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Hi. I'm Denchik — a backend developer who spends evenings with a soldering iron, a 3D printer, and a box of LEGO. Here are short notes and, sometimes, longer articles: retro hardware, DIY projects, games, and life between Belgrade and everywhere else. There's always a cat named Persik somewhere nearby.

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28.08.2026#slider #electronics

Practically overnight, within a single day, I managed to mod a cheap Chinese product-photography turntable — now it can be controlled by my remote. The turntable looks roughly like this:

Screenshot of an AliExpress product page: a black rotating platform with R/L, SR, ASA buttons and a USB-C port

At first I planned to replace the entire guts except the motor, while keeping the control panel. But in the evening I realized I could burn a ton of time fitting new internals to the existing panel. Decided to figure out the board instead — an unmarked controller chip was running the whole thing. Here it is under the probe.

The turntable's green board on a helping-hands stand, a multimeter probe touching an unmarked chip

Also, the device already had a lot of what I wanted to add to the project anyway: a charging circuit, a boost converter, an 18650 battery bay.

Here's what I ended up with. I'll clearly keep refining it, but it's already usable. Looks the same from the outside, just controlled over Bluetooth now.

Inside the turntable from above: a stepper motor in its mount, a green control board, colorful wires, and the battery bay

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