Europcar and the Mercedes-Benz account (#E26)

At the very beginning of this year, I had to rent a car for a week (*expensive cough*). So after a bit of consideration of pricing, locations, availability and rental models/conditions, I went with Europcar.

Not complaints here, worked out wonderfully. I opted for a “CCAE” vehicle, which in Europcar speak is a Cupra Born, VW ID3, Citroen DS3 or similar – a small-ish electric car that is suitable for medium distances of like 150 to 250km, so no luxury cruiser, but also not a city vehicle. A former colleague had a Born but I never rode with him, and the Europcar station in question had one listed. […]

6th July 2025 6th July 2025 By Bzzz In No Comment

MicroSD speed comparison addition – Samsung Pro Plus 512GG MB-MD512SA/EU (WHL #96F1)

Small addition to the pool of WHL #96 and WHL #100 MicroSD card tests – a new 512GB whopper, called the Samsung Pro Plus.

Unlike with the last purchase of a new largest-ever card for me, the 256GB Samsung EVO Plus, this time I’m not running out of space on the largest disk (used for backups). Instead, it’s more down the usage chain for older ones. Specifically, in my camera – ever since I started filming my runs on Tesla Beach Buggy racing, I’ve had the problem of full memory cards at the end of the day, or worse – during the day. […]

29th June 2025 6th July 2025 By Bzzz In 1 Comment

Full Tesla Beach Buggy Racing video collection (#P47)

Look, I couldn’t be arsed to post something last week. Or the week before. So here it goes:

I’ve been making stupid videos on Youtube / for Youtube. 25+ to be precise, since I now have a full collection of ALL the tracks that can be played on every MCU2(+) Tesla there is (which, notably, excludes Elons space roadster orbiting us, since that doesn’t have a MCU nor a GPS fix to properly log into the game).
Back when being the first to ever run all 25 different tracks by visiting 25 specific superchargers around the country, I had to assume. […]

15th June 2025 16th June 2025 By Bzzz In No Comment

Dual OWC Express 4M2 chassis (#P46)

Another thing literally nobody asked for: A 3D printed chassis to house two OWC 4M2 quad NVMe to Thunderbolt adapters

Well, all of my NVMe activity of the recent months had to lead to something – the Blueendless USB dock (WHL #104), the Samsung 970 Evo Plus (WHL #106) (and the other Samsung 970 Evo Plus), as well as the AliExpress shenanigans with the fake drives in WHL #92 and WHL #95. I feel like now is the time to make changes to my always unwieldy RAID and backup strategy, as technology, pricing and size is finally where it needs to be to fit my needs. […]

18th May 2025 18th May 2025 By Bzzz In No Comment

HP / HPE ProCurve 2910al-24G J9145A Switch teardown and shenanigans (WHL #108)

Earlier this year, I got my hands on a bunch of old HP switches, 20+4+x ports in 1U, in basic configuration without like fancy 10G addon cards. These were thrown out when my employer moved, but realistically, they should have been in the trash years ago. PCB date late 2008, component date more like mid-2009, so they were a solid 15 years in 24/7 operation. Good stuff.

So I had a peek. Like I always do :)

Hardware is of course ancient, the main processor is some (dual!) ARM11(56T2S) chip with ARMv6 architecture from like 2002. And while the thing has all the oomph it needs for 24/7 sustained 100% load on all ports with VLAN and filtering and sniffing, it’s doesn’t come lightly from a single ASIC like a modern switch would. […]

4th May 2025 5th May 2025 By Bzzz In No Comment

The Ender 5 PlusPlus on dual linear rails (#E21F7)

A little update on my big Ender.

While I’m indeed satisfied with how the thing works with the somewhat recent upgrade to linear rails on the Y axis (moving the X carriage) in #E21F6 last August, it’s still an old Ender. It sounds like an old Ender and it moves like an old Ender, because despite all the axis changes, mainboard swap and Klipper upgrade, it’s still an Ender chassis with Ender motors underneath.

The other day I had one of these brainfarts at work: We also run machine parts on linear rails, very high acceleration machine parts to be precise. […]

13th April 2025 14th April 2025 By Bzzz In No Comment

Odin/Dallas RTC module…from AliExpress (WHL #107F1)

Two weeks ago, I wrote about a Dallas/Odin RTC module with integrated battery that caused me some trouble on an old Pentium board. The BIOS defaults to no hard disks, and the module isn’t rechargeable, so once it’s empty, the board will no longer be able to boot directly from hard disk. So I checked my options…and bought from AliExpress, because I was feeling adventurous :)

2.14€ and a tad over a week later, this “OEC12C887A” module (matching the old one) showed up on some pink ESD-ish foam:

I mean…it does say Odin OEC12C887A on the housing, and they sure got a nice laser labelling machine…but…

Aren’t they ashamed of their shoddy refurbishment? […]

30th March 2025 30th March 2025 By Bzzz In No Comment

Odin/Dallas RTC modules with integrated battery (WHL #107)

Have you ever desoldered one of those ancient RTC modules from an equally ancient PC mainboard?
There was a time in the 1990s where board manufacturers abandoned the old leaky NiCd buffering cells and instead of hopping onto the CR2032 lithium train. They used Dallas modules (back when Dallas was still Dallas and not Maxim…which also ceased to exist in 2021 when they were bought by Analog) that served as real time clocks and battery backed SRAM for some 100 bytes of BIOS settings.
Well yeah, these are terrible as the battery isn’t replaceable since it is moulded into the bulky case. […]

16th March 2025 16th March 2025 By Bzzz In 3 Comments

Important correction on Samsung 970 Evo Plus revisions (WHL #106F1)

“Houston, we got a problem….the fake news detector just went off!”

THE WHAT?

In all seriousness, my previous post contained a factual error. One that I discovered after spending my own money to specifically buy two 970 Evo Plus SSDs of the new revision. Two brand new ones to be precise (wouldn’t really call it NOS, but eBay is currently full of unopened late 2023 drives for very close to street prices, not sure what’s going on), so the seller only posted pictures of the package with fully intact seal. And when I opened it earlier this week…well, two “old” ones popped out. […]

2nd March 2025 3rd March 2025 By Bzzz In 1 Comment

The Samsung 970 Evo Plus – and the Samsung 970 Evo Plus (WHL #106)

! ! ! IMPORTANT: ALSO READ WHL #106F1 FOR A MAJOR CORRECTION ON PACKAGING. ! ! !

Quick PSA, as this isn’t common knowledge and I only stumbled upon it after purchasing FIVE disks for my future RAID array…: There are TWO revisions of the Samsung 970 Evo Plus SSD!

Sadly, I’m too lazy to either wipe off my marker or digitally remove it, so it’s not too hard to spot the difference:

Well, the two drives in the center are the newer ones, despite having date codes 02/2022 and 10/2023, while the others were made in 08/2021 and 05/2023 (!). […]

17th February 2025 3rd March 2025 By Bzzz In No Comment