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Net Work Alan Winstanley This month, more useful ideas for USB charging and monitoring are given, plus practical advice about hobby and craft adhesives found online, as used in precision smartphone repairs. There’s more space programme news as well. I n last month’s column I showcased some USB-powered products that typically use a 5V USB source to recharge their internal batteries. Whether it’s a camping light, earbuds, Bluetooth speaker or a powerbank, it seems that almost every Chinese-made gadget or rechargeable device now arrives with a USB-C lead included for use with your own charger. Some USB leads might only cost a few pence to make and are often included just to add ‘perceived value’ to the product – I have a dozen scattered around, ready for the recycling bin. A ‘hanked’ lead is one formed by coiling it between two spindles or around a bar to produce a tidy coil, usually with a wire tie twisted round the middle or retained with a fancy sleeve. Apple addressed the thorny problem of producing hanked USB leads many years ago, by shaping them around two mandrels as shown in Apple’s patent, downloadable from the US Patent Office at: https://bit.ly/pe-jul24-pat Silicone cable ties and clips (pictured below) are available cheaply from Temu, and are quite handy for keeping USB leads manageable. (While I was at it, with online security in mind, I spotted some stick-on privacy covers for my laptop’s webcam that work perfectly.) The latest ‘rounded-rectangle’ USB-C connector is now commonplace and, as I showed last month, things get more interesting when ‘Power Delivery’ (PD) is involved: a PD-compatible source such as certain powerbanks and mains chargers can intelligently communicate with a device using a USB-C lead, raising the charging voltage to 9, 12, 15 or even 20V to deliver more power and cut charging times dramatically. Last month, I suggested some USB add-on monitors that show what’s actually happening when USBpowered devices are being charged. Tiny digital meters are readily available that plug onto the end of a USB-C cable to display the power being delivered, and a ‘PD’ icon confirms when Power Delivery is operating. These gadgets are very handy for use with an existing USB charger cable. Since last month, several more USB leads and monitors have arrived from China which I’ve been testing over the past few weeks. Basic monitors that use an A-type port such as the KOWSi USB Detector shown on p.11 last month display voltage and current, but I’ve now sourced a more versatile USB-C monitor that has an uncluttered multicolour display. The KOWSi KWS-065C is a useful thumb-size inline device showing voltage, current, wattage, capacity and elapsed time. It memorises readings until reset and the white segments can be cycled to show power, watt-hours and capacity. It supports the major charging protocols and is rated 4-30V at up to 6.5A. I like this generalpurpose USB-C monitor – it’s both clear to read and easy to use. The similar KOWSi KWS-066C crams more data on a colour display and shows temperature as well. The KOWSi KWS-065C is a thumb-size inline USB-C monitor showing voltage, current, wattage, capacity and elapsed time, and is rated up to 6.5A. Another KOWSi USB-C monitor, the KWS-2301C, has a 0.77-inch HD mono OLED readout that really impressed me: although more compact in size, its comprehensive display shows five lines of data including time, maximum values, CPU temperature and direction of flow. It’s rated up to 12A and the display is crystal clear, but having the eyesight of a sparrowhawk might help! KOWSi is a brand of Yuyao Lianke Electronics, and the products mentioned cost just a few pounds from AliExpress, though remember that AliExpress doesn’t include sales tax in their on-screen prices. Untangled cables Higher-power USB charging cables are available that have a digital display built into a USB-C plug for convenience, and I managed to source a braided (left) A ‘hanked’ computer lead is factory-made using a wire tie, but you can buy silicone straps or rubber clips from Temu to manage cables. (right) a stick-on privacy shutter for laptop webcams from AliExpress or Temu. 12 Practical Electronics | July | 2024 The KOWSi KWS-2301C offers a 0.77inch OLED readout showing five lines of data, including direction of charging. It is rated up to 12A and will be very useful for monitoring high-power charging. one-metre-long USB-C lead sold under