Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
- Chris and Dave try to figure out what’s going on with the Rode Go 2
- PCB photos from a reddit post
- Chips on board
- Maker Moekoe’s soldering setup
- Chris is buying and using random connectors from Amazon. Dave says it’s Chris discovering DIN connectors
- Non standard cable connectors
- Cursed connectors
- Tracker in the car for insurance price reduction
- 3G shutting down in Australia later this year. Already mostly done in the US.
- Shoe phone
- EAGLE support / sales will officially end in 2026
- This monster board of throughhole components with 74 series logic
- Chris will be giving a talk and showcasing at the Embedded Open Source Summit in Prague next week.
Worked on worse military boards. Each one had DIP packages both sides, with 0.1in spacing between the chips, so each chip had the legs of the other side between the legs, in that 0.2in spacing between the legs. So you had a board that was solid ceramic both sides, with only a connector at the one end, and a gap around the edge where it was screwed to the milled aluminium frame, so you had a module of 2 boards that you plugged into the backplane. 1970’s design, 8 layer PCB, that you could fix a faulty IC with care, though that did involve cutting the old IC out right at the body with a fine saw, then using a needle file to thin the leg stumps left, and the same to the new IC, trimming most of the leg off, making a form of gull wing package. Then solder it down, using some kapton tape to keep the legs shorting to the adjacent IC, and clean the board. Around 2kg per board, all of it ceramic.
Most common IC to change was a 5474, used as input clock recovery, they were forever getting damaged by input transients on the data lines, despite having coupling transformers, and termination and bias resistors. Always input threshold drift, you could test it out of circuit and it would pass, unless you used voltages just on the threshold of TTL logic levels.
At least the power supply was easy, 2 SMPS supplies, fully discrete, using BUX50 power transistors to buck the 28V rail down to 5V, and using air core inductors. Not fun was the input connectors, all flex PCB, and the most common thing was the fine pitch diagnostic connector having a bent pin, so if you were lucky it was unused, or a common ground. Otherwise get a new connector, and order all 28 flexible PCB’s, that formed the connection between the connectors and the main board. Diagnostic plug used all 28 to feed out the pins from the 100 pin connector, and you would never get all off without damage.
But a full computer implemented all in 14 and 16 pin DIP logic, most complex being shift registers and decoders, with serial memories for the data. Interfaced with a whole host of systems as well, so there were a few card frames that did input conversion, and outputs as well, digital, analogue and synchro.
3G shut down, by me that is scheduled for “later on”, just like analogue TV, though that has a firmer deadline of this year, possibly. At least they finally shut down the 2G network, but there are still a lot of phones on 3G, and it will probably stay in low density large coverage areas, as the 4G does not have the coverage.
Hello!
There’s a Wireless GO II contender from DJI.