EEVblog #661 - Mailbag

Mailbag Monday
Negative Feedback T-Shirts:
NOTE: Black shirt coming shortly, bug in Teespring site...

Spoliers & Links:
Programmable Constant Current Dummy Load:
Conrad Retro Radio Kits:
Evoke Flow WIFi Radio OLED Display Repair
MiniDSO Pocket Oscilloscope (a.k.a Seed Studio DSO Quad)
Silicate rock used in solar cell manufacture

EEVblog Amazon Store (Dave gets a cut):
Donations:
Projects:
Electronics Info Wiki:

[Tsl]

Nooo!
Silica = SiO2, e.g. quartz, etc.
Silicate = a compound including SiO2, e.g. olivine, (Mg, Fe)SiO3.
Silicon = elemental shiny stuff (that you're holding in your hands)
Silicone = gooey rubbery or oily stuff (that certain women sometimes use... *cough*)

Silica is used in semiconductors, usually as a glass (grown with the silicon by oxidation) or sputtered on top.  Elemental silicon does not occur naturally.  Of course, since silica is everywhere, it's not very important to refine silicon near the mines.

[markbell]

Naturally occurring native silicon is very rare and is found as very small crystals that form from volcanic gases - No big chunks.  All electronic grade silicon is separated from pure quartz sand (SiO2) by electrolysis and then reacted with chlorine to form trichlorosilane that is further purified by fractional distillation.  Finally the purified trichlorosilane is decomposed at high temperature yielding super-duper pure silicon.  I did this in college although not particularly pure.  Cheers, Mark

[Psychlist]

From your questions at the beginning: I like to see you do simple tear-downs during the mailbag. Otherwise, you'll never get to them. Also, just watching someone opening mail is a bit dry. It's like watching someone open presents on their birthday.

[MariaEngstrom]

Please keep the simple fast teardowns in the mailbag videos as now. :) 

[mikeissweet]

How you've been doing it is PERFECT. Mini teardowns to peek at the random gadgets you often receive, then more in-depth teardown videos for the complex, interesting stuff.

[michaelfogarty]

Liked the Extended Mailbag. My Friend  Wolfgang Slabbicki now gone nearly a year was very good at making up very simple circuits and had some published in an Australian electronic magazine ( Name of Magazine Slipped my Mind). Keep doing what your doing and I Enjoy seeing the tear downs. Thanks again. Michael Fogarty

[TheVideoGamesHistorian]

i do like the mini teardowns and yes an hour for mailbag should be the norm as its the most popular section people like. and thnx. gorra luv this show. you actually got me to buy lots of items and your vids have encouraged me to learn and i have now today brought back to life two old lcd monitors with bad caps. thank you.

[majorcode]

I trust your taste in format decisions, Dave. I discovered your channel a couple of months ago. And I've been binge watching past episodes ever since. It's been great watching earlier videos and seeing how you've made refinements. This is quality entertainment!

[arcadeuk]

LOL Dave, I think you missed the point of the LED strip driver. The common 12v LED strips on ebay are cut to length, so you wouldn't want to have current limiting, as the current is an unknown variable. The strips always have resistors on them. They are also pretty much always 12v hence why the board was marked 12v 

[jam]

I reckon most people like this format, Dave, because we love watching your reactions as you open up the goodies! It is great seeing how fast you identify what you have.

[ForViewingOnly]

I'm more in favour of mini-teardowns within the mailbag video if the item is not too complex...I was looking forward to Dave working out the four methods of tamper-proofing on that game cartridge. Don't keep us waiting too long Dave!

[ozasl]

Hi Dave, it is a solar grade silicon (Si) with the purity of 99.9999%! it is reduced from silica (SiO2, usually quartz or beach sand) via Siemens process. this particular piece you have should be in polycrystalline form before the single crystalline wafer production. The next step follows to the wafer production is further purifying it with a deposition process called molecular beam epitaxy, MBE (or ALD atomic layer deposition), then comes first the Czochralski single crystalline growth and zone melting for further purifying the Si-ingot to a crazy pure level! 
Cheers!

[Renegade]

I enjoy your mini tear downs in the mailbag section! Please keep doing them

[Rachel]

Hi Dave.  I really enjoy mailbag and I also enjoy seeing the post cards and stamps.  Please keep showing them!

[joshcryer]

This is absolutely the perfect format. You listen to your users and I think they know what's up. I honestly don't think I've even commented about what kind of format I'd like, but I like seeing you and your opening packages, then the closeup. I hope it's not too much for you, but I think the closeup package opening is unnecessary. You aren't unboxing, you're revealing totally random mailbags! This is really good.

And for what it's worth, the other format wasn't that bad, I think people were upset by the shortness of the last one. I think we want a good 45-50 minute show, to be honest. I don't know how that works for you monetarily, but if you catch up on the mailbag, you can do shorter ones afterward. Perhaps throw a teardown of an older mailbag into the mailbag and you're in like fin!

[andrewwatts]

I love this new format, lots of tidbits and enough time to talk about everything. ;)

[artmuz]

I really wish I knew 1/4 of what you know! I so enjoy trying to visualize what you are saying and doing. But yes keep 'em separate mate, (mailbag and tear down), Thank you for your precious time

[kyoudaiken]

Hey Dave.

Excellent Video! And your german understanding of written words is very good. No complains at all!

[murmaider]

I agree with you Dave, quick little items like the LED controller you can teardown on the mailbag, but anything big or complicated should be left for a separate video. the little things aren't worth their own video but its still cool to get a better look at them. And the 50 min video is great, kept me sane during my long gap between classes at uni.

[Bbogita]

Love the knife! I like seeing just the mail opened and not tear downs during the mailbag segment. Perhaps if you took 5 min stuff and combined them for a tear down video. Ie. multiple items per mail bag?