Articles

I've been presenting my capacity tests of various powerbanks on the forum for a while now, but I've recently realised that I've been too conscious of choosing good models such as Baseus , JoyRoom or Romoss . For this reason, I decided to go for the first cheapest 50 Ah powerbank from... [Read more]

Here's another nostalgic gadget, this time a little more expensive as it was bought for over £100 - the X12 console offering a 5.1" colour display, AV output and compatibility with retro games from platforms such as NES and GBA. In addition, the whole thing can act as a video and... [Read more]

Here's a short test of a tiny 10-inch surveillance monitor bought from a Chinese mail order site. Here I will measure its power consumption and test its performance with a single PAL camera. How much does it cost to use such a monitor? Will it be suitable for the Raspberry? Let's... [Read more]

Many of you are probably wondering how you can unleash the power of today's artificial intelligence and integrate it into your own projects and products. The most common form of access to LLMs, the popular chat window, is just the tip of the iceberg. Here, I will show how you can... [Read more]

Malus.sh is a satirical platform offering an "AI clean room recreation" - a process in which AI recreates open source software based on documentation, without access to the code. The result is supposed to be new code, free of licensing restrictions and ready for commercial use. The... [Read more]

An interesting project is gaining popularity on site X tscircuit , which combines frontend web technologies (React + TypeScript) with electronics design. The idea is simple: instead of classic CAD like KiCad or Altium, we write the circuit as JSX code. The electronic components are... [Read more]

What is the evolution of the kitchen alarm clock radio? Do the newer models differ from the older ones in construction? How is the tuning, display, power supply implemented? Here, I will try to demonstrate this using the example of two kitchen radio receivers from different periods.... [Read more]

Today I am showing two LED controllers that can work without a cloud from the factory. No soldering is required. The first one is the GL-C-309WL, it is based on ESP32 and has an open WLED firmware uploaded. It works 100% locally, we configure it via Wi-Fi. The second is the GL-C-301P,... [Read more]

An interesting service story today. Can swapping 4 GB RAM for 8 GB damage a laptop so that it can no longer even boot or install the operating system? I have personally found out that this is possible - here I will show what happened and present the solution to the problem. Does your... [Read more]

Here I will show the inside of a PoE-compliant IEEE 802.3af/at/bt switch with up to 60 W, offering 4 LAN ports (with power), 2 uplink ports and a throughput of up to 1.6 Gbps. PoE (Power over Ethernet), as the name suggests, is a technology that allows data and power to be transmitted... [Read more]

Here is a teardown of an 'ELVICO Smart Plug'. It is intended for Zigbee using the eWelink platform. I have been hunting for bouffalolab-based devices, as my project has been porting those chips to Zephyr RTOS for a few years, and we just got BLE working, enabling usages similar to... [Read more]

Good morning. My first project. Some time ago I wanted to repair an old radio from my father-in-law as a gift for my wife, but I didn't want to burn it down extra. So I came up with a bulb tester. It was supposed to be as simple as possible, but somehow I got worked up and added a... [Read more]

Here I will introduce two Meross MSS550 switches, the first a touch-sensitive version and the second based on a 'clicky' microswitch. I'll examine how they are built and then I'll post the information I've gathered so far about the interesting Wi-Fi chip on the inside - the Mediatek... [Read more]

I'd like to invite you to a presentation and testing of the cheapest UPS bought with the idea of keeping a computer running for a few minutes after a power loss. Here I'll test it under various loads (including with a power supply with active PFC), I'll look at the output waveform,... [Read more]

February 24-26, 2026, the second edition of Smart Home Expo took place at Ptak Warsaw Expo in Nadarzyn. This is one of the most important industry events dedicated to the presentation of technologies in the field of building and home automation, smart devices and energy management.... [Read more]

Will the Qwen3.5 models allow a simple image search engine to be built by verbal description of the content? Could local AI work in the role of OCR? In the previous topic the AI described more than 1000 images from the Elektroda forum , here I enriched this collection with descriptions... [Read more]

The LC-13-A is a flush-mounted, single electrical socket with earthing and two additional USB ports for powering/charging mobile devices. Its dimensions (width 8.4x8.4 cm, depth 4 cm) allow it to be easily installed in most fi 60 mm boxes. In this topic, I will test how it is built... [Read more]

Lately I've been wondering whether a simple USB C hub can provide a wired connection for a phone or tablet to the internet, and whether it can handle multiple storage media or USB to UART converters at the same time. These types of capabilities will allow you to revive a tablet with... [Read more]

The distinctive orange and black box immediately caught my eye, but I was only convinced by the manufacturer information - Smart from Tomic (according to the packaging). The price isn't so bad either, just £25, so it's probably worth a try. It would be a pity if it turned out again... [Read more]

Here I will introduce the Lilygo T-Connect industrial board distinguished by its simultaneous support of up to three RS485 buses and one CAN line. I ordered it from China for around £200. We open the distinctive box and pull out the plate. What strikes you immediately is the ESP32-S3-WROOM-1... [Read more]

Hello, until recently, the prices of devices on Zigbee were higher compared to equivalents on WiFi. Nowadays they have evened out and even dropped. Unfortunately, the build quality has also dropped. Initially, a ready-made module containing a chip supporting a particular type of network... [Read more]

Here I will show how to make and connect a custom remote control module for iRobot Roomba 500-800 series hoovers. The control will be via Wi-Fi and will offer ready integration with Home Assistant via MQTT. The hoover modified in this way will be able to work according to a schedule,... [Read more]

That is - a paradigm shift in printer accuracy following the installation of a piezo sensor (Piezo Probe). I would like to share with my colleagues my observations and lessons learned from the transition from the electro-mechanical BL-Touch sampler to the piezo sampler, which samples... [Read more]

Bringing a high-performance AI product to market usually takes years of grueling hardware development. Today, Grinn is working together with Renesas to change that narrative. Grinn announced a collaboration centered on the launch of the Grinn ReneSOM-V2H , a production-ready System-on-Module... [Read more]

How do you recognise the architecture of an unknown microcontroller from a Flash memory dump? What microprocessor is an old HP printer based on? Will it be possible to revive the memory dump so that it displays something on the UART with proper emulation of its registers on a Windows... [Read more]

How to monitor energy consumption in building automation? One solution for individual consumers can be some kind of extension cable or adapter that takes the measurement, but it is undoubtedly more convenient to have the measurement in the socket itself. The ZK-SR-EU shown here makes... [Read more]

Have you connected the flash memory correctly to the CH341 programmer, but the PC program does not recognise it at all? NeoProgrammer shows IC not responding, is the chip faulty? The Read ID operation (reading the flash ID) returns 0xFF alone? Don't give up - here I'll show an unusual... [Read more]

Hi everyone! I would like to present the construction of a WAREHOUSE POWER SUPPLY quite powerful, as it is almost 1200W . The power supply came about as an idea to get a cheaper equivalent to the Riden RD6018 kit. Parameters of the power supply, are: - voltage regulated 0 - 60V with... [Read more]

Hello Colleagues, I wanted to share an old project that I once made and was even commercially available for a while. The project is more than 15 years old so I am happy to share the materials. Maybe it will inspire someone or they will want to make such a device themselves. The code... [Read more]

As a rule of thumb, it has been accepted that the MQTT broker must be a high-performance server, a cloud service, or at least a Raspberry Pi-style microcomputer. The question, however, is - are you sure? Wouldn't it be possible to realise a simple MQTT server on a chip like the ESP32... [Read more]