If you are a subscriber of the channel you’ve seen me review this Best soldering station in Voltlog #340 This is a clone of a JBC station and I’ve been happily using this station for the past year as my daily driver. But is this very different in terms of performance or build quality from a genuine JBC station? In this video we’re going to answer that question because thanks to welectron.com I was able to acquire this JBC station for a 50% discount so if you are looking to get yourself a new soldering station please check them out, they have a pretty good offer, a link will be in the description below.
So as you can see these two have a fairly similar size & shape but upon comparing their weight I discovered the JBC original is 2.5KG while the Best station is 3KG. The soldering hand piece which is model T245A is fairly similar for both units if not identical, you don’t get the soft foam padding for the BEST but otherwise very much the same plastic, same silicone wire, same length. However as you may know, the handle piece from my BEST station failed at some point soon after I got it and I did an autopsy in Voltlog #387.
I’ve replaced the failed handle with a genuine JBC T245 which I got for like 20EUR from ebay as new old stock. So generally speaking while the two handle pieces are almost identical, you can expect lower quality control on something like the BEST and you might be unlucky enough to get a bad handle that will fail at some point like mine did. There is ofcourse a bunch of happy users who didn’t have this issue but the bottom-line is, there is no guarantee on the quality control.
Welcome to a new Voltlog, yes it’s number 400, it’s been a great journey so far, thank you for being a subscriber and for all of the support that I have received so far. If you enjoy these videos please consider hitting the like button as that is a great feedback for me.
Now back to the topic of this video, I’m gonna show you how to create project templates in Kicad V6. I’ve noticed there isn’t much info available on Youtube on this topic and yet I find this a very useful feature.
You might ask yourself what project templates are and whether you need them or not. Well the answer depends, but if you work on a lot of different projects that share a common starting point, like say for example how I’m creating multiple internet of things boards and modules that all have some parts in common like the ESP32 processor, the VoltLink connector for programming the boards as well as a few other bits and pieces like decoupling capacitors, pull-up resistors, mounting holes, fiducials, board config, schematic config and the list can go on and on depending on the particular setup that you are running and the projects that you are building.
Welcome to a new Voltlog and I’m gonna start with a question: why should you care about Kicad and what it’s most recent version is like? Well, there is a very simple reason, if you are a subscriber of the channel I have to assume you are a supporter of open-source software and hardware and Kicad is probably the world’s best open-source printer circuit board CAD program.
I have been using Kicad for the past 2 years and it’s been a great journey and if there is one thing I would ask is that if you have been using Kicad and you are getting good use out of it, please consider sending donation by going to kicad.org and hitting the Donate button. This will help fund the small team behind Kicad to continue releasing new and improved versions of Kicad.
So now back to the subject of the video, I’ve been using Kicad version 5 in it’s different releases for a while and I’ve gotten used to how things are done in Kicad but just before Christmas they released version 6 which brings a bunch of improvements. Depending on your workflow you might experience these improvements directly or not, hence why I’m not covering the whole list of upgrades and improvements in this video, just stuff that I have noticed while using the new Kicad V6.
I’m gonna start with probably the biggest change in Kicad V6, which is in the file format, that is definitely an under the hood change and one that not many people would care about, including myself but there could be great benefits coming up from this change, because the new file format should allow for easier handling of Kicad files by plugins and external tools. There is also a minor downside to this, once you convert a project and save it in the Kicad V6 format you can’t use it with V5 anymore but I don’t see why you would want to go back.
Welcome to a new Voltlog, today I’m gonna be showing you revC for the ESP32 based thermostat valve controller, we’re going to do some thermal measurements using my InfraRed PCB inspection thermal camera, talk about resistor power dissipation a little bit and I’m also going to be talking about the future of this project, some changes that I might do in a future revision and ask your feedback in the comments below about these.
As mentioned in Voltlog #395, where I showed revB, I wanted to do this rather small change and release revC just to see if it was possible to improve the thermals of the board, in particular how warm these current limiting resistor networks get during operation.
Welcome to a new Voltlog, a rather short video for today. I’m gonna be introducing this little guy. You might recognize the design, it’s my VoltLink USB to Serial Converter but in it’s latest revision B which has a few important upgrades over the previous one and these are things that I noticed while using the module almost daily so I think you will all agree with me that these were some good improvements that justified revB.
