Fnirsi IPS3608: A Bench Power Supply With Serious Flaws

September 20, 2025 by Maya Posch 21 Comments

Fnirsi is one of those brands that seem to pop up more and more often, usually for portable oscilloscopes and kin. Their IPS3608 bench power supply is a bit of a departure from that, offering a mains-powered PSU that can deliver up to 36 VDC and 8 A in a fairly compact, metal enclosure. Recently [Joftec] purchased one of these units in order to review it and ended up finding a few worrying flaws in the process.

One of the claims made on the product page is that it is ‘much more intelligent than traditional power supplies’, which is quite something to start off with. The visual impression of this PSU is that it’s somewhat compromised already, with no earth point on the front next to the positive and negative banana plug points, along with a tilting screen that has trouble staying put. The USB-C and -A ports on the front support USB-PD 3.0 and a range of fast charge protocols

The ‘intelligence’ claim seems to come mostly from the rather extensive user interface, including a graphing function. Where things begin to fall apart is when the unit locks up during load testing presumably due to an overheating event. After hooking up an oscilloscope, the ripple at 1 VDC was determined to be about 200 mV peak-to-peak at 91 kHz. Ripple increased at higher voltages, belying the ’10 mV ultra-low ripple’ claim.

A quick teardown revealed the cause for the most egregious flaw of the unit struggling to maintain even 144 Watt output: a very undersized heatsink on the SMPS board. The retention issues with the tilting issue seemed to be due to a design choice that prevents the screen from rotating without breaking plastic. While this latter issue could be fixed, the buggy firmware and high ripple on the DC output make this €124 ‘285 Watt’ into a hard pass.

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Teardown Of A Persil Smartwash Smart Laundry Detergent Ball

August 7, 2025 by Maya Posch 37 Comments

How to make doing laundry more smart, depending on your perspective. (Credit: Zerobrain, YouTube)

Ever since the invention of washing machines, the process of doing laundry has become rather straightforward. Simply toss the dirty laundry into the machine, fill up the detergent, and let the preset program handle the rest. This of course has not prevented companies from coming up with ways to add more complexity to doing laundry, with Henkel’s Smartwash technology the latest example, as demonstrated by German YouTube channel [ZeroBrain] with a complete teardown.

Henkel is the owner of detergent brands like Persil and Somat, with the Smartwash ball supposedly offering ‘smart’ dosing of detergent for washing machines, with naturally a smartphone app with intrusive localization to personalize the laundry experience. Sadly the video is only in German, but the language of teardowns is universal.

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Buying Large LiFePO4 Batteries: How Cheap Is Too Cheap?

August 7, 2025 by Maya Posch 42 Comments

It’s a well-known factoid that batteries keep getting cheaper while capacity increases. That said, as with any market that is full of people who are hunting for that ‘great deal’, there are also many shady sellers who will happily sell you a product that could be very dangerous. Especially in the case of large LiFePO₄ (LFP) batteries, considering the sheer amount of energy they can contain. Recently [Will Prowse] nabbed such a $125, 100 Ah battery off Amazon that carries no recognizable manufacturer or brand name.

If this battery works well, it could be an amazing deal for off-grid and solar-powered applications. Running a battery of tests on the battery, [Will] found that the unit’s BMS featured no over-current protection, happily surging to 400 A, with only over-temperature protection keeping it from melting down during a discharge scenario. Interestingly, under-temperature charge protection also worked on the unit.

After a (safe) teardown of the battery the real discoveries began, with a row of missing cells, the other cells being re-sleeved and thus likely salvaged or rejects. Fascinatingly, another YouTuber did a similar test and found that their (even cheaper) unit was of a much lower capacity (88.9 Ah) than [Will]’s with 98 Ah and featured a completely different BMS to boot. Their unit did however feature something of a brand name, though it’s much more likely that these are all just generic LFP batteries that get re-branded by resellers.

What this means is that these LFP batteries may be cheap, but they come with cells that are likely to be of questionable quality, featuring a BMS that plays it fast and loose with safety. Although [Will] doesn’t outright say that you shouldn’t use these batteries, he does recommend that you install a fuse on it to provide some semblance of over-current protection. Keeping a fire extinguisher at hand might also be a good idea.

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The Switch 2 Pro Controller: Prepare For Glue And Fragile Parts

June 14, 2025 by Maya Posch 33 Comments

The Switch 2 Pro controller’s battery is technically removable, if you can get to it. (Credit: VK’s Channel, YouTube)

For those of us who have worked on SNES and GameCube controllers, we know that these are pretty simple to get into and maintain. However, in the trend of making modern game controllers more complex and less maintainable, Nintendo’s new Switch 2 Pro controller is giving modern Xbox and PlayStation controllers a run for their money in terms of repair complexity. As shown in a teardown by [VK] on YouTube (starting at nine minutes in), the first step is a disappointing removal of the glued-on front plate. After that you are dealing with thin plastic, the typical flimsy ribbon cables and a lot of screws.

