I've been in need of a bench supply for a while, up to this point I've been using little buck/boost boards with a multimeter to get the voltage I want when working on a project. The limitations of that started to show though, so I was after a more ideal solution.

After spending a while looking at various power supplies, I happened to come across this tiny adjustable supply. After binging a bunch of videos on it, I decided it'll do, especially compared to the absolutely chonky big alternatives.

Right out the gate, the aluminium casing feels amazing, but they could do with a bit of a stronger adhesive holding the glass screen cover in-place 🤦‍♂️ I'm personally not too bothered by this, but it doesn't set a good first impression IMO

A few seconds after pressing the glass back into place, the opposite end of the glass popped loose. At least I now know there are screws hidden under here if I ever decide to open this in future 💭

Aside from that, it has pretty reasonable specs for the size:

• Dual input, either AC (mickey ears plug) or DC 7-28v (XT60)
• 30V 10A (max output 200W on DC, max 100W on AC)
• Minimum output 1v 500mA
• 65W USB PD output (handy for the Pinecil I recently ordered to replace my old iron 😁)
• 200x200 IPS display
• AC input uses GaN parts

When watching the videos a few people complained about the absence of an XT60 to banana jack. This may have changed at some point, as one came with mine

The internal AC converter appears to supply 19V into the unit, which you can use via the XT60 connector at the rear. Not sure if intentional or not, but pretty neat nonetheless - as long as you dont accidentally leave a lipo plugged in there 😳

I'm not sure if its worth the price tag ($60-120 depending on where you look) when you can get a RuiDeng clone for under $30. I mainly jumped for this because of the size, integrated AC input, and that 65W USB-C. Voltage ripple is a little concern at lower voltages where some components may not be so forgiving...

Happy with the purchase so far though, can't wait to start using this for projects!

Never realised that quite a few third party mods for the deck are available - such as a transparent chassis, colourful buttons, and even an aftermarket APU cooler.

Linus pretty much pimps the heck out of the refurbished deck in this video.

The main downsides shown (aside from the difficult chassis swap) were the aftermarket chassis joystick tolerances being a bit tight, and the new HD screen increasing system power consumption by at least 10W - while also bringing a noticeable performance penalty, with ~37 FPS on the HD screen vs 60 FPS on the standard deck screen when playing F1

My old sandisk SATA ssd was starting to get really slow for some reason. The SMART data and the sandisk SSD dashboard app were saying the SSD was healthy, but its performance wasn't anywhere near what it was when brand new.

When benchmarked, it was all over the place with looong access times:

Sooo I decided to take the opportunity to upgrade the SSD to something faster - ended up grabbing a Transcend 512GB drive, with onboard DRAM

There were two problems though:

• My motherboard doesn't support NVMe (at least officially)
• My only available PCIe slot is an x1/single lane

After researching, I realised that the single PCIe lane would still give me almost 1GB/s in real world usage - even though its far from the 3GB/s the drive is rated for, it's double the speed of SATA and it's worlds apart from my Sandisk ssd lol.

Ordered an NVMe to PCIe adapter, and proceeded to chop up my PCIe slot to make it fit:

It took a while since I don't own a dremel 🤪

Once that was done, I kapton taped up the exposed metal bits on the NVMe adapter, that could short on a mobo heatsink nearby.

In it goes!! (The GPU went in after the pic lol)

After re running the benchmarks, OMG the speed difference is insane, although it's limited by that single PCIe lane.

I was caught off guard by something else though. After cloning my existing install to the new NVMe SSD, it booted right up, with the original Sandisk drive gone. My BIOS does not even recognise the NVMe drive as a disk drive, and there are no settings anywhere in there for it.

BIOS person, thank you whoever you are, you saved me needing to do more jank to get my unsupported NVMe drive working!

I am more than happy so far with the dramatic speed increase compared to the SATA drive. I can now actually shut down my desktop when I'm not using it 🥲

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.one/post/4255839

Hmmm

Picture of a bus stop, where a separated bike lane runs straight through the space a bus driver is expected to pull in to

Edit: Added description

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.one/post/4012716

Specialized Como 2022 😍

Mine for a month as a part of a free ebike loan scheme im my city. The new scheme replaces our old dock-based ebike scheme which went bankrupt due to constant vandalism 😭

Loving the loaner bike so far, handling is pretty similar to my personal bike with the swept handlebar and rear pannier. The assist boosts me up hills with ease, and makes heavy shopping feel like nothing!

Wish I could own one but it's out of my price range at the moment.

Specialized Como 2022 😍

Mine for a month as a part of a free ebike loan scheme im my city. The new scheme replaces our old dock-based ebike scheme which went bankrupt due to constant vandalism 😭

Loving the loaner bike so far, handling is pretty similar to my personal bike with the swept handlebar and rear pannier. The assist boosts me up hills with ease, and makes heavy shopping feel like nothing!

Wish I could own one but it's out of my price range at the moment.

Cycled to the train station this morning, and was completely taken aback by the constant queues of cars waiting at lights. It looks so exhausting to be constantly at a standstill in traffic like that...

The bike paths on the other hand were practically empty, got to the station in the same quick time it would have taken outside of rush hour

Curious what alternatives to Tasker are available for Android. Slight preference to FOSS options, but any suggestions are welcome 😁

The last time I used one of these apps was almost a decade ago on my S4, kind of missing the convenience stuff I had set up back then - like adjusting the volume/opening apps/changing ringer mode when certain devices connect and disconnect, when the charger is connected etc.

Looks like an actual road with drainage, raised sidewalk et al, but it's very narrow.

Carried a minimal setup with me to get some stuff done while making the most of the weather. Wanted a bit of a break from being indoors during the daytime, since it's not mandatory for me to go in.

Internet access was really patchy at first, until dropping the mobile data from 4G down to HSPA which was much more stable. The heat was quite intense too, used the folding chair's bag to shield the laptop 😅

10/10 would recommend