EEVblog 1391 - Mailbag

More mailbag!

SPOILERS:
00:00 - Panasonic S-VHS DP200 camcorder
08:23 - Home lab: Andrew Tayman
12:25 - Casio G-SHOCK Mudmaster watch teardown
24:44 - Modul Bus LCR substitution box and RT100 valve prototyping breadboard
32:16 - eDesign Miniware MHP30 Mini BGA pre-heater
40:16 - The Snapistor!
46:53 - EPM3081 landscape format $10 pocket multimeter
50:12 - Ceramic hybrid mystery PCB
53:50 - MagicDAQ data aquisition system suitable for production testing

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#Mailbag #ElectronicsCreators

[Arek_R.]

*WOW TIMESTAMPS FOR EACH ITEM :O*
Now I can skip right to the clickbait!

[BenHeckHacks]

That would have been a pretty sweet camcorder back in the day!

[ytcommenter]

I want to see the next episode recorded on that panasonic camcorder.

[cornflake]

The Snapistor is both brilliant and ridiculous at the same time 🤪

[jeremiefaucher-goulet]

Yes you are THAT predictible. So much that many other Youtubers have taken up your expressions and uses them while citing you ;)

[AjinkyaMahajan]

Snapistor was a new component I just learned about.
thanks

[damowdotnet]

They describe the MHP30 as a preheater but honestly I have a bunch of aluminium blocks that are the same height as it (to sit the board on and slide it around) and it’s fantastic for reflowing/soldering basic small PCBs. I love it. Very convenient.

[maxtorque]

The reason they used that ceramic hybrid pcb is clearly because they hadn't heard of Snapistors!!!! :-)

[petersage]

I especially love how the speaker on that camcorder is placed right next to the ear. Somebody clearly had wrapped their head around how the machine wraps around your head.

[max_kl]

Apparently, KainkaLabs was founded by Burkhard Kainka who also designed a few electronics kits for kids which were popular in Germany. One of these was a major reason for my interest in electronics and for me studying electrical engineering. Fascinating!

[oldguy]

About the G-Shock Mudmaster (Model: GWG-1000):
It's one of the more expensive G-Shock "master" models and apart from its ruggedness it's pretty much fully featured including solar power, atomic time, compass, altimeter, barometer and thermometer (not isolated, it heats up when wearing) and a sapphire glass.
The LED illumination is one of the best available as it not only illuminates the mechanical watch face but also the display. It's very easy to read under all conditions.
While it is certainly a beast of a watch it is actually quite comfortable to wear thanks to the wristband parts you didn't get. You can operate the big buttons with gloves.

Some annotations to the teardown:
- 13:05 The knob on the right is not a sensor but simply the crown. A bit fancy as it can be secured, but not connected electrically. A temp sensor wouldn't make sense if you think on it for a moment. To remove the crown safely you need to push a needle/pin in a certain hole in the backside of the module. You butchered it, though.


- 14:40 The two little gold colored springs aren't for the piezo transducer but simply make contact to the copper(?) insert in the back plate to sense if it is removed (then the watch disables its sensors etc.). There is a separate silvery spring for the piezo on the other side of the rechargeable battery.
- 14:50 The gray rubber part is meant to protect the ribbon connector for the left-hand sensor array. It doesn't secure the battery.
- 20:15 The part jumping out isn't the crystal but the RF antenna. You can see the backside of the coil at 20:42. The crystal is bit to the side of the main chippy.

- 21:00 The display isn't an OLED but a simple LCD - simply for power consumption reasons (it needs to be illuminated by a white LED in the dark). It's inverted to fit the "tactical style", making it look like an OLED, though.

[jeffm]

I watch most videos at 1.5 - 1.75x speed and they appear pretty Normal. If I watch one of Dave's video's at 1.5x it's like watching squirrels on crack.

[nnsda]

Wow that LCR box is so nice inside it should be in a clear case

[JerryBiehler]

Putting it on ceramic means you can do automated laser trim as whole circuit. The company I work for makes a machine specifically for doing this, well, we did until we sold the trim division off last year. We also made machines that laser trimmed IC dies like what you would see in DAC and ADCs.

[micsky]

That pot is definitely an add in by someone along with the XLR. I spotted an extra switch also that was not stock.

[uwezimmermann]

I used "inverted snapistors" in the past - soldering several 0805s on top of each other until I got the desired value of resistance...

[RealZomBiE]

Snapistor is actually Swedish origin from the '60's. I remember those from my tradeschool. Never used ones, but funny little curiosity. CerMet trimmers in mid nineties were so cheap that those went obsolete.

[ramsaygordon]

I have to stop watching for a second to appreciate the accuracy of that autofocus there 2:13 😨

[danielegger]

The MHP30 is described as a preheater but it's a totally usable hotplate for reflowing. Works much better than my (defunct) ReflowR did and the small size is actually a huge benefit since you don't need to mask off half of the board you actually don't want to fry the components on; it's brilliant!

[frankowalker]

I worked in a small indie studio in the 80's, we used one of those camcorders. In the studio, it was camera 3, but it was also perfect for location work. We did corperate vids, promo work and the occasional music vid for local bands. It was great picture quality.