Some time has passed since the last blog entry. On the one hand, I put this down to a lot of work, both professionally and privately, so that a bit of the energy for blogging was missing. The last days is the beautiful weather to blame. I preferred to spend my time riding a motorcycle instead of sitting behind the PC … But I also got a little gimmick again.
FritzRoy storm glass
A colleague told me about it and at a large Internet mail-order company, I quickly found it. It is a so-called “FritzRoy storm glass“.
A storm glass is known for a long time from the seafaring. There it was used to predict weather changes. The storm glass is a glass cylinder filled with two liquids and hermetically sealed. The fluids are usually camphor and alcohol in saturated form, which do not mix but form small crystals. The formation of these crystals is related to the weather change. For a long time it was believed that the crystals react to changes in air pressure. Recent research allegedly suggests that the crystals react to electromagnetic fields called sferics. These sferics are preferably formed in low pressure areas. Thus, the storm glass shows the approach of a low pressure area and thus the bad weather.
Crystals as weather forecast
The table (from the CarloMilano user manual) shows the different crystal weather relationships.
If the screen of an IPhone 5S gives up its ghost once (that is, it breaks or something similar), then the only thing that helps is swapping it. But beware ! The screws that hold the shield plate over the three Flexiprint connectors from the display are NOT the same length.
There are screws of different lengths here – even if you don’t necessarily recognize it optically. If you don’t take great care to screw all the screws back into the original threaded bushing during assembly, then it has already happened. The screws, which are approx. 0.1mm long, protrude over the socket and touch and damage the surface of the circuit board. If someone then takes it very carefully and tightens the screws firmly enough, then these are pressed into the second layer of the board. And that’s exactly where seven parallel conductor tracks run, which together require a width of almost 1000um (1mm). Now you can imagine what the tip of a screw can do here.
Exactly – chaos and destruction. The almost 50um wide conductor tracks have no chance against the colossus of screw with 1000um.
The result: Several of these conductor tracks are cut and the mobile phone cannot find all of its electronic components after switching on and starts the boot process again cyclically (with a brief flash of a blue screen)
Usually the device is now ready for the bin, or at least a new mainboard would be required. Just such a cell phone recently landed on my table.
figure 1
The connections to the display can be seen in Figure 1. At the bottom right, at the black spot, was the threaded socket into which the screw that was too long was screwed. If you now remove the socket, you can examine the damage.
The enlargement in Figure 2 shows clear impressions of the screw and a slight copper shimmer can also be seen.
However, the extent of the damage can only be determined if the layer is exposed in the area. With a suitable microscalpel I tried to expose the plane.
figure 2figure 3
Figure 3 shows the conductor tracks and their interruptions. A repair with a soldering iron and repair wire is no longer possible here.
figure 4
But since I have the opportunity to work on a wirebonder, I had the idea to use it for a repair attempt. The bonder from TPT-Wirebond offers the functions of wedge and ball bonding in different wire diameters. I could imagine wedgebonding as a suitable and feasible variant. The 25um diameter bond wire should fit. Only for the problem with the temperature of the chuck I had no solution. Because it is certainly not a good idea to heat up the iPhone. So I tried to bond cold. Without further ado, the chuck was disconnected from its power supply, the ultrasonic energy of the bonding tool increased and an attempt was started. Lo and behold, the bond holds. So, without further ado, six of the seven lines were made conductive again with gold wire bridges (Fig. 4) and then the display was connected for a start attempt. Lo and behold, the iPhone started normally again.
figure 5
Now it was only a matter of protecting the sensitive bond wires from damage.
Here a synthetic resin two-component adhesive offered itself, from which I mixed an amount the size of a pin and covered the repair area with this droplet. After hardening, I was able to put the phone back together (at the repair site, of course, without a screw. A short function test was positive.;)
The other day I noticed with a cold-device connection cable that the cable sheath has come loose in the area of the strain relief. The wires came out. By itself, this is nothing special, if not here, apart from the unusual colors, the unusually small diameter of the wires in the eye would sting.
left: cable without CE marking right: standard cablePlug without any test marks.
Normally, such a jacket cable with 16A / 250V and a CE mark is marked on the plug. The cross section of the stranded wires is 1.5mm². The cable here on the photo but an indication of 10A / 250V was printed and NO CE sign available. The strands have a cross section of less than 0.5mm² !! Who uses such a cable and for example operates a heater with it, then may not be surprised if a quick fire breaks out … Unfortunately, I can not understand with what device I got this cable included. But it does not conform to the valid standards and represents a danger in the enterprise. In any case: Keep away from such products!
