Month: June 2023

YIHUA 850AD Digital Display Hot Air Desoldering Station: Power inlet + power switch retrofit (WHL #85F1)

Small-ish update on the Yihua hot air station: Standby power draw is now zero!

But as is common, things weren’t quite as straight-forward as I had hoped for. Let’s start with a quick teardown of the unit, as promised. The lid is uneventful in that it has the same color on the inside as it does on the outside – and surprise, surprise, the holes go straight through Other than that, most of the chassis space is taken up by the pump, which is very reminiscent of the unit of the Toolcraft hot air station at work, even the sizing of the cable ties. […]

25th June 2023 16th July 2023 By Bzzz In No Comment

RIP Cadsoft/Autodesk Eagle (#R20)

Oh well, looks like we got another piece of software to mourn for…good ol’ Eagle is no more!

Autodesk announced in a recent blog post:

Effective June 7, 2026, Autodesk will no longer sell or support EAGLE. Moving forward, we will continue to invest our energy in Fusion 360 Electronics.

(Note that it says 2026: That’s the end of the support. However, nobody sane will buy into that package from now on and switch again with all their projects in less than three years…)

Sure, the announcement itself was a surprise, but the path was clear once Autodesk tried squeezing out money. […]

11th June 2023 11th June 2023 By Bzzz In No Comment