Wavetek 859 50 MHz Pulse Generator – Reparied
During the teardown of my Wavetek 859 pulse generator last week, I pretty much concluded that it was beyond economical […]
PPS-2322 Performance Verification and Automatic Fan Controller Design
As I mentioned previously, Amrel PPS-2322 (dual 32V/2A) does not have a fan controller so the fan is on whenever […]
Amrel PPS-2322 Programmable Power Supply Teardown
I picked up an Amrel PPS-2322 programmable power supply from eBay recently. You probably have not heard of the Amrel […]
Guarding Explained
In electronics, guarding is a technique typically used to prevent or minimize current leakage from a high impedance source. This […]
Building A Laser Oscilloscope
You can generate some pretty amazing patterns by shining a laser onto a mirror mounted on a vibrating speaker cone, […]
When to Use An Electrometer?
Electrometer is a piece of highly specialized electronic test equipment. Most of us would naturally associate it with low-level measurements […]
Samsung Galaxy S-Pen Waveform Capture
I was quite intrigued by the S-Pen that came with my Samsung Galaxy Note 4. According to the specifications listed […]
Keithley 614 Electrometer Teardown
In this blog post, we will take a look inside a 1980 vintage Keithley 614 Electrometer. While it was designed […]
Turn Your Android Phone into a Wireless Touchpad
In this blog post, I will show you a simple way of turning your Android phone into a wireless touchpad. […]
Reverse Engineering a Beseler PM2L Color Analyzer
I recently acquired an old Beseler PM2L color analyzer. This kind of color analyzer was designed to analyze the color […]
Wavetek 1045 RF Power Meter Teardown
I bought a Wavetek 1045 RF power meter off eBay a few weeks ago. It came with a 13787 detector […]
How to Drive a Latching Relay
Latching relay (a.k.a. impulse relay) can be turned on and off by momentarily applying a voltage across the relay coil. […]
T is for TWT
Traveling-wave tube (TWT) is mainly used to amplify signals in the microwave frequency range. Unlike most vacuum tubes, which had […]
Visualizing Comparator and Op Amp Hysteresis
Hysteresis can be added to a comparator circuit to improve its stability, especially when the input signal is noisy. In […]
Testing an RTL-SDR Spectrum Analyzer
Using software defined radio such as the popular RTL-SDR (1, 2) as a spectrum analyzer is nothing new (examples can […]