In general I tried to keep the board the same size, because I like this form factor, the arrangement of the connectors, the fact that I have my own VoltLink standard JST connector that i use for all of the boards that I design so all of that stayed the same but due to the ongoing chip shortage I had to pick a slightly different usb to serial chip, we are now using the CP2102 in QFN28 package. So generally this chip is very similar to the previous version except that it’s a bit newer but you still get up to 3M baud rates which is great. Because of the new chip this meant redesigning the passives to support this new chip and redoing the layout.
Also because of the ongoing chip shortage, prices for electronic components have gone up in the past year and I will have to run the numbers for this particular design but I have no choice but to increase the cost of the unit on my Tindie store if I am to continue making these.
I also upgraded to a USB full speed rated ESD protection diode with lower capacitance TPSP0503, this should mean no connection issues while at the same time offering the recommended protection level on the USB connection together with the PTC resettable fuse.
Welcome to a new Voltlog, today I’m gonna be showing you revB for the ESP32 based thermostat valve controller, this is based on revA that I first showed in Voltog #383. So a few words about this board, just in case you haven’t seen Voltlog #383. It’s based on an ESP32 and I designed it so that it’s compatible with the open source firmware called TASMOTA and that allows us to control it via MQTT from homeassistant.
We have 10 individually switched triacs, each capable of up to 900mA or 1.2A depending on the version of the triac that it’s equipped with and a few expansion capabilities via I2C, 1Wire and some spare GPIOs. Everything was designed to fit inside one of these inexpensive, DIN rail enclosures and the whole purpose of this is to allow smart control of electrical thermostat actuators.
In my case, I use these 240V rated electrical thermostat actuators to control zone valves for my floor heating system. but if you would like to know more, I recommend you also watch Voltlog #383.
So why did we need revB? Well I’ll tell you all about the changes that happened in revB and I’m gonna start with this odd shape that you see around the ESP32 module, I removed the PCB from under the antenna section of the wifi module and although the improvement is probably marginal, in theory at least, it helps to keep the antenna clear of other objects.
Welcome to a new Voltlog, in this video I’m gonna show you how I hacked the IKEA PM2.5 sensor which is normally just showing good or bad values using LEDs into a fully smart wifi enabled MQTT sensor running Tasmota firmware. And while I was doing that I also added a BOSCH BME680 air quality sensor because there is so much available space inside this enclosure and it almost felt like a perfect match for the PM2.5 sensor. But before I show you how I did that, make sure to smash that like button for the youtube algorithm.
So IKEA sells this PM2.5 sensor for cheap, something like 10EUR, it runs from a 5V USB Type-C port but it only shows results using some LEDs shining from green to orange to red for very high concentration values. But if we take a look inside the sensor after removing the 4 phillips screws we discover that there is plenty of available space inside for adding our own circuitry and it appears to be using a standard PM2.5 sensor module with serial output over UART. This is then read by a small microcontroller which controls the different LEDs and handles the small fan that pulls fresh air over the sensor intake.
So with that in mind I started looking through my box of wifi modules and found this ESP8266 based module which seems like a good candidate to install in this box. If you are a regular viewer of the channel then you must know about my mailbag videos where I show all kinds of sensors and modules and in fact those videos might be your best source for discovering new and interesting electronics modules, sensors and tools so if you are new to the channel, you must check them out.
Now by installing this ESP8266 based module inside this unit, we could connect to the TX pin of the PM2.5 sensor module and just read it’s data at the same time with the on-board microcontroller. I’m not sure if this particular sensor needs any commands for initialization at start-up but in any case that would be taken care of by the on-board microcontroller and we would just be reading the sensor data.
Welcome to a new Voltlog, in this video I’m gonna talk about the new CanLite revision D which is now ready to be ordered on my Tindie store and you’ll find a link to my Tindie store in the description below. Yes I am already at rev.D for these boards and that’s partly due to the ongoing global chip shortage which forces me to switch to a different switch with every new batch that I manufacture but I’ll get into that later, first if you don’t know what CanLite is let me tell you a few words about this board.
The idea for this board started back when I first experimented interfacing with the CANBUS for various automotive modules like the instrument cluster, the CAN gateway. The parking sensor module, the multimedia, I wanted to see what kind of messages get transmitted on the CAN bus network, if and how I can intercept and modify those or maybe insert my own messages so basically hacking on the CAN BUS network of my car.
I did a whole video on the subject a year ago voltlog #342 which I will link on screen if you haven’t seen that and you’re interested in the subject check it out.
So I wanted to create this little board that could be installed in a car and perform various functions on the CanBus, I chose the ESP32 as main processing unit because that’s plenty of processing power for the task on hand, it’s also cheap, it has wifi and built-in CAN peripherals so it was a logical choice for me to use it.
