Removed the CR2032 internal battery from a synthesizer because it is as dead as a dodo and causes the synth to malfunction. Only took me around 40 minutes because it was welded close to the circuit board only about 2 millimeters away from the main ROM chip and cutting through the attachment points was a pain in the behind 😵

Now to find a battery holder, get a good soldering station, and use some pieces of wire to mount the new battery.

Got started on this project:

Resistors are done, caps are next.

I'm very new to soldering so let me know if anything looks terribad here.

couldn't resist but this looks quite decent for a new solderer!

Now we wait for tomorrow's sun:

appiah4 wrote:

Got started on this project: ---pic--- Resistors are done, caps are next. I'm very new to soldering so let me know if anything l […]
Show full quote

Got started on this project:
---pic---
Resistors are done, caps are next.
I'm very new to soldering so let me know if anything looks terribad here.

Well, I'd need to see the underside of the board but it looks OK from the top!

I added an Ethernet hub to my network to increase the amount of Ethernet connections and extend my network across my desk setup. It works quite well! Complete with taping-ethernet-to-wall.

Ultrax wrote:

I added an Ethernet hub to my network to increase the amount of Ethernet connections and extend my network across my desk setup. It works quite well! Complete with taping-ethernet-to-wall.

I prefer switches over hubs and there aren't much difference in price. Last week I put into service a 5 port Allied Telesis fast ethernet switch for 10$ (probably should have went with 8 port though, but this was available locally).

RandomStranger wrote:

Ultrax wrote:

I added an Ethernet hub to my network to increase the amount of Ethernet connections and extend my network across my desk setup. It works quite well! Complete with taping-ethernet-to-wall.

I prefer switches over hubs and there aren't much difference in price. Last week I put into service a 5 port Allied Telesis fast ethernet switch for 10$ (probably should have went with 8 port though, but this was available locally).

I found it in the garage randomly while cleaning, so I thought "you know what, this might come in handy" 🤣
It does what I need it to, and it looks cool; however, if I were to put any money into it, I would have gone for a switch because why not. It's currently tied to the primary router via the Uplink port. In total, I have 11 ports now, with 8 ports available (two on the router itself, and 6 on the switch, they are quite distanced so each part of my setup has Ethernet access). I also have both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless from the router, so this network is now quite equipped 😀

RandomStranger wrote:

I prefer switches over hubs and there aren't much difference in price. Last week I put into service a 5 port Allied Telesis fast ethernet switch for 10$ (probably should have went with 8 port though, but this was available locally).

Can you even buy a network hub anymore. They haven't been produced for at least 10 odd years.

I am trying to play with Sigil Doom on my retro computer under DOS.
I tryed to play with my copy of Ultimate Doom but Sigil Episode is causing a "Visplane overflow" error after a few seconds of play.

So, I want to play with soundblaster digital effects and MIDI out routed to a Roland SC-88 Soundcanvas.
It works with Vanilla Doom but it didn't with Boom or MBF doom ports...

whipped up this GIF

Playing around with my new chip cooker.

XTIDE BIOS rom vs EzDrive DDO

While messing around with that 386, i was able to get the original GTA working on it! (I have 387 co-processor as well) Though, it was about 2fps.

This Geforce needs a little upgrade. It's the Asus V9480, after a test run long ago with the stock cooler, I remember, it was too noisy so i was un-mounting this little cooler.

Don't know when i have got this Arctic Cooling Silencer NV 6, but i remember it comes from a useless GF6 6600 PCIe card.
My searching about Arctic's Silencer was that officially the Geforce 4 Ti was only supported by the Silencer NV 1.
Interesting is that the FX5700 is supported, and also by the Silencer NV 6. But there was no GF 4 Ti at the support list...

ARCTIC COOLING NV silencer 1 ARCTIC Ceramic VGA Cooler for NVIDIA

Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 6 (Rev. 2) VGA Cooler

I've checked, it's possible to mount but i had to remove the two little distance pad's.

Compare of the original heatsink + fan, and the NV 6.

More Console work today, finally finished soft modding my Wii. Now its happily running ISOs from an external HDD of all my GameCube & Wii games. Much more convenient than constant swapping discs and much quicker loading times. 😎

oeuvre wrote:

whipped up this GIF

Where is the Like button when you need one?

Day 2 of my Adlib project is over and the tantalum and ceramic caps are done:

I'm a total noob at soldering so please do look at the back of the card and let me know how I am doing..

I accidentally soldered the C12 cap at C2 so I had to desolder and move it; I don't seem to have caused any damage or cosmetic issues though.

Looks pretty good. My soldering isn't great either, however, I did make an A/V board for my Genesis Model 1 to do Composite, RGB + Sync, and Sound (Mono for the 8 pin DIN and Stereo for the front headphone jack).

appiah4 wrote:

Day 2 of my Adlib project is over and the tantalum and ceramic caps are done: ---pic--- I'm a total noob at soldering so please […]
Show full quote

Day 2 of my Adlib project is over and the tantalum and ceramic caps are done:
---pic---
I'm a total noob at soldering so please do look at the back of the card and let me know how I am doing..
---pic---
I accidentally soldered the C12 cap at C2 so I had to desolder and move it; I don't seem to have caused any damage or cosmetic issues though.

Looks good as far as I can tell.

A good solder joint will look like a Hershey Kiss. What you don't want is when it looks like a rounded ball of solder just sitting on top of the joint.

Soldering looks fine to me, but my standards for a lot of things aren't sky-high. The secret to pretty soldering is to use a little bit of flux to make the solder adhere more readily, and to heat the element (the lead of the component) instead of the solder. Also, be sure to clean, or even sand the tip of your iron, and tin it with solder so it doesn't get all corroded and become a mess to use. Practice makes perfect, but only after study. There are a billion excellent soldering guides on Youtube.

On my end, I've just been dragging my feet on ordering low-profile CR2032 sockets for NES games with dead batteries, hunting for things that could use new icons in Windows 3, and looking for means of producing neon-futuristic imagery without doing it the hard (manual) way. I don't want to spend 20 hours gradient-filling cones and spheres to make more Trapper-Keeper style wallpapers. The last two I did took forever as they kept crashing PSP.

Happened to me too many times. Almost gave up on soldering and my soldering isn't good at all, but, it's getting better.