Here’s the Ware for February 2024:
Here’s another ware courtesy of FETguy, who recovered this from Renew Computers in San Rafael, CA. Renew is a recycling facility that apparently processes a fair bit of e-waste. NGL: I’m a little envious of being able to rummage around an e-waste facility from that part of the world – probably some great gems to be found there!
As with most wares these days, you’ll find some hits if you do an image search, so a simple recanting of make and model number will not beat an entry that elucidates at least some the many unique and interesting aspects of this design.
Happy leap day!
The three coils on orthogonal axes suggests it could be a fluxgate magnetometer.
Kinda feel like it’s the inside of a stylus from a graphics tablet – it’s have the tip stuck in the left hand side. That big pin header’s the only thing that doesn’t look right tho
source: I have taken a number of stylussses apart in the name of science. Distinctly remember the first time I took a graphic tablet apart, feeling very disappointed there wasn’t more gubbins in there
I am pretty sure it is the relatively mundane student Timealizer (marketed by the same company well known for the MIB neutralizer). The standard device is able to insert valuable minutes before an impending deadline. You will notice that this February post was made just a few moments before mid night on the very last day of the month. What is intriguing is that the date was the 29th February – introducing the curious possibility of an illegal modification to insert an entire day prior to deadline. My guess is an exMIB operator – possibly off planet.
An inductive distance sensor from the times before they invented LDC ICs?
The smaller 8-pin devices look like opamps. The bigger chip is either an MCU or a switching regulator. The big black part on the left is an inductor. The device induces a current into the inductor and measures how inductances changes to determine the distance to a metallic object.
Some details on how that works in this app note from TI:
https://www.ti.com/lit/an/snoa954d/snoa954d.pdf?ts=1709168071947
Looking closer at the “inductor”, I think it’s actually a transformer. The middle pins have fatter traces than the outer pins. So the middle pins may be driven with highish current DC or AC, and the outer pins are the sense signal to measure changes in inductance as a metallic object gets closer to the transformer.
I’m pretty sure it’s the coils of a brushless resolver – a type of absolute rotary position sensor.
You can get an electronic version of a machinists ‘dial gauge’ that operates on the same principle. They can measure sub-micron movements of a sprung ferromagnetic pin that passes into the coil and touches the surface to be measured.
$299 on eBay if you need another one. 😁
It looks like part of a wind sensor for sailboats. It’s a PCB inside of a B&G 213 Masthead Unit.
It detects wind speed and angle. It looks like it’s conformal coated in order to keep water from destroying things.
Could it be an electronic toothbrush charging board? The heavy conformal coating, total lack of buttons and that coil on the end…
Handheld metal detector wand? My thinking is that a nearby metallic object will disturb the field orthogonality and enable (or at least change) some coupling effects between the coils.