Category: Soldering

InTheMail | Voltlog #444

In the latest installment of the popular “InTheMail” series, tech enthusiasts are treated to a diverse array of electronics and accessories straight from the mailbag. From compact chargers and carry cases to specialized tools and sensors, this episode covers a wide range of products that cater to various needs.

Kicking things off is the VOLTME dual USB Type-C phone charger, a compact and powerful solution for charging multiple devices simultaneously. Its small form factor and GaN technology make it an ideal travel companion. Next up are EVA hard shell cases, offering protection for soldering irons and oscilloscopes during transportation.

The Ulanzi VL49 RGB LED light is a versatile addition for photography and videography, boasting impressive specs like high CRI, adjustable color temperature, and long battery life. The episode also showcases a learning RF remote control with an impressive frequency range, perfect for hobbyists and tinkerers.

For those in need of cable management solutions, the video covers keyrings, USB cables (including right-angle and USB Type-B variants), and silicone-insulated cables designed for soldering applications. Fiberglass cable insulation rated for high temperatures is also highlighted, catering to projects involving hot environments.

The mailbag also unveils a hidden GPS tracking device with 4G support and an upgraded USB-to-CAN adapter for CAN bus interfacing. Specialized tools like a BNC T-split connector and ceramic heating plates are also explored, offering potential applications in electronics and temperature control projects.

Finally, the episode touches on a radar sensor module and a waterproof temperature/humidity sensor, both useful for home automation and outdoor sensing applications.

InTheMail | Voltlog #439

Happy New Year, fellow electronics enthusiasts! Kicking off 2023 with a bang, we have an exciting InTheMail video packed with intriguing finds from the realms of Aliexpress. While the holiday season allowed for some well-deserved family time, the shopping spree continued unabated, and the latest haul promises to delight and inspire.

Among the highlights is the Merry Pet BLE Cat Toy, a smart, motorized ball that connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth, allowing you to control its movements and drive your feline friends into a frenzy of playful chaos. For those seeking to keep tabs on their belongings, the Apple AirTag Holder Keychain offers a discreet solution, while the Multimeter Magnetic Strap and Long Head Marker cater to the needs of professionals in the field.

Continuing the theme of practicality, the Fizz Utility Knife and Arduino Nano Clones (LGT8F328 and LGT8F328P) provide reliable tools for various projects. The Soft Cloth Bag ensures your delicate instruments remain dust-free, while the array of Radar Sensors (HLK-LD2410m, HLK-LD1115H, HLK-LD1125H-24G, HLK-LD303, HLK-LD116-24G, and HLK-LD116S) open up exciting possibilities for experimentation.

For those venturing into the world of long-range wireless communication, the Lora Module SX1262 RA-01 and the LUATOS AIR32F103 Dev Board offer intriguing options. The USB-C Silicone Charging Cable, Plastic Organizer, and EVA Storage Case for Soldering Iron round out the haul, ensuring your workspace remains tidy and your tools well-protected.

InTheMail | Voltlog #435

Welcome to another exciting edition of InTheMail, where we unbox and explore the latest arrivals in the world of electronics! This time around, we’ve got a diverse array of gadgets and components that are sure to pique your interest. Kicking things off is a compact and versatile COB pocket flashlight that caught our attention with its sleek design and multifunctional features.

Boasting a rechargeable battery, USB-C charging, and a magnetic carabiner attachment, this little powerhouse is perfect for outdoor adventures or everyday use. Next up, we dive into the world of workbench organization with a tool holder rack. While the execution left something to be desired, the concept itself is a game-changer for keeping your tools neatly arranged and within reach.

For all your wire stripping needs, we’ve got the BEST brand BST-5021 tool, which promises to handle a wide range of wire gauges with ease. Pair it with its companion, the BST-5023, and you’ll be fully equipped for any wiring job that comes your way. Switching gears, we explore the realm of sewing with a set of extra-strong nylon upholstery threads, perfect for tackling outdoor projects or heavy-duty materials.

And for those adventurous kitesurf enthusiasts, we’ve got a waterproof pouch to keep your valuables safe and dry while you’re out on the water. Continuing our exploration, we showcase a multimeter belt clip that proved invaluable during a recent field job, ensuring your hands are free to work while your tools remain securely within reach.

