Photos Latest Purchases Thread: v2.0

I played WoW every day from early 2007 until Rift launched after The Cataclysm. It's never been the same since for me. My wife intends to buy the new expansion, I'll see what she thinks, whilst I continue to play Rift and maybe Elder scrolls Online.

 

Came across a seller on ebay with brand new, still-in-cellophane old stock and bagged an i1 Display Pro & Passport for £125 - a good price by any measure. Amazingly, the old Dell U3014 still calibrates well with 11-year-old software, and programming the internal LUT is a cinch. I now have two AdobeRGB presets saved, one at 120cd/m2 and another at 100cd/m2 (my preferred default).

 

A man after my own heart! I love being able to "hardware" calibrate my Dell 3017s.

 

A four-roll filament dryer. I chose this particular one because it has the controls on the short side, unlike all the others I've seen.

 

Valid point. It's my only real complaint with the S4.

I've been looking at Chitu quite recently for a chamber heater.

 

Ayn Odin 3 “Max” (16GB RAM, 512GB storage)



On pre-order, due to ship in April…

Edit: Removing a bunch of whining…

 

Crank upgrade for my Trek hybrid bike:

 

I've been spending again...

"Raspberry Pi Pico Essentials Kit", basically a bunch of 2.54mm pin headers & sockets



Adafruit "Feather ThinkInk" - RP2040 board with integrated driver & connector for e-ink displays



... an e-ink display, unsurprisingly... - 2.66" 296x152 tri-colour, bit smaller than expected but it'll do for now



Another Waveshare dev board, woo! ESP32-S3 dev board with 1.75" round AMOLED display... and a whole whack of other stuff...




RTC battery - not sure I'll need this for anything specific, but one of my other dev boards does have a socket for it...



Couple of lipo batteries with 1.25mm "Picoblade" connectors, 150mAh and 500mAh - these appear to have the wrong polarity for every single one of my Waveshare dev boards...





2000mAh lipo, with a "more traditional" JST-PH connector



USB-C cable with 'El Chungus' connector - TBF it does support 80Gbps and 240W PD (or claims to support, at least), so a chonk-ee-boi connector is not surprising



PTS200 Type-C soldering iron



Tips for the aforementioned, because that stock 'pointy' conical tip is terrible for heat transfer

 

Let us know how you get on with that soldering iron. I am a bit sceptical of them but would be happy to be proved wrong

 

I've only used it for one job so far, and that was just soldering wires onto a board. Heated up impressively quickly, and it did seem to be drawing a fair ol' whack of power. The thing with these is that they will very quickly show up any inadequacies in your power supply or cable - you do need a solid 100W PSU and cable that can actually handle that.

Besides, as with any soldering, the tip and the operator's skill/knowledge are usually much more important than the specific iron: Grandad's crusty old Weller from the 70s will work just fine if it's got a decent and well-maintained tip on it .

 

Got this through today. Just started on it and got the first bag done :

 

When I worked for a small, contract electronics manufacturer, a long time ago, the favoured irons were Metcal. They also use cartridge tips and adapt very well to the load, so will solder anything with ease but, never overheat. Downside is the high cost, unless you do a lot of soldering.

 

A great build, and the best of the large scale bikes so far.

 

I have all 3 of them now and so far this one does feel like it is going to be the best once finished. I have just got the gearbox done in this one and it already feels a lot better than the other two. Those have been a bit stiff to the point where it almost feels like I am going to snap an axle or another part due to the force needed. Wit this one, the sliding forks are moving so much better.

I have most of the smaller ones too and they are nice enough, especially the Ducati and H2R, but they are lacking a little in comparison.

 

And that is the key part: efficient transfer of heat .

It’s the same reason that the stock “conical” tip you see flipping everywhere is so rubbish: the tip’s contact area is absolutely tiny. And it’s the same reason that a honking great soldering iron from the 70s or 80s can still do an excellent job today, even with tiny surface mount parts: they just need a tip that has a good contact area.

The replacement tips I got for this USB-C iron were actually more expensive than the device itself, but I didn’t want to be stuck with that crap pointy thing!

 

Probably the most random purchase I've made so far, two binders of instructions to overhaul pretty much every aircraft magneto used by the Allies during WW2.
When I saw them at the thrift store, I knew they'd end up in a recycling bin and thought it would be a shame to let that happen.

 

I sold a 64gb DDR4 kit, my 12gb A2000 and a 2 bay DAS so I had a bunch of money burning a hole in my seller account.

Its less than half the price of the Pro 4000 Blackwell and only 10% slower. AKA a 70 watt 5060 with 16gb VRAM and it fits inside a 2.3 litre Dell T3260. I had to.

 

Looks a good upgrade, will I like it as an RTX 4060 replacement?

I am mildly tempted by one of those thin ITX boards with side PCIe slot that ETA Prime did a build with recently, despite the need for a hefty 300W power brick.

BTW how did the old A200 hold up against the LP 4060/5060?

 

Christ, let me have a play before you claim it, Tre.

I have a Dell 330W power brick... somewhere...

No contest. The A2000 6gb or 12gb is basically on par with a 3050. It's fine for light gaming - ideal for 1440p on my World of Warships rig but cranking the settings on a AAA game, even at 1080p, will over-tax it pretty quickly.

The new toy should arrive on Monday, and I'm off work most of next week.

 

Enjoy your time off next week, I wouldn't mind escaping work soon.

I've got plenty on my plate, having now dealt with most of what I last got from Andy V-T, he's now offering me a BC250 and a X570 / R7 5700X3D combo...