Tag: Silicone Mat

InTheMail | Voltlog #437

Welcome to a new edition of InTheMail, where we unbox and explore the latest additions to my ever-growing collection of electronics gadgets and tools. This time around, we’ve got a diverse array of items, from smart home devices to specialized tools for electronics enthusiasts. First up, we have the Aqara Magic Cube, a nifty little Zigbee switch that can be programmed to trigger various actions in your home automation setup.

With its built-in accelerometer, you can simply flip, rotate, or shake the cube to adjust things like lighting or appliances. I’m excited to integrate this into my smart home system and ditch those pesky wall switches. Next, we’ve got a fingerprint lock that I plan to install on a cabinet or drawer. While not meant for high-security applications, it’s a convenient way to keep certain items private without the need for a physical key.

The build quality seems decent, and the external power port is a handy feature. For my electronics workbench, I’ve acquired a silicone mat, clean room wipes, and various cleaning brushes. The mat will provide a nice, non-slip surface for my new digital microscope, while the wipes and brushes will help keep my workspace spotless.

Speaking of microscopes, I’ve also picked up a set of AWG32 stranded wires in various colors. These ultra-thin wires will come in handy for intricate repairs, modifications, and bodges on PCBs. One item that caught my eye is an ingenious Apple AirTag mount designed to fit seamlessly into a bicycle’s water bottle cage.

This clever hiding spot should deter thieves from spotting the AirTag, making it an effective anti-theft solution for my bike. For my electronics tinkering needs, I’ve acquired a set of RFM95W LoRa modules and a DSLogic Plus logic analyzer. The LoRa modules will be useful for wireless projects, while the logic analyzer will allow me to analyze and debug complex digital circuits with its impressive 400MHz sampling rate and 16-channel capability.

Last but not least, I’ve got a unique ESP32-based WiFi display unit that pulls data like weather and time from the internet. While primarily a demo unit, it’s a cool hardware platform that could be repurposed for various smart sensor network applications.

InTheMail | Voltlog #424

Welcome to a new InTheMail, the most popular segment hosted here on the channel. Lots of interesting gadgets have been piling up in my special bin so let’s take a look at them.

I’m gonna start the video with this small silicone mat, I’m sure you are familiar with these. I just wanted a smaller one that I could fit on the work surface of my microscope. This is my trinocular microscope, if you are a subscriber of the channel you’ve probably seen it before, I reviewed it in Voltlog #282 and I did a few upgrades since then on its video camera system. I sometimes do soldering right here, on this work surface so it would be nice to have a small silicone mat to help with that and I found this model on Aliexpress, it’s a good size for this purpose, just a little too thin for my taste, I expect this to bulge immediately under the action of the hot air gun but other than that, I think it should do the job and it was very inexpensive to purchase. Same as always you will find links for all of the items shown in this video in the description below.

Next up I have a couple of interesting display modules that caught my attention while casually browsing through the recommended products list. This one is a 1.69inch TFT display with 240×280 pixels resolution so it’s a fairly densely packed panel, based on the st7789v2 controller IC. You can get this as a panel or as a breakout module like I have here. I opted for the breakout panel so that I could easily test this and hook it up to a dev board. It seems like it’s wired for a SPI interface on this breakout board and I guess the main features of this display panel are its thin bezels left, right and top, you ofcourse need a little thicker bezel for the side where the flat flex is located, because there you have the driver IC, the backlight plus the bonding of the flat flex.

As you can see in this quick demo I prepared, it looks very nice, much better than your typical aliexpress 2 inch tft panel so I think we’ll be seeing more projects using these popping up on the internet.

The next display comes from the same company making these breakout boards, and it’s a 2.13 inch 122×250 pixels resolution, TFT white and black display based on the st7302 controller IC. They say it’s targeted for low power applications. I don’t think there is any backlight on this one so it’s a reflective type display. Interface is once again SPI and you can get this as a bare lcd panel or as a breakout board like I have here. I thought the format of this display is pretty interesting and once again I think we’ll be seeing some more projects using these popping up on the internet.

Next up I got myself another one of these cheap, compact side cutters, I’ve been using these for a while for various jobs, I recently gave one to a friend so I needed a replacement. They’re not the best quality but they’re decent enough and I like the form factor a lot. Useful for cutting off through hole component terminals but also for the small size wires and other miscellaneous stuff. Do yourself a favor and order 2 of these.

Next I got one of these which is like a rust cleaning fiber pen, the way this works is you spin this cap which pushes some fiber bundle through the tip of the pen, those are pretty abrasive and so you can use it to rub off superficial rust of small items like jewlery, watches, but what I thought this could be useful for is ofcourse electronics, PCBs, where you need to clean some burn marks or something like that. I’m not sure how long those fibers are, or how long this is going to last but I thought it would be a nice addition to my set of cleaning tools. Links for this are in the description below the video so check them out.

Voltlog #283 – InTheMail

Welcome to a new InTheMail, the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time. Before I get started I’m gonna take a second to remind you to subscribe to the channel and hit the bell notification icon because that’s the only way you will know for sure when I upload new videos. I’m gonna start with an item that’s actually disappointing, this is a mini portable vacuum cleaner but I only realized this after receiving the item, because the seller of this item was advertising this as a dust blower vacuum cleaner, it’s the usual keyword stuffing that aliexpress sellers do.

Voltlog #269 – 11.11 Shopping Suggestions For Makers

Welcome to a new Voltlog, it’s November and that means the biggest shopping event happening in Asia is coming up, I’m talking about the 11th of november. There are some numbers published for last years event and it seems they registered more than 30 billion in 24 hours in sales, yes you heard right, billions. So it’s a very big event with nice discounts and opportunities for makers like us to get some new gear. That’s why I prepared this video which will be published 1-2 days before the event so you can get some ideas of stuff that you could purchase. I assembled a list, these are products that I’ve tested and used myself which I think are good value for money and a nice addition to any hobbyist lab.

Voltlog #194 – Gift Ideas For Makers – Christmas 2018

Welcome to a new voltlog, so december is coming up and some of you might be thinking what gifts you could offer to your loved ones. I thought I’d share my ideas and what I would like to receive as a maker or hobbyist. The criteria for choosing these items were mainly to be decent quality products, at affordable prices and be things that a maker would later use in his projects. As usual you will find links in the description on the video on youtube to places where you can order these online.

So these are my recommendations for you, I would for example be happy to receive any of the above and that’s how I made this list, thinking about what I would be happy to receive or what would be really useful and fund at the same time for a maker. Let me know in the comments below if the list helped you in any way to choose the right gift for someone. Thank you for watching!