We also delve into the world of magnetic field visualization with a tiny film that, while underwhelming in size, still sparks curiosity. Rounding out our mailbag are an array of exciting components, including paper insulating washers, waterproof panel indicator lights, a 433MHz wireless communication module, and compact mono amplifiers perfect for audio projects.

We even venture into the realm of mmWave radar sensors and a four-quadrant photodiode array, opening up new possibilities for experimentation and innovation. Last but not least, we unveil a set of copper pads designed for PCB repair, a must-have for any electronics enthusiast or professional tackling delicate soldering work.

Andonstar AD409 PCB Inspection Rework Microscope | Voltlog #434

In this comprehensive review, we take an in-depth look at the Andonstar AD409 digital microscope, a versatile tool designed for PCB inspection and rework tasks on the electronics workbench. With its compact and ergonomic design, this microscope offers a convenient alternative to traditional trinocular microscopes, while still providing high-quality imaging capabilities.

The AD409 comes well-packaged and assembling it is a straightforward process, requiring no user manual. The build quality is decent, with a sliding mechanism that allows for height adjustment, although not as smooth as one might desire. The wiring setup is optimized, with a combo power cable that powers both the LED lights and the monitor/camera system, reducing cable clutter.

One notable feature is the 10.1-inch monitor with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels, delivering a crisp and clear image. The 4MP camera captures high-resolution images and videos, and the inclusion of a UV filter helps protect the lens from scratches and dust. The working distance of around 7cm (2.5 inches) may be a bit tight for some soldering tasks, but a clever trick allows you to increase the working distance by sliding the camera up, providing a more comfortable working space.

The included remote control, while not as responsive as one might hope, is a handy addition, allowing you to capture images and videos without disturbing the camera’s position. Image and video recording is facilitated by a micro SD card slot (up to 32GB supported), and the on-screen display menu provides access to various camera settings and adjustments.

One intriguing feature is the experimental Wi-Fi connectivity, which allows you to connect the microscope to a mobile app (available for iOS and Android) for live viewing and image/video transfer. While not fully implemented yet, this could be a useful addition for those who need to incorporate captured media into their workflows.

In conclusion, the Andonstar AD409 digital microscope is a highly recommended choice for those seeking an ergonomic and space-saving solution for PCB inspection and rework tasks. While it may not match the stereoscopic depth perception of a trinocular microscope, its compact design, clear imaging, and convenient features make it an excellent option for hobbyists and professionals alike.

VoltLink Shelly Adapter Test Jig | Voltlog #426

Welcome to a new video it’s been a while since I’ve done a project video on the channel and it’s not that I’ve not done any projects, I’ve designed lots of things this year it’s just that they’re part of my consulting business, under an NDA so they can’t be shared.

You may be familiar with the VoltLink, the usb to serial adapter that I designed a while ago, it’s quite popular on my Tindie store with lots of orders coming in and for good reason if you ask me, this is an awesome, reliable usb to serial adapter. To extend its functionality I also created this Shelly relay adapter which can be used to flash shelly relays, in a safe and reliable way by also powering the relay during the flashing procedure so you don’t need to have it connected to mains.

If you would like to order a VoltLink, you can find these on my Tindie store, there will be a link in the description of the video so check it out.

So far I haven’t any issues, not one single module with problems and I’ve probably made several hundreds of these. It’s a pretty simple design in terms of PCB, the components are 0603 so there isn’t much that can go wrong but recently I’ve started thinking about testing these.

Now the topic of test jigs and testing electronics in general can get pretty deep, especially if you need to implement it in the manufacturing process and keep track of the test results in an automated fashion but for hobby level it can be much simpler.

For example, depending on the number of units you manufacture, you can also skip testing all together, because if I sell 100 boards and 1 of them ends up defective, I can live with that 1 failure rate and I can cover the cost of shipping another board to that customer and all of this with zero resources wasted testing these but at the expense of one unhappy customer who needs to wait for another unit to be shipped.

