Archive for the ‘Electronics’ Category
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Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
Holiday Gift Idea: Bowers & Wilkins C5 In-Ear Headphones
The Bowers & Wilkins C5 in-ear headphones is a great gift for the person that wants high-end sound in the most compact form factor possible. As with all Bowers & Wilkins products, the build quality is as superb as the sound quality. What really sets these in-ear headphones apart from the rest is the loop part — that fits against the cartilage of the ear giving it a secure fit. While these are not active noise-canceling, the design amazingly blocks out noise as if they are. The Bowers & Wilkins C5’s cost $180.
AMAZON.com - Bowers & Wilkins C5 In-ear noise-isolating headphones
For even more gift ideas be sure to check out my picks over at ESPN.com!
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Monday, November 28th, 2011
Holiday Gift Idea: Zoom H2n Digital Recorder
The Zoom H2n is the perfect gift for a musician, videographer, student or anyone that like to record high-quality audio. This is the latest revision of the original H2 and offers some major improvements over the original — specifically the LED display. The old version had a LCD display which was really hard to see. There are five “studio-quality” microphones in the H2n and even a built-in speaker. All this for only $199 (currently $179 @ Amazon)!
AMAZON.COM - Zoom H2n Handy Recorder
For even more gift ideas be sure to check out my picks over at ESPN.com!
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Saturday, November 26th, 2011
2011 ESPN.com Holiday Gift Guide
My 2011 Holiday Gift Guide is now live at ESPN.com! I will be posting more gift ideas here at Mavromatic so be sure to check back starting Monday!
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Friday, September 2nd, 2011
Obihai OBi100 – Google Voice To POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service)
I’ve been on the look out for a device that can leverage Google Voice *and* offer up a POTS port that can be tied into my whole house Panasonic telephone system (Hybrid-PBX) as a CO line. The search is finally over — Obihai’s OBi100 does exactly what I need for less than $50 and NO monthly fees! I ordered the OBi100 from Amazon for only $43.99 when it arrived the setup was easy and was up and running within 30 mins. If you were to base the sound quality on looks alone, you’d suspect it’s terrible, however, it’s not! I couldn’t perceive any notable sound quality differences from my landline service and there were no issues sending or receiving faxes over the line either. This little device is a must have for any Google Voice user! If you have any questions feel free to post in the comments.
- Obihai: What is it?
- Obihai: How to use it with Google Voice
- Buy now via AMAZON: OBi100 VoIP Telephone Adapter and Voice Service Bridge
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Thursday, August 25th, 2011
Fostex AR-4i Audio Interface for iPhone 4
Here’s a neat add-on that turns your iPhone 4 into a HD video (audio) recording rig at a fairly economical price of $150. The key feature of the Fostex AR4i is that it brings excellent quality stereo audio recording via the dock connector and it’s built-in AD/DA converters. The included microphones can be swiveled and located in many different configurations giving you the best possible audio capture. Built-in LED input level metering, gain control and headphone monitoring, the AR-4i has been designed to turn your iPhone 4 into a high-quality audio and HD video capture device. This little add-on is great for trips and family events where you don’t want to carry another device just for video capture, but want the higher quality audio and video stabilization (via form factor and included handle).
- Fostex AR4i website
- AMAZON: Fostex Audio Interface for Iphone 4 – Fostex AR-4I
[ via and as seen on MacBreak Episode 261 ]
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Sunday, August 21st, 2011
The Audiophiles Digital Media Player – ColorFly C4 Pro
Sure, Apple is leading the digital media player space, but, ColorFly is not your ordinary media player trying to be an iPod. No. No. No… The ColorFly Pocket C4 Pro’s steampunk-ish good looks with real American black walnut backing is not what it’s about, but what’s inside is what really matters with this player. Starting with components only a true audiophile would recognize. The C4 Pro features a CIRRUS LOGIC CS4398 DAC chip and a CIRRUS LOGIC CS8422 SRC chip offering up Signal-to-noise-ratio’s (SNR) of up to 108 Db and Total-Harmonic-Distortion (THD) lower than 0.003% with a rate of jitter lower than 5ps. WOW! As for connectivity, the C4 Pro has a RCA SPDIF IN/OUT interface, a full 1/4″ and 1/8″ headphone jack, a micro-USB port and a microSD card slot. One of my favorite touches is the use of the famous Japanese made ALPS volume slider potentiometer. The C4 can play uncompressed 24-bit FLAC audio files and if you don’t know what those are then you have no business getting the ColorFly C4 Pro anyway!
