About

Welcome to my little slice of the blogosphere.

I’m Jason Gin, and I am a 29-year-old living up in the beautiful Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I’ve always had a passion for electronics, and my blog showcases many of the projects I work on from time to time.

In April 2017 I graduated from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT); I have a Broadcast Systems Technology diploma and am actively working on getting my second diploma in Information Technology, Network Systems major. I am also an SBE (Society of Broadcast Engineers) Certified Broadcast Technologist (CBT).

Additionally, I graduated from SAIT in April 2019 with an Information Technology Network Systems diploma.

This blog is essentially my public journal of my electronics projects, research and opinions. What shows up on here is basically whatever I think is worth sharing with the rest of the world.

I’m accepting donations to help keep the blog running (I pay for its maintenance costs out of pocket, and ad money doesn’t go far enough to break even). Your support will help out greatly to keep the information I publish available for others to use and enjoy – thank you! You can donate via PayPal here – every bit helps!

83 thoughts on “About”

  1. Hello I saw that you talked about your site a smart card reader SCR 301, but I see you have a drivers SCR 300 I searched a long time on the internet and on the manufacturer’s website but I do is not: (Can you send me here is my email address pikpus31@yahoo.fr Thank you very much?!!…

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  4. Hi Jason, thanks for the excellent work you are doing. I read your in-depth piece on the Charging Essentials wall outlet with USB ports because I am thinking of getting it. Your article does not say whether it fits easily and well inside an existing outlet box? I am hoping to replace an existing regular wall outlet with this, and don’t want to have to rip out and replace the existing box. Thanks.

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    • When I installed this in a standard-size plastic box, it was a tight fit. Additionally, if you intend to install this outlet in a box that is in a middle-of-the-run configuration, you will need to use some Marettes (wire nuts) and pigtails to connect the outlet.

      Best of luck with your installation; hopefully you’ll have more success with the outlet than many others have.

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  6. Hey Jason, I found your posts about the iPhone battery really helpful. I’m trying to get a current draw measurement rig working for a 5S and wonder if you wouldn’t mind me picking your brain about it — I’d like to hear your sense of just how much DRM is packed into the battery controller. Drop me an email?

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  7. I was considering buying a kitchenaid/whirlpool induction cooktop / range because of price, and certain features. I know they have a huge frequency having an issue that causes a f47 error. I am an Master Electrician and an electronics engineer, so I very good with fixing electronics. If you could tell me any info you might have that would be great… If this is a simple fix (Not costly) like a loose wire/connector, I wouldn’t mind purchasing this product. Thanks

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    • As much as I’d like to say it’d be an easy fix, it certainly is not. I never got around to making the blog post on the failure, but the F47 error (for me at least) took out several high-power components on the power control board (in the first case, there was a literal scorch mark coming from one of the IGBTs), and the pins on the diode bridge and IGBTs were all dead-shorts if they weren’t already blown into an open-circuit state.

      I’ve blown up two control boards so far (and in the second instance, the failure managed to trip the 40-amp breaker it was residing on, as well as the 100-amp main breaker!) and in both cases, KitchenAid paid for the cost of the control board (a few hundred dollars easily) as well as the labor to swap the boards. In the second instance, the failure occurred about 1 year and 2 months from the purchase date, yet they were willing to pay for the labor costs even though the cooktop was already past the parts-and-labor warranty; according to the service technician, this failure has arisen from a design flaw in the control board’s circuitry and KitchenAid was aware of it to some extent.

      The board may very well be repairable, but apart from salvaging any non-damaged components, anything more than that is a bonus.

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  8. Hi Jason,

    I just read your Rip It Apart post on tearing down a CF card. I’m a photographer. I shot about 1000 photos recently, and then the card’s controller went bad.

    The CF card will not mount, and I’m unable to format the card with camera, Mac, or PC.

    1. Tried mounting the CF card via camera cable, and card reader.

    2. Tried numerous Mac and PC data recovery programs. Since the camera CF card would not mount, and formatting was impossible all these recovery programs failed.

    3. Tried formatting the CF card with Mac, PC, and the camera.

    Is there a way to install a new controller on the card, or remove the memory chips and have them read via an external controller?

