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ETek Lab Blog

Category: Electronics

18650 Batteries testing station – pt1.2

Part 1.2 : Progress on the charger/discharger So, since I needed to make a charger and discharger to test the tons of 18650s I’ll have to deal with, I decided to make it convenient. plus the form factor of the discharger is a bit odd to work with. At this point, I designed a frame […]

Ellie
Published on September 21, 2024

18650 Batteries testing station – pt1.1

Part 1.1 : Getting the right tools for the job. Since I had these grandiose idea with limited tools, it was a bit long and difficult to do all the testing needed. So as my usual self, I ended up ordering the stuff I needed to make a proper charging and discharging station. The station […]

Ellie
Published on September 21, 2024

Simple Wall-Mount Power Switch for rPi – pt3

Part 3: Completion With the 3d print officially working, came more project advancement! I’m glad to report that the wall switch is now complete ! As a first project in fusion 360, I think it worked out ok but I will definitely need to practice further more. Going back in the design to do fixes […]

Ellie
Published on September 15, 2024

Battery-driven Bluetooth receiver for a wired headphone.

I swear, most people asked if that was a detonator… So, my phone does not have a 3.5mm jack, and my headphones are not bluetooth…. I wanted to have a semi wireless solution so, I did the most MacGyver engineering thing ever. Behold!… the thing! Basically, it’s a M28 bluetooth audio receiver for speakers that […]

Ellie
Published on September 5, 2024

18650 Batteries testing station – pt1

Part 1 : Salvaging old packs Hey guys! I got another project that I started a little while ago. I want to make a power station from repurposed 18650 batteries from old laptop packs. Initially, it started with the idea of testing my old 18650s, to fill up some USB battery packs but I soon […]

Ellie
Published on September 3, 2024

Fixing a cat toy and forensic of the old part

Did somebody said… CAT?! Hey folks! I thought I’d make a quick post about this. Basically about 3 months ago I have been given an old laser cat toy thing that was working sporadically. It’s not one of these super expensive toys but still a fair 40-50$CAD. Was definitely worth an attempt to fix. I […]

Ellie
Published on August 28, 2024

OpenWRT on RTL8196E in WiFi repeater – pt2.2

Part 2.2 : Rebuilding So, since I have to do some coding in order to get the firmware out and that I can get the data without having the chip off the board, I decided to resolder everything to be sure that it was still working. It was also a good way to test my […]

Ellie
Published on August 9, 2024

OpenWRT on RTL8196E in WiFi repeater – pt2.1

Part 2.1 : The sad realization So, I’ve been fiddling with the memory chip on the WiFi repeater, thinking it was a MX25L1606E, but I got a little surprise when I closely examined the chip after desoldering it. it is NOT a chip from Macronix, I was a bit shattered… instead the chip is a […]

Ellie
Published on July 28, 2024

OpenWRT on RTL8196E in WiFi repeater – pt2

Part 2 : Unknown device So, I DID receive my new test clip to read ICs. It is quite a lovely little tool to work with and didn’t thought I’d appreciate it that much. so, YaY? Review post coming soon. Back to the WiFi repeater, it didn’t fully solve my problem of reading the chip. […]

Ellie
Published on July 22, 2024

OpenWRT on RTL8196E in WiFi repeater – pt1.1

Part 1.1 : Tool failure… So, I figured out that I would need to extract the firmware from the Flash memory. I found the tools needed (flashrom and binwalk) for the rPi and they installed great! Also found the correct pinout for the chip!… mega good news right? Indeed, It went super well for gathering […]

Ellie
Published on July 9, 2024