Review – Page 6

Voltlog #245 – TPS61088 Boost Module Test (with QC3.0)

The real limitation for this small module to output the claimed 24W for longer periods of time is temperature. There is not enough thermal dissipation happening with this small pcb. Having a bigger pcb with more copper layers would help and it would probably allow this module to output continuously and prevent the TI controller chip from going into thermal overload. Even so I was impressed that running it into thermal protection several times did not do any damage the chip recovered on it’s own each time and no magic smoke escaped during these tests.

So all of this considered, this is probably one of the best dc-dc boost converter modules I got from China so far and I would recommend getting one of these if the specs meet your needs.

Voltlog #243 – TS80 VS KSGER T12 Soldering Iron Comparison

Welcome to a new Voltlog, yet another soldering iron comparison video and today it’s between the TS80 and the KSGER T12 station. Everyone knows the TS80, is quite a popular portable soldering iron, works with USB type C input, it needs a quick charge compatible adapter to reach full power and it’s quite a capable soldering iron. The drawback is the cost of the tips, it uses this proprietary type of tip and the cost is about $20 a piece.

On the other hand we have the KSGER soldering station which I reviewed in Voltlog #232. This station has a built in power supply and uses the well known T12 tips which are widely available on aliexpress, for example you can get KSGER T12 branded tips for about $3 a piece. I think that’s important, because I have 2-3 different tip shapes that I use regularly and maybe another 2 or 3 that I use occasionally for odd jobs. You can’t just rely on a single tip shape and purchasing the same number of tips for the TS80, is not going to be cheap.

Voltlog #234 – The Problems I Found With The KSGER T12 Soldering Station

In a previous Voltlog I reviewed this KSGER T12 soldering station, it was the first station I got my hands on from this manufacturer, it’s version 2.1S and I was pleasantly surprised by the features it has. If you haven’t seen that video I will link it on screen right now. Since then I’ve been using it as my main soldering station and I’ve been pretty happy with how it works but some of my viewers who have been using these for longer have pointed out a few things I missed in the video so this will be a quick update video to show the things I’ve missed previously.

Voltlog #232 – My New Prefered T12 Soldering Station KSGER V2.1S

Out of the three T12 stations that I have, this is now my favorite and will be the one I use daily. I’m not sure if the performance is higher or similar to the other I have, I’ll probably do a separate video to compare them but it’s just the user interface, the menu options, the nice handle that make me wanna use this instead of the others. Yes it has a few disadvantages regarding this handle, it does get warm and it doesn’t really fit that well with a regular stand but I can go past those disadvantages for how nice this station is. If you’re looking for a T12 station this is definitely the one to get.

I also did a second video where I showed the problems I found with this soldering station and if they can be fixed by the user or not.

Voltlog #231 – Nitro OBD2 Chip Tuning Scam

Welcome to a new Voltlog, today we’re going to be taking a look at this gadget the nitro OBD2 performance chip tuning box, notice this is specially designed for diesel cars and since it’s using the buzz word nitro, this sounds like it might just work. For sure some company has invested time & money into finding the secret sauce to put into this thing to make it work and boost performance. They claim it fits all cars built after 1996 and all you have to do is to plug this into the obd port, drive for 200km so the device can learn and adjust to your car and after that you will benefit from 35% more power and 25% more torque. It evens says here on the box that it will enable fuel saving. So this sound pretty much like the holy grail in car ECU tuning.

But ofcourse if you have any experience with electronics you can’t believe that this is going to save any fuel or boost any performance just by plugging into the OBD port. So that’s why I purchased this, so we can take a better look inside, and also because I needed an OBD2 connector + enclosure for a project of mine. I plan to do some can bus sniffing and do something with that data but I’ll talk abou that in a future video.

Voltlog #228 – LIDL UltimateSpeed Car Battery Charger Teardown

It’s been a long time since we looked at a product from LIDL so today I have this lead acid battery charger which I got for about $16. From time to time they have these collections of automotive related products, they had this charger among other stuff but it really caught my eye because of this marketing wank which is printed on the box, this thing has a FLIRT Processor and if you were wondering what the hell is a FLIRT processor, it’s a FULL LOGIC INTELLIGENT REGULATION TECHNOLOGY which in my opinion sounds like the kind of title you would find stuffed with keywords on Aliexpress, except they made it an acronym and slapped a chip icon next to it.

Voltlog #223 – Is The Paron JX-D5 Crimping Tool Any Good?

If you are a frequent viewer of the channel you’ve probably heard me say that I need a crimping tool and people recommended I should get the good stuff, Engineer being a recommended brand, those being more expensive but having precision machined jaws that produce perfect crimping every time. Other people recommended some cheaper alternatives but I went with none of those options, I got this Paron branded crimping tool, from banggood which sent the product for free for this review.

This particular crimping tool is model number JX-D5 and has a total of 5 crimping dies in the kit, allowing you to crimp a good majority of the crimps you will encounter and this was the thing that really made me wanna order this tool because I don’t want to keep 5 different crimping tools, it’s more convenient to have one of these with interchangeable heads.

Voltlog #221 – Harvesting Electronic Components With a 3-Axis Gimbal

Hello everyone, welcome to a new Voltlog, this time it’s a bit different, I’m out in the nature, enjoying this beautiful day in the mountains and i want to show you something. So I’ve been hearing that there are certain areas here in Romania which may have been subjected to high levels of nuclear radiation, it might be related to the Chernobyl accident from 1986 but I’m not sure.

There are stories from people saying that they’ve encountered trees in certain areas growing strange fruits or items that you shouldn’t normally find in the nature. And I think I might have encountered such a tree, here on this trail hike.

Voltlog #215 – Is a genuine Hakko T12 tip much better than fake one?

A while ago in voltlog #186, I compared the TS100 soldering iron to the STM32 T12 based soldering station and the results were pretty interesting to watch, if you haven’t seen that video there will be a link in the video.

As we all know the market is flooded with counterfeit or replacements for hakko products. So I’ve always wondered how does a genuine T12 cartridge tip compare to a replacement or fake hakko tip. So today, we’re going to test a genuine T12 tip vs a replacement one. This is my genuine tip, I got it from an authorised reseller, the cost was $20, shipping excluded. As you might notice it says T15 on the packaging but don’t worry there is no difference between T12 and T15 tips, except they use a different part number depending of the markets. T15 for EU and US markets and T12 for Asia as far as I know.

Voltlog #214 – How bad is a fake apple lightning to 3.5mm audio adapter?

Welcome to a new voltlog, today we’re taking a look at these lightning to 3.5mm audio adapters that you have to use ever since apple removed the 3.5mm jack on the iphone. So you know the story, apple removed the jack and said it’s because they will free-up space inside the phone and it makes it more waterproof but if you ask me that’s bullshit, they removed it to force people to buy bluetooth headphones. But anyway we won’t go into that, this video is about the adapter that they now give people to still be able to use the 3.5mm jack for audio.

This made me wanna take a closer look so here are the two adapters, the plan is to connect a 3.5mm jack, this will provide me with some contacts where I can probe with the oscilloscope. I’m gonna generate a known constant waveform from an app and we’re going to measure that and compare between the two adapters.