Articles

A water leak can cause surprisingly extensive damage in a short space of time. We can minimise the impact of a fault by installing a solenoid valve to shut off the water supply should a fault occur whilst we are away. To detect flooding, we can use a water leak sensor . Solenoid valves... [Read more]

The GD32VW553 is a GigaDevice Combo Wireless MCU family based on a 32-bit RISC-V core running at up to 160 MHz . GigaDevice announced the official launch on 6 November 2023 , with samples and evaluation boards available for request at that time and mass production/delivery scheduled... [Read more]

In my previous article on audio sound quality, I discussed germanium transistors in audio amplification circuits, which generated a great deal of interest and lively discussion. In the article below, we will discuss the phenomenon of tube sound, which has recently enjoyed great popularity.... [Read more]

Are you annoyed by the ubiquitous touch buttons? If so, this is the product for you. This light switch offers a combination of Zigbee connectivity with classic, clickable buttons, and what's more, the whole thing can be easily paired with the Home Assistant! The price of the product... [Read more]

Today I'm testing a tiny touchscreen monitor bought with the idea of building some form of home automation controller with Home Assistant. I'll check what you can get such a thing for 180 PLN from a Polish importer, present the contents of the kit, configurations and connection, and... [Read more]

ESP32-S3-RS485-CAN is an industrial module equipped with Wi-Fi and BT communication (thanks to ESP-S3) and isolated RS485 and CAN. It is designed for DIN rail mounting. It operates on voltages up to 36 V DC. Also on board is a PCF85063 RTC to keep time, along with a connector for... [Read more]

Every now and then I look for IoT products still based on the ESP8266. This gives us a wider choice of firmware that can be loaded inside - even Tasmota and Supla will work on the old ESP, whereas the newer Tuya products from Beken won't work anymore. For this reason, here I will... [Read more]

Today, another curiosity from online shops - a touch dimmer controller module for a bedside lamp. The whole thing works with classic incandescent bulbs and with LEDs designed for dimmers. The principle of operation is simple - one of the wires is connected to the metal housing of... [Read more]

Today we will look at choosing a lightweight and handy powerbank for a short trip. All the models tested have the same capacity - 10 Ah - but differ in other features such as maximum charging power, the number and type of connectors available or the presence of built-in cables. We... [Read more]

There is an opinion among some lovers, or rather fanatics, of audio equipment that the wires in circuits should not be made of oxygen-free copper alone, but preferably of silver-plated copper. Some audiophiles go even further and even recommend gold-plated cables. Where did this opinion... [Read more]

USB-C connectors, along with the QC/PD higher voltage negotiation standard, have made their way into our homes for good - but should they also make their way into soldering irons? I invite you to test the Yato YT-82490, a soldering iron compatible with the popular T12 soldering tips,... [Read more]

An interesting PCB with a 400x300 RLCD display, ESP32S3 with PSRAM, ES8311 audio codec, speaker, two i2s microphones and li-ion charging circuit and 18650 cage can be purchased on a well-known Chinese portal and more. You can do many different projects on this. The first thing I did... [Read more]

The cloud for vehicles? Today we're taking a look inside the Bosch IVS SLIM, the tiny module responsible for detecting bumps, aggressive driving style and smoke in fleet vehicles from Car Sharing, short term car rental systems where the lack of direct (human) supervision of the vehicle... [Read more]

In recent years, designs, mainly acoustic amplifiers, based on germanium transistors have become increasingly popular among audiophiles. They are increasingly competing with tube amplifiers, even though germanium transistors are now increasingly difficult to find on the market. What... [Read more]

Time for a break from the ubiquitous microcontrollers and 'smart' devices. Today we're taking a look inside another retro piece of equipment, this time made by German company E. Dold & Söhne KG. This will be a timer relay that delays the switching on/off of a receiver for an adjustable... [Read more]

This time we take a look inside the Cyfrowy Polsat LT-6408n router. This is actually a model manufactured by Edimax and sold to the operator as the Edimax LT-6408n with its branding. The router was primarily developed to share internet from LTE or HSPA+ modems connected via USB. The... [Read more]

I have previously shown how a simple keyboard simple keyboard , and shown the simplest emulation of a flash drive with a single file and writing to non-volatile EERAM memory. I will now go one step further and do a practical project based on the experience of the two previous experiments.... [Read more]

The CrowPanel DIS08070H is a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen HMI with a resolution of 800×480 pixels, designed as a ready-to-use platform for building user interfaces in embedded systems. The device is based on the ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N4R8 module, which offers a dual-core Xtensa LX7 processor... [Read more]

Can a PLN 27 manifold bought from a Polish importer through one of Poland's best known mail order shops be dangerous? Today I present a product distinguished by the word SAFETY in its name, which translated from English means SAFETY. Will the Safety Power Socket from Lucky Hawk really... [Read more]

Today we take a look inside an old power supply made by a Polish company from Gliwice. I recovered the whole thing from scrap metal, so I'm going to check how this power supply has coped with years of use in an industrial device, examine whether it's still in working order at all,... [Read more]

Hello :) I was inspired to build the device by the topic Initially it was to be a radio for the kitchen. Eventually the decision was made to build one. As is usually the case, the question was - how to "package" it? After various measurements, the enclosure finally evolved into the... [Read more]

How is the 'smart' remote-controlled Tuya lamp built? What Wi-Fi module is inside? To what extent does it heat up the interior when lit at full brightness, and can this heating be reduced somehow? Can this type of product be connected to the Home Assistant and used without the cloud?... [Read more]

What kind of soldering kit for a beginner? The HU-017A kit shown here costs just under a dozen zloty, and you can get it even cheaper in a promotion. It allows you to build a simple FM radio based on a ready-made RDA5807S module, a microcontroller with a 7-segment display for tuning... [Read more]

In the city where I live we have "Re-Use" shops alongside standard recycling centres (aka tips, dumps, household waste disposal facilities). These re-use centres are packed with donations and finds that would otherwise have gone into the general waste or recycled. Of course there's... [Read more]

Ever wondered what sits in the Flash memory from a modern TV? I invite you to a short presentation of the inside of the Samsung UE55MU6452U 55" 4K UHD Smart TV combined with reverse engineering and emulation of the T-Con controller firmware. Here I will show how such a TV is built,... [Read more]

Not everyone likes the distinctive loud click of relays accompanying the switching on of lights in most home automation products available. Nor does everyone have a neutral wire available in the box - in old installations it may have been unnecessary, and its absence makes it difficult... [Read more]

Today I am testing two small devices capable of temporarily backing up the power supply of a 5 or 12 V receiver in the face of an unexpected power outage. The first is a distinctive black box plugged into a USB cable, necessarily operating on 5 V only. The second is slightly larger,... [Read more]

Are modern LLM models run locally, on an old gaming laptop, able to meaningfully tag photos? Are modern models suitable for OCR and correctly recognise electronic circuits? I invite you to the Electrode test of artificial intelligence, this time enriched by the locally run model Gemma... [Read more]

The smart building market is maturing. Private investors, developers and installers are asking less and less for individual 'smart' devices and more and more for a coherent system that can be logically designed, commissioned, developed and serviced. This is where F&Home comes... [Read more]

I am going to start this thread as a WIP for decoding (another unknown) UART based protocol. I am going to present the findings so far but in a rough state as I am still working on figuring out what is in the packets. Assumption that I started with was that the packet is similar to... [Read more]