Test gear, teardowns and war stories from the bench.
EEVblog puts electronics on the bench and reports what the instruments say. The gear ranges from a $50 multimeter held up against a Fluke and a 20-year-old shaver battery drained to its last milliamp hours to a BWD MiniLab opened for a retro teardown, and the host talks through each reading with jokes, asides and plain verdicts.
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EEVblog is an electronics show that settles questions with a meter rather than a press release. The host puts hardware on the bench and reads out each result as it appears, with asides, jokes and the odd word of encouragement for a dying battery. The range runs from bargain gadgets to lab instruments from decades past. One experiment starts with a Panasonic shaver the host has used nearly every day for about 20 years. Its lithium-ion cell is run down to 2.8 volts. Changing the discharge current then squeezes out a few more milliamp hours, and the voltage recovers under no load. It is a small test, but a patient one. Multimeters get the closest attention. The $50 Ziboo 17B Pro openly trades on the Fluke 17B name. It is knock-tested and pressed on, and its mystery LED turns out to belong to a non-contact voltage tester that the manual never explains. The verdict is fair rather than harsh: a rugged, safe meter for the money that lacks a little something extra. The AlienTek DM40 packs a touch display, a 50 MHz oscilloscope, a signal generator and a trend plot into a small case. It earns a thumbs up and a list of quibbles, from buttons that are easy to bump to a trend chart with no recording. In one Mailbag episode, Sagan joins in to open parcels and try out a USB cable tester that reports data speed and charging power. A cable pulled from the box of bad cables comes back with zero health. The retro teardowns bring a different kind of enthusiasm. BWD was an Australian company that once made oscilloscopes, and its 603B MiniLab gets opened up and dated by chip codes from 1983 and 1986. The host remembers university and technical college labs full of them, and the episode also promises a look through an old BWD catalog. The war-story episode puts the tools down entirely. The host works from the slides of a talk given at the Sydney Hardware Meetup, which was not recorded, and retells how a rubber band cost a company millions of dollars and a good deal of goodwill. The story is set in underwater seismic exploration for oil surveys, where a ship tows streamers of hydrophones that stretch for kilometres. Sign-offs point to the YouTube comments, to the EEVblog forum with its thread for every video, and to the EEVblog.store merch that helps keep the channel going. The payoff is hearing real equipment poked, prodded and judged in plain terms.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants test equipment judged by what it does on the bench, from budget multimeters to vintage lab gear, and who is happy to follow along through voltages, milliamp hours and oscilloscope specs.
What sets it apart: Budget-versus-brand meter shootouts, retro teardowns of classic lab instruments and firsthand industry war stories all share one feed. The verdicts come from readings taken on the bench rather than from spec sheets.
No Script, No Fear, All Opinion
A dead USB cable gets cross-examined until your junk drawer starts looking suspicious.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A 20-year-old shaver becomes a practical look at how much life a lithium-ion cell can still hold.
A Panasonic ES8101 shaver, used almost every day for about 20 years, becomes a surprisingly useful test case for lithium-ion battery aging. The host identifies what appears to be a single 18650-style cell and checks what it can still deliver after long service, including a…
A $50 class multimeter gets a practical bench check as its advertised features meet the controls, manual, and real use.
This single-episode review puts a $50 class multimeter through a careful bench check against the Fluke 17B as the familiar point of comparison.
A mailbag package turns into a practical USB cable test, with Sagan nearby as one thick cable meets its zero-watt result.
Mailbag keeps the premise simple: open a package, put the USB cables on the bench, and let the tester do the talking. With Sagan nearby, the host moves from the Electronic Connector Book into a hands-on comparison of speed, charging power, cable health, V-Bus resistance, and…
A dusty Australian lab classic powers up and shows the durable engineering behind older technical education gear.
A dumpster-saved BWD Minilab 603B becomes a tidy window into Australian educational lab gear from the 1970s and 1980s. The host frames the B model as a 1977 instrument and the original 603 as a 1972 design, then opens the case to compare date codes, adjustment trimmers, and the…
The DM-40 squeezes scope and signal generation into a small multimeter, with useful ideas and a few rough edges.
The Alien Tech DM-40 comes across as a compact digital multimeter trying to stretch well beyond the usual bench role. It has a three-and-a-half-inch touch display, auto-set, trend plotting, Bluetooth, and app support, while the C model shown is the $139 luxury version with an…
Residential AV news, argued over with a grin.
One player's backlog, talked through to the credits.
Chips, consoles and coolers, talked through by two enthusiasts.
Product launches, read for the strategy underneath.
Dave reviews a 20-year-old Panasonic shaver, discussing its battery life and internal charging circuitry.
The host reviews a Zyboo 17B Pro multimeter, comparing it to the Fluke 17B and critiquing its features and accuracy.
The host opens a mailbag package containing a book about electronic connectors, expressing excitement and discussing its contents.
A teardown and nostalgic look at a vintage BWD Minilab 603B oscilloscope from 1977, discussing its history and significance in Australian technical education.
A detailed review of the Alien Tech DM40 Mini Digital Multimeter, covering its features, models, and price points.
Dave Jones recounts a manufacturing change at a Sydney company making seismic streamers for oil surveying.
EEVblog follows the install of two new 10-battery cabinets (50 kWh, about $18,000 AUD of subsidised batteries) alongside the existing 25 kWh AERL system, taking the home to 75 kWh.
Dave answers a viewer comment from YAQ1988 asking what use a Rigol scope above 350 MHz is when its BNC inputs lack a times 10 ring or active probe interface.
Heinrich in Estonia mails a five-box shipment of Soviet-era parts that DHL repackaged, which the host calls "the biggest bonanza in mailbag history." Oliver, also from Estonia, sends a revised logic trainer board whose counter labeled "BCD counter" is actually a BCD counter plus a seven-segment decoder.
Dave Jones tears down Rigol's new MHO900 series, which starts at $999 for a 350MHz four-channel scope with 4 GS/s sampling and 500M-point memory.
Dave reviews the Euler Precision ESAP30 active FET probe, discussing its features and benefits for high-frequency measurements.
Dave reviews the cheap Aining 626 multimeter from AliExpress, mocking its design and testing its features.
EEVblog reviews the Moku Go USB oscilloscope from Liquid Instruments, highlighting its features, build quality, and minor complaints.