apple AirTag 2 tracker, with [electronupdate] opting to go down to the silicon level, with die shots of the major ICs in a recent teardown video. Some high-resolution photos are also found on the separate blog page. First we get […]
In [Big Clive]’s recent grab bag of tat ordered from Chinese commerce platforms, there were two touch light control boxes that can turn any ungrounded conductive surface into a mains load dimmer control. Of course, the primary reason for the purchase was a teardown, and a teardown we got. These unassuming little boxes are built […]
After having been sent a vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) based clock for a review, [Anthony Francis-Jones] took the opportunity to explain how these types of displays work. Although VFDs are generally praised for their very pleasant appearance, they’re also relatively low-power compared to the similar cathode ray tubes. The tungsten wire cathode with its oxide […]
Well there’s your problem. (Credit: Mark Funeaux, YouTube) Akin to the razor-and-blades model, capsule-based coffee machines are an endless grind of overpriced pods and cheaply made machines that you’re supposed to throw out and buy a new one of, just so that you don’t waste all the proprietary pods you still have at home. What […]