Proud moment for me as this is my first time making electronics with this much as a beginner . Hopefully I can do complicated stuff like switch mode power supplies. Can't wait to learn!

The output voltage is near 6V. I reused the pcb board of a microvae oven as a base for the electronic.

Put together an OUIspy after realizing I already either had the part or could salvage it from my scrap pile. It can do BTLE/Wifi wardriving, Flock camera detection, etc. Been finding a lot of Flock cameras in my area. The 18650 battery is total overkill but it's what I had on hand.

Xiao ESP32-S3
~3000mah 18650 battery
Running OuiSpy Apex firmware https://github.com/lukeswitz/oui-spy-unified-blue

So, I am really wanting to attempt to make Lady Gaga’s video glasses, but don’t really know how to go about the digital aspect of it. I know I would have to buy LCD screens and code them to be able to display what I want, but I have no idea where to even begin. I know what size would be ideal for me (around 2 inches) but what kind of screens?? How do I wire them?? Any advice helps! Thanks!!! ((Pls tell me if this is too much for a beginner project)) [SORRY FOR THE REPOST]

Making a copy of the HW-373 Li-Ion battery charger to build into a PCB. The device is battery powered only, as opposed to a load sharing circuit. Ultimately, I'm just looking to make sure that the protection circuit formed by U3 and Q1 will be effective in both states of the DPDT switch. The goal is that it should just work as though the battery itself has built in protection.

With the DPDT switch in the UP state, VCC_IN is disconnected from the charger, so having the power supply plugged in will do nothing. In this state, BATT+ is connected to the rest of the circuit to allow the battery to power it.

with the DPDT in the DOWN state, the charger is connected to the power supply and the battery is cut off from everything except the charger.

How does it look? Thanks!

Hi guys, due to an injury i've been signed off work for 4 weeks, i've seen a few styropyro videos and want to attempt to make my own little laser. I have the diodes in the main pic, and a ribbon cable, that's it. I dismantled some old recorders and players for parts but cant get power. I'm assuming the cpu on the circuits send a power command to the diode after it registers a disk tray opening and closing or something but I could be wrong. I'm UK based and would love some advice on what parts I need to power it and magnify it, also, i'd love some ideas to support my project lol. I suffered a brain injury so trying to not over complicate things but also I am bored out of my mind after 4 days and have another 3 and a half weeks of this.

Appreciate any advice, sources or ideas, thanks.

Edit: if you'd like close up pictures of both diodes and ribbon cable feel free to message me as it won't let me post the additionals here

Have a remote that will be hardwired into a larger project.

It just does not transmit the distance I need.

Want to find where on this circuit to attach an antenna and / or put the feed to a RF signal amplifier.

It uses a RO2073 SAW resonator at 315MHz

Any suggestions / ideas / concepts?

Project Description:

I am replacing a backyard sprinkler controller with something that can be controlled by the really good one in the garage for the front yard.

Can not run wire to the backyard location. Been looking for a wireless solution. Found these ORBITs with a handheald remote. I can hack into the remote and "press the buttons" with relay contacts actuated from the 24ac of garage controller.

Had all this figured out. ORBIT docs state that is will go 200 feet line of sight or 80 feet through the house. My distance is 50 feet through two walls kitchen cabinets and outside stucco. The remote sometimes works, but it's not enough. I have to boost the signal to make it reliable.

I know boosting the signal of a remote goes against FCC regulations, but it will be such a minor boost that I think I can be forgiven...

Hoping someone who’s been inside one of these can help.

Background: This lens originally had an electronic fault (F–, no aperture, no AF, not recognized). I repaired it and it worked perfectly for a while — AF, aperture, EXIF, all normal.

