EEVblog 1551 - DESTROYED Ukrainian Starlink PCB! - Mailbag

Looking at a Ukrainian Starlink dish PCB that was DESTROYED by shrapnel!

00:00 - Ukrainian Starlink dish PCB that was DESTROYED by shrapnel!
15:18 - Snaptron Solderable tactile PCB Domes

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#ElectronicsCreators #Starlink

[todesgeber]

so in the middle of a war somebody saw that and thought "holy crap, i should send this to Dave at EEVBlog!"

noice! very cool.

[ortzinator]

I love that it's literally blown up but he still wrapped it carefully in bubble wrap lol

[olegslab]

Thank you for the video.

Round Dishy - older design.
Rectangular - newer, simplified and cheaper in production.

[bill]

I've been using SnapTron domes for about 30 years, some stainless steel but most were gold plated. If you want to put a clear self-adhesive sheet over them to attach them to a PCB and to keep out dirt, on your PCB layout be sure to include a small vent hole under the dome. Otherwise, when someone attempts to press the button, the trapped air will compress and produce some backpressure. For some applications, this wouldn't matter but for others it would. For example, I once made a PCB with a tiny 4mm snap dome that was to be pressed by a pressure diaphragm and it was supposed to activate at a certain force, let's say 50 grams. Without the vent, and depending also on ambient temperature, the force required to activate the snap dome might climb to 100g. By adding the air vent under the dome, the activation force was much more consistent.

[swp]

9:48 -- I think the small holes are to allow for pressure balancing due to temperature fluctuations.

[dimsumguy]

H patch is for circular Polarization of the send/receive signal. H patch will determine either Horizontal or Vertical frequency

[hebulba]

I would not consider the H-slots in at 13:30 to be the "antennas". They are slots (two polarizations) in the ground plane that couple to the RF from a strip below the ground plane to the next layer, circular patches, which then couple to the circular patches with notches. I would consider the whole stack of patches with the coupling slots to be the antenna. Search for "aperture coupled patch" for more information.

[alexscarbro]

The holes in the antenna director patch array are probably for pressure equalisation when being transported by air.

[mikeissweet]

Amazing engineering in those Starlink antennas!

[decibel_tastic]

Up and down are usually opposite polarities to maximise isolation by virtue of XPI (Cross Polar Isolation). Circular is a pre-requisite for LEO as Linear would require continual skewing as the satellite tracks overhead. Fascinating to see the v2 antenna design adopt the cheaper transparent PTFE (?) sheet material, as used 30 years ago in the original BSB Squarial (made in UK). I fancy the clover-leaf patch and circle patch act to both translate the Circular wavefront to linear and provide directive gain in the cell. Awesome kit. Well done Starlink for supporting freedom. Glory to Ukraine.

[L.Lagrange]

8:50 Bro they are so worried about noise that they even use curved traces on their block diagram

[mdjey]

Borsch fridge magnet got me. Nice one. Stay safe fellow Ukrainians. Greetings from Latvia! 🐞🐞🐞

[FunkyDisco]

2:19 Dave Jones: War in Ukraine is a laughing matter.

[eumenius]

What an amazing piece of engineering, and what a sad cause to get acquainted with its intricacies!

[watchitrunning]

The chocolate is from Lviv. It's known for good chocolate. Not sure about this particular one but the other ones I tried was pretty good.

[Smitua]

Hi Dave) I am from Ukraine and i love you video ❤❤❤ thig of beauty joy forever ❤❤❤

[colormaker]

I looked as these a year ago and could not get samples. Both Mouser and Digikey were non-stock items. hopefully they have gained in popularity and will be available in smaller quantities. We request Snaptron for all our membrane switch purchase orders.

[Spookieham]

Starlink unfortunately can't survive Australia. We have tried multiple ones for comms at an industrial site outside Perth and they keep failing. Very frustrating as 4g isn't up to snuff and other solutions are crap.

[MoritzvonSchweinitz]

There must be tons of very interesting ex top secret electronic scrap sadly littering Ukraine right now! Might be super interesting to get some teardowns of military electronics!

[cinobro]

Let's see Paul Allen's PCB...