hardware

Remember my sunpowered Pi installation on the balcony ? The only indication I had, since recently, on how well the system is doing was an LED blinking red when battery was low. Not really helpful in making predictions or making measurements over the time. I’ve searched for simple ADC solution to hook up into Pi and allow for some voltage and power measurements. I’ve decided on ADC Pi, as it seemed very straightforward in its design and also comes with example python code. [Read More]

Remember my NAS ? It turned out great ! Very reliable storage, I had a disk failure once and haven’t noticed for some time because all the files were just there. Hardware enhanced virtualization is another great stuff. I ended up migrating all my of infrastructure there, each service in separate virtual machine; email, calendar, contacts, tor node and such. Only caveat ? Power consumption. This setup just eats Watts. About 50W constant power usage is not something you want to have turned on 24h/day. [Read More]

Hey, remember my search for the new laptop ? It’s finally over ! I found that Clevo, Taiwanese custom laptop manufacturer, has recently added 13'3 FullHD laptop base to their offerings - W230ST. And to my surprise - there is a Polish importer which allows pretty neat specs calibration for you. Game on you say ? Indeed. What I like about it: Haswell-based, so all the new tech is here, same as in the newest MacBooks up to 16GB RAM, I have 8GB installed for now and it works pretty good 2x mPCIx mSATA capable slots nice copper cooling inside FullHD matte display 4x USB HDMI typing on its keyboard, just clicks with me survived OHM2013 camp - not scared of humidity and hot air What I do not like so much: Haswell-based, so Linux support is not that great yet, everything seems to be working okay, however power consumption is off the limits. [Read More]

For a long time I’ve wandered the voids of the intertubes in search for the parts for my NAS/backup/home server solution. Online backup solutions are fine to some extent, however, someone else than you then is going through that cat picture collections of yours and other private stuff. Also the cloud tends to not be the cheapest option possible. Case The need for moar virtual disk space calls for moar physical disk space. [Read More]

It was December, 3D printing fever struck me. Here is the first day of me building ReprapPro Mendel printer. Img 0362 Img 0363 Img 0364 Img 0365 Img 0366 Img 0367 Img 0368 Img 0369 Img 0370 Img 0371 Img 0372 Img 0373 Img 0374 Img 0375 Img 0376 Second day of building. Fun fact: you can see the daylight come and go ;) Img 0377 Img 0378 Img 0379 [Read More]

Today’s story is a photostory ! Here’s how to disassemble Pioneer SE-50 headphones, as I found this task quite difficult, mainly because no info available on the internet on how to open the can from the back. As you can see Pioneer signs on the side of each can are removable. Take them off to uncover the screws. Research made possible by kabanosy - best multitool ever. Some more info on the headphones: scan of the user manual Produced between ‘68 and ‘72. [Read More]