    Thanks,
    Noel
    Richmond, Virginia USA

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    • Sorry to hear about your data loss.

      What CF card do you have? Some might have a proprietary controller that’s not easily replaceable, but others may be more generic controllers from Phison or Silicon Motion/SMI. If it’s the latter, then an exact chip replacement might work but it will take some advanced SMD soldering skills to perform the task.

      How much is the card’s data worth to you? If it’s mission-critical you could look for a data-recovery firm that has the equipment to read the raw memory chips.

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  10. Hey Jason

    I have several iPhone 5 batteries which are not working.

    I saw your post on iPhone 5 batteries.

    I was wondering whether you could help me fix them.
    Maybe you have a schematic or something.

    Please get back to be I really need your help.

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    • Hi Jake,

      Unfortunately I do not have any schematics available, nor have I had the time to fully reverse-engineer the iPhone battery PCB. That said, what sort of problems are you experiencing with the battery?

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      • Basically some are water damaged some just dont power on.

        1) Battery will power the phone on for 2-3 seconds then it will power
        of and keep repeating

        2) Battery just wont power the phone on at all.

        looking at your blog you should probably be able to figure out the
        problem.

        For problem (1) i was thinking it would be one of the MOFSET switches.
        though I could be wrong.

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        • Try taking a multimeter to the battery connector, looking for voltage from Pack+ to Pack-, about 2 volts from HDQ to Pack-, and roughly 10 kOhms from NTC Thermistor to Pack-.

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  11. I got some of them working.

    But now they seem to drain a bit too fast.

    Whats the best method for me making them last longer

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    • See if there is any corrosion on the iPhone battery’s PCB. Apart from cleaning off any potential mineral deposits due to water damage, there likely isn’t much to improve in terms of making the batteries last longer.

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      • What about actually changing the tiny motherboard attached to the battery

        I can remove the motherboard and replace it that my improve battery life?

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        • I doubt it. The fuel gauge on the battery PCB contains data specific to the cell it is connected to, so even if you ‘see’ any improvement in battery life because of a difference in the fuel gauge’s programmed data, it will not provide any real benefit in terms of battery life.

          Do you have the hardware and software to read out the iPhone batteries (TI’s hardware and software, or a TTL UART and my software utility)? The data inside the fuel gauge can be very important in getting a good look into the battery’s performance capabilities.

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  12. Hi Jason,

    Great work and thank you, your blog has been a very useful resource for me.

    One question, I have the battery removed from an iPhone 5s; my intention is to replace the power source with my own (replacing the actual Li-ion) but keep the ‘gas gauge’ PCB. My thoughts are to just cut the two terminals going from the ‘gas gauge’ to the battery and hooking up my own source from there. Have you come across any tamper proofing that may prevent this? Or could this possibly kill the PCB?

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    • Luke, I did just what you’re planning (with Jason’s help). In my experience this works fine but trips the protection circuitry in the gas gauge PCB. You can reset it by shorting the ground pin from the iPhone connector to the negative tab of the battery. On the 5S, these are the two conductors furthest apart from each other, ie on the “outside” of the configuration.

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    • Luke, I did just what you’re planning (with Jason’s help). In my experience this works fine but trips the protection circuitry in the gas gauge PCB. You can reset it by shorting the ground pin from the iPhone connector to the negative tab of the battery. On the 5S, these are the two conductors furthest apart from each other, ie on the “outside” of the configuration.

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      • Thanks Tom, I really appreciate your reply. I will give this a shot should the protection circuitry get tripped. To clarify, I should short the ground from the actual iPhone device itself (?) to the negative tab (going directly to the battery) on the gas gauge PCB?

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  13. sorry, I was unclear. to reset the protection circuitry, once it is connected to a power source, connect the negative input (where the negative tab of the battery would normally be attached) to the negative terminal of the connector that would normally attach the battery assembly to the phone. On the 5S this is the terminal on the edge of the connector that is furthest away from the battery itself.

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    • Hi Jason/Tom/Luke,
      First, Jason this blog is great! Secondly, has anyone tried this on the iphone 6/iPhone 6 Plus yet? I am having the exact same issue. I thought I was burning out the gas gauge when soldering (I’ve tried multiple batteries so far) but maybe that’s not the case? I’m trying to tear the pcb out of the battery and just connect it to a power supply to get power measurements for the phone. Once I disconnect the battery tabs, I can’t get a sensible voltage at the connector.

