Category
Electronics
33 articles
Electronics explained and lived: circuits, components, technology history and projects by Edgar Landivar.
How a Lithium Battery Works and the 1% Myth
The lithium battery powers your phone and your electric car. Here is how it works inside and why the percentage you see is never quite exact.
RISC-V: the free chip that could be hardware's Linux
RISC-V is the open, royalty-free chip architecture challenging ARM and x86. What it is, why it's growing so fast, and where you already use it without knowing.
How USB-C works and why one cable charges fast
All USB-C cables look the same, but they aren't: we explain the e-marker chip and why one charges at 240W while another barely reaches 15W.
ESP32 vs Arduino vs Raspberry Pi Pico: which to choose
A clear comparison of the ESP32, Arduino and Raspberry Pi Pico: how they differ, which one fits your project and what each board actually costs.
ESP32 from scratch: which board to buy and what to build
A beginner's guide to the ESP32: which board to buy for your project, how the S3, C3 and C6 models differ, and what you can actually build with each.
Rescuing the Bardellini Tower
It stood on Guayaquil's Malecón for only four years before falling to a structural miscalculation. I rebuild in 3D the clock tower the city almost forgot.
Fiction or Prophecy? 20 Cartoons and Films That Predicted Our Present
From the Jetsons to Blade Runner, 20 cartoons and films predicted smartwatches, video calls and AI decades before they became part of daily life.
How Apple's AirTag ACTUALLY Works
Apple's AirTag doesn't transmit over long distances like many believe; here's how it really finds lost items using BLE and a vast Find My network.
YuboxNow: equip your ESP32 board with its own LoRaWAN configuration and support Web interface
Embed a configuration web interface on your ESP32 just like a router, with built-in WiFi and LoRaWAN support for your next open-source IoT project.
5 Essential elements in my electronics workshop
The 5 essential tools every electronics workshop needs, with the exact makes and models I trust after years of building circuits and inventions.
The "smart" watches of yesteryear
The Casio Databank, an 80s wristwatch many call the first smartwatch, sparked a wave of nostalgia when readers shared their own forgotten gems.
Raspberry Pi vs Arduino. Which is better?
Differences between Arduino and Raspberry Pi. When to use one or the other? We explain here the pros and cons of each of them.
Punta de Piedras and the Oyster Sauté
A pirate-era fort in the Guayas delta and a forgotten oyster sauté that once tempted river travelers, rediscovered through old chronicles and photos.
Emergency charger for Macbook Pro. In case you lost the original.
Forgot your MacBook Pro charger? I reverse-engineered the USB-C voltage trick that tricks the laptop into charging from a lab power source.
Retro Tech Vintage Computer Club
How a nostalgic urge to restore an old Atari 2600 grew into a vintage computer club that fascinates collectors and teenagers alike.
The old Texas Instruments Compact Computer 40 laptop
The Texas Instruments Compact Computer 40 had speed, price, and a 200-hour battery, yet one fatal design flaw doomed it and ended an era for the company.
The First Laptop in History: EPSON HX-20.
Review of the first laptop in history, invented by EPSON. It had a printer included and a battery that gave it incredible autonomy.
Hidden details in the photograph of a Guayaquil tram
A century-old photo of a Guayaquil tram hides clues that reveal its exact corner, its Belgian car and a surprising link to a famous soccer club.
How to Make a Cell Phone Charger for Emergencies?
Stuck with a dead phone while camping? Build an emergency charger from 4 AA batteries, a stripped cable and even pencil lead as a resistor.
Harvesting energy from radio waves (Energy harvesting). A technology that we already used more than a century ago.
Harvesting energy from radio waves sounds like the future, yet a battery-free crystal radio was already doing it back in the 19th century.
How does a vacuum tube amplifier work?
How a vacuum tube amplifier works, explained stage by stage through a beautiful 1950s Pathfinder amp, from the rectifier to the power output.
Looking for the lost Eiffel bridge in Ecuador
A forgotten Eiffel bridge built in Ecuador in 1886 sparks a real-life hunt to find whether the lost railway structure still survives today.
Reverse engineering and analysis of a 2 amp USB charger
Reverse-engineering a 2-amp USB charger to reveal its flyback switching power supply, stage by stage, with a working schematic built from discrete parts.
Weather station with Arduino MKR1000
Build a DIY weather station with the Arduino MKR1000 to publish real-time temperature, humidity, and pressure to the web over WiFi from anywhere.
Converting an old radio into a tube guitar amp (vacuum tubes)
Turn a forgotten vacuum-tube radio into a real guitar amp and chase that warm, coveted tube sound that costs guitarists a fortune to buy.
How to Make Ice Cream in a Paila Using Ice and Salt: An Old-Fashioned Recipe
Making paila ice cream with ice and salt, the old-fashioned way, using a restored antique copper machine and the simplest recipe possible.
How to make a USB car charger (car) and how a DC voltage reducer works
When my car charger died, I took it apart to show how to build a USB car charger and how a DC voltage reducer works using the MC34063 chip.
Open source project: children's playhouse. (with plans)
Build a children's playhouse for under 200 dollars with free plywood plans, a fun DIY Christmas project the kids can paint and decorate too.
High voltage source with recycled parts
Building a high voltage source of tens of thousands of volts from recycled parts, salvaging a flyback transformer out of a dead CRT monitor.
How to replace a vacuum tube with solid state components
When a dead vacuum tube proved impossible to find, I rescued a 1950s Bogen amp by swapping the rectifier valve for simple silicon diodes.
Restoration of tube amplifier. Challenger CHA10. Vintage amp overhaulin & #039;
Restoring a battered Challenger CHA10 tube amplifier from the 1950s: new paint, knobs, a guitar input, fresh tubes and a brighter, revived sound.
Restoration of an old tube amplifier (valve).
Restoring a 50-year-old Bogen J330 tube amplifier into a guitar amp: paint close to the original, new capacitors and valves, plus before-and-after photos.
Irrigation system controlled by telephone. Applications for a PBX at home.
A telephone-controlled garden irrigation system built with Elastix, Asterisk, AGI and Arduino, so a simple phone call turns the sprinklers on.