The ColorFly C4 Pro 32GB will cost you $799 and it’s available now from ALO Audio.– ColorFly C4 Pro Website
- U.S. Dealer for ColorFly C4 Pro
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Friday, May 27th, 2011
Myro:Bridge – Kaleidescape to Russound RNET
I have been busy releasing a bunch of new firmware updates for Myro:Bridge and one that I’m especially proud of is the newest Kaleidescape to Russound RNET. The Kaleidescape is a very slick piece of hardware, not only for exact CD quality audio playback but for video (including Bluray). We have had a unit in for testing while we write the firmware and it will be a sad day when I have to ship the unit back. Until then, I’m enjoying every minute with it. Check out the video showing how Myro:Bridge tightly integrates a Kaleidescape with Russounds whole house audio controllers using RNET and the Myro:Bridge.
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Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
PCB Design Demo Board
I’ve become addicted to our local maker space called Metrix Create:Space and while I’m there I always ask them what is the latest stuff they got in. That’s when I was shown the PCB Design Demo Board which was designed by Jon Chandler. Priced at $10, it’s a bargain because if you have ever made a PCB yourself, picking the hole, SMD pad, silkscreen lettering and trace sizes can be a challenge. This $10 can help save hundreds in errors associated with picking the incorrect footprints in Eagle. Also, if you are in the Seattle area peep Metrix Create:Space — just don’t hog the laser cutter!
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Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
DIY: Building a Solder Reflow Oven – Part 2, The Oven.
… continued from Part 1
The donor oven arrived and I began the modifications to make it turn on when it’s plugged into power bypassing all the safety and panel controls. This unit will be plugged into an outlet switched by the PID controller which will control the temperature and feature a safety override switch (to be covered in Part 3). The modifications to the oven were pretty easy. Here are the steps needed to turn the Black & Decker Infrawave oven into a Reflow Oven:
1) To get access to the board and relays that control the heating elements you first need to remove the following screws from the bottom of the oven.
2) Once the six screws are removed the bottom panel comes off easily. The board is mounted to the plastic bottom with screws. You can chose to remove the board or work with it mounted. I removed it and soldered 12 gauge stranded wire, you could use anything from 12 to 16 gauge (as the power cable on this unit is 16gauge, I wouldn’t run anything smaller). There are three bridge points you need to make. You can also ground the relay to keep it permanently on, I like the idea of bypassing any electronics completely as the solid state relay/PID will be doing all the controlling. Here is a photo of which points you want to bridge:
3) Once you solder everything, mount the board and bottom panel back to the oven. There is one last thing you need to do. There is a safety door switch which turns off the oven if the door is open. You will want to disable this. I drilled an 1/8″ hole and used a screw to hold it down.
4) Plug in the oven, the heating elements should turn on automatically. You have completed the oven mod.
In Part 3 we will be drilling the back of the oven and installing the thermocouple and wiring up all the electronics in our project box. Stay tuned…
Please Note: Your safety is your own responsibility. These projects are not intended for use by children. Use of the instructions and suggestions on Mavromatic is at your own risk. Mavromatic, disclaims all responsibility for
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Friday, April 15th, 2011
DIY: Building a Solder Reflow Oven – Part 1
I’ve needed to step up production of Myro:Bridge and that means I need a better way to solder all the small SMD components on the boards quickly and with higher quality. After hours of researching reflow ovens, I decided instead of purchasing one (which can cost thousands) I’ll do it in the tradition of Mavromatic and build one myself. I compiled a list of components needed and placed the orders.
Here is a list of what I’m getting:
> Black & Decker Infrawave Oven – This will be the donor oven. What led me to this oven was the folks over at Silicon Horizon. They have a reflow controller and recommend using the IR based oven because it seems to work with many reflow profiles nicely. It seems like they are on hiatus right now so ordering their controller was not possible. And that led me to the following critical component…
> Shinko JCL-33A PID Controller with Ramp/Soak function – I searched high and low for a controller that offers MM:SS timing as the typical seems to only be HH:MM. This controller only offers one program and up to 9 steps which works perfect for my application. I also wanted a RS485 (programming and charting via PC) interface and SSR driver output. The end result was the JCL-33A from Shinko. (I went with a true PID controller versus an Arduino or PIC based controller because I wanted something more reliable and the programming and charting software comes free with the JCL-33A).
> 25A Rated SSR DC/AC – Solid State Relay - This pretty little device is what the PID controller controls and the SSR (solid state relay) controls the IR element in the oven.
> Omega K-Type Thermocouple Probe with Fitting – This is what connects to the PID controller and reads the temperature very accurately.
A few other parts (which I already have) include: outlet with box, wiring, RS485 to USB converter, project box to mount PID and SSR in.
Now, I just need to wait for all the parts to arrive and begin the modifications to the oven.
… Continue to Part 2, The Oven >>
Please Note: Your safety is your own responsibility. These projects are not intended for use by children. Use of the instructions and suggestions
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About the archives
Welcome to the archives here at MAVROMATIC.
These are a collection of our previous posts. If you'd like to read about the latest and greatest, click here.
Welcome to mavromatic! My goal is to bring to your attention the latest DIY projects, the greatest home automation and home theater products. As well as, the occasional offbeat entry, to spice things up a bit.
