Category: editorial note

Ender 5 Plus and the dimmable Lightbox (#E21F2)

A couple of prints later and the lightbox printer is now contained in the intended footprint, with no external spool holder needed anymore. A simple roll with pockets for two bearings, a piece of an old M10 threaded rod, a couple of nuts and spacers, and a small mechanical adapter to make everything fit onto the original Ender holder was all it needed. The LED panels are now connected via XT30 connectors, and a 1-to-3 adapter for these mates with the DC step-up that still needs to be integrated. Not sure if I should use the integrated 24V power supply (as that is maxed out when printing) or add another desktop power brick, and how to (nicely) integrate the dimmer circuit that is just a significantly extended potentiometer from the DC-DC converter. […]

27th August 2023 7th July 2024 By Bzzz In No Comment

Ender 5 Plus and the lit Lightbox (#E21F1)

Fiat Lux!

LED panel brackets are installed, and so are three “45W” panels that currently max out at 135W with the supplied AC drivers. I’m likely gonna move them to a dimmable solution (a DC-DC converter with external adjustment pot…), but for testing purposes that’s just fine.

Here’s a small print (30cm x 6cm x 2cm) with single-walled towers on each side, made from matte black PLA (Sunlu), still sticking to the black Ender glass printing bed. Clearly this needs a bit more optimization in that all black parts around it could use a more reflective surface covering to brighten up the scene. […]

20th August 2023 7th July 2024 By Bzzz In No Comment

Ender 5 Plus Lightbox (#E21)

Super short update: I’m doing stupid things that I totally would not recommend to anyone, I’m having fun, and I’m making progress. The extreme humidity right now is a hindrance, but I’m gonna power through and fix things later, in case those ugly mofo brackets fall apart.

The second-hand Ender 5 Plus 3D printer* that I bought recently now has lockable wheels** and at least one side is covered by a 60×60 LED panel*** while power distribution is still unclear****. It’ll replace my old light box***** if things go to plan******. […]

13th August 2023 7th July 2024 By Bzzz In No Comment

Seasonic modular power supply accessory cables list (#E20)

Here’s a quick PSA: Seasonic power supply cables. There are many, and apparently an important aspect is undocumented.
[Updated 2023-11-19]

This week I sold a Seasonic PSU that was part of a full system build. I didn’t need it, I already got two reasonably-sized Seasonic PSUs for my two active systems, and since I only swapped boards, I had a surplus one. Unfortunately (thanks, modular power supplies!) it didn’t come with all the cables installed. But since most Seasonic modular cables are interchangeable across all product lines, I could just fill in the gaps with spare parts from my stock, right? […]

22nd January 2023 7th July 2024 By Bzzz In 2 Comments

MariaDB/SQL query gotcha and optimized solution (#E19)

Haven’t had a general advice post for a while, have we.

My small fleet of ESP32 boards across the apartment is still gathering information for the AVM Fritz DECT 301 radiator control units that just started the heating season. While their queries are really simple, quick and fully automated, I also have an HighCharts overview plot of all data with user-defined query depth, usually 300 minutes / 5 hours, but I think there’s no arbitrary limit to it. One could plot all 2 million rows of data…but I’m not gonna try.

Anyway, I recently noticed query times went up significantly, and the whole thing never was blazing fast in the first place. […]

30th October 2022 7th July 2024 By Bzzz In No Comment

Disqus and their WordPress integration are a joke (#E18F1)

There, I said it. I did use stronger wording in the first revision, though.

In no particular order:

Disabling the plugin and re-enabling breaks the comment integration. The three comments made via Disqus are still available on their page, they can still be exported to an XML file that cannot be imported anywhere, but they don’t show up here. That’s a fundamental no-go. It’s broken if it cannot do that. I will not enter a vendor lock-in when my benefits are ads over which I have no control or paying 132 bucks a year.

The Disqus plugin settings menu is utterly pointless if something goes wrong. […]

7th June 2022 7th July 2024 By Bzzz In No Comment

Disqus comment system (#E18)

I just pulled the plug on the onboard WordPress comment system in favour of a Disqus plugin. While I’m not entirely sure if that is a good idea and will stay that way, the regular comment system is utterly broken in today’s internet. There’s not too many visitors to the site in general and registering for a comment is a hassle, but leaving the comment system open to any bot out there simply doesn’t cut it. Even with the former regulations in place, the spam-to-comment ratio was around 150:1, and the spam detection isn’t 100% accurate as well. […]

15th May 2022 7th July 2024 By Bzzz In No Comment

First Sunday in Advent & the PCB Tree (#E17)

Well, looks like it’s the first Sunday in Advent already and I’m too lazy preparing a new post. I’ve been working a bit more than usual lately due to our products likely playing a role in the whole temperature controlled Covid vaccine logistics thing. On the remaining Sundays I’ve been extending my old PCB Christmas tree. It’s been using diffused slow RGB (self) fading LEDs ever since (“100pcs LED Diod 5mm RGB Blink Slow Flash Diffused Light Emitting Diode Rainbow 2Pins Lamp Red Green Blue RGB Flashing 5mm LED”, around 2€ per pack of 100) and quite a few of old PCBs now, some bare and scrapped before assembly, some from tests or failed revisions, and some from defective commercial products like routers, access points, projectors, SAS backplanes, RAM, IoT gateways, hard disks, you name it. […]

29th November 2020 7th July 2024 By Bzzz In No Comment

Ubuntu and Firefox update (#E16)

Funny how UI changes in some of the most popular websites on earth can nudge you upgrading stuff. Oh, and how crappy (defective) hardware can finally flip the switch.

I’ve recently heard about the Ubuntu 20.10 release (Groovy Gorilla), which made me remember I’m still on 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver). Since I’m only jumping from LTS to LTS releases as my hardware gets older, I was determined to make the 20.04 (Focal Fossa) jump once I hit 256 days of uptime with my laptop.

I didn’t. Testing some old, almost forgotten, Ultrabay slice battery last week

+++ ThinkPad Battery Status: BAT1 (Ultrabay / Slice / Replaceable)
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT1/manufacturer               = SONY
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT1/model                      = 41U4890
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT1/manufacture_date           = 2007-10-10
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT1/first_use_date             = 2012-07-20
/sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT1/cycle_count                =     44

caused an unexpected shutdown. […]

2nd November 2020 7th July 2024 By Bzzz In No Comment

Server migration before server migration (#E15)

Quick update post: My all-time favourite hoster Uberspace veeery recently announced that the entire U6 generation of their servers will be moved to a different data center this very evening, as the old one will be torn down. Wan Hung Lo was hosted on those. Starting time about 8 o’clock in the evening local time, downtime probably four to eight hours in total, but servers are moved in smaller batches.

With two hours notice I decided to upgrade to the U7 server generation which everybody will be forced to by the end of the year (EOS of CentOS6 with EOM by Uberspace). […]

22nd September 2020 7th July 2024 By Bzzz In No Comment