EEVblog 1586 - Stranger Things Decade Resistor Box + Repair
44,261
Published 2023-12-14
And it's not every day you have to repair a brand new product.
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DIY Decade box: • EEVblog #212 - DIY Decade Resistance ...
IET Decade Box: • EEVblog #211 - IET Decade Resistance ...
Genrad Decade Box: • EEVblog #461 - Genrad Decade Resistan...
Forum: www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1586-stranger-t…
00:00 - A $12 Decade Resistor Box?
01:37 - Binding Posts: You get what you get, and you don't get upset
02:31 - Stranger Things and the Upside Down
03:52 - Figured it out
04:56 - Molding
05:15 - Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Yeah Test
05:41 - Teardown
08:01 - Knobs
09:02 - Repair
10:01 - Perfect candidate for modding
10:44 - How the dual wipe contact works
14:37 - Conclusion
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#ElectronicsCreators #review
All Comments (21)
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It's not just a passable resistance box, it's also a fun puzzle to solve!
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That's a pretty clever construction, and as you say, a wipe of grease and upgraded resistors could improve it.
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This looks to be a simple region problem. Half of the knobs were correctly supplied to Australia and the other half were for the UK market.
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Actually a rather well engineered design. Most of the problems seem to be in the actual construction.
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Wow, what a clever design! I would have never thought of the 5 resistor design like that. Good engineering.
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I'm sure Marco Reps would love to improve its precision and temperature stability. Send it to him. :)
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I've modded mine with 2 Watt resistors to go from 1 Ohm to 1 meg and put decent banana connectors on it. It's quite accurate. Instead of using a single resistor in the "5" position I've used 5 resistors in series. So I've used 9 resistors per switch since there's plenty of room inside.
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Wow, I have never seen a design like this. Its extremely clever actually. This seems like a good arrangement for using precision resistors with to keep the cost down.
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I already have a couple of lab-grade decade boxes, but for $12 I think I'll get it just for the box and the easy access, rugged contact, rotary switches for projects and experiments.
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You can also remove the switch and resistors and then self-nickel plating the copper using the conventional DIY technique then replace the resistors with whatever wattage you want.
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I used the box and made my own PCB (just same layout with through-hole options) and used gold plating on the boards
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If you replace the 0.5 ohm resistors with 1 Meg ones, you can sacrifice precision in return for range. If you replace the resistors with higher power ones, be careful with the plastic case. It looks like it may have a low melting temperature. Maybe drill some vent holes?
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I've got a few of these at work and they've proved surprisingly useful in some of the more fiddly physics experiments. The best part is one it has a sticker on the side saying "Tested for electrical safety 03/1971". Fun winding up the students with that one who treat it like it's about to explode.
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I bought a simliar box on ebay from China 20 years ago. The box seems to be made of bakelite, it is heavy, which is explained by the heavy duty gold-plated rotary switches inside and resistors made from enameled wire wound on ceramic posts. It will stand a good deal of current, but the label has fallen off and I don't remember how much. It was dirt cheap, but apparently not cheap enough for China of today.
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I have this exact same unit. My values tracked ok. But the binding posts instead of banana plugs really “trigger” me! Thanks for the teardown!
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I made one similar to that one but, I also added "fine pots" in addition to the decade so I can really dial in whatever I'm doing.
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Would have expected a Bakelit housing. 🤣
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I guess the thing is to calculate how much current the PCB traces can handle, and upgrade the resistors to that level
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If you were serious about it... buy two cheaper 4x knob resistance boxes, series them together with your new replaced 5w resistors. You could have 0.1, 1, 10, 100, 1k, 10k, 100k & 1M ranges. Could also completely rebox with a 3d printed case to suit the 8x dials. The print would be super easy - seems to be very little stress on the box itself.
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"everyone should have one." 1 Minutes later. "This is shit." lol. I love you Dave.
