Electronics and technology blog    /    Page 35

Dear blog readers! To celebrate the upcoming New Year holidays, we're holding a giveaway. The winner will receive an Alfawise A8 TV BOX Rockchip 3229 Android 8.1 as a completely free prize, courtesy of our giveaway sponsor, the GearBest online store!

I’ve already reviewed quite a few different boards that can be used to build an adjustable power supply, often called a “laboratory” power supply, so I simply couldn’t pass up a newcomer to this market: the DPXxxxx series of boards. A few of my readers had also asked me to review it. Well, the board has arrived and it works—but am I happy about that? Read on for my review of the board and my conclusions.

I've already reviewed quite a few different TV boxes, but today I'm taking a look at a somewhat unusual model. In addition to its TV box functions, it also has a tuner for digital terrestrial and satellite TV. As usual, I'll take a look, take it apart, run some tests, share my conclusions, and finish with a summary table.

Toward the end of the year, Gearbest put together a roundup of the most popular TV box models and, along the way, lowered their prices a little. So here’s the roundup, since some of these models are genuinely interesting.

As promised, here's a review of the second part of the package with battery holders. This time I'll show you enclosed holders that might come in handy for various DIY projects. This time, I'll not only take a look at them, but also do some measurements.

Another mini-review of 18650 battery holders, this time for four cells.

I've run into situations several times where using thermal paste was either inconvenient or impossible, since it requires constant pressure to keep the heatsink against the component. So I decided to try out another useful product: thermal adhesive. Today, I'll take a quick look at it and, of course, put it to the test—especially since I've already posted a couple of reviews of various thermal interface materials.

I recently received another batch of holders for 18650 batteries and decided to post a few photos in case anyone is looking for something like this.

At the beginning of autumn, I tested and reviewed an interesting mini PC of mine, the HYSTOU FMP04 with an i5-7200U processor. Unfortunately, that was also when I showed the “Achilles' heel” of both the device under review and many other Chinese devices: overheating. After that, I decided to try a slightly less powerful version with an i3-7100U processor, and it really managed to surprise me. But it's better to read all about it in the review.

This story began quite a while ago, probably right at the start of the year, when I received this set-top box. But things worked out so that I'm only writing the review now. The box turned out to be not so bad, though it does have its "pitfalls. Still, as always, it's best to read the full review, which will include the usual inspection, tests, modifications, and a table.

The Amlogic S912 SoC has been around for quite a while, but companies are still making new models based on this processor. As I’ve already mentioned in my smartphone reviews, most devices are basically “construction kits”—just combinations of the same “building blocks.” And this is another such kit, this time branded X9T. Let’s take a look, take it apart, run some tests, draw some conclusions, and fill in the table.

Today I have a very brief review—or rather, a quick photo showcase—of my latest batch of lithium batteries. Inspection, tests, conclusions.

As it happens, SoCs from Allwinner are quite uncommon and are almost completely overshadowed by options from Rockchip and Amlogic. In all this time, I’ve reviewed only one TV box based on an Allwinner processor. The Zidoo H6 Pro I covered back then was actually pretty good and even had working AFR, but its price of over $80 spoiled the whole picture. Today I have another member of this family of TV boxes, but at a more affordable price—that’s what caught my interest. A look inside, teardown, tests, conclusions, and of course, the table.

I was browsing Taobao and happened to come across a charger that caught my eye with its low price and pretty decent looks, especially for the price. I ordered it, received it, and was somewhat disappointed—twice, in fact. But more on all that in the review. Inspection, testing, conclusions.

While working on a project to build a device for testing and balancing large battery packs, I needed a power supply of around 90 V, so I bought two 48 V, 2.5 A power supplies. They turned out to be unexpectedly decent despite their low price, both in terms of performance and build quality. As usual: inspection, schematic, tests, conclusions.

Today’s review is about some uncommon, specialized devices that can nevertheless be very useful: powerful, compact voltage converters. What makes them unusual is their 36–75 V input voltage range, which is rarely used by DIYers. But I’ve been asked about converters like these several times, so I decided to fill that gap, since I haven’t come across any reviews of them.

Some time ago, I posted a long list of interesting products for radio amateurs. At the time, I also mentioned that I planned to put together a similar list of products I had already bought, so I could share a few thoughts about the products and sellers, even if only briefly.

This is already the third review of RuiDeng products that I’ve posted, but there are actually quite a few reviews of their products out there, so today I’ll try to add a little to the previous ones—especially since this converter is interesting in its own right. As always, I’ll take a look at it, run some tests, cover a little theory, and share my conclusions.