2021 – Adrian’s electronics blog

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Avionics

Aircraft avionics teardown – Honeywell symbol generator

admin
15/05/2021

I obtained another interesting piece of aircraft avionics – this time a symbol generator computer that is used for generating the graphics and video signals for the CRT displays in the cockpit. From what I can gather there is typically 2-3 of these units in the aircraft with each symbol generator driving two displays so […]

2 min 2

NTP clock only version of my ESP8266 based display

admin
27/04/2021

As there was interest I have released firmware for my YouTube statistics and clock internet connected display featured in my previous post for users who just want an NTP clock and don’t require the YouTube counter functions. This clock automatically gets the time from the NTP server and synchronises it with the software based RTC […]

3 min 3

ESP8266 based NTP clock with YouTube statistics display

admin
08/03/2021

I made some internet connected 8 digit 7 segment LED displays using a NodeMCU and Harris semiconductor ICM7228A LED driver ICs the latter of which were salvaged from old aircraft avionics. As the chips would unlikely sell on eBay I decided to make them into a project and improve upon my earlier YouTube counter project […]

2 min 0

The DM134B 16 bit shift register with constant current LED drivers

admin
06/02/2021

I have quite a few DM134B IC’s which are 16 bit shift registers complete with constant current LED drivers built in so I decided to make something useful from them. The chips require minimal components; LED current is simply set via an external resistor which is far better than having to use 16 individual resistors. […]

2 min 3

Racal Avionics data entry device / CDU teardown and test

admin
06/02/2021

This will be the last teardown video for a while and this time I have a Racal Avionics CDU allegedly from an RAF Nimrod which I obtained some time ago and discovered that it communicates with a host system over standard RS422. Now, thinking I might be able to connect it to my PC or […]

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General

Using large / high current 7 segment LED displays with the MAX7219

admin
23/01/2021

I have some largish 7 segment displays which are 0.8″ in height but I found that they were dim when driven from a MAX7219 even at full brightness. I found that this was because the LED displays I were using need around 15 mA for a decent amount of brightness, 25mA ideal. However the MAX7219 […]

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P&G aircraft cockpit voice recorder (black box) teardown

admin
16/01/2021

In this teardown video I’ve got something pretty cool; a black box from an RAF Nimrod MRA4 which was a failed project and numerous aircraft were built but were never delivered to the RAF and were later scrapped. This one does show some signs of wear and tear although it may well be damage due […]

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General

Clone Wemos D1 mini boards intermittent resetting and other problems

admin
09/01/2021

I’ve recently been experimenting with the ESP8266 modules and made a YouTube statistics counter as the first and experimental project. I used a NodeMCU for that which gave me no problems at all. However there is a smaller board, the Wemos D1 mini which on first impressions looks like a more ideal board for final […]