what's been happening

It's been quite a while since i last updated this blog a lots happen since then so here is a quick update for all those wondering where I've been. The short story is work took over most of my life from August 2018 but I've also moved to Cornwall in that time and most importantly I became a father to twins I will try and update this a bit more moving forward sorry for the long delay 

LDR Kit build video

Hi folks check out my latest video on YouTube here

hope you enjoy it

Signalex Powerbank Teardown

Hi Folks today I am going to share a quick teardown of a Sgnalex Powerbank I got from Poundland yesterday.

As you can see from the above picture the powerbank has a small size of 98 X 25 X23 mm which made me wonder what it was like inside.

 so using my spudger I gently popped the back off to reveal a small circuit board and cell

the cell is a 18650li-ion 3.7v 1200mha which is a very good cell and makes me think about buying more of these just for the cells.

 voltage on the battery

 here is the charging and boost circuit and the main chip seems to be a MP3401A (data sheet ) which is a P-channel mosfet it does its job and considering this is only £1 its not bad value

to close the model no of the powerbank is 170327 I have used one of these for a while now on my prototyping board as a steady source of power for my projects 

thanks for reading 

Eyepiece light project Part 4 making things smiple

Hi Folks welcome to Part 4 of the eyepiece light project in this part we will talk about a change to the chip and the power supply for the project .

 I've decided to change to the sn74hc595 chip an I can run it without a mico controller and for this project I think it will make it easier to prototype. I have the chip set up with power and ground on pins 16 and 8 I also have a 1000k resistor on pin 13 with is the output enable pin and then I have leds attached to 4 of the outputs.

you can find the data sheet here

as for the power supply for the project I'm using 2 of these button cell batteries giving me 6 volts  in total which gives me plenty power .

here you can see the very simple breadboard layout

here is the project working its pretty bright but I am going to add some low value resistors to help the the leds last longer and run slightly less bright but I will left you know what value I choose after some testing .

thanks for reading 

Upcoming videos update

Hi Folks

Today I'd like to share news upcoming videos  that I plan to make over next few weeks I have a few kits that you can see below I'm not sure which one I will do first but I should have the first one up by the weekend I will also be record the proto version of the eyepiece light project as well and some other little things as well .

Tomorrow I will have and update on a eyepiece project don't forget the check out my last video Here 

thanks for reading 

first full kit build video youtube video

Hi folks
check out my first full kit build on YouTube this is the first video in which I solder a kit from ebay on camera you can check the kit out here   I know it isn't the best video but with practice and time I am sure I will get better at them as well as editing so let me know what you think the video is here 

thanks for reading

Dobby

EyePiece Light Project Part 3 Testing AT TINY 85 with TLC5916

Hi folks welcome to part 3 of the eyepiece project in this instalment I will be finding out if I can drive the TLC5916 with an at tiny 85 .

the at tiny 85 is a really usefully little I have a done a post in the past about programming them. (you can find that here)  I will be giving a full  explanation on the code in a later part of this project.

After uploading the code to the at tiny and wiring it up I found it was able to run the TLC5916 which is great news for the weight and size of the Project

What does this mean going forward?

 This means I will be able to move on to the next stages of  the project which are writing the code for the project and working on the layout of the board before build a prototype  and finally getting a PCB made .

Thanks for reading see you again soon for part 4