Saturday, September 29, 2012

[Random Teardowns] Chinese HDMI to VGA converter

Device: Chinese HDMI to VGA converter
Origin: eBay / China
Reason for teardown: Curiosity
Impressions: Never heard of the chip or the manufacturer. The thing works fine though. Does a great job with a Raspberry Pi as well.

Lontium LT8511A


Sunday, September 2, 2012

Dead ballast

Just posting to share some pictures.
The thing is an OSRAM Electronic Ballast for T8 fluorescent tubes.
Hard to tell what the heck really happened here. Walked in the room today to find one set of tubes dark. Took off the cover and noticed a faint sour smell. Tried powercycling which resulted in flickering then nothing. Second attempt resulted in a loud pop and the Rubycon YXA violently spewing electrolyte all over the ballast board. Definitely not a dry-out issue at least :) Two FETs on the board are now pieces of wire. I suspect the smell I noticed the first time was the electrolyte because it got a lot more intense after the cap full on vented but I guess I'll never know for sure. The whole board is potted nastiness and a repair attempt is not worth my time.