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      • Hi Joe,

        Tom’s suggestion worked for me in the end (Connecting the two negative terminals). In fact I even wrote a blog post (Linking back to this blog for credit of course!) explaining connecting a 5s battery to a power monitor (http://tinyurl.com/q5ok22z). I have not tried this on a 6/6s however I did have the same experience that you are now before connecting the two negative terminals to reset the protection circuitry.

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  15. I enjoyed reading some of your posts! I admit though, some of the technical jargon was lost on me. As a mother of three, I can change a tire whilst 6 months pregnant, change the oil on my car or tractor, jump a battery, change a wall socket or an extension cord plug (with or without a baby on board) and start an IV in the back of a speeding ambulance, but I do feel there is an assumed level of technical know how in order to understand your blog that I am lacking. In your defence, the technically savvy group is probably the demographic you were aiming for anyway.
    In addition, I am impressed with the readability of your blog. The self indulgence, bad grammar, and inability to proofread before posting of so many blogs becomes tiresome.
    My husband is an engineer, so I have some insight into the world of “don’t throw it out, take it apart” and “let’s buy three broken ones to make one awesome one”, so I appreciate that you don’t just “review” a product, but figure out why it will or won’t work.

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    • Hi Edward,

      Currently I haven’t had any work done towards getting another Charging Essentials review written. Most of my draft posts haven’t been touched for a while and my current work area has gotten too cluttered for me to type comfortably on. As of right now, I don’t have an ETA on when I’ll get another USB outlet blog post made, sorry.

      Jason

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  17. hi jason… im from indonesia, 1 weeks ago i do replace my iphone 5S battery and get some weird information about capacity and cycle count is never change. its stuck 1560mah and 1 cycle count even i recharge the battery 1 to 10 times.

    can i get solution to get a fix information about this stuff.

    im using macpro and bootcamp to using windows 7 professional.

    i hope you sent me some best solution for this problem

    thx mate

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  18. Hi, I was very interested in your article on It Glows when it Blows (Littelfuse May 11th 2015 article).
    Smart Glow Fuse Review.
    I am trying to find a source for the Inverse Parallel Dual Red Led SMD Package. Can you please help with this if you know where I could buy such a led package.
    Appreciate anyone who can help on this,
    The size of the led is 0805 2.0mm*1.25mm*0.68mm Approximately.

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    • Hi Anurag,

      I would’ve suggested going to an electronics component distributor like Digikey or Mouser, but I tried looking for some single-colour anti-parallel LEDs and have had no luck. It could be that Littelfuse custom-ordered these LED packages just for use in these fuses, but I doubt that notion since I think it wouldn’t necessarily be the most economical to go through the trouble of getting custom LED packages made for such a disposable product.

      Jason

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  20. Hi,
    seeing as all the iphone batteries use the same protocol.
    Could I just take say and iphone 4s, use an app that reads out the total charge.current full charge info. Then just supply the phone with 4v on the V+ and – on the battery connector and breakout the HDQ line to say an iphone 6 battery?

    thanks

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    • I suspect you can, but each iPhone revision expects a certain firmware version, with each having a different command set. Considering I have seen fake iPhone batteries with mismatched gauges or even fake ICs that report static data, it is likely you can use the phone as a battery readout tool. Just remember that charging such batteries is not recommended if the battery is not meant for that specific iPhone due to a difference in battery chemistries.

      As a side note, I do not own an iPhone so I cannot test whether this would work in practice or not.

      Jason

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  21. Hey man love your blog 🙂
    Quick question, can your HDQ utility reprogram iPhone batteries?
    Only interested in changing max and design capacity 🙂 thanks heaps

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    • Hi Liam,

      My HDQ Utility does not perform writes to the Data Flash. I have made some test programs to try reading from Flash, but writing can be more risky as the gauge does not have any input validation (a botched write could brick the chip).

