LF: Wintron

[Markus Vester <markusvester@aol.com>]

Looking for a small and cheap mobile Windows computer, I recently came across the TrekStor "Wintron 7.0" tablet, which is currently available for less than 60 Euro, including the Windows-10 operating system. The little device proved perfectly capable to run a couple of SpecLab instances, and might be very useful e.g. for portable grabbers or coherent VLF signal generation.

The user interface looked much more familiar to me after switching Win-10 preferences from "Tablet" to "Desktop" mode. One hardware hurdle was that the tablet has only a single Micro-USB receptacle, which is normally used either for charging or for connecting USB devices "on-the-go" but not both simultaneously. Following a hint on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqMs7sW5PBk , I made a simple adapter with two back-to-back USB sockets and a 1.6 kohm resistor across the data lines, allowing to use e.g. a USB soundcard or a USB hub while feeding the tablet with external power. Current consumption at 5V DC is about 0.4 A in idle mode and 0.9 A while charging the internal battery.

All the best,
Markus (DF6NM)

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