The main controller IC on the primary PCB is an ARM-based MediaTek MT3689BCA Bluetooth SoC, which is also used in the Switch 2’s Joy-Cons. The 3.87 V, 1070 mAh Li-ion battery is connected to the PCB with a connector, but getting to it during a battery replacement might be a bit of a chore.

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Nintendo Switch 2 Teardown, Let’s A-Go!

June 9, 2025 by Drew Littrell 12 Comments

A new console challenger has appeared, and it goes by the name Nintendo Switch 2. The company’s latest iteration of the home console portable hybrid initially showed promise by featuring a large 1080p display, though very little official footage of the handheld existed prior to the device’s global release last week. However, thanks to a teardown video from [TronicsFix], we’ve got a little more insight into the hardware.

The technical specifications of this new console have been speculated on for the last handful of years. We now know NVIDIA is again providing the main silicon in the form of a custom 8x ARM Cortex A78C processor. Keeping the system powered is a 5220 mAh lithium ion battery that according to [TronicsFix] is held in with some seriously strong adhesive.

On the plus side for repairability, the onboard microphone and headphone jack are each attached by their own ribbon cable to the motherboard. The magnetic controller interfaces are also modular in design as they may one day prove to be a point of failure from repeated detachment. Speaking of which, [TronicsFix] also took apart the new version of the Joy-Con controller that ships with the system.

Arguably the biggest pain point for owners of the original Nintendo Switch was the reliability of the analog sticks on the diminutive controllers. There were widespread reports of “stick drift” that caused players to lose control as onscreen avatars would lazily move in one direction without player input. For the Switch 2, the Joy-Con controllers feature roughly the same number of dome switch buttons as well as haptic feedback motors. The analog sticks are larger in size on the outside, but feature the same general wiper/resistor design of the original. Many will cry foul of the continued use of conventional analog stick design in favor of hall effect sensors, but only time will tell if the Nintendo Switch 2 will repeat history.

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Soviet Calculator Teardown Reveals Similarities And Differences

June 6, 2025 by Lewin Day 12 Comments

Tearing down hardware from different parts of the world can be revealing, showing unique parts, techniques, and tricks employed by engineers living in a very different world from our own. To that end, [msylvain59] has been kind enough to give us a look inside the Elektronika MK-26—a calculator built in the former Soviet Union.

There’s lots of interesting stuff to see from the get-go. The oddball button pad is covered in Cyrillic symbols, quite alien to those of us more accustomed to the Latin character set. It’s also constructed somewhat unlike more familiar models from Western-aligned companies like Casio or Commodore. It also rattles when shaken, which doesn’t inspire confidence. Inside, it’s got old-school brown PCBs without the usual green solder mask, a chunky IC in a weird package, and display is via a power-hungry VFD.

It doesn’t look so totally alien inside; much of the construction is pretty typical of the mid-1970s, wherever you went around the world. The most striking differences are more in the graphics and visual design than anything else.

Ultimately, there are reasons why manufacturers around the world tend to converge on similar techniques. Generally, it’s because it’s more economical or easier to do things a certain way. And yet, we still see regional variances because conditions, technologies, and parts availability varies around the world. This teardown highlights that quite clearly.

If you’re just getting a taste for Soviet hardware teardowns, you’ll love this video diving inside a real Soyuz clock.

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Camera is seen on the left with an Arduino connected to the right

Look To The Sky With This Simple Plane Tracker

May 27, 2025 by Ian Bos 12 Comments

Do you ever get tired of stressing your neck looking for planes in the sky? Worry not! Here is a neat and cheap Arduino/Ras Pi project to keep your neck sore free! [BANK ANGLE] presents a wonderfully simple plane tracking system using an affordable camera and basic microcontrollers.

The bulk of the system relies on a cheap rotating security camera that gets dissected to reveal its internals. Here stepper control wires can be found and connected to the control boards required to allow an Arduino nano to tell the motors when and where to spin. Of course, the camera system doesn’t just look everywhere until it finds a plane, a Raspberry Pi takes in data from local ADS-B data to know where a nearby plane is.

After that, all that’s left is a nifty overlay to make the professional look. Combining all these creates a surprisingly capable system that gives information on the aircraft’s azimuth, elevation, and distance.

If you want to try your hand at making your own version of [BLANK ANGLE]’s tracker, check out his GitHub page. Of course, tracking planes gets boring after a while so why not try tracking something higher with this open-source star tracker?

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