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Some time ago, one of my subscribers sent me a power supply—or, more precisely, a charger—not for repair, but for testing and review. But what’s actually more interesting is a certain “special feature” I’ve wanted to tell you about for a long time, but hadn’t come across a sample to show. To get ahead of myself, everything turned out better than I expected :)

Another power supply has come my way, this time from an SVEN SB-550 active speaker system. The repair is fairly routine, but still interesting in its own way, and involves replacing the PWM controller with a non-original part.

This review—or article, whichever you prefer—is a continuation of my write-up on modifying a power supply to turn it into a low-voltage UPS. Last time, I covered a 150 W power supply and complained that the LRS-150 turned out not to be a very good fit for this purpose. So, let’s see how its bigger brother fares.

The other day, someone brought me a power supply to repair. Well, not exactly for repair: it had already been repaired and was working, but according to the person who brought it in, it was behaving strangely. The result was a little unexpected, and that’s what I wanted to tell you about today, since I think anyone could run into this “quirk.”

As I mentioned earlier, next up is putting the PSU-UPS adapter board to use. Along the way, I'll also review the Mean Well LRS-150 series power supply today.

As I mentioned before, along with the BL1850 and BL1860 batteries, I also received a charger for them. At first, I hadn't even planned to review it, but I tested it while checking the batteries, took it apart, and decided it was probably worth writing about after all.

So, I’ve just finished testing the second battery I received, and this one is the BL1860, rated at 6 Ah. Inspection, teardown, tests, conclusions—as usual.

Not long ago, I was asked to test and review some batteries for Makita power tools. Since this is right up my alley, and the batteries were expected to be good, I thought, why not? In short and subjectively: they’re solid. For the long, objective version, read on.

The other day, one of my readers offered me some very interesting batteries to test. It turned out he lived just a couple of tram stops away, so of course I couldn't turn him down. My wife and I went for an evening walk, met up, and now I can show you the test results.

Some time ago, I reviewed a universal trigger that was advertised as offering convenient controls and Power Delivery support, but in practice it turned out to be pretty mediocre. This time, I bought a few simple, compact models that turned out to be surprisingly good.

Thanks to one of my readers, I got my hands on some very interesting batteries. I should say right away, though, that these days the people most interested in them are precious-metal refiners. I think many radio amateurs know who they are.

These are the fourth Vapcell batteries I've received for review. They use the relatively uncommon 18500 form factor, but have a fairly high claimed capacity for their size, of course.

Today I'm reviewing Vapcell high-capacity 18650 batteries. I can say right away that there's nothing unusual about them, except that they aren't even listed on the Vapcell website.

Just before New Year, I ordered, received, and tested three different battery models. I don’t think I need to explain why I suddenly needed high-capacity batteries. Since people often asked me what their overall quality was like, I decided to put together a quick review of all three models.

Some time ago, one of my readers asked me to help modify an uninterruptible power supply from Meanwell. This company's power supplies are very good, as I've shown more than once, but this UPS managed to surprise me—and I wouldn't say pleasantly. More on that in the review.

Around the middle of December, I ordered several inverters. I also decided to order a couple from a different store than the one I usually use. Naturally, I read the reviews first, where buyers showed that yes, it really does produce a pure sine wave output. But things turned out not to be so simple.

While preparing a couple of upcoming reviews, I needed to assemble a battery pack. Since the cells are lithium-based, they usually need a protection board. I originally bought this one for other batteries, but it came in handy here too.

While I’m getting material ready for some other reviews, I decided to put together a short one. I remember getting carried away last time and saying I’d try to keep things a bit shorter, and today seems like just the right occasion :) In short, I’ll show you a pretty good cable for a soldering iron.