New Book: The Art of Electronics 3rd Edition | In The Lab With Jay Jay

This post is part of my video blog: In The Lab With Jay Jay.

Silly Job Title: Charge Charmer

Support this channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JohnElliotV

This video is part of the New Book feature of my video blog.

In this video I review the venerable The Art of Electronics 3rd Edition. It’s a long video, because this is a long book!

While I was writing up these notes for the video I found a wealth of fun stuff. Here are a few links:

Context object versus global variables

I’m reading A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout and he says:

The context object unifies the handling of all system-global information and eliminates the need for pass-through variables. If a new variable needs to be added, it can be added to the context object; no existing code is affected except for the constructor and destructor for the context. The context makes it easy to identify and manage the global state of the system, since it is all stored in one place. The context is also convenient for testing: test code can change the global configuration of the application by modifying fields in the context. It would be much more difficult to implement such changes if the system used pass-through variables.

Contexts are far from an ideal solution. The variables stored in a context have most of the disadvantages of global variables; for example, it may not be obvious why a particular variable is present, or where it is used. Without discipline, a context can turn into a huge grab-bag of data that creates nonobvious dependencies throughout the system. Contexts may also create thread-safety issues; the best way to avoid problems is for variables in a context to be immutable. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a better solution than contexts.

Okay, so I’m just gonna step way out of line over here and suggest something heretical… but shouldn’t you just use global variables? You only introduced the context object so you could tweak it in unit tests, and you could just change your tests so that each one ran in a new process. Just sayin’.

…I suppose for the sake of completeness I should add a little more from Ousterhout which he said prior to the above:

Another approach is to store the information in a global variable, as in Figure 7.2(c). This avoids the need to pass the information from method to method, but global variables almost always create other problems. For example, global variables make it impossible to create two independent instances of the same system in the same process, since accesses to the global variables will conflict. It may seem unlikely that you would need multiple instances in production, but they are often useful in testing.

…so he is bending over backward to support multiple tests in one process, but he could just run each test in its own process and his problem evaporates.

In The Lab With Jay Jay – December 12, 2023 – Mail Call! Plus Two Old Books And A Floppy Disk

This post is part of my video blog: In The Lab With Jay Jay.

Silly Job Title: Ohm Oracle

Old Book: Electric Circuits by J. Richard Johnson published 1984 with 888 pages.

Support this channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JohnElliotV

Today we pop open a few bags of stuff that has arrived in the mail.

I mention about the trouble I had with my Western Digital Purple drives.

I mention about my new Western Digital Black 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD WDS100T3X0E drives.

I mention about my Educational 555 PCBs which have arrived from PCBWay. The website of the designer is given as: basitelektronikprojeler.blogspot.com.

The systems of units mentioned in the old book Electric Circuits are discussed at MKS system of units and Centimetre–gram–second system of units.

The 256GB M.2 NVMe drives I got to use as my ZFS L2ARC cache are these: TOSHIBA KIOXIA 256GB BG5 NVMe SSD M.2 2280 – NEW GEN4.

The automotive fuses I got are these ones: Car Fuse Blade Fuse Kit Fuses Automatic Truck Blade The Fuse Insurance Insert Insurance of Xenon Piece Lights Auto Accessories.

The test clips I got are these ones: 10X Universal Chip clamp micro IC clamp SOP SOIC TSOP MSOP SSOP SMD IC Test Clip pin Socket Adpter Programmer for logic analyzer.

The book which arrived in the mail was The SCSI Bus and Ide Interface: Protocols, Applications and Programming (2nd Edition) by Friedhelm Schmidt published 1997 with 396 pages.

Here is a table of products I use which may appear in my video with affiliate links to vendors if you would like to buy. The link given here won’t necessarily have the best price so please do shop around to see if you can find a better deal. If you have thoughts or questions please feel free to let me know. Let’s go shopping!

