Repairing a Chinese Li-ion battery charger 42V "Rait" brand

The circuit: in one UF1004 dissipating diode and a MOSFET 600V N  MDP11N60 (left)

A collegue had broken his battery charger, he told me that he had left running, hitting an explosion when going to charge his battery 20Ah scooter for the last time .

Normally when a small explosion sounds, it is that any electronic component has gone to hell, so I checked the components and at first sight there was nothing broken, not even the MOSFET had been damaged.

It is  quite simple transformer of 180 / 240VAC to 42 Vdc with 5A load capacity (although the actual output voltage 40,7V are even better for the longevity of the battery), of unknown Chinese brand that came with the battery of 20Ah Chinese acquired.

In reviewing the tracks below, we see what happened: the track that connects with the departure had not stood the peak intensity of the moment to connect to charge the battery (capacitors can deliver a significant current at the time of connection); It is that by design has 3 tracks (possibly to put resistors as a fuse in the Tinned areas) but only one was connected.

Replacing the battery ARRAY Ni-MH battery with a Li-Ion one

In this post we will see another example of updating a NI-MH battery for Li-ion another , much more durable and with no memory effect, in addition to saving bucks in the long run on batteries. These modified batteries are two years running without any problem, and that they were batteries in its final cycle of use, recycled.

Disk arrays on servers usually have an acceleration unit with memory and a battery to prevent data loss in the event that there is a black-out.

Since the Ni-MH array accelerator many HP servers work with 3.6V (three 1.2V rechargeable batteries in series) is replaced by a single Li-ion protected working between 3 and 4 battery , 2V (at 3.6V is 40% capacity).

The original battery, spare ref. 307132-001 HP is 500mAh, so a Li-ion 2600 mAh far exceeds that capacity, so it will retain more energy and for more years than the original having no "memory effect" (probably last longer the server itself), protecting better against unexpected power outages data (also recommended a UPS).

Centralized control mixed system Solar-Biomass with Arduino and TFT Shield

In this post I will share with you the improvements I've made ​​to -biomass Solar mixed system , which is basically to change the obsolete control system for thermostats with a centralized system based on Arduino fully customizable, flexible and expandable; We see assembly, components and source code.

Used materials:

   1- Arduino MEGA 2560 (specifically I used one Funduino clone ), because the TFT shield does not leave me enough inputs / outputs Free UNO R3.

   2 Touch Screen TFT 2.4 "  McuFriend , which will give us great freedom when it comes to display information on screen libraries that have worked best for me. Are the BUHOSOFT ; here you can download the version I used.

   3 - relays to activate solenoid valves, with a fed to 5V that can handle 230V and 10A worth us to spare. Not to stress regulator Arduino board, the food independently with other L7805 regulator (handles between 7-30V and 1.5A max). Being so low consumption, nor need a heatsink:

Changing the battery of your tablet for a few bucks

In this post we will change a spent battery to a 9-inch tablet

Currently it is not uncommon to see every family with an Android or Apple tablet, and over time the piece gets more wear of this useful accessory is the li-ion battery, especially if it is of poor quality, and when it lasts less than an hour we should change it, improving the original capacity if possible. In this case we have a Edertix Tablet 9.7" whose battery lasts less than half of its original capacity.

Extending the battery life of your phone past 3 DAYS

S5 with housing and battery Zerolemon What's hot?

Granted, cheating is so fashionable today... but if not, "you wouldn't go read" this entry. No, there are no magic tricks to make your smartphone lasts, in normal use, more than calculated by the manufacturer (beyond a few more hours);  if you want your battery to last more, the only answer to your praye is to change the battery with a higher capacity one at the expense of giving more thickness to the mobile, yes, and if the change includes a cover that protects it from knocks great, welcome are the "fatphone"! 

But do not go! This entry is not sponsored! The Zerolemon are not the typical Chinese fat batteries, with a shabby housing to accommodate them. It is quality batteries, yes manufactured in China, but with reliable Design and Quality; I tell you I've been using for the last year one for my S3 with results that have exceeded my expectations, with actual 6000 mAh .

Build your own fully customizable Energy Monitor for 30 bucks

Arduino UNO with a 2.4 "TFT monitor the consumption of a house

The crisis continues, so If you want to know how much electricity do you need every hour of the day, or switch power contract to the TDH or reduce the contracted power, or make estimates, you can install an expensive energy monitor, or, as we will see in this post, we manufacture ourselves .

IMPORTANT : If your supplier has telemetry on your electricity bill, chances are that hourly consumption can be consulted on the website of the supplier.

Version 1.0 of the program and debugged

Everything you wanted to know about planned obsolescence ... and other topics on home appliances

Good, I was thinking about writing an article about the "planned obsolescence" after having a nice discussion with a "Blablacar" passenger long ago, but what was my surprise that my a friend Antonio Sanchez has already done it, and very well in his blog on saving on home appliances, and I 'm grateful to him for keeping people well informed of (I subscribe to every word of him, I think I wouldn't explain it better). Well, for me:

How to locate the fault point on a fiber optic cable without tools

24 port switch with Allied Telesys Quality

There are expensive cable testing tools that tell us quickly and reliably what fiber cable is failing sending the light signal, but do not usually indicate where it has been broken. 
But with a simple trick we can see which section of the connection is broken , just using a powerful chip CREE LED Flashlight XML-T6 and the ability of the fiber to transmit any light waveform trhough it.
At one end we put the flashlight focusing terminations:

Blurry text in Google Chrome and other Aplis after installing Windows 10: How to fix it

Windows 10 by default applies a display configuration and scaling according to the screen size that we have, which may result in a neat desk, but in some computers the applications could be all with blurry text, as if it were not using the native resolution of the screen, despite having drivers and well detected screen. To fix this and get and clear view in Windows 10, we just have to follow these steps :

Fuel economy in a car: Charging battery the Arduino way: 2nd and last part

26650 LifePo4 A123 batteries (2.3 Ah)

After analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of changing the car battery for a homemade LiFePo4 one as we discussed, I've finally discharged it for the following reasons :