Tag Archives: testing

Project: Intentionally Defective DVDs (ft. LabelFlash) & Quality Scanning Doubts

Posted on June 17, 2025 by lui_gough

Most of the time, a lot of effort is spent trying to get the best quality burns possible from a given combination of optical disc and potential candidate drives. But sometimes, producing intentionally defective discs may be useful in order … Continue reading →

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Tech Flashback: Lite-On DVDScan v0.04 Beta (feat. SHM-165P6S & LH-20A1S)

Posted on April 18, 2025 by lui_gough

Living life on the leading and trailing edge of technology is an interesting thought. Given that the heydays of the optical disc have passed, it’s become a motivation to look closer into the technology before it disappears completely. Part of … Continue reading →

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Tutorial: Understanding the SCPI Status Model with pyvisa Examples

Posted on May 15, 2021 by lui_gough

If you’ve got some decent test equipment, chances are that you’re going to be automating it sooner or later. While I covered most of the basics of sending and receiving commands in my first tutorial, there comes a time when … Continue reading →

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Tutorial: Introduction to SCPI Automation of Test Equipment with pyvisa

Posted on March 28, 2021 by lui_gough

When it comes to running scientific experiments, your test equipment are your “eyes and ears” measuring the quantities you are trying to observe. A lot of the time, purchasers tend to focus on specifications such as accuracy and resolution, while … Continue reading →

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Review: “Generic” BLD-06A/B 6L Thermoelectric 12V Car Cooler/Warmer

Posted on January 12, 2021 by lui_gough

Shopping on Banggood has become a bit of a habit of mine. It’s perhaps not the best thing to be doing, but it’s also probably not the worst, as there are many items of random interest available at reasonable prices. … Continue reading →

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Project: TSP-Scripted Battery Simulation for Keithley 2450 SourceMeter

Posted on December 13, 2020 by lui_gough

As one of the lucky recipients of a Keithley 2450 SourceMeter as part of the element14 RoadTest program, I had the opportunity to review this rather precise and versatile source-measurement unit. Unfortunately, during the review process, an issue was found … Continue reading →

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R&S NGM202: Developing a Li-Ion Battery Model with Multi-Level Current Waveform

Posted on December 12, 2020 by lui_gough

In a previous posting, I looked at how I could use the Rohde & Schwarz NGM202 Two-Quadrant Power Supply to test and generate a battery model for use with the Battery Simulation option. In that previous posting, I covered some … Continue reading →

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Project: Testing “Vintage” Carbon-Zinc AA Cells with the R&S NGM202

Posted on May 10, 2020 by lui_gough

I’ve always had an interest in batteries, which peaked just before my 2017 overseas trips with the posting of the “Great AA Alkaline Battery Test” series of posts. This series of posts used a B&K Precision Model 8600 DC Electronic … Continue reading →

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Quick Experiment: Running a MOSFET Backwards?

Posted on April 21, 2020 by lui_gough

After posting my experiment looking at measuring MOSFET Rds using a power supply, I received a comment which asked me about what I think about a MOSFET being used “backwards”, with current flowing from source to drain, rather than the … Continue reading →

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Experiment: Measuring MOSFET Rds vs. Vgs with a Power Supply (R&S NGM202)

Posted on April 20, 2020 by lui_gough

At long last, a return to a more technical sort of blog – this time, a little experiment in measuring MOSFET Rds versus Vgs using a power supply and why this might of interest. What is a MOSFET? The MOSFET, … Continue reading →

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Project: Torture of an old Panasonic CGR18650CG using R&S NGM202

Posted on February 7, 2020 by lui_gough

Another short post for today – some readers may remember my earlier post where I tortured an old Samsung ICR18650-26F cell salvaged from a laptop battery after being stored for nine years at 100% SoC. To do this, I used … Continue reading →

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R&S NGM202: F/W 2.016 & Building a Battery Model

Posted on December 29, 2019 by lui_gough

Just in time for Christmas, Rohde & Schwarz has delivered a new firmware for owners of the NGL/NGM-series of power supplies, version 2.016. As I was busy torturing batteries, having just completed over 1000-cycles on a Samsung and now busy … Continue reading →

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Project: Extended Torture of an old Samsung ICR18650-26F using R&S NGM202

Posted on December 7, 2019 by lui_gough

A while back, I wrote a launch-day review of the Rohde & Schwarz NGM202 power supply and a follow-up including some results from cycle-life testing of an old Samsung ICR18650-26F cell that was stored at 100% SoC for nine years. … Continue reading →

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Review, Test & Teardown: BlitzWolf BW-S6 30W QC3.0 Dual-Port Charger

Posted on April 7, 2019 by lui_gough

It’s a bit of a shame that some of the mobile phones out there which have Qualcomm chipsets and are capable of quick charging are shipped with regular “plain old” 5V/2A chargers. As an owner of various Xiaomi phones myself, … Continue reading →

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RoadTest Review: Rohde & Schwarz HMP4040.04 Programmable Power Supply

Posted on November 25, 2018 by lui_gough

Thanks to the generosity of element14 and Rohde & Schwarz, I was lucky enough to do yet another RoadTest of a pretty expensive piece of gear. Say hello to the Rohde & Schwarz HMP4040.04, a 4-channel 384W Programmable DC Power … Continue reading →