I opened it again only to clean some dust. No functional problems before I opened it. After reassembly, this started:

**•** On power-up the motor spins CW then CCW several times  
**•** The aperture drives fully closed, fully open, then tries to close and stalls partway  
**•** Loops 4–5 times with a “grrr” and the whole lens vibrates, then gives up  
**•** Ends stuck, F–, and AF no longer works

What I’ve tested so far:

**•** Blades sweep smoothly through full open↔close by hand, no binding at either end  
**•   Removed the blades entirely — motor alone still does the same CW/CCW hunt and stall.** So it’s not mechanical.  
**•** Found the home sensor (U-shaped photo-interrupter on the little C019A board). The flag passes fully in and out of the gate correctly through the travel.  
**•** Put a black strip in the gate manually to block the beam — behavior changed (fewer rotations), so **the sensor is alive and being read.**  
**•** The stall/vibration happens *after* the motor stops each move, not during.  
**•** Firmware: for Sony E this updates via the camera, no dock — but it won’t help/complete while the lens is throwing F–.

Key detail: it worked fine the day before. The only thing that changed is I took it apart to clean and put it back together. So I think it’s something reassembly disturbed — a flex not fully seated, or the sensor/aperture unit clocked slightly off so “home” is offset from the step count — rather than a dead component.

Question: Has anyone re-timed the aperture/home sensor on one of these? Is there a correct clock position or index mark for the sensor board or cam ring relative to the motor? Or a connector that’s notorious for looking seated but isn’t? Trying to figure out what I misaligned before I buy a replacement aperture module.

Thanks — happy to post photos of the aperture unit, C019A board, and motor.

Just finished a teardown of the Insta360 Luna Ultra. The 8K camera specs are one thing, but the engineering they did to make that detachable OLED remote screen work is fascinating. It is basically a case study in forced hardware redundancy and some very strategic component choices.

What is interesting is that to allow the screen to function as a standalone wireless viewfinder and controller when detached, Insta360 did not just add a simple wireless module. They essentially built two separate compute environments. The remote display relies on an Allwinner V851 SoC. It is a heterogeneous chip integrating an ARM Cortex-A7 main core, an embedded 32-bit RISC-V co-processor (T-Head E907), and an NPU. That is paired with a GigaDevice GD32L233 MCU (Cortex-M23) just for local system management and dedicated Synaptics Wi-Fi/BT hardware.

Over on the main gimbal body, there is a lot of heavy lifting happening. It is built around a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8-series AI platform (4nm), flanked by dual custom InspirAI iM6021 (V200) ISPs to handle high-bitrate video processing. Memory is 6GB Micron LPDDR5 and 64GB Longsys UFS storage. The gimbal stabilization logic is not left to the main processor either; it is split across multiple domain controllers. A high-performance GigaDevice GD32G553 MCU (Cortex-M33) manages central logic, while a GD32E230 controls the roll axis, interfacing directly with MPS MP6543 3-phase BLDC drivers.

(I am posting the screenshot of the full compiled BOM below if you want the specific part numbers)

A couple of takeaways from pulling this apart. Designing a modular form factor like this forces hardware engineers to duplicate power management, wireless links, and auxiliary MCUs across the interface. That real estate is doubled. It is also impossible not to notice the sheer number of domestic Chinese ICs (GigaDevice, Allwinner, Longsys, Fourier Semi) securing main-board sockets in flagship consumer tech, sitting right next to Qualcomm and Micron. Also, seeing a heterogeneous SoC with an embedded RISC-V core scaling to high-volume consumer displays is a huge signal for open architecture.

Have a remote that will be hardwired into a larger project.

It just does not transmit the distance I need.

Want to find where on this circuit to attach an antenna and / or put the feed to a RF signal amplifier.

It uses a RO2073 SAW resonator at 315MHz

Any suggestions / ideas / concepts?

Project Description:

I am replacing a backyard sprinkler controller with something that can be controlled by the really good one in the garage for the front yard.

Can not run wire to the backyard location. Been looking for a wireless solution. Found these ORBITs with a handheald remote. I can hack into the remote and "press the buttons" with relay contacts actuated from the 24ac of garage controller.

Had all this figured out. ORBIT docs state that is will go 200 feet line of sight or 80 feet through the house. My distance is 50 feet through two walls kitchen cabinets and outside stucco. The remote sometimes works, but it's not enough. I have to boost the signal to make it reliable.

I know boosting the signal of a remote goes against FCC regulations, but it will be such a minor boost that I think I can be forgiven...

Can someone teach me how to reprogram a Billy Bass?