It does not have anything directly to do with technology, but perhaps fits under the title “retro” as a post very well in the blog: A book for browsing memories of the 70s and 80s is the band “Wickie, Slime and Paiper” by Susanne Pauser and Wolfgang Ritschl. The book was published in 1999 by Böhler-Verlag Wien. It is a printed summary of an online forum as a souvenir album for the children of the seventies. It mentions numerous products and fashions, television and radio programs that were up to date at the time and is discussed and commented by the protagonists of the forum, themselves children of the seventies. The print is accompanied by scanned images of posters, catalogs, advertising slogans.
Eskimo ice-pricesheet(prices in Austrian Schilling 😉 )
If you wanted to save your Blogposts from WordPress, you will definitely know the XML export function in the Dashboard of WordPress itself. Here you can create and save an XML file in the menu “Tools” under “Export data” , This XML file can be used in a – for example – server error again to create the blog.
But what to do if you want to save your blog content in a Word file, or as a PDF, or even print? There are several possibilities to realize this. I will briefly list these variants here.
The latter tool I find personally very convenient and convenient, since it is very easy here to export his entire blog, including images in a Word document and postprocessing. All you have to do is export the XML file from wordpress.
chooese XML-file
After specifying the XML file, the blog posts are displayed directly in a list. Now you can choose which blog post should be converted and whether it should be a Word or PDF document.
window with exportable posts
Now you can start exporting …
Depending on the number of posts and their length, the corresponding document is quickly available and can be edited as needed …
NES – Nintendo Entertainment System is certainly still a household name. It was the 8-bit game console from Nintendo, which was also sold in Europe in the mid-80s and had influenced the youth of the time. It is now a museum piece that already deserves the title “Retro”. Maybe for this reason, she begins to revive in the Retrogamergemeinde. For example, this year a remake of the NES in miniaturized form with modern technology and pre-installed games on the market.
Also via emulators for all kinds of platforms you can bring the old NES game titles back to life. In order to be able to serve these games “in the right way” (of course, it is also possible with the PC keyboard or via the touch screen on the mobile phone), the company 8Bitdo Tech has launched the NES30 GamePad Controller. It is a wireless bluetooth controller which was modeled on the original NES controller. It is equipped with an integrated rechargeable battery that can be charged via a MicroUSB cable connection. The controller is designed to be configured as a PC game controller, as a joystick, as a Bluetooth keyboard, and as a USB joystick. This can be realized via five different modes. These modes can be selected by keyboard shortcuts during power up. The table below shows the different modes:
Mode1
Mode2
Mode3
Mode4
Mode5
Joystick
BT-Keyboard
iCade
Emu-Touch
USB-Joystick
Power ON
START
START+B
START+A
START+X
Kabelverbindung
Blue LEDs are flashing
1x
2x
3x
4x
–
OS
WIN Android
WIN/Apple Android
Android Apple
Android Apple
WIN
The picture shows the USB charging socket, to the right of which are two status LEDs.
The battery is located on the back of the board
die Platine des Controllers; der die Firmware des Mikrocontrollers kann aktualisiert werden
Contact mats represent the buttons. Under the two shoulder buttons are real micro buttons …
Here is the emulator “NES Emu” served on an Android phone with the NES30;)
Now it is already two years, in which I feed the “technology and retro blog” with contributions. Who would have thought that … By now some readers have strayed here and asked if I could introduce one or the other device here. Of course I will try to realize it if possible. Unfortunately, the rubric with the computers of the 80s is still empty. Here I still lack the “thread”, as I should process the whole – it floats me to every device before a small video in which the devices are to be shown in the living state. If someone has ideas for that … like.
I would like to say a big thank you to my colleague Mario Wehr, who provides me with the WordPress environment and thus offers excellent service!
In this sense: Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
This time, I’m not going to talk about a project or an “old equipment concept”, but would like to introduce some interesting users or their contributions from the YouTube portal. These are contributions from the field of computer, technology and science, which I personally like to look at.
First and foremost, I would like to mention the legend of modern computer history, which has fascinated me since my youth. The ComputerClub from WDR times with Wolfgang Rudolph and Wolfgang Back. The two moderators moderated the program Computerclub from the beginning of the 80’s to 2003 at Westdeutscher Rundfunk. In the topics, the two men are generally concerned with computers and peripherals, new developments in the field of electronics and present all sorts of things here. Many broadcast recordings are archived on YouTube, including by user janbras.
On 22 February 2003, the last broadcast was broadcast on WDR.