I still needed to add an external CAN transceiver to generate the differential voltage levels for the actual physical link and while I was there I also threw in an automotive grade buck regulator and a couple of automotive grade high-side switches just in case I needed to switch a load, something like a light or a motor, or whatever you might need cause these automotive high-side switches are pretty robust and you can drive pretty much anything you want with them.
And this brings me to the reason for revD, I’m sure you are aware of the ongoing global chip shortage and how car manufacturers have to stop their manufacturing plants because they can’t get the chips they need.. Well, guess where that left with my automotive high-side switches and automotive-buck regulator?
Yeah not a great choice of parts when it comes to availability, I mean, January 2023? That’s like 14 months away just for the buck regulator, all while people keep emailing me constantly to ask about the availability of the CanLite boards. The same thing could be said about the high-side switches I was using, they couldn’t be found anywhere and that’s not the only problem.
You can hardly find any alternative parts either, I’ve spent hours and hours trying to find replacements on Digikey and mouser and all I could find is low stock of parts that cost 10 times as much and come in much larger packages, but in the end my efforts paid off and I managed to find these, the BTS452T from infineon and although these have a lower maximum switch current, I had to settle for these, I mean 1.8A per channel is still plenty of current to be useful and we still get the nice features like over temp protection, over-current protection and general transient protection that these automotive switches feature.
I also had to go for a new inductor, which was slightly different, because that wasn’t available in stock either and don’t get me started on the lack of standardization when it comes to these surface mount inductor package, it’s like every time I need to use an inductor I also have to design a new footprint cause they are never the same exact size.
Welcome to a new Voltlog, in this video I will show you how I assembled this VFD tube based clock, I like the looks of this clock very much it’s kind of steampunk type of style and because this is a kit, it’s widely accessible to anyone, you don’t need very specific tools to get this assembled and I believe anyone can put one together. As a bonus this clock, although it doesn’t include one in the kit, it can support connecting a GPS receiver for syncing the clock and on top of that you get a remote control so you can control it from a distance which is pretty neat if you ask me.
I got this particular kit from banggood and you’ll find a link in the description of the video if you are interested in getting one, I think it’s important to watch this video before you start the assembly because you might find some inadvertencies between the provided user manual and the actual kit that you receive.
This is what you will receive in the box and this is pretty much all needed for a functional clock, if you are missing the stuff shown here you might be unable to complete your clock build. Like I previously said the GPS module is optional but depending on where you live you might not get GPS reception in an apartment building for example so it might be useless to you anyway.
Welcome to a new project video, today I’m gonna be presenting this compact UHF repeater that I built recently and the story starts earlier this year when I got my HAM radio license and since I only have this baofeng radio, I was limited to the range and functionality of this radio or this local community maintained repeater for a national network which sometimes was offline or sometimes because of my location I couldn’t get a good signal. Hence why I decided to build a repeater.
To give you a general idea of how the whole system works, this repeater has an analog radio side which interfaces to your radio via UHF or VHF depending on the type of radio module you use. On the other end, you need a way of interfacing that analog radio traffic to a digital network that interconnects similar nodes into a big network.
That part is usually handled by a SBC, single board computer and people have used raspberry pi’s for that but there are also alternatives based on orange pi single board computers, like the one that I built here. Depending on the cost of these SBCs, their availability and the software that you plan to run, you might have good reasons to choose one or the other.
For example I really wanted to load a ready made, functional, OS image on my repeater, so I don’t have to manually install and configure everything. The nice people from the Rolink community have done the hard work and built this orange pi zero OS image which contains everything you need so it made sense for me to design my repeater based on an orange pi zero because that meant less software work for me. The software that runs on the orangepi zero and makes everything possible is Svxlink and this is open source software which evolved from the old echolink software. I encourage you to checkout their webpage to learn more about it but for the purpose of this video all you need to know is that it handles the interconnect to and from the network turning your simple node into a repeater.
In terms of repeater hardware, the most popular radio module is the SA818 manufactured by NiceRF a Chinese manufacturer and if we take a quick look at the datasheet we noticed this is a small compact walkie talkie module, it contains everything needed to accomplish walkie talkie functionality up to 1W output power. It comes in 3 different frequency ranges, I opted for the UHF version 400-480MHz range, but you can choose that based on your radio capability or how crowded the local traffic is. The module can be purchased for cheap from Aliexpress, directly from the NiceRF shop and they provide excellent support, for example they have emailed me the datasheet immediately after purchasing the module. Links for this are in the description below.