So mainly for me that was the main factor for wanting to test these, to avoid having unhappy customers that might end up getting a bad unit. And I don’t really need to test for all of the things working, I just need to figure out if I have a working connection from the USB side all the way up to the shelly relay  and also verify that the path can be used to communicate over serial and toggle the reset lines.

This kind of test would eliminate for example a lot of the most common issue like soldering problems with the USB Type-C connector or with the QFN chip, or with the PCB copper layers, or with the JST-SH pigtail connecting the adapter board, or soldering issues on the small adapter board so all of these would be eliminated.

So here is what I came up with, a series of 6 total shelly adapters, chained together in series with an ESP32 at the end of the chain. I would be connecting a VoltLink at the start of the chain, UART signal would then go through 6 of these adapters, connectors, pigtails and it would end up at the ESP32 side for either flashing the ESP32 or writing a small test firmware that would just communicate over serial to verify the whole chain is connected correctly.

Best Upgrade For The Best Hot Air Station | Voltlog #422

Welcome to a new Voltlog, today I’m gonna be showing you what I believe is the Best upgrade that you can do to your Best 863 hot air station and if you remember Voltlog #256. That’s where I did a review of this hot air station, been using it ever since 2019, so that’s about 3 years of service so far, it’s been working great but with the obvious downsides of having this touch screen panel for settings and with the annoying buzzer that you cannot turn off from this standard interface. I mean it takes a lot of button presses even for a simple temperature adjustment and it’s beep beep all the way for every single step.

Well it turns out that someone thought enough is enough and designed a replacement control panel for this station, one that offers a more classic input method through potentiometers for the most important parameters temperature and air speed, offers control over the buzzer but still keeps the touch input if you need to alter any of the other settings and all of this can be ordered as a kit from Tindie which is pretty awesome if you ask me.

If you are interested in ordering your BST-863 hot air station or the upgrade kit which I highly recommend you get for the best experience with this station There will be some links in the description below the video so check them out.

You have two options when ordering this kit from tindie, you can either get it as a KIT which is what I have here or you can get it fully assembled for an extra $10. The Kit version comes with a PCB that has all of the SMT components fully populated but there are a few through hole parts that you will need to solder yourself. I think the author has done a really good job at packing and organizing the different components, Even the resistors come on this little card that shows you where they should be positioned on the PCB. The kit also includes all of the required mounting hardware as well as a sticker for the front panel potentiometers. The package was shipped from Portugal and it got here pretty fast. In fact I’ve had this on my desk for a good while, i’ve just been very busy and unable to install it so far.

VoltLink revD USB Serial Bridge & ESP32 Programmer | Voltlog #414

Ever since I’ve started offering the option for the Shelly programming cable, lots of people have ordered one because it makes the job of flashing an otherwise dangerously mains connected relay very safe by not having to power it from mains, but just supply it with DC power from the VoltLink itself.

But this video is not about that, it’s about the latest revision D of the board, the changes that it contains and some future plans.

So as you may have noticed there is no power LED on the VoltLink and to be honest for my personal use case I don’t really need one but I do understand people that want a power status LED so that they get a quick glimpse of whether the board has power or not.

Personally I think that because the VoltLink is so reliable in operation, the power LED is redundant but I do remember the times when I was using other cheap usb to serial adapters, there were the occasional issues with the micro usb connectors failing, with the on board chip failing, so it was nice to be able to see that you still got power to the board at least. Nonetheless, I added one to the new revision, placed it right next to the USB connector.

Now because I added these two extra components to my schematic, the LED and the resistor, I decided to switch to a resistor network to replace 4 x 1kilohm resistors with a single package to further optimize my BOM cost and DFM.

Another small change I did was to bump the 4.7uF decoupling capacitor on the USB to serial chip to 10uF because I was already using that value at the output of the voltage regulator. This once again, optimizes my BOM for using less parts as this will become important later.

And while I was revising the PCB, I also switched to these nice labels created with the Kibuzzard plugin for Kicad. No extra functionality because of these, but they do look nice.

USB Type-C Power Delivery The Easy Way! | Voltlog #411

You would think that implementing USB Type-C Power Delivery protocol on your upstream facing port  is a difficult task and if I would ask you if you can also support Qualcomm quick charge on top of that, the issue is even more complicated and you would probably be right to think so if you wanted to implement all of this by yourself but luckily you don’t have to, because there are dedicated chips that can do all of this and in this video I’m gonna show you how to use them.