Equipment Affiliate Link Notes

Rigol MSO5074 Mixed Signal Oscilloscope
MSO5074 70MHz 4 Channel MIXED SIGNAL OSCILLOSCOPES notes

OWON XDM1041 Bench Multimeter
Owon XDM1041/XDM1241 Digital Multimeter 55000 Counts High Accuracy Desktop Multimeters AC/DC Tester True RMS USB Multimeter notes

ANENG AN-999S Bench Multimeter
ANENG AN-999S Desktop Voice Multimeter Digital 19999 Counts Professional Bluetooth Tester True RMS AC/DC Voltmeter Current Tools notes

DigiTech QM1323 Multimeter
DigiTech QM1323 Multimeter – Grey/Yellow notes

DT830B Digital Multimeter
DT830B AC/DC LCD Digital Multimeter 750/1000V Voltmeter Ammeter Ohm Tester High Safety Handheld Meter Digital Multimeter notes

Brother P-Touch D210 Label Maker
Brother P-Touch D210 Handheld Label Maker TZe 3.5mm 6mm 9mm 12mm with Free Tape notes

‎OUSFANAM Capactior Discharge Pen
Portable Capacitor Discharge Pen Fast Discharging Tool Digital Sparkpen Discharger 1000V For Industrial Sparkpen Battery Capacitor Fast Discharge 1000V Repair Tool Discharger For Safety notes

ALKOY Capactior Discharge Pen
1000V Portable Capacitor Discharge Pen High Voltage Quick Discharging Tool Constant Discharge Pen Electronic Repairs Discharge Pen ALKOY notes

Kaisi Repair Mat
Kaisi Heat Insulation Silicone Repair Mat with Scale Ruler and Screw Position for Soldering Iron, Phone and Computer Repair Size:17.7 x 11.8 Inches notes

MMOBIEL Helping Hands
LED Light Helping Hand Magnifier Station for Soldering, Assembly, Repair,Modeling, Hobbies and Crafts – 2.5X /4X LED Light – Hands-Free Magnifying Glass Stand – Incl. Clamp and Alligator Clips notes

QWORK Helping Hands
QWORK Glass Stand notes

Legion Tools Mini Screwdriver Set
Precision Mini Screwdriver Set 11pc Jeweller Laptop Phone Watch Repair Tool notes

Sudake SDK07 test clips
10X Universal Chip clamp micro IC clamp SOP SOIC TSOP MSOP SSOP SMD IC Test Clip pin Socket Adpter Programmer for logic analyzer notes

Sudake SDK08 test clips
10pcs x Universal Chip IC clamp SOP SOIC TSOP MSOP SSOP SMD IC Test Clip Socket Adpter Programmer for logic analyzer notes

Victorinox Swiss Champ Red Swiss Army Knife
VICTORINOX SWISS CHAMP RED – SWISS ARMY POCKET KNIFE – LENGTH: 91 MM – 33 TOOLS notes

Scotch Titanium Scissors
3M Scotch Precision Ultra Edge Titanium 8″ Scissors Stay Sharp Smooth Cutting notes

In The Lab With Jay Jay – November 30, 2023 – Teardown of Homemade Continuity Tester

This post is part of my video blog: In The Lab With Jay Jay.

Silly Job Title: Grounding Genius

Old Book: Industrial Electronics Reference Book by Electronics Engineers of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation published 1948 with 680 pages.

Support this channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JohnElliotV

Today we teardown a homemade continuity tester which I put together for use before I had a multimeter, so that was in the early days of my new lab, circa August 2021.

While I was preparing the links for this blog post I discovered that the plastic case I used for the continuity tester was the HB5610 Black Hand-held Electronic Enclosure from Jaycar. I purchased one of these for AU$9.95 back in August 2021, which was around the time that I made this continuity tester.

I subsequently purchased a ten pack of similar plastic cases from AliExpress for AU$64.55 (inc shipping) in March 2022. I went to find the AliExpress listing so I could link you to it, but it’s an old listing and has been taken down. I did search for an equivalent product but didn’t find what I was looking for. The dimensions are roughly 70mm x 135mm x 24mm and there is a facility for 2x AA batteries built in.