      For editing the Flash data I usually use a TI EV2300/EV2400 and their evaluation software (bqEVSW, GaugeStudio are obsolete but the latest bqSTUDIO doesn’t support iPhone gauges natively, so some workarounds were needed).

      Jason

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  22. Hi Jason:
    I have across your blog searching for kentli battery. I am using this rechargeable battery on powertap p1 pedal, it is a low current power meter on a bicycle.I am looking for a AAA 1.5v rechargeable battery. Do you recommend kentli or atr there other brands I should look into?

    TONY

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    • Hi Tony,

      Looks like PowerTap has specified the P1 to use lithium batteries, and I suspect it’s due to alkaline batteries’ susceptibility to leakage at the end of its discharge life. That said, I don’t have any specific recommendations for rechargeable AAA batteries but I have doubts as to whether Ni-MH batteries would work.

      Among the 1.5V Li-ion AAAs, there is Kentli but other options are available like the ZNTER batteries, which use a micro-USB port for charging instead of a dedicated charger. I can’t vouch for how well they work, though.

      Jason

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  23. Hi Jason! I stumbled onto your iphone battery rip-appart. I’m trying to find a way to place a 5000 mAh battery outside of the iPhone 5s case, and perhaps altogether removing the internal one if needed.
    The battery outside is taken from a battery pack and has it’s charging circuit (also want to be able to charge it with a regular micro USB). I would assume that just connecting the + and minus output from the external battery to the + and – of the iphone battery connector would probably not work, but I could be wrong.
    What you do think? Is there a way to accomplish this? I saw somewhere someone had installed a second battery outside of the iPhone, drilling a little hole in the back cover and passing the wires into the phone and paralleling the batteries… but I can’t find the page again! Your advice will be greatly appreciated; I love the phone and with a bigger battery it will be perfect! Thanks! Pedro, Tarifa, Spain

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  24. Hi Jason! I stumbled onto your iphone battery rip-appart. I’m trying to find a way to place a 5000 mAh battery outside of the iPhone 5s case, and perhaps altogether removing the internal one if needed.
    The battery outside is taken from a battery pack and has it’s charging circuit (also want to be able to charge it with a regular micro USB). I would assume that just connecting the + and minus output from the external battery to the + and – of the iphone battery connector would probably not work, but I could be wrong.
    What you do think? Is there a way to accomplish this? I saw somewhere someone had installed a second battery outside of the iPhone, drilling a little hole in the back cover and passing the wires into the phone and paralleling the batteries… but I can’t find the page again! Your advice will be greatly appreciated; I love the phone and with a bigger battery it will be perfect! Thanks! Pedro, Tarifa, Spain

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    • If you mean augmenting the internal battery, I wouldn’t recommend it. If you did, you would have to connect the raw cell(s) to the original protection circuit and replace the original cell as the chemistry profiles won’t match. Additionally you would need to reprogram the fuel gauge with updated capacity values and chemistry ID tables, which requires access to TI hardware and software.

      In my opinion, it’s far easier and safer to just use the external battery pack as a USB charger.

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  25. Hi Jason,

    A friend alerted me to your blog. I’m trying to do cheap data recovery from an eMMC-153 chip which I have not yet desoldered from its carrier board. Full details are on Facebook at https://facebook.com/2261276843891521 — it’s a public post so you can see everything without an FB account (scroll to the bottom and click ‘Not Now’ to dismiss part of the annoy-o-frame).

    Anyway, in brief, it’s a Toshiba Chromebook which I destroyed in a failed repair attempt. I don’t hope to recover the machine, but my daughter really wants data back from what was the Crouton-based Linux partition. So I have this loose plan to desolder the THGBMBG7D2KBAIL eMMC-153 chip, clean it up, reball it, mount it on an eMMC-to-USB carrier, and dump the data. I *think* the data will turn out to be in a ‘normal’ Linux partition-and-filesystem type format, not encrypted, because it would be pointless to encrypt the soldered-down ‘hard disk’ chip in a consumer device with a low-end CPU.

    I’m a software hacker with minimal hardware cred. I feel like I understand all the necessary steps, but lack confidence, practical skills, and equipment. And of course the data exists only in the one place.

    Any assistance you might offer would be appreciated, thanks!

