Author: Bzzz

JBC HDE soldering station repair/refurbishment (WHL #86)

Do you own one of those very expensive JBC soldering stations?
A damaged or defective one, maybe with a display (with salt water ingress) like this?

Or an abused case with pinky-sized holes and damaged inner wiring like this? (after a lot of cleaning!)

Or a smashed stand with dislocated tip holder (and several 3D printed replacements that all shattered like the original one after hard impacts on the floor) like this and this?

Or just a soldering iron with broken wiring near the moulded handle, caused by people ripping apart the bend relief and then folding it even tighter because they can…like this? […]

16th April 2023 16th April 2023 By Bzzz In 2 Comments

Samsung TV custom USB jacks (#R18)

Dear Samsung,

here’s a random thought: If you already know you’ve fucked up a device design, and you know it so well that your own folks have decided to create a custom solution because it’s obvious the end-user will tear apart a standard part in no time…then maybe (just maybe!)

  • don’t make that special part and fix your impractical design? Reaching inconveniently placed ports with minimal clearance for cables and devices is a terrible user experience in the first place?

    • …or

  • make that part available to everyone (you’re a big company, you can handle that!)
[…]
2nd April 2023 2nd April 2023 By Bzzz In No Comment

Panasonic TX-55AXW634 backlight “fix” lifespan data (WHL #84F1)

Someone’s busy, so here’s a lame, lazy follow-up post to the Panasonic backlight “fix” from WHL #84:

It died. Again. Another string of LED backlight bit the dust just four months after the first one. Guess they’re all the same type, age and power-on hours at the same load, so why wouldn’t they fail left, right and center once the first LED has reached its lifespan?

Well, I had fun disabling another string on the Rohm BD9479FV backlight driver. Exactly the same procedure as shown before, and conveniently, someone already routed AGND for the PWM pin to connect to . […]

19th March 2023 19th March 2023 By Bzzz In No Comment

YIHUA 850AD Digital Display Hot Air Desoldering Station Air Pump Can Adjust Temperature Heat Gun SMD Phone Soldering Station (WHL #85)

I got a (reasonably) big box from China!

Since changing jobs, I’m in the process of buying tools that I dearly miss – some of them are no longer easily accessible in the new place, some aren’t available at all, and some are so darn useful, I should have bought a unit for myself at home ages ago. A hot air station checks the last two boxes, since my regular 2000W hot air gun is certainly useful for like removing stickers or preheating boards, but temperature regulation clearly isn’t good enough for soldering. So…I bought a Yihua 850AD. […]

5th March 2023 5th March 2023 By Bzzz In No Comment

Panasonic TX-55AXW634 backlight (short-term) fix (WHL #84)

TVs are apparently still a thing, and so are defective ones. Here’s what I did to a 55″ Panasonic TX-55AXW634 with the red blinking light of death – likely also applicable to similar units of the “LA58 chassis” generation, e.g. the TX-48AX630B 48″ unit or the even smaller 40″ TX-40AX630E. While this fix isn’t perfect nor permanent (I heard it lasted for four months, when presumably another row of LEDs died), it’s good enough to keep the TV going for a bit longer, so one can order spare parts or decide/save up for a new unit. […]

19th February 2023 19th February 2023 By Bzzz In 1 Comment

gLabels printer settings for the Brother PT-9200DX label printer (WHL #83)

Looks like another PSA-ish post…for a label printer.

I’ve scored a dirt cheap Brother PT-9200DX on eBay last October, and while I absolutely wouldn’t recommend this thing to anyone new in the Brother community, it’ll do for me until the more recent models become more affordable. Brother still has a support page for this model but driver support only spans Windows 95/NT (!) to Vista 64-bit. It is possible to install that driver in Windows 10, but it’s a bit buggy and more often than not, the printer needs a power cycle between prints. […]

5th February 2023 6th February 2023 By Bzzz In No Comment

Seasonic modular power supply accessory cables list (#E20)

Here’s a quick PSA: Seasonic power supply cables. There are many, and apparently an important aspect is undocumented.
[Updated 2023-11-19]

This week I sold a Seasonic PSU that was part of a full system build. I didn’t need it, I already got two reasonably-sized Seasonic PSUs for my two active systems, and since I only swapped boards, I had a surplus one. Unfortunately (thanks, modular power supplies!) it didn’t come with all the cables installed. But since most Seasonic modular cables are interchangeable across all product lines, I could just fill in the gaps with spare parts from my stock, right? […]

22nd January 2023 7th July 2024 By Bzzz In 2 Comments

DOOGEE S98 PRO, again (WHL #82F1)

Told ya I was busy – 404, no content found (not even canned one).

Since having no phone is not an option, and porting everything to LineageOS (and back…some day) is also surprisingly difficult, I sold the Samsung Galaxy A3 2016 backup phone with said LOS overhaul on eBay (for decent money!) and got another Doogee S98 Pro. Return on Amazon was painless, and delivery of the new one from a Chinese seller with German warehouse was also a breeze. Let’s just hope I never have to return anything to this “nanchangkuachuodianzishangwuyouxiangongsi” dude in “pengtangzhenyingbinzhongdadao399haoguang heyuanzhuzhaiqu 1dong1danyuan 1204shi 330200 nanchangjiangxisheng nanchangxian” – is that even real, or a running joke of Chinese sellers on eBay? […]

8th January 2023 9th January 2023 By Bzzz In No Comment

DOOGEE S98 PRO Wärmebildkamera Outdoor Smartphone ohne Vertrag, 8GB+256GB, 48MP Dreifach-Rückfahrkamera (20MP IR Nachtsicht), IP68 Wasserdichtes Android 12 Handy, 6,3″ FHD+, Kabelloses Laden NFC GPS (WHL #82)

Just in – a very special combination of Expensive and Cheap – the Doogee S98 Pro.

Since changing jobs also means giving back the old company phone, the CAT S61, I needed to get something else. Buying a used S61 would be an option, buying a new S62 not so much (still using FLIR sensors – sensor great, software and licensing a disaster), and basically all of their competitors use FLIR as well. With three notable exceptions: (as far as I know!)
* InfiRay PX1 5G
* AGM Glory G1S
* Doogee S98 Pro (similar to the Blackview phones, the “Pro” part is important)

The InfiRay seems to be a phone made by the FLIR competitor itself, so that is an interesting concept – however, they’re not available or even EOL already, and there’s no used market either. […]

11th December 2022 12th December 2022 By Bzzz In No Comment

Noname LED bike helmet autopsy (WHL #81)

Chinese junk that appeared on my work bench this week!

Well – it’s a bike helmet. An LED bike helmet. A colleague brought it over and asked if I could install an USB type-C port since he (or his wife?) brutally murdered the micro USB in the back. Sure, pinouts are basically identical and access to the thing is darn easy. Oh, no, they’re not.

Turns out this thing can be tossed, since he doesn’t want her to use a nonfunctional LED helmet that furthermore still has a ticking lithium time bomb in it. So I did, after extracting all the goodness shown below. […]

27th November 2022 27th November 2022 By Bzzz In No Comment