The multimeters I use/mention in this video are:

The multimeter I mention I want to get is this one: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter.

What I say in the video about active vs passive piezoelectric buzzers is correct. The active buzzer will do the buzzing for you, all you need to do is supply some power. The passive buzzer will need an input signal in addition to power, so some sort of oscillator if you want to generate a tone.

I knocked up a schematic for this continuity tester, something like this:

Continuity tester schematic

I’m gonna try getting some PCBs made for this circuit from PCBWay, because I’m still trying to learn everything I can about that process!

Here is a table of products I use which may appear in my video with affiliate links to vendors if you would like to buy. The link given here won’t necessarily have the best price so please do shop around to see if you can find a better deal. If you have thoughts or questions please feel free to let me know. Let’s go shopping!

Equipment Affiliate Link Notes

Rigol MSO5074 Mixed Signal Oscilloscope
MSO5074 70MHz 4 Channel MIXED SIGNAL OSCILLOSCOPES notes

OWON XDM1041 Bench Multimeter
Owon XDM1041/XDM1241 Digital Multimeter 55000 Counts High Accuracy Desktop Multimeters AC/DC Tester True RMS USB Multimeter notes

ANENG AN-999S Bench Multimeter
ANENG AN-999S Desktop Voice Multimeter Digital 19999 Counts Professional Bluetooth Tester True RMS AC/DC Voltmeter Current Tools notes

DigiTech QM1323 Multimeter
DigiTech QM1323 Multimeter – Grey/Yellow notes

DT830B Digital Multimeter
DT830B AC/DC LCD Digital Multimeter 750/1000V Voltmeter Ammeter Ohm Tester High Safety Handheld Meter Digital Multimeter notes

Brother P-Touch D210 Label Maker
Brother P-Touch D210 Handheld Label Maker TZe 3.5mm 6mm 9mm 12mm with Free Tape notes

‎OUSFANAM Capactior Discharge Pen
Portable Capacitor Discharge Pen Fast Discharging Tool Digital Sparkpen Discharger 1000V For Industrial Sparkpen Battery Capacitor Fast Discharge 1000V Repair Tool Discharger For Safety notes

ALKOY Capactior Discharge Pen
1000V Portable Capacitor Discharge Pen High Voltage Quick Discharging Tool Constant Discharge Pen Electronic Repairs Discharge Pen ALKOY notes

Kaisi Repair Mat
Kaisi Heat Insulation Silicone Repair Mat with Scale Ruler and Screw Position for Soldering Iron, Phone and Computer Repair Size:17.7 x 11.8 Inches notes

MMOBIEL Helping Hands
LED Light Helping Hand Magnifier Station for Soldering, Assembly, Repair,Modeling, Hobbies and Crafts – 2.5X /4X LED Light – Hands-Free Magnifying Glass Stand – Incl. Clamp and Alligator Clips notes

QWORK Helping Hands
QWORK Glass Stand notes

Legion Tools Mini Screwdriver Set
Precision Mini Screwdriver Set 11pc Jeweller Laptop Phone Watch Repair Tool notes

Sudake SDK07 test clips
10X Universal Chip clamp micro IC clamp SOP SOIC TSOP MSOP SSOP SMD IC Test Clip pin Socket Adpter Programmer for logic analyzer notes

Sudake SDK08 test clips
10pcs x Universal Chip IC clamp SOP SOIC TSOP MSOP SSOP SMD IC Test Clip Socket Adpter Programmer for logic analyzer notes

Victorinox Swiss Champ Red Swiss Army Knife
VICTORINOX SWISS CHAMP RED – SWISS ARMY POCKET KNIFE – LENGTH: 91 MM – 33 TOOLS notes

Scotch Titanium Scissors
3M Scotch Precision Ultra Edge Titanium 8″ Scissors Stay Sharp Smooth Cutting notes