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Great AA Alkaline Battery Test – Addendum: 25mA Constant Current Tests

Posted on January 31, 2017 by lui_gough

For those following along, they’d probably realize by now that I have left the country and are officially on holiday in the slightly-warmer-than-average-for-this-time-of-year Hong Kong. I had originally planned to make this post before I left home, but things got … Continue reading →

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Power Bank Endurance Test – Hillo Power Jin Gangxia (Part 20 – Final)

Posted on December 26, 2016 by lui_gough

It’s Boxing Day, and while a lot of people are outside partaking in the shopping frenzy of underwhelming discounts, I’m firmly sitting at home plodding away at some data analysis to deliver this last part of the power bank endurance … Continue reading →

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Great AA Alkaline Battery Test – Pt 4: Cell Physical Characteristics

Posted on December 19, 2016 by lui_gough

After the rather interesting results in the previous section, I was curious as to who actually manufactured the cells for the lesser known brands, and whether that could be determined just by examining the physical characteristics of the cells. Given … Continue reading →

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Great AA Alkaline Battery Test – Pt 3: The Results

Posted on December 19, 2016 by lui_gough

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations, you’ve earned the right to read the results! If not, you could be doing yourself a big disservice and not understanding the true intricacies that underlie the subject of battery testing and the … Continue reading →

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Great AA Alkaline Battery Test – Pt 2: The Contenders

Posted on December 19, 2016 by lui_gough

Welcome to the second installment in the Great AA Alkaline Battery Test series, where the contenders for testing are presented. This post is one of the most image heavy posts I have ever delivered, so apologies if my webserver falls … Continue reading →

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Great AA Alkaline Battery Test – Pt 1: Battery Testing Fundamentals

Posted on December 19, 2016 by lui_gough

Regular readers would probably know that I have a love of batteries, and their associated test equipment. Maybe it was the fact that they were expensive, but pervasive, and my enjoyment as a child relied quite heavily on batteries to … Continue reading →

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Power Bank Endurance Test – Hillo Power Jin Gangxia (Part 19)

Posted on December 5, 2016 by lui_gough

This is one of those ongoing experiments which just seems to keep dragging on and on. Initially, I thought I’d torture a relatively unknown power bank by cycling it over and over on the test rig, expecting to see it … Continue reading →

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Video Compression: x264 CRF Generational Loss Testing

Posted on November 22, 2016 by lui_gough

Having been involved in some way with video capture and editing from the late 90’s onwards, something we have always been taught is to avoid lossy formats for capture and editing due to the problem of generational loss. Put simply, … Continue reading →

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Telstra FaxStream TestFax Professional (aka FOLDS-B) Test

Posted on November 7, 2016 by lui_gough

A while back, I did a number of experiments involving VoIP and faxing, which made use of Telstra’s FOLDS test. Because of a number of intricacies, voice-band data and VoIP generally do not (reliably) work together unless configured very carefully … Continue reading →

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Power Bank Endurance Test – Hillo Power Jin Gangxia (Part 18)

Posted on November 7, 2016 by lui_gough

This is one of my ongoing experiments to see how a rather no name power bank ages with charge/discharge cycles, and it’s been quite surprising all the way. This is the 18th installment, meaning that we have reached a total … Continue reading →

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Power Bank Endurance Test – Hillo Power Jin Gangxia (Part 17)

Posted on October 15, 2016 by lui_gough

In this long ongoing experiment, I attempt to see just how a “no name” power bank stands up to repeated cycling. My expectations were fairly low at the outset, but it seems I’ve been proved completely wrong, as now I’m … Continue reading →

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Video Codec Tests: x264 CRF vs enc_qsv CQ vs x265 CRF in Handbrake 0.10.5

Posted on October 3, 2016 by lui_gough

After my earlier attempt to do some codec comparisons, I realized that something went grossly wrong with the “difficult case” clip. Specifically, it was an interlaced video clip which I wanted to use, and I naturally assumed that interlaced encoding … Continue reading →

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Power Bank Endurance Test – Hillo Power Jin Gangxia (Part 16)

Posted on September 11, 2016 by lui_gough

As far as experiments go, this is probably the longest and least exciting experiments of them all. It started years ago when I wanted to see just how long some randomly branded Chinese lithium-polymer cell based power bank would last, … Continue reading →

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Video Compression Testing: x264 vs x265 CRF in Handbrake 0.10.5

Posted on August 27, 2016 by lui_gough

Having played around with video since I had a few multimedia CD-ROMs and a BT878-based TV tuner card, video compression is one area that has amazed me. I watched as early “simple” compression efforts such as Cinepak and Indeo bought … Continue reading →

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Power Bank Endurance Test – Hillo Power Jin Gangxia (Part 15)

Posted on August 5, 2016 by lui_gough

Welcome to the fifteenth installment of this relatively unexciting experiment to see how long a modestly sized “unknown-name” Chinese Li-Poly power bank would last under continual cycling. Those who have been following along will know just what this means – … Continue reading →

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