the Essager brand. Just like the tiny inline USB-C monitors previously mentioned, it displays the wattage and PD (when available) on a small seven-segment display, which will be adequate enough for keeping an eye on a device’s charging status. I liked the flexible and tanglefree braided sleeving, and the cable is rated by the makers at up to 100W, 7A. It would be handy when charging all sorts of small appliances that use a USB-C charger. I also sampled some UGREEN brand braided cables that are 0.5m long, with A-type plugs at one end that will fit in my desktop USB charger. Again, the flexible This braided USB-C lead by Essager has a built-in digital display for power and PD, and is tangle-free. It’s rated at 100W, 7A. ‘memory free’ cable sleeving helps to keep them tangle-free and twin packs are sold by Amazon. To help avoid accidentally causing damage to the charging port of, say, a smartphone or tablet, it might be worth considering using a right-angle USB lead which doesn’t protrude so much. I found a short 0.5m braided type made by UGREEN on Amazon. Powerbanks themselves are widely available and USB-C charging ports can be bidirectional: they are able to recharge the powerbank as well as charging a device. It’s easy to overlook this, so it’s worth double-checking the user manual to make sure. The KOWSi KWS-2301C mentioned earlier, clearly shows the direction of current flowing in a bidirectional connection. (left) For experimenters, low-cost ‘PD trigger’ modules or ‘decoy boards’ can trick a PD power source to create a variable voltage DC supply for your projects. (right) A dip-switch type is also shown. 1455 extruded enclosures Learn more: hammondmfg.com/1455 UGREEN offers quality braided charger cables of various lengths that are flexible and easy to manage. A rightangle braided USB lead offers a more compact connection that is less prone to accidental damage. Electronics experimenters might be interested in some low-cost ‘PD trigger’ modules that are sold online. Also called ‘decoy boards’, they are designed to ‘trick’ a USB-C PD supply into outputting a higher voltage, for use as a DC power supply. Some use a dip switch to select the voltage while others work at a fixed voltage (9V through to 20V). User reviews are mixed, but the low cost makes it worth experimenting with them. AliExpress offer a variety of cheap ones and Amazon has one with dip switches, code B0BGPH1675 (illustrated below left). Cracking under pressure With high-speed charging currents now topping several amps, one wonders what effect that might have on the battery itself. More than ever, I don’t leave devices on charge without supervision, nor leave them charging unattended overnight. My own smartphone has ‘smart charge’ monitoring that suspends charging to prevent abuse and extend battery lifespan, and the phone still works admirably after several years of heavy use. However, one of my nearly new powerbanks recently developed a worrying crack in the plastic case, an unwelcome sign of a swollen battery which was probably due to a new square profiles uksales<at>hammondmfg.com 01256 812812 Practical Electronics | July | 2024 13 batteries and lithium-ion powered devices (which includes laptops, powerbanks, e-cigarettes and ‘smart’ luggage tags) on aircraft. The IATA rules regarding what should be ‘carried on’ and what cannot be stored in ‘checked-in’ baggage can be found on the IATA website, and a PDF is available at: https://bit.ly/pe-jul24-iata1 It will be worth double-checking with your airline before travel, and general dangerous goods guidance is published by IATA at: https://bit.ly/pe-jul24-iata2 Hello, can you speak up? This powerbank cracked after having some PD-level charging, which hints at a swollen and failing battery. It’s not worth risking a fire or explosion, and will be discarded safely. manufacturing defect or over-charging. It might be a co-incidence, but this defect only arose after I’d started using a highpower PD charger with it. For the sake of writing off a few pounds, it’s not worth risking a fire or potential explosion, especially when batteries are stored indoors, so it will be scrapped and disposed of safely in a proper recycling facility. It’s highly dangerous to throw them away in general waste as they can rupture and cause a major fire, either in the garbage truck or back at the recycling site itself. It seems that once their capacity reaches 20,000mAh, powerbanks can become heavy and unwieldy and certainly too inconvenient to carry, so I was attracted to a 10,000mAh sold by INIU (the same brand that sells a USB charging lead with built-in LED, see p.10 last month). This model BI-B61 is a PD 22.5W powerbank with a large digital display showing the remaining charge. It carries two USB A-type ports and a bidirectional USB-C port (5, 9 and 12V on PD) which are all clearly labelled. Its compact form factor is designed with portability in mind. Weighing in at just under 200g, a carry bag is included and there’s a small pop-out phone stand as well. The INUI BI-B61 powerbank is guaranteed for three years and is available from Amazon (B08VD632WJ) along with higher capacity models. Finally on this topic, with the forthcoming holiday season and air travel in mind, it’s worth remembering that there are strict regulations regarding the carrying of lithium batteries, spare One of the joys of working with microelectronics is that it gives you confidence to handle tricky technical tasks such as smartphone or even quartz watch repairs. My Huwei smartphone suddenly went on the blink recently when I realised that callers could hear me, but I couldn’t hear them, nor could I listen to any media soundtracks unless I used the phone’s hands-free speaker. A built-in diagnostic program proved that the earpiece was faulty, so my first job was to search YouTube looking for ideas. Sure enough, a video showed that replacing the earpiece looked straightforward enough for a technical user, needing a few tools together with a particular adhesive to glue the phone back together again (more on that shortly). Some ‘pry tools’ costing a pound or two were sourced from Temu. These flexible slivers of steel enabled me to carefully prise off the rear of my phone, but having quite sharp edges they need handling with care. The main challenge was probing around the case looking for a starting point, but after carefully gaining entry by a few millimetres the tools were used to slice through the glue seal around the perimeter of the case. The rear was then successfully removed, being careful not to damage the rear fingerprint sensor ribbon cable. (I ignored some incorrect guidance given in the YouTube video!) Some spare earpieces had arrived from eBay costing just £5 for two, so after removing some tiny screws the new earpiece was carefully dropped into place with pointed tweezers. Many online sources alluded to a mystery adhesive dubbed ‘B-7000’, which piqued my interest because my former career had involved working for the country’s largest contract filler of small containers, and at one time I witnessed the London factory in full swing, churning out thousands of tubes at a time (the superglue filling machine was especially temperamental). Behind B-7000 A 10,000mAh powerbank by INIU offers a digital display and PD. It is designed with portability in mind. 14 I’d never heard of ‘B-7000’ until now, and a 15ml tube of this mystery glue duly arrived via eBay. It turned out to be a clear, self-levelling acrylic adhesive, dispensed via a needle-point nozzle Practical Electronics | July | 2024 Handy tools designed for prying open and disassembling electronic products are widely available online. A small tube of B-7000 adhesive is also shown. with a low viscosity that allowed an accurate bead of glue to be drawn around the edge of the phone – you do need a steady hand. The phone rear could then be replaced and clamped together with some spring clamps while the adhesive cured. Excess glue is simply rubbed off, and after allowing some time for it to dry I’m happy to say my phone repair was successful, a satisfying result that cost me just a few pounds. Inspecting the enigmatic tube of glue, I found it was an unbranded Chinese import with no hazard or handling data at all, nor even a manufacturer or MSDS (data sheet) was available, which rules out commercial or industrial use in Britain. I eventually found a likely-looking Chinese manufacturer called Zhanlida Adhesives who produce adhesives for DIY, craft, industry and hobby use. It’s unclear if a similar-looking product found online, branded ‘Bu Lai En’, is connected with them: some dodgy English was apparent on the labelling. Some readers might be interested in these glues and especially the ultra-fine dispensing needle tip designed for precise applications (though replacing the cap again is like threading the eye of a needle). I found B-7000 has the lowest viscosity in their range, which allows for accurate dispensing through a fine needle. I’m reminded of my chemical industry days, where lab technicians measured viscosity using a special apparatus (a viscometer) to test how ‘thick’ or resistant to a stirrer the fluid was. Viscosity is measured in milliPascal-seconds (mPas), or you may see the (obsolete) unit centipoise instead – every day’s a school day! The makers state that B-7000 has a viscosity of 2800mPas. Other glues have different viscosities and hardness, and some are also offered in black (eg, T-7000). After trying the glue, I’ll keep a tube or two of B-7000 in the workshop for delicate repairs. The product is on the usual websites and it will pay to shop around. A comparison of glue properties is published at: https://bit.ly/pe-jul24-zhan Still on the subject of saving money with DIY repairs, I recently fitted a cherished Bulova quartz watch with a new battery, only to find that the watch stopped working altogether a few days later. Trying another battery made no difference, so it looked like a new Miyota movement (which are owned by Japan’s Citizen Watch) would be needed. It’s potentially do-able but needs a very steady hand and good eyesight, but then I found replacement circuit boards for certain quartz movements were sold online. I thought it was worth a gamble at £10 each and one arrived from Singapore. Sourcing some watch opening tools and a magnetic screwdriver, I successfully replaced the quartz controller circuitry, leaving the rest of the movement in situ. The screws measured just 0.3mm diameter, not much bigger than two full stops, and they will challenge any electronics constructor, but happily it all fitted back together perfectly and the watch sprang back into life. Faced with scrapping something or tackling a DIY repair, it’s often worth browsing around the likes of AliExpress, YouTube and eBay as you never know what prizes and surprises you might turn up. Readers interested in maintaining quartz watches, batteries and straps might find the author’s Watch Battery DIY Handbook useful. It’s A4 size and contains many worked examples and close-up colour photos of actual tasks, coin cell data and more, and is available on Amazon (B0CPBVG3K6). Other news China’s space programme continues at pace. At the end of April, China’s Shenzhou-17 spaceship parachuted safely to Earth, bringing home three taikonauts after a six-month mission on board China’s Tiangong (‘Heavenly Palace’) space station. There was also the successful launch in May of the 8.35 tonne Chang’e 6 on board a Long March heavy lifter. This mission will follow the earlier Chang’e 5 which landed in 2020, but it aims to land on the far (dark) side of the moon and, as a world first, bring Terrington Components • Project boxes designed and manufactured in the UK. • Many of our enclosures used on former Maplin projects. • Unique designs and sizes, including square, long and deep variaaons of our screwed lid enclosures. • Sub-miniature sizes down to 23mm x 16mm, ideal for IoT devices. MADE IN BRITAIN www.terrington-components.co.uk | sales<at>terrington-components.co.uk | Tel: 01553 636999 Practical Electronics | July | 2024 15 A sample of Martian soil deposited into a small titanium tube by NASA’s Perseverance rover, awaiting collection and return to Earth some time into the future. two kilos of moon samples back to earth for analysis. Photos also showed that the lander carries a small, wheeled buggy, the purpose of which is unknown. At the time of writing, we awaited news of Boeing’s new crewed Starliner being launched by an Atlas rocket. The launch was postponed due to an oxygen relief valve problem. In Net Work, August 2023 I reported on NASA’s grand plan for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) project, an extremely ambitious project to bring back to Earth soil samples that have been drilled by NASA’s Perseverance Rover. Some two dozen samples from various locations have been collected (all methodically logged at: https://bit.ly/pe-jul24-nasa) and sealed in tubes ready for future collection. You can see the principle being tested at: https://youtu.be/WLFyuRswVYA The MSR mission has now hit the Martian rocks, at least temporarily, having been deemed far too expensive at $10bn ESR Electronic Components Ltd All of our stock is RoHS compliant and CE approved. Visit our well stocked shop for all of your requirements or order on-line. We can help and advise with your enquiry, from design to construction. 