Day: October 19, 2026

An LCR Meter With Compromises

October 19, 2026 by 11 Comments

YouTube, like the Internet, has its plusses and minuses. On the plus side, you can find information on just about anything. On the minus side, you don’t always know if that information is of any value. On the plus side, you can connect to experts who have an uncanny knack for explaining things. On the negative side, you can find people who — let’s just say aren’t. Lucky for us, [Kerry Wong] is very knowledgeable about test instruments, so when we see a review from him, like the one for the ZOYI ZT-XC1 LCR meter and multimeter, we know we will get good information. Check out that review in the video below.

It used to be unusual to have an LCR meter that could measure inductance or capacitance in a home lab. But now it isn’t a big deal, and many multimeters and testers can at least attempt to read these quantities.

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A shiny, silver vehicle with tools on a mesh rack on the back half and a large open cab up front drives across a grassy field under blue, partly cloudy skies. A person in a black shirt stands in the background with a drone hovering above their head. Two women in white helmets are piloting the vehicle from the cab.

Driving On The Moon At A Blistering 11.6 MPH

October 19, 2026 by 28 Comments

As NASA continues humanity’s slow march back to the Moon, different pieces of the puzzle of establishing a more permanent base there are falling into place. One of these pieces is the the Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTR), and [Cleo Abram] and [Michelle Khare] got a look at the LTR candidate from Lunar Outpost.

Designed to help astronauts traverse the lunar surface as well as function as a semi-autonomous rover when uncrewed, the LTR will be an integral part to any future Moon base. NASA announced earlier this year that it would be moving forward with the LTR featured in this video and another from competitor Astrolab. Regardless of manufacturer, the LTR will have to deal with some wild conditions in the lunar environment.

Lunar dust is abrasive, so the LTR generates an electric current to pull the dust under the truck to prevent it from entering the cab of the vehicle as it moves along. Given the extreme temperature swings on the moon (-200˚C to 200˚C), the space truck will also be fitted with wire mesh tires as nobody wants to be changing a flat in space. The two seats in the cab are oversized and can help lift the astronauts up as space suits hamper their agility to a significant degree. There are compartments for storing samples, and the truck has a robot arm that can grab samples to bring back if no one is along for the ride.

We’ve still got a few years before crews arrive on the moon, but when they do, there’s a good chance they’ll be using the LTR to explore the lunar south pole in hopes of water.

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