Voltlog #278 – InTheMail

Welcome to a new InTheMail, the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time. Before I get started I’m gonna take a second to remind you to subscribe to the channel and hit the bell notification icon because that’s the only way you will know for sure when I upload new videos.

Voltlog #247 – InTheMail

Welcome to a new InTheMail, the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time. We’re going to start with this small module, at first when I ordered it I didn’t fully understood what it does but now after doing a bit of research for this mailbag it seems this is an immobiliser emulator for the VAG group. So am immobiliser is a security component of your car that will not let the ECU start the engine unless a certain key or token is present. And there might be valid reasons why you might need this emulator, for example if the immobiliser is broken, you can supposably cancel it and start the engine with this emulator or if you exchange the motor/ecu combo once again it might not be possible to use the old immobiliser and so an emulator will help.

It talks over a K-line interface which is something specific to the automotive domain but it’s basically a form of serial interface. At first I thought this was going to emulate some kind of can bus and I was planning to play with it by scanning the bus but now I realize this is useless for me.

Voltlog #229 – What’s The Smallest Digital RGB LED?

Welcome to a new voltlog, today we’re talking about RGB LEDs. Everyone knows and probably uses digital RGB LEDs these days because they’re convenient, you only need a single pin to control then, they can be chained one after the other creating long addressable RGB strings, you don’t have to worry about driving them with constant current, in fact they even have digitally controlled brightness settings so they’re pretty convenient.

Since these are digital, they have a built-in controller chip, and if we take a closer look at one of these LEDs which comes in a 5050 package, we can see the driver chip and the 3 LEDs red, green blue with their corresponding bonding wires. There are two popular drivers chips the WS2812 and the SK6812 and each of these might have different revisions as well. The WS2812 was the original one on the market and then the SK6812 appeared and is considered a clone of the WS2812 but brings some improvements. The SK6812 has doubled the pwm frequency at which it drives the LEDs which is always welcomed as it helps with reducing flicker and also the timing requirements are a bit tighter but existing WS2812 libraries should work fine with the SK6812.

Voltlog #224 – InTheMail

Welcome to a new InTheMail, the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time. We’re gonna start with this small and modern looking remote control. I actually like how this feels, even though the cost was just $3 shipped it just feels well built, the quality of the plastic is nice, the buttons have a nice click and it comes pre-loaded with batteries.

You can then use this remote control to open the garage door or whatever you like to control. But do note that this will not work with all 433MHz remotes, because some remote controls employ some form of coding, to protect the signal from being easily cloned. Take for example the automotive key fobs, some of those work on 433MHz but you won’t be able to clone them with this remote. Nonetheless, useful for creating a copy of your garage door remote control or even better, you could hack this remove and integrate it into your car dash console on some of those unused button slots. That would be a cool project.

Voltlog #176 – InTheMail

Welcome to a new InTheMail the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time.

Here are links to all the products shown in this video:

Voltlog #65 – InTheMail

Welcome to a new InTheMail, the series that will make your account balance go negative or so I’ve been told by my viewers. I admit it myself, when I watch these kind of episodes from other youtubers and i see something interesting, there is no going back, I have to order that stuff.

Here is a list with the items shown in this video:

  • 3W RGB Flashing Rainbow LED
  • Mini LCD Digital Humidity Temperature Meter
  • ACS712 Current Sensor Module
  •  TTP226 8 Channel Capacitive Touch Sensor
  • W25Q32B Winbond 32M SPI Flash Memory
  • Universal USB breakout board
  • Adjustable DC-DC Step-Down Converter
  • 5.8GHz Microwave Radar Sensor
  • AA NiMH Rechargeable Battery

Links for all of these items will be in the video description which is visible on youtube.