2014

Opus BT-C3100 V2.0 Intelligent Battery Charger Review and Teardown

    Thanks to GearBest for sending in this Opus BT-C3100 V2.0 Intelligent Battery Charger for review. at a quick glance this charger might look like any other charger that you see at the grocery store.  Your generic store bought brand probably also has 4 charging bays for AA and AAA batteries, it probably has 2 charging circuits which places 2 cells in series to charge them, it most likely

ABB Robot made of LEGO

  Computer engineer Lassee Laussen and software engineer Ken Madsen built this ABB Robot made of LEGO bricks. It was an 8 month build to recreate the complex 6 axis machine. If you are interested in seeing some other interesting projects from Lassee and Ken have a look at Brick It. “The LEGO version of the IRB 120 is so accurate that it mimics every shape and curve. It also

Automated Surf Notifier

    Our friend Colin Karpfinger from Punchthrough.com has just completed his latest project. You might remember his last project, it was the LightBlue Bean. The Automated Surf Notifier uses a LightBlue Bean at the heart and interfaces with some colorful LEDs to indicate where the ideal surf waves are located. Using some daisy chainable LEDs mounted behind a poster of the coast make for a great indication method. “I

Name the Thing Contest – 257

    The prize this week is an SD Card Reader. This contest will run for one week (August 24 – 29, 2014). Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item above and what it can be used for. Please note the image above is a side view of the thing. Please do not give the answer in the comments. Send an email to contest

 DIY Adjustable Electrical Load

    Our friends over at Electro Labs have a  DIY Adjustable Electrical Load project posted. There are lots of adjustable load projects out there, they can come in handy when developing your next project so you should consider building one. The heart of this one is a IRF3710 MOSFET, it simply dumps the required energy into the large board mounted  heatsink. “Since the MOSFET works as a resistive element,

DIY Component Tester - Transistor, Capacitor, Inductor, Resistor Meter

  If you are looking for a DIY meter project have a look at this DIY Component Tester (translated),  it tests Transistors, Capacitors, Inductors and Resistors. It is AVR based and is very flexible, in most cases you can just jam in a device and press the button to analyze the device. “Automatic detection of NPN and PNP transistors, N-and P-channel MOSFETs, diodes, thyristors, inductors, triacs, resistors and capacitors. Measure

MESR-100 ESR Meter Review and Teardown

  I wanted an in-circuit ESR meter (equivalent series resistance meter) to aid in determining the condition of  electrolytic capacitors without the need of desoldering them first. When capacitors fail you will often have some signs of failure such as bulging of the capacitor top. Starting in approximately 2002 and continuing till about 2010 there was a glut of high failure rate capacitors on the market which found their way