So recently I started working on a project which needs USB Type-C Power Delivery input for negotiating 5 and 12V, it would be nice to also support Quick Charge, I basically need the capability to power my board from a standard phone charger with either Power Delivery or Quick Charge support. This will be an open source project, but I’ll talk about it in a future video after I build the first prototype.

Now to understand more about USB Type-C and the different power roles like Downstream Facing Port, Upstream Facing Port or Dual Role Port I suggest you check out this neat application note from TexasInstruments which is called “a primer on USB Type-C and Power Delivery” I will put a link to this in the description below and if all of this is new to you, it will help you understand how things are organized under USB Type-C.

What I need is the ability to sink up to 3A with 5V or 12V selectable voltage levels into my board, so that fits under an Upstream Facing Port definition and I wasn’t going to start implementing the power delivery negotiation protocol, it’s just not worth the effort when there are chips, specifically designed to do that. After a bit of research I have identified a company named Legendary Technologies from Shenzhen,  they seem to specialize in building these chips that provide USB Type-C negotiation for various roles. I have contacted them and I’ve been in touch with one of their applications engineers, they’ve been very supportive and have provided me with samples and support for implementing their chip which is very nice. I appreciate that kind of support and it helped me decide to use their chip in my design.

Expand your GPIO! PCF8574 & MCP23008 | Voltlog #409

Welcome to another Voltlog, in this video we’re going to take a look at an easy way of adding more GPIOs to your project because if you’ve been tinkering with electronics at some point sooner or later you’re going to need more GPIOS than what’s available from your microcontroller.

Sometimes manufacturers do offer a higher pin count package with more GPIOs with approximately the same CPU inside but in the case of an ESP32 module for example, that’s all you get and if you need more than you are out of luck as far as options from the manufacturer. And even if the manufacturer does offer a higher pin count option, those are usually more expensive and given the current chip shortage that we’re going through, they might not be available for purchase.

I had such a need recently for a design of mine so I decided to do this video to show you an option that you can use for expanding the GPIO capability of your circuit. In my case it was the ESP32 thermostat valve controller circuit, which makes use of pretty much all of the available GPIO so if I wanted to add some extra output channels I have no more available GPIO.

Luckily this problem is not new, it has been around since the introduction of digital processors so there is a very convenient solution to our problem in the form of GPIO expanders. They can come in many shapes and sizes but the key feature is that they usually take a serial input which means a low pin count for the input and they provide a number of different outputs depending on the package. So here is for example the datasheet for a very popular GPIO expander chip, this is the PCF8574, the datasheet is from NXP but this is manufactured by different companies and this is a big plus because there is a higher chance of finding these in stock.

Global Chip Shortage Solution Or Maybe Not? | Voltlog #406

Welcome to a new Voltlog, In this video I’m gonna show you one potential solution if your design uses a part that you can’t source anymore due to the global chip shortage but also the pitfalls of using this method in the case of a dc-dc converter. Please keep in mind that actual price per unit or stock availability will vary between the point I started working on this video which is a couple of months ago, the actual time when I publish it or the time that you are watching it.

Let me start with providing you a bit of context here, this is the CanLite, an ESP32 based design that I sell on my Tindie store. It’s a CAN development board, it’s got a couple of high side switches, a CAN interface, a powerful processor with Wifi Capability and an automotive rated DC_DC converter to allow the user to power this from a car 12V system.

The DC-DC converter chip that I’m using is the Texas Instruments LMR14006 and I’ve been pretty happy with using dc-dc controllers from TI over the years because they generally perform really well and they have good documentation and design resources available.

Now as you all know the chip shortage has not been kind to us and as a result I can’t find this chip anymore. If we go to Octopart which is like a search engine for electronic components, we see there is no stock with any of the major distributors for the particular part number that I was using LMR14006XDDCR. And don’t get your hopes up with Winsource or Cytek, these guys just list stock for stuff that they don’t have and even if they have it, it’s not worth going through them unless you have a high volume.