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

Jaycar kit: Audio Playback Adaptor for CD-ROM Drives

This Audio Playback Adaptor for CD-ROM Drives was released with a Silicon Chip article back in November 2007, approaching two decades ago.

I just purchased the last two available from Jaycar, they no longer have any stock.

I now own three of these babies, and it is my hope that I can use their components to build some electronics that implements enough of the ATA protocol to unlock OG Xbox hard drives. I reckon my chances of success are pretty slim, but it will be fun trying!

This is them:

They’ve been on the shelf in a warehouse for years, check out how dirty they were:

For the record here is a screenshot of this item on the Jaycar website after I purchased all their stock:

Jaycar Maker Hub

This isn’t super high quality content, and is basically just advertising, but what the hell. I’m not sure how regularly they get new content, but today on Maker Hub: