If you’ve been following along the blog, you might have wondered why I recently took a look at some Power-over-Ethernet injectors, specifically one that supported 802.3bt Mode 4 “90W” power. At last, it is time to unveil my latest RoadTest...

I’d have to say, all hope of our COVID-19 lockdown easing are completely dashed as numbers continue to hold stable or rise subtly, and the outbreak is officially declared a “national emergency”. The premier’s “best health advice” led us down...

Apologies – I’ve been so busy and mentally exhausted that I started this post last week, but didn’t finish it off until now … Rather disappointingly, but to no great surprise to me, our COVID-19 Delta-strain-induced lockdown has persisted and...

It’s the second week of a lockdown in Sydney which was supposed to be a short one, but owing to the virulence of the Delta strain, our limited vaccination numbers, the lateness and laxness of the lockdown and the selfish...

I’ve been quite busy recently, in part, because I’m doing a few RoadTest reviews. One of them in particular involves the use of Power-over-Ethernet (PoE), but as I don’t already have any “standards-complaint” PoE equipment, I needed a cost-effective means...

If I’ve lured you into the realm of SCPI automation using pyvisa to get the most from your test equipment, sooner or later, you’re probably going to end up in a situation where something doesn’t work and you don’t know...

With Sydney half-way through its delta-strain lockdown, all workers except essential workers have returned to a working-from-home arrangement. A key enabler of this is the pervasive availability of broadband internet connectivity. For those who are lucky in Australia, they may...

It’s been around two months since my last random posting and lots of things have changed. Unfortunately, with my head buried in work, I’ve accumulated a lot of random thoughts and observations which have been bouncing around my head …...

Digital photography is so ubiquitous – literally almost everyone has a digital still and video camera in their pocket at almost all times in the form of their smartphone. Analog photography, on the other hand, has withered into a niche...

As the COVID-19 pandemic still continues to rage on around the world, it has caused a lot of upheaval. From shipping distribution, to semiconductor product supply, we are still feeling a lot of the pain from our globalised supply chains...

Part of the reason it’s been quiet on the blog recently, aside from being overloaded with work, is that I’ve been busy doing a RoadTest of the Maxim MAX31343SHLD# MEMS-based highly-accurate real-time clock. There are many instances where you might...

It’s coming up to the end of a long-weekend and I’ve still not made any postings … lets rectify this! In fact, I’ve been too busy with my day job and several product evaluations on the side which will be...

After showcasing the longevity of the old Philips SL “jar” lamp, one of the earlier designs of “compact” fluorescent lamp, I felt that it would be good to have another tech flashback looking at the lamps that came afterward, the...

Yesterday marked the rescheduled Central Coast Amateur Radio Club Field Day event. Usually held early in the year, around February, this year the event was postponed due to COVID-19. The rescheduled event gained a new name – Mayham. Cue the...

There was a time when 650MB or even 700MB was a “lot” of data. The utility of the CD-ROM was the ability to deliver a lot of content (including multimedia content) at a low cost to end users at a...

Readers who know me and who know technology in general would probably find it very unusual to hear that I am in possession of a Google Nest Hub, specifically the 7″ second generation model. I think it’s no exaggeration to...

It seems that the era of cordless-everything is here, ever since Dyson announced they would stop developing corded vacuums and instead would focus on cordless models instead. While they certainly do have a few iconic cordless stick vacuums in their...

In need of a USB 2.0 hub for a quick project, I made the mistake of jumping onto eBay and grabbing whatever cheap hub was available. It looked okay in the images, but what I received definitely didn’t meet my...

I think it’s fairly self-evident that I think test equipment automation is awesome. If you’ve mastered the basics and learned a bit about the intricacies of status reporting, you’re well on your way to being able to drive almost any...

One of the key motivations to writing a post about understanding the SCPI Status Model was the need to use it for implementing proper code to perform high-speed instrument measurements. In the case of the Rohde & Schwarz NGM202, it...

If you’ve got some decent test equipment, chances are that you’re going to be automating it sooner or later. While I covered most of the basics of sending and receiving commands in my first tutorial, there comes a time when...

The ongoing COVID-19 situation has precluded doing things in ordinary ways. For example, our regular electronics trade show which would have ordinarily taken place last year has been rescheduled to later this year (assuming no further changes), which is a...

Readers may have noted my fondness of my modified car fridge for battery testing experiments as I don’t have a proper environmental chamber as they’re expensive. Unfortunately, while the cheap car fridge may be capable of reaching 10 degrees C...

The other day, while I was helping my Dad out with changing out some computer hardware, I noticed he had an old early “compact” fluorescent lamp which was still serving in his bedroom. Because of its uniqueness and relative rarity,...

I recently posted about some “high” current testing of TO-220 N-channel MOSFETs since receiving some fakes direct from China. In that posting, I learned that there are now many alternative MOSFETs that have logic-level compatible gate voltages and significantly lower...