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    • Hi Bela,

      Looking online, it seems like Chromebooks really like to encrypt just about all user data, which would complicate data recovery efforts. It’s certainly possible hardware-wise to remove the chip and download the eMMC’s contents; however, if the encryption keys are held by a TPM then this would make recovery very difficult if that chip isn’t transplantable to another motherboard. If it is, I’d probably transfer over the eMMC, SPI Flash, and the TPM at the same time.

      As I haven’t had hands-on experience with Chromebooks, I can’t provide much of my own insight into the matter. I am somewhat skeptical of the repair shop’s diagnosis of electrical damage – maybe they couldn’t be bothered doing proper electronics troubleshooting.

      Jason

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      • Hmmm, hope your intuition about it being encrypted on the media is wrong…

        Chromebook is just background. It’s the eMMC, reballing, getting physical access to the bits stuff that I need help with.

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  27. Hello. First of all , i appreciate all your work 🙂
    I was just wondering do you have any original BQ27546-G1 Srec file ? I have several iphone 6/6s batteries and i want to repurpose gauge ic’s (with custom pcb) . But all of them have Apple FW(6.01) and that firmware is simply useless for me. There is no any original firmware file for 546 in TI’s website anyway.
    My mail address is : ugurkrl@outlook.com
    Thanks
    Ugur

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    • Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the standard bq27546-G1 firmware. Are you harvesting and reusing the chips themselves?

      I have the chips on hand but they’re sealed away and I would have to build a breakout board in order to read out the chip’s contents.

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  28. Do you know if an iPhone 5 will work if just supplied power to + and – without the hdq to bq27545 and the thermistor being connected?

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  29. Hello, should you read this thank you in advance for your time I found your article about “Recovering the SIM card PIN from the ZTE WF721 cellular home phone” and as an electrical engineering student (just finished freshman year) I believe it would be an interesting personal project to learn more and experiment on my spare time. Can you send me any additional, more detailed perhaps, info regarding the processes you did? I also think of buying the DSLogic Plus logic analyzer to learn how they and the signals they manage to capture work, diferent protocols etc. Is it a good one?
    Jim

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  30. Hi Jason. Fun blog. I was curious about emmc storage. Do you know if one could replace any random 32GB emmc drive on any random laptop with a larger drive and expect it to work? Or is there more to it than that? I see lots of cheap laptops with 32GB of storage and it makes me wonder about upgrading them. The soldering is easy, I just don’t know about compatibility. Thanks!

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    • Theoretically it should be possible to replace it without issue, as the eMMC is simply treated as a block storage device. Some eMMC-based storage is implemented as a SATA device with a bridge chip, which may or may not be easier to replace.

      In the case of eMMC soldered directly to the motherboard, the only potential roadblock I can think of is BGA underfill or some other epoxy used to affix the chip to the board (but careful application of heat and manually picking away at it could aid in removal).

      Personally, I’ve successfully upgraded soldered eMMC storage on Atom-based SBCs and tablets/convertibles several times without issue.

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  31. Hi, sorry for bothering you but I have a quick question: Years ago you were reverse engineering iPhone batteries, and I have found that iPad batteries use the same controller chip but when trying to use a regular programmer they can read it out but not write to the battery. I found you tool can read the data but can you also write to a battery using it?

    Best Reagards,
    Melvin

    Sorry for my English I am from Germany

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    • Hi Melvin,

      By “regular programmer” I presume you mean a TI EV2300/EV2400 and the evaluation software? The gauge can only be written to if it is unsealed with the unseal key (if it is known or is the default 0x36720414). The tool that I wrote currently cannot write to gauges.

      Jason

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        • I see. I am only familiar with the official Texas Instruments tools and my own software, so I can’t provide much help with other tools. My previous point of the gauge needing to be unsealed still stands, though.

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  34. I am seriously impressed. You went the extra mile riping apart those flash memory cards.

    I made a humble donation of $12 – that’s an hour, minimum wage. You deserve more.

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  35. I don’t suppose you are still able to make/sell me one of these with either a sata or USB connection? I need to retrieve data off the same type chip from an hp laptop in 2016 with the emc zif connector.

    Let me know I’m happy to purchase it… sending you a PayPal donation in the meantime.

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