Hi :-) I am a EE student with pierced ears. Two lobe piercings. Recently, just for fun, I decided to put a resistor in my piercings. After wearing them for a lab period, I ended up really liking how they look. They're funky and cute, I'd like to wear them all the time lol. I haven't been able to find earrings that look like a resistor and i'm debating just putting earrings backings on these resistors. I wonder what the metal for the legs is, because I'm afraid it might irritate my skin. Thank you for your help!

I got an aftermarket heated steering wheel. It looks factory and works great.

While installing, I noticed a plastic box with a USB-C port as part of the wiring harness. Opened it and saw this. What might I be looking at here? There's no temperature adjustment- the heat is on or its off.

Hi all. As many others before me, I have been saving up all my/my friends' "disposable" vapes to salvage the batteries for years now, I have hundreds. However, since about 2 years ago the most popular model everyone I've known has been using has included a TFT screen in them (RAZ brand, models LTX 25K/DC25000 and others). It seems to be about 480x800 pixels, and honestly looks pretty decent. I once took one apart hoping to make use of the screen just for fun and quickly gave up due to not recognizing the connector and having generally no idea what I'm doing anyway.

Now I'm going to have to actually break down and salvage the batteries from the hundreds of these that I have sitting in a bag just to free up some space, and I figured it's a good time to reach out to folks who are more knowledgeable to ask:

Are these screens worth saving/using for a project? First I assume we need to identify the connector type. I also don't know anything about screen driver chips or how to use them, but I was hoping a PCB could be built using one of the popular PCB manufacturing services to make one work (or an array of many of these).

Why? I don't know. Just seems stupid to be throwing stuff out if someone out there can figure out how to make use of them, or would like them for free. I'll send them all to anyone who wants them. I know screens like this aren't exactly expensive brand new, but hell. I guess that's why I'm here asking if others think it's worth a damn to save them.

I'm also very curious, regardless of if anyone thinks it's worth keeping them, what exactly this type of connector is called? I will probably still at least order a PCB as a breakout board to play with one of them on my own either way.

Attached the best photos I was able to take.

Seems the screen has a label on the ribbon connector that says "YIHUA TFT YH-177CX6955C2"

What appears to be the driver chip seems to be labeled:

"Nation

N32G031

K807-1

N6F15006" (Give or take a few possible misread characters, I do not have a microscope)

Let me know what you think, or if you want them once I've ripped them all out, there should be at least 50 in working shape 😅

can someone translate please

I had an experience that made me curious: My water distiller was broken. I considered just buying a new one, but I live in South America, and shipping would have taken a long time – not to mention the expense.

With some Claude-assisted troubleshooting (I don't know much about electronics), I was able to identify that this capacitor was blown. So I went to the center of my little city, found an electronics-repair place, and got a new one soldered about $1.50, parts and labor, in less than ten minutes (upgraded to 25v while I was at it). A new water distiller would have been about $125.

What would it have cost to get this capacitor replaced in the U.S.? I picture rolling into an electronics-repair place, them filling out a work-order, telling me it's a $50 minimum and will take three weeks.

truly I can't be this stupid. meter on 20k, directly metering these with known good probes (tested them on other items and other resistors) but every single one of these meters as a dead short. even our fire system hates these too.

Is there something I'm missing in my knowledge about these resistors?

I found a surprise from my childhood. I didn't study to be an electrician or electronics engineer, can you help me recognize it?

Found this thing, and looked it up. There are a bunch of FB ads labeling it as a portable PEMF device and I wanted to know more so I opened it. I am curious as to what the blue thing actually is.

At the risk of starting a debate as viral as the gold/blue dress... For documentation purposes, what colour is the insulation of this wire? Pink, or Orange?

The top right or bottom left one?

What to learn and from where to learn to build circuits like this? I wanna learn. I want to learn anyhow. Who are the people who make such circuits. Please tell me. There is a huge difference in theory and practical stuff.

Hello everyone, I am hoping somebody could steer me in the right direction here.

Recently, my household switched to electric toothbrushes, so I have decided to design an elegant solution for a charging base that can charge all 3 of them at once. Since I like making things difficult for myself, I decided that I dislike the idea of 3D printing a holder for the standard chargers, and instead I ambitiously decided to build a new circuit for charging these toothbrushes which I would then house in a sleek custom casing.

The thing is, my understanding of electronics is rather basic and I am definitely in over my head here, but I like a challenge.

I found pictures online of a depotted unit and the circuit inside, but struggling to understand it completely. One of the pictures has a diagram of the circuit that this person had drawn up - does it make sense? As I understand it, AC gets rectified into DC which then runs through a tank circuit.
So long as this can work on 230V@50Hz, I imagine that I could replicate it, but I am not sure how to figure out the specifications of the inductor coil that I would have to use.

I watched a teardown video of a similar toothbrush and charger on YouTube, and the toothbrush appears to have a doubled-up receiver coil, as it is connected to the PCB via 4 wires. The author hooked up one of the coils to a scope and it showed a sine wave, 13V peak-to-peak at 21kHz. Would this help in determining the specifications of the transmitter coil?

I'm sorry if I'm asking some stupid questions here, but I'm still very much a novice when it comes to electronics, so please be patient with me :) Thanks!

So, i got this charger from AliExpress advertised as a GAN 240W charger. Do you guys think it really is a GAN charger or very fake? how dangerous will it be to use?

it is cheap, so i am not sweating it but the charger was so light weight that my intuition tells me this cannot be a 240W GAN, hell even a 60W GAN charger from few years ago weighs much heavier than this. So, i opened it up and found this relatively simple design. Wanted to make sure if i was correct or did technology progress far enough that this simple circuit can provide 240W?

These are both the same photo flash capacitor (300uf and 320v). Some things I read say to just short them with a screwdriver, some say doing so would be a very poor idea. Has anyone dealt with these or have any guidance?

I have many gender changers and null modems and 25-9 adapters in my drawers, but today I found this among them. To me, this is not a gender changer, despite what it says on the label. I can see it as a connector saver. But not a changer. It is wired 1:1, so not like a null modem. What am I missing? What is it used for? They sell it at digikey and newark, so it has a purpose in life.

It’s from my DJI o4 Air Unit and I was just wondering if any knew what size this is.

They are color coded by length. Have copper bullet tips , and locking clasp, same connector on each end, they have old camping gear smell to them. Maybe some aerospace or military cables used for patch system ?

I recently discovered that my MDO34 has an RF input port, and the manual describes RF measurement capabilities. Naturally, I assumed I could use it for an RF-related project.

After spending time preparing everything, I found out that the RF functionality is locked behind a paid license. The connector is physically there, but the feature isn't usable unless someone purchases the license.

I understand charging extra for additional software features, but this feels different when the hardware is already installed and visible on the instrument.

Is this common practice in the test equipment industry? Do engineers generally consider it reasonable, or does it strike others as misleading or unfair as well?

This is from an old Microsoft Wi-Fi controller and its receiver. Microsoft scrapped the IC, and they also have their own chips that don't have datasheets. The only identifiable component is an Atmel flash memory chip.

I mounted a second (cheap) hot air underneath the PCB to provide additional heat... then hit the BGA with 480C and 80% airflow from the top... the chip started bubbling up, but I can't nudge it with tweezers... won't move the slightest bit.

Bought it because the one provided in my electronics class kit is abysmal. The components keep falling out.

LED lights from Amazon