very interesting video. thanks :)

seems like a good solution. but just the worth of all your engineering gear is not exactly 'poor man' 😅. anyway, i found 2 cheap metallurgical mcs: olympus and wild. now i have to learn how to use them

More Sir!

This was awesome! Thanks.

Loved this. Going over the linkswitch datasheet while looking to the die was really interesting. Keep it up. Thank you!

What branch of engineering to become a mixed signal chip designer?

These devices work similarly to ADSL modems, except that they send their signal over power lines instead of a phone lines. They use a similar communication technique called COFDM where the signal is sent over many narrow channels instead of one wide channel. As a result, interference will only take out one or some of the channels instead of taking down the whole communication. Also, I was not expecting the Ethernet chip to use DSP technology, but according to the datasheet, even something as simple as a 100 Mbps Ethernet port uses digital signal processing actually.

I almost understood nothing but this was very interesting to watch

Awesome format. Love it. Very invormative!

junk box for the win.

The most underrated channel, and the worst ever microphone. Thanks for your interesting videos!

Thanks! ❤

That was just LOVELY! It also explains why a lot of these adapters work across brands. They use the same chip.

Very happy to see you making videos again. They were definitely missed.

The datasheet for the Broadcom chip is available on the internet

The metal layers need to be etched off the newer chips with etching cream to see anything interesting

Every teardown is an adventure in real art.

My neighbor thought he wanted eithetnet-over-powerline until his Asian-made hardware caused RFI problems to me. Oddly enough he soon found out that his RFI emitter was also susceptible to RFI ingress. His expenditures were quickly rendered useless!

I do love your teardown videos, if only because you're the only one I know who regularly deencapsulates chips. I was a bit disappointed to see you using binwalk (because it's the same crappy tool I use) until I saw that this firmware is from 2012. Binwalk can definitely handle that

Very informative, thank you.

excellent video, very interesting device to tear down

Hey can you do a teardown of a teardown on that desk lamp with voice recognition that Bigclive did a vid on yesterday? There's a single chip doing the voice recognition with no internet connectivity at all and using mere milliwatts. I just don't understand how such a thing could be even possible with something so primitive.

Mod those to send the signal on the phone line and you'll basically get the full bandwidth it's capable of.

A neighbor worked on some of the core technology behind this. I don't think he made much money, else he would live in a different neighborhood.

Small correction: The hostname is most likely just the lab-bar-15 bit, the colon is a separator, and the rest is the path to the binary...

Hey friendo, how's that buried Raspberry Pi? (I'm never going to stop asking, unless you ya'know don't want to answer).

What's the data rate?

Schematic you were using in the movie? Can you send it? Thanks in advance, greetings from Belgium.

The blinker is also a sign your 🔋 is going dead.

Your obviously a smart guy, no doubt. But do u hav a version of this for dummy's like me? I hav a Nebo Rebel light i use on my vest for duty. Its a really nice trail type light but the DAMN strobe activates wen im just trying to turn the light on. It causes me, every night, to DROP THE F BOMB!! Cant stand the strobe feature.......

Interesing feature on the fx-260: When doing statistics (standard deviation etc) you can enter any numvber of data points. How does it handle a thousand numbers in the small anount of ram it has? It doesn't store the numbers. Instead it stores all of the different kinds of results and recalulates them every time you add a number. Or a hundred identical numbers all at once, which is something else that it can do.

The strobe is to disoriantate an attacker

I am a total amateur at this, but I am using one of these, in place of a PIR. I appreciate the depth of knowledge and also the many intelligent comments about this technology. So if it's an RF device, one could set it off just using an RF signal then?

I have found them to be more susceptible to voltage drops than other LED designs. when I power on the cooker or any other power hungry appliance the bulb dims so much sometimes it goes out completely but other bulbs are only slightly affected.

Yes, but......we gotta big hole in the landfill to fill, so these are fulfilling a duty to our country. ;-)

Really cool teardown. Many thanks for showing this.

Great analysis！I installed 5 of this timer switch in my home for control of ventilation fans. The one in the powder room showed this symptom recently. I am expecting the other ones will fail soon. To those who are using this for fans/pumps - please consider changing them asap when it fails because a chattering relay could endanger the motor insulation, causing further damage.

glass known for conducting heat? compare to what?

Another possible reason to use cheap capacitors could be planned obsolescence.

I got Osram 6,9W/575lm/90` on discount. Would never get it for full price. They should not make `em so powerful, 4W is max for this formfactor. Strangely enough it says 80W replacement, but we know they pull these numbers out of their arses. I installed `em in a place where it is needed to have light for a few minutes an hour. Quality of light itself is great.

At first I was sceptical of plastic, but for 5$ you can get pretty precise device. Certainly better than a mechanical ones where you cannot see a damn thing. And very convenient to use.

most electrolytic caps have a usual specified operating lifetime of around 3000 hours,IIRC. So I don't see how they can claim 15,000 hours life for that LED bulb. I suspect it's "planned obsolescence", because the design engineers know the cap won't last anywhere near that long. PLUS,the higher the operating temperature of the circuit,the shorter the life of the electrolytics. I did see a 10K hour cap listed at Digikey,but no price listed.

Never trust a green electrolytic capacitor.

I'd love to know how you expose the die so cleanly. I copied a method which involves using glass etching paste to dissolve the copper layer which works well but never looks perfect (like yours)

Is there a follow up for this video? I would like to bury an active external hard drive because I live in a high wildfire threat area, and I am not sure what exactly should be done.

Great video. 😃👍 These days MR16 LEDs don't have an advantage over GU10s like the filaments used to, and there's much better choice for GU10s. I've had good results with the Ikea 3W 345lm 4000K Solhetta GU10 lamps, they used to be £3/3 in the UK but are now £5/3 😞. They do have an electrolytic but run relatively cool, so far so good for me. They do various dimmable 2700K ones too. At least CFLs are a distant nightmare now! 🤣

The design is deliberate. When run properly, an LED light will last over 25 years. This is not good for manufacturers who want to make a profit. Therefore they make the product have a short life by cheaping out the manufaturing process so the custome will buy more on a regular basis. I've had CFL lamps that have lasted over 10 years, while LED lamps in the same light fitting have lasted less than 2.

Putting all the important circuitry into the shoddy bulb instead of the socket or appliance receptacle is actually ridiculous and nobody has the audacity to question the scheme ? i'd rather pay $50 for well built socket circuit that last 10 years - then consumable bulbs would be $2 instead of $22, after 3 changes youd save the money and it would be way better for enviro

I have 14 year old Sony TV that works as good as new, but everybody is telling me I should get a new one, because of ... whatever. People want new stuff, and manufacturers are happy to provide. There is no point in making longer lasting bulbs, as you would still want to replace the working ones in couple of years because of some feature you did not know you need until you saw the advertisement. We (consumers) are the ones that drive this!

Funny the Rubycon capacitor you show the pricing of would probably be far superior to the Threecon one used in the bulb. Additionally Rubycon go up to 130c for a few cents more, without having to go to the much bigger price jump of the tantalum polymer