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Apple Airport Extreme A1408 (5th Gen)

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Airport ExtremeI have had a 3rd Gen, Airport Extreme (802.11draft, dual-band) since they came out, and I’ve been pretty happy with it. But, figuring that I had some eBay credit, and wanted 3×3 MIMO, I went on eBay and was able to pick up a 5th generation Airport Extreme for cheap. $60 later, I had one that was nearly brand new. And I didn’t want a current Airport Extreme because I think they look dumb, and don’t sit neatly above my Mac Mini. Oh, and nothing that does 802.11ac.

Apple makes it dead simple to upgrade (you can click on the current one in Airport Utility and tell it you want to upgrade. It downloads the current settings, and loads that config on the new one. The only real impact was my external IP changing, which isn’t a big deal. Total downtime, 60 seconds or so.

As for the base station itself, it does support native IPv6 routing, which is cool. Otherwise, it just feels faster. Using a device that only has 2×2 antennas (my Macbook Air), the speed difference is mainly due to signal strength, which is about 50% better than the 3rd gen. Using a device that has the 3×3 antennas, the speed is about 50% better (surprise!). But obviously, with my 50mbps Comcast connection, none of this really matters that much for internet connectivity (though torrenting seems better, as I’m guessing the router is able to track more connections). We’ll see if I get another boost when I swap the routing aspect of the network with the Asus RT-N16 I am working on.

[xrr rating=5/5]

Rigol DS1052E Oscilloscope

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Rigol_DS1052EThis review is long over due, since I’ve since purchased a new scope, but it needs to happen, so…

I purchased a Rigol DS1052e in May, 2013, to help with my electronics learning, and repair. I purchased the unit from Tequipment.net for just under $300 using their already low price, plus their 6% discount given to eevblog.com readers. Anyway, got the scope, and all and all, very happy with it. Yes, it’s old. Yes, the screen is small. No, it doesn’t have an analog-like screen, or amazing memory depth, etc. But, it works. And it works extremely well. It’s very easy to “hack” to a 100Mhz scope, and it’s worked great for everything I’ve used it with (repairing a couple multimeters, an LCD monitor, and a few other things). The scope has really been reviewed to death, so I’m not going to post a lot of really new information other than to say, if you need a scope, and have an easy $300 around (but not enough for the higher end DS2000 series), I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to buy the DS1052e. Now, with the release of the DS1000z series, that might change my mind (since they’re not really much more, and offer features comparable to the DS2000 series), but for the money, it’s really hard to beat the Rigol. Yes, Owon, Hantek, etc all make similarly priced items, but I’ve never heard anything really positive about the scopes other than their price point. The Rigol works, and works quite well. The probes that came with it weren’t THAT great, but I picked up a couple of cheap 100mhz probes on the suggestion of an eevblog forum thread, and they worked quite well. The nicest thing about the other probes were that the compensation adjustment was on the plug end, rather than the probe end.

Scope control, and readout via USB to a computer works quite well as well. I never tried over RS232, or printing directly from the scope, but really, those seem a bit gimmicky for most things. The scope sat on my bench, so really, I didn’t need any of that stuff… just for it to work as a scope, which it did great! So if you need a scope, and only have $300 or less to spend, I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute. It works great, and I wouldn’t have been able to diagnose and fix the projects I had. Sure, a cheap analog scope probably would have worked as well, but why? =)

Spec wise, the scope compares pretty well to much more expensive scopes from only a few years ago (or even current Tektronix scopes). Build quality was very good, and the unit is quite light. Really the only complaint is the same thing many have said, is that the fan is pretty loud. At some point in the future, if I don’t sell the unit, I plan to open it up and replaced the fan with a near silent computer fan. Many have done this, and had good results. The biggest trick is getting the casing off without breaking the power button. But, hey, I silent scope would be much nicer. Even the DS2000 series is a bit loud. =/

[xrr rating=5/5]

Davis Vantage Vue 6250

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Davis Vantage Vue 6250When my previous weather station ( LaCrosse WS2316) started dying, I didn’t have to think long about what to get as a replacement. I friend had recently received a Davis Vantage Vue, and loved it. So with money in hand (bank account), and ordered it, and the serial weatherlink interface from the cheapest place I could find online at that time, Ambient Weather. Total cost, including shipping, was ~$410. I also liked that they were in the west (faster shipping). In interesting bit, and of great credit to them, I found a cheaper price through Scientific Sales, INC, and emailed Ambient Weather. Within an hour, even well after their business hours, I had a refund for the difference of about $36 through PayPal. So, huge credit to Ambient Weather, I will certainly buy from them again.

Davis Weatherlink 6510SERThe unit arrived a few days later, and I have to say, I was a bit surprised at the size. The sensor suite is a bit bigger than I thought (though I understand the Vantage Pro sensor cluster is REALLY big). Anyway, the console looked great (more on that later), and the sensor unit required some minor assembly. Sadly, the unit arrived on a Thursday, so I had to wait a couple days to install… I did do the assembly, and set the unit on a table, and then plug the console into a computer to test the data transmission. Documentation all says 1000ft line of sight with wind every 2.5 seconds, and then other data every 10 seconds. After hooking it all up with the Davis Weatherlink Serial, to a Keyspan USA-19HS, and grabbing the data with WeatherCat, after a couple days on my Macbook Air, I was seeing about 1 CRC error for every 10,000 good packets. Not too shabby. One note is that the console comes from the factory with insanely low contrast (which kind of made me think it was broken). To adjust, you just hit “2nd” then the up arrow multiple times to get it to where you want it.

On the following Saturday, got up on the roof and removed my old LaCrosse Anemometer, and PVC mast from the chimney straps, and went about installing the Davis. The first thing I realized was that the 10′ steel mast I had was too damn cumbersome to deal with, especially since I’ll have to take the unit down once a year for a backup battery change, and cleaning. So a hack-sawed the mast in half, and flipped it around to make, basically, two 5′ masts. This should make maintenance much easier in the future since I can just remove the top 5′ mast. The unit itself clamps to the mast with a U-bolt, which seemed a bit weird, but hey, installation of a wireless single piece unit was SO easy compared to my LaCrosse unit. I don’t look forward to the maintenance, but hey, it’s not too bad.

So install went great, and the unit talks to the console perfectly. About 1 CRC error in 10,000 good records. According to what I’ve seen online, this seems to be almost unavoidable with the US Console, regardless of the Weatherlink style. Ah well… 0.01% error isn’t too shabby.

And after a week of using the weather station, I can say I’m extremely happy with it. The console is easy to use (though I rarely do), the software I have used for years (WeatherCat, formerly Lightsoft Weather Center) works great as well (not surprising since the author uses Davis units). Really my only complaint is the cost of the Weatherlink. While I ended up getting it for just over $100, that’s still a lot to pay for a serial connection to a console. There are 3rd party ones through wxforum, and here. But given the wxforum ones are $75 or so, and the second doesn’t have logging (as well doesn’t work with console firmware 3.0 (which specifically seemed to address 3rd party adapters)), I figured I’d just get the real thing. It would just work, and warranty would apply should it die.

[xrr rating=5/5]