But the two protagonists have not given up the computer club and let him resurrect on July 24, 2007 on a German private broadcaster (NRW-TV).
However, the private broadcaster NRW-TV had to cease its operation in 2016 and so the program was Nr.186 recorded as the last in the studios of NRW.
But Wolfgang Rudolph has managed by fundraising to set up his own studio and now produces the CC2 from his private studio on his own.
In the background, a lot has changed, which confused the viewers and freaks a bit. Parallel to the broadcasts existed the page cczwei.de which was filled by both gentlemen. After 13.12.2016 suddenly a new page appeared. The new domain cc2.tv has been created. The now operates Rudolph alone. The domain cczwei.de continues to be operated by Mr. Back. He is assisted by Heinz Schmitz, who is now producing YouTube broadcasts with Mr. Back. Apparently, there were sufficient reasons for the gentlemen to part with years of community work. There never was an official explanation.
From the computer area, the guys from VirtualDimension report. They call their channel VD Hurrican and produce the formats: Virtual Worlds, Back in Time, Retroplay and On Site. The contributions are absolutely professional and mainly deal with home computers. With a lot of background information the old 8 and 16 Bit’er are presented here. Gameplay as well as fair reports and contributions from community events are also part of their repertoire. As an example here a link to the unboxing of an Amiga500 and its history. On the occasion of their 1000th subscriber on YouTube, they have published a 1000-subscriber special with a studio tour.
From the Australian continent, Dave Jones, also an inveterate technician, blogs. On his YouTube channel EEVblog, He also introduces electronic devices, explains their structure and operation. A special category in his channel are the so-called Mailbags. Here, Dave receives packages from people in the community who he opens in front of the camera and presents their content. This can be old computers and boards, or even new developments and prototypes of startups that are presented here.
A slightly different channel is that of an Englishman. He calls himself Photonicinduction and shows experiments with high performances. All sorts of appliances, such as vacuum cleaners, heating lamps, washing machines, loudspeakers, etc. are operated to the limit of their maximum performance data – and far beyond. The end of the device through destruction is the goal here.
A multi-band radio receiver from the year 1957 is the Tempocord of the company Minerva. The company Minerva was founded in Vienna in 1919 and began in 1924 with the production of radio receivers. The radios were initially made under the name Radiola or Aeriola. It was not until 1926 that the receivers were built under the name Minerva. The name Minerva was used until 1972.
The device here refuses any service after being supplied with the mains voltage. Thus, a first error is found quickly. The mains voltage does not reach the transformer. The reason for this is the mains fuses, which protect the transformer from all poles. Here are both broken. Probably because the transformer tap was clamped to 220V … Rectification and smoothing capacitors are fine.
a look inside the paperfusepaper fuse
The fuses, however, are wrapped in paper security wires, which are wrapped at the ends each with a brass clip. Due to the lack of availability of these old fuses, the fuse holders located on the Trafoprint have been swapped for current ones and reinserted. After carefully raising the supply voltage, the receiver was again able to elicit sounds …
It is a miniature quadrocopter, the size of the palm of your hand, which turns out to be a real powerhouse. It is controlled via a 2.4GHz handheld transmitter in six axes. The transmitter can be configured in Mode1 and Mode2 (throttle on the left lever). An LC display on the transmitter provides information about the current settings and a multi-color LED shows the switch-on status and also whether there is a radio connection to the drone.
The drone is built on a very light (crash-proof) chassis that also has “recursive predetermined breaking points”. This means that in the event of a crash, part of the affected engine boom unhooks instead of breaking off. You can then simply click it back in. There is also the option of installing the training frame supplied to protect the propellers.
The power supply in the transmitter is provided by four AAA batteries. The drone itself is powered by a LiPo battery that is charged using the USB adapter supplied. You only need a USB power adapter (mobile phone charging plug) or a PC / laptop as a voltage source.
When fully charged and with moderate flight, you can achieve a flight time of just under seven minutes. Before the end of the flight you will be warned by blinking LEDs, so that you can still land safely without any problems. Recharging the battery takes just under 30-45 minutes.
As a further special feature, the drone has a small camera on board. It offers a resolution of 480p. But there is also a version with a 720p camera. The camera data can be saved directly on a microSD card. The recording is started before the start of the flight by pressing a button on the drone and should be stopped again before switching off. The result is an “.avi” container file that can be played on any PC. The image section is not very wide-angled and is just acceptable for indoor use. You also need plenty of light to get reasonably sharp images. However, this works very well outdoors.
The controls can be learned quickly with a little practice and it is a lot of fun to use.
