EEVblog #668 - Mailbag + FLIR TG165

Help beat Congenital Muscular Dystrophy:

A look at the FLIR TG-165 visual spot thermometer and (unfair) comparison with the FLIR E8 thermal camera.
Comparison with the Fluke VT02 / VT04 and FLIR ONE

High density Mitra 125 16KB magnetic core ferrite memory from the 1970's

Eric LPRS low power radio modules:

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

[electronalchemy]

Some advice for Charlie, and his mum and dad. Amateur radio is a *great* way forward for younger people who don't have the option of school or college courses available to them. Not only are there many educational books, but you will almost certainly have a local amateur radio society near you, where they will be more than pleased to pass on help and advice, and I'm sure can help out with components. I got my ham radio "ticket" when I was 17, and should have gone for it earlier!  Having a radio callsign on your work resumé (or C.V.) is often a better way "in" to a job interview than any number of exams and qualifications. People in electronics will see it and know that you have "walked the walk" for some considerable time, and it sets you apart from all those people with just theory. All the best mate!

[jebsaekam]

Real mailbag starts at 18:45.  I think the Flur product review should have been relegated to a separate segment.

[buckmanentertainment]

Hi Dave,

I have been watching your videos for a long time and you remind me a lot of my own father, he was not into the design stuff but he used to fix TVs, radios, video recorders (including Umat) and goodness knows what else, he started in his late 20's back when everything was huge and back breaking to lift.

He passed away back in 1998 and thanks to your videos it keeps him a live in my mind and reminds me of all the hours I spent just watching him and picking things up from him, sadly I never got into it much myself but one day I would love to meet you and thank you in person for everything you do for all of us.

Regards,

Stephen (Melbourne Vic)

[kevtris]

I bought two of these core memory boards off of ebay, and I managed to get them to work and dump the existing data in them.  I made a PIC based "core memory" exerciser to test every core.  yes they all worked!  It's 16K*18 bits (and is designed as a 16K*20 board but only 18 bits worth is stuffed).   My board had defective tantalums and a TTL chip but I fixed these.  All the chips on the core board are diode arrays, btw.  I also drew a schematic out of that board.

[TheRealFOSFOR]

I don't really see the big difference in a "real" thermal camera and this "visual thermometer". Both show a thermal view and both gives the temperature of the cursor area... I guess a thermal camera makes a more precise target.

[FrodeLøtvedt]

You where beeing a little unfair with the FLIR TG165 in comparison with the ten times more expensive E8 when looking at electronics. I think the little TG165 was doing a nice job for that purpose.

[BuysDB]

Wow. Amazing memory board, fantastic retro technology! Thanks so much for showing it!

[GadgetAddict]

Dave, how come you rarely use that fancy tegano scope of yours? 

[fuzzydk]

I seem to remember a tablet (acer?) that also had a 5.35V charger, apparently the higher voltage was used to signal 2A dedicated charger current. Lots of complaints that it would only charge very slowly from anything but the original charger

[electronicsNmore]

I have to look for a good deal on a FLIR. I have wanted one for a while now. :-)

[pjshots]

Loving the mailbag as always Dave, esp the ferrite core memory board!

[batterydudellc]

Another great mail bag, I love when the old gear comes in!!

[CodeMasterRapture]

For kids and EE stuff, I have both of my kids involved in local hacker-spaces and coding academies.  Been fantastic for them both socially and educationally.  I would recommend it to any parents looking to get their kids interested.

[twocvbloke]

Alexander M. Poniatoff (A-M-P plus EX for Excellence) must have been amazed going from making motors and generators to constructing memory boards for space shuttles, incredible to think that they used to do all kinds of computery things with that kind of technology, and even moreso that we're going back to that kind of memory storage with SSDs and the like... :D

[oriole]

Regarding core memory, it's neither bits nor bytes - it's 16k words from what he said. Each word being 18 bits, so 16k x 18 = 288, 000 cores. 16Kbits would only be 16, 000 cores of course. It's funny though since because of the density, it's unguessable as to how many there are just by looking haha. 16K? 100K? Sure, I'll believe it. ;) As far as I'm concerned it's just "a lot". ;) Fun segment all around Dave!

[jtsiomb]

It's neither 16k bits nor 16k bytes. The letter said it's 16k words of 18 bits each. 16 of which are used for actual data, plus 1 parity bit, and 1 "protection bit"(?).

[TheSkogemann]

Regarding the FLIR charger - i just got my new Samsung S5 today and the USB-charger was also rated 5.35 Volts (2.0A).
Curiously, i checked some of my older chargers for Samsung phones, some of the newer ones are also rated like that.

[photopuppet]

Loving the new parcel opening tool for mailbags...

[PlasmaHH]

traditional fresnel? I own several IR thermometers and I have never seen one from the outside, but I have yet to take them apart... they all have some greenish or reddish tinted glass in front of the sensor. I would bet they are all real lenses. Maybe a sign of quality?

[Ivo--]

WOW that core memory is the most amazing I've ever seen!