3D Printing • Cable • CCTV • Connectors • Components • Enclosures • Fans • Fuses • Hardware • Lamps • LED’s • Leads • Loudspeakers • Panel Meters • PCB Production • Power Supplies • Relays • Resistors • Semiconductors • Soldering Irons • Switches • Test Equipment • Transformers and so much more… Monday to Friday 08:30 - 17.00, Saturday 08:30 - 15:30 Station Road Cullercoats North Shields Tyne & Wear NE30 4PQ Tel: 0191 2514363 sales<at>esr.co.uk www.esr.co.uk 16 and also the 16-year timescale has been ruled excessive, so a re-design is now on the cards and less elaborate solutions are sought. For its part, Airbus UK in Britain had developed a new ‘Sample Fetch’ rover destined to land on Mars in 2028 and gather the sample tubes for transfer to a Mars Ascent Vehicle, ready to be returned to Earth. The £20m Sample Fetch rover was scrapped in 2022 but may be revived for future lunar missions instead. Chinese online vendor Temu continues to forge ahead and in the author’s experiences so far, every order has been faultlessly delivered within seven days and the website is probably the slickest that he has ever used. It is sometimes hard to believe that it was not designed in Britain or America; a Chinese-language email received from Temu explains that their cross-border E-commerce platform is now second only to Amazon. In the UK, delivery is free but the minimum order is £15. You can sign up and ‘shop like a billionnaire’ at: www.temu.com Two years ago I brought news that a new ‘gigafactory’ for making EV batteries was being built by BritishVolt in north-east England to supply an emerging EV manufacturing industry (Net Work, May 2022). Sadly, the fledgling project collapsed into administration due to lack of funding. A year later the site was acquired by Australia’s Recharge Industries, hoping to produce batteries for EVs and the military, but that proposal also hit financial problems and fell through. According to local press reports, the 235-acre former power station site, called Northumberland Energy Park 3, has been acquired by the US asset managers Blackstone and is destined to become a large-scale data centre, maybe operated by QTS Data Centers, to serve the needs of Google or Microsoft. Google is building a 33-acre AI data centre in Waltham Cross, 12 miles north of London. Nearby residents complain bitterly about the construction work and loss of amenities. That’s nothing: in North Lincolnshire, plans have been submitted to build a data centre five times larger, on a 185-acre greenfield arable site known as Humber Tech Park. The developers tease that it would be a hub for the AI industry and one of the largest in Europe. Construction plans include a 10m-high greenhouse that would utilise excess heat from the data centre, and possibly the local authority’s swimming pool would benefit from heating being piped to it as well. On the electric vehicle front, Storedot, proponents of ‘XFC’ extreme fast-charging EV battery technology, have demonstrated a Polestar 5 EV charging from 10% to 80% capacity within ten minutes. The demo consisted of a 77kWh battery pack with a consistent charge rate of over 310kW, peaking in excess of 370kW, with no overheating effects experienced throughout, they say. The technology aims to eliminate ‘range anxiety’ woes in EV owners. Another acronym is destined to enter the EV lexicon in due course – the ASSB or All Solid-State Battery. Car maker Nissan explained its own ambitions for using solid electrolyte ASSBs, and the advantages over lithium-ion batteries, in an article that hints at the way that the EV industry is gradually moving: https://bit.ly/pe-jul24-nissan Steep tariffs placed on Chinese EVs in America have kept them off the US market, so shiploads of them are apparently destined for Europe instead. Sources claim that more Chinese EVs cars are being produced than can possibly be sold, and new, unsold ones are stacking up and disrupting European ports. An interesting analysis is in a blog entry at: https://bit.ly/pe-jul24-ev1 As for the problem of scrapping old EVs, I’ll close this month with a link to a Bloomberg news item which shows unwanted, obsolete EVs piling up and rotting away in China – you can see more at: https://bit.ly/pe-jul24-ev2 Don’t forget the above web links are ready-made for you to click on in the Net Work blog at electronpublishing.com See you next month for the latest The author can be reached at: alan<at>epemag.net from Net Work! Practical Electronics | July | 2024