Review – Page 3

UNI-T UTi260B Best Thermal Camera For The Money? – Voltlog #358

Welcome to a new Voltlog, in this video we’re going to be taking a look at the UNI-T UTI260B professional thermal camera. As you may know I used to own a FLIR ONE iOS thermal camera that I was using with my phone, it was working okay, it had a thermal resolution of x and a picture resolution of because it had the two cameras and it was doing the overlay thing. Well one day I dropped that camera which caused a fault in the lightning connector and unfortunately FLIR does not sell replacements.

So I started searching for a new camera, I was thinking of getting another FLIR one but then I discovered this UNI-T camera which I believe is a fairly new model and not a lot of people know about it. But let me tell you the specs, thermal camera resolution 256*192px, visible spectrum resolution 640x480px it can mix the two images similar to how FLIR does it, 2.8” TFT LCD, 5000mAh battery which gives a battery life o at least 6hours, temperature range -15C-550C, rugged design with IP65 protection, micro-sd card for data storage, up to 4 points of temperature measurement. This is a massive upgrade for me, over the FLIR ONE I used to have.

Testing The Xiaomi 100W Type-C Car Charger – Voltlog #355

In a previous mailbag video I showed this Xiaomi dual USB port car charger which is capable of power delivery over USB Type-C. Xiaomi claims this is capable of up to 20V 5A output on the USB Type-C port. In the mailbag video I wasn’t able to test these claimed specs but today I have prepared a test setup so we can take a closer look at these specs.

In terms of specs I had a better look at the small user manual that comes with the product, it’s all in chinese so I had to use google translate on these but the unit takes 12 to 24V DC input. It’s unclear to me if you can use this in a 24V car system because you would be operating right at the upper limit of the input and the manual isn’t clear on that aspect.

You got two outputs, USB-A port capable of quick charge protocol 5V at 3A or 9V at 2A And a second USB type-C output which supports power delivery protocol up to 20V and 5A max. If you’re using both ports at the same time the maximum combined total power output is 68W.

Would I still recommend these products after using them? | Voltlog #343

In this video I’ll be going over some of the most important gear I have in my lab, this is stuff I have reviewed in previous videos but I want to share my thoughts after using the gear for extended periods of time. Sometimes you might discover stuff that you miss in the original review video.

Best BST-933B JBC Clone Soldering Station Review & Teardown | Voltlog #340

Soldering tools is a big subject as there is no electronics bench or hobby without a soldering iron hence why I have several videos on the subject and why I will continue to do such videos when new tools are presented. Everyone knows and probably wishes for a JCB or Metcal station since they are very well known in the industry, they are reliable and most importantly very capable soldering stations but their price tag keeps them out of reach for the average hobbyist.

That’s why clones of the big names appear on the market and they can be bought for half the price of the original one, sometimes even less. That’s why the KSGER T12 soldering stations are so popular and why I use them. They support the original Hakko tips and so they provide identical performance to a Hakko station as long as you install a good quality T12 tip.

Which brings us to the subject of this video, this is the Best 933B, which is a clone of the JBC CD-B series compact soldering station. This has been on the market for a while but I recently got a chance to review this station when banggood offered to send me one for free. I would appreciate it if you would check out the links I place in the description, this will ensure I can get more gear to review in the future. Price wise, if you were to order one of these it would cost you about half the price of the original JBC station. Depending on where you order the original one is around 400EUR while the Best station is about 200EUR on banggood.

T-962 Reflow Oven Upgrades & Fixes | Voltlog #338

This is the famous T962 reflow oven coming from China, you might find it under a bunch of different brands, it’s available to order directly from China but also from a bunch of local distributors who are importing these ovens but in general they all have this list of problems which can be easily addressed for improving the performance as well as the safety aspects of operating one of these.

I got mine for about $180 shipped from Germany so there was no tax involved and it got here pretty quickly but you can probably find it for less if you are willing to wait a bit longer and get it from China. I used to run my own reflow oven based on a toaster oven but trust me, unless you invest in a really expensive toaster oven you’re not going to get the same performance as with one of these dedicated ovens. They’re not perfect as I’m gonna show next, they still have a bunch of problems but once we address those problems it becomes a decent oven with superior performance when compared to a toaster oven.

So let’s start with the paper tape insulation problem. This oven uses glass wool for insulation of the hot chamber and to seal that they used a combination of aluminium tape and paper tape, it really looks like the cheap painters tape. Now obviously the insides of this oven are gonna get hot and that paper tape is gonna start to burn and it will release fumes and a nasty smell. If you buy this oven and start using it right away without implementing this fix, you will need to vent that room most certainly.

Luckily this is an easy fix, the only thing you need is kapton tape. The idea here is to equip yourself with a pair of gloves and place the oven on a table that you can wipe clean when you’re finished to avoid contamination with the fine particles released by the glass wool. It’s best if you have some genuine kapton tape because it will stick better and you will have to remove all of the paper tape and replace it with kapton tape. You might also find some pieces of rigid cardboard/paper like material in there, I wrapped those in some kapton tape as well for protection against the heat and inserted them back where they were. Your oven should look something like this when you’re done.

ClonerAlliance 4KP Plus Capture Card Review & Teardown | Voltlog #332

Welcome to a new video, today we’re taking a closer look at this capture card which was sent in for this review by ClonerAlliance. This is their Flint 4K Plus model but they do sell other models as well so check out the links in the description to find out more and also watch this video till the end cause I have a giveaway which might interest you.

So let’s talk a little bit about the specs of this capture card, it’s 4K passthrough at 60Hz meaning that if you have a 4K signal from a camera or a gaming console, you can pass that through this capture card to a 4K monitor without losing any quality.

The interface is HDMI 2.0 for both the in and out passthrough, there is no HDR passthrough or capture, and the capture specs are 1080P 60fps maximum. Works on USB3.0 and USB2.0 but you really want to use it over USB3.0 to get the best quality, because I think over USB2.0 it switches to MJPEG codec while on USB3.0 it’s YuY2 uncompressed and it does support other frame rates like 24fps if you need that.

This capture card is UVC compatible, UVC means USB video class, this usb class describes devices capable of streaming video and so it’s universally compatible with pretty much any OS, it’s plug and play and it will show up as a camera device on your system which makes it super simple to use even with the simplest windows camera app.

Testing Kafuter Adhesives For Electronics | Voltlog #331

Welcome to a new Voltlog, in this video we’ll take a closer look at the various adhesive products that I could find and order on Aliexpress from this brand which has a hard to pronounce name, I would call this Kafuter but I don’t know, doesn’t sound right.

Since we deal with electronics on this channel, I’m particularly interested in how these adhesives would cope with use on electronics. As you may know in a typical product you may find different types of adhesives used: you might have some for securing wires/connectors, you might have a different type of glue used for securing big capacitors to stop them from flapping in the breeze, a different type of product for creating a seal against moisture, a different glue for securing trim pots in their final position.

And all of these products need to do their specific job while at the same time ensuring that they do not break down or become corrosive or conductive over time. I’m not gonna be able to give you any guarantees to that as my testing methods are not exactly industry standard so I’ll mostly be giving you like an overview of these cheap products that we can find on aliexpress and I will mainly recommend them for hobby use but if you have any experience with this company or it’s products, please do share in the comments below.

Micsig CP2100A Best Affordable Current Probe | Voltlog #330

So this is the Micsig CP2100 series current probe, it’s my first piece of equipment from Micsig but I’ve been hearing good things about them so I kinda have high expectations for this product.

What I have here is the CP2100A variant which is rated for 800KHz bandwidth, there is also a B variant which is rated for up to 2MHz in the latest revision, that one is a bit more expensive and I would only recommend getting it if you really need that bandwidth, otherwise there shouldn’t be any other difference between the two models. I don’t know if I mentioned this already but obviously it can measure AC and DC, it has two ranges, 10A and 100A. There is a zero function on the module for automatic zero adjustment and you can also do manual offset adjustments with these arrow keys.

Micsig specs this as 3% ±50mA accuracy for the 10A range and 4% ±50mA for the 100A range but from what I’ve been reading on the forums, this is actually better than the spec, you can pretty much measure down to 50mA without having to worry about that ±50mA but we’ll put that to a test later. Included below you see a set of images from the teardown.

Fix Microscope Ring Light Reflections With These Projector Lamps | Voltlog #327

You’ve no doubt seen this before on the channel, it’s the trinocular microscope that I have reviewed in Voltlog #282 and I’ve also done a bunch of follow-up videos since then on how to improve the camera system. This comes equipped with an LED ring lamp to illuminate the working surface if you’ve used a setup like this for soldering you’ve no doubt experienced the reflections you get from shiny surface likes the PCB material, especially when you start adding flux into the mix. I’ll overlay some images so you can get a sense of what I’m talking about but basically, since the ring light is shining light right from where the barlow lens is, there are these annoying reflections.

Today I want to show you an alternative lighting system that will help go around that problem. This is a system with individual gooseneck LED lamps. Having this flexible gooseneck tube allows you to position the lamps at an angle that would avoid those nasty reflections.

LILYGO T-Wristband ESP32 Smart Watch Development Platform | Voltlog #316

Wearables have always been this cool niche of electronics, people have always been building electronic projects meant to be worn by the user and over the years we’ve seen a lot of nice ideas of watches and other types of bracelets but there’s always been the issue of the enclosure and form factor.

Most of these projects were only some stacked PCBs with no enclosure and those that had an enclosure were usually not easy to build with common tools. The 3D printing revolution kinda solved that but not entirely because 3d printing at that lower scale is difficult and results are often not waterproof or dustproof.

And here comes the gadget i want to show you today, this is smart bracelet, it’s called a T-Wristband from LILYGO and I somehow feel like this is the result of the smart bracelet boom we’ve had in the past years which pushed the industry forward and you can now get something like this manufactured for cheap.

This is based on the ESP32 Pico D4 so it has built-in Wifi and Bluetooth because of that. It’s got an IPS 0.96inch screen, an RTC for keeping the clock accurate, it’s the PCF8563. A touch button for user input with that special defined area moulded in the case, this is handled by a dedicated touch IC the TTP223. An inertial measurement unit the MPU9250 which combines an accelerometer, gyro and magnetometer. A built-in 80mAh lipo battery and a TP4054 charger. There is also a window for a heart rate sensor on the back but there isn’t one fitted So the specs are not bad at all considering the hardware there is a bunch of projects you can build on this hardware.