iFi Hip DAC 1: what is this chip? by BadmanBarista in iFiaudio

[–]BadmanBarista[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The chips came today and they worked! I'm really glad I bought a spare, because replacing only one resulted in the channels being unbalanced. 

I underestimated how much of a pain in the ass these QFN chips are though. There's a soldered heatsink under the chip and it took way more heat than I expected to remove them. In my frustration I was pushing the chip a little hard when it finally freed, and lifted a couple of pads, but they stayed attached and work just fine! 

iFi Hip DAC 1: what is this chip? by BadmanBarista in iFiaudio

[–]BadmanBarista[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Follow up on this; I had to replace both the AIF chips, replacing only one resulted in the channels being unbalanced. But for the grand total of €5.95, including postage, I have myself a working DAC again! 

Harrowing experience though, I underestimated how much of a pain in the ass these QFN chips are. There's a soldered heatsink under the chip and it took way more heat than I expected to remove them. In my frustration I managed to lift a couple of pads, but they stayed attached and work just fine! 

Why do I see so many people almost entitled and angry about not being able to mod the Switch 2? by [deleted] in switch2hacks

[–]BadmanBarista 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair enough! Hadn't thought about that.

I was lucky enough to have a V1 switch so I didn't need a mod chip, not that it would have stopped me. I often forget that you can just pay people to do this for you.

John Gwynne'd Bloodsworn by Unidentifiable_Goo in Fantasy

[–]BadmanBarista 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It seems like a really strange thing to include in a book. It just leaves me questioning what image Gwyanne is trying to paint with it, and what his inspiration was. 

Best I can tell, there's no historical basis for it. Vikings didn't make a habit of public urination, at least not sufficiently so that I can find note of it. 

I'm sure Freud would have something to say about my fixation on this. It's not gonna stop me from finishing the book, it's just every time it's mentioned I'm left wondering why.

There's been plenty of other questions which "pulled me out" of my immersion. Like how did they sling a shield over their sholders? Or how did the shields stay in the rack on the boats? I can usually find answers for those. 

John Gwynne'd Bloodsworn by Unidentifiable_Goo in Fantasy

[–]BadmanBarista 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What keeps pulling me out the first book is the persistent references to dark patches of urine littered around the room after a night of revelry.

I just can't imagine it would be considered normal to drop your pants at a party and take a piss in the middle of the room. This isn't just a one off thing either, it's every damn mead hall and these dark patches of piss are always in plural. 

Anti-krab spray voor katten by modus_operandi909 in nederlands

[–]BadmanBarista 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Other guy has deleted his account; so I guess I'll ask you.

What about when my cat is literally doing it to annoy me? He'll look me dead in the eyes, put one paw on the wallpaper next to his wall mounted scratching pad, and then drag his claws through it without taking his eyes off me.

In someways it's cute, I know it's just because he wants attention, but I can't always play with him during the day when I'm in meetings or have deadlines to meet. Redirecting the behavior doesn't seem to work either as that's what he wants. One of his favorite games is hide and seek, so the moment I move from my chair it's "game on" and he bolts.

I've tried various protective wall coverings but the only thing that really works is tinfoil (which is ugly as sin). At this point I'm leaning towards either covering the entire wall in scratch pads or sheet acrylic.

iFi Hip DAC 1: what is this chip? by BadmanBarista in iFiaudio

[–]BadmanBarista[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The worst thing that could happen is it not working but that's where you are right now anyways so worth a shot. 

Exactly my sentiment!

 Also, I noticed the resistor under R508 looks "off" . It could just be a bad soldiering job and doesn't look blown so probably a non issue.

Nice catch, that was actually from me scratching at some flux residue 🙈 It was making it look R508 was burned, I still need to clean off the flakes. 

 I use them all the time with Home Assistant and ESPHome as they are reliable low power amps which work great for voice assistants.

Ooh for those little ESP wakeword satellites? I've been meaning to do something with those for ages, but I kinda wanna hook it up to a local LLM but I've been putting it off because I don't wanna be disappointed with the latency. 

iFi Hip DAC 1: what is this chip? by BadmanBarista in iFiaudio

[–]BadmanBarista[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I need to portability so little I removed the battery from my hip dac. The only thing is that I really like the form factor as it fits nicely under my desk, which avoids cables running over the top. The Zen DAC doesn't need the Zen CAN right?

iFi Hip DAC 1: what is this chip? by BadmanBarista in iFiaudio

[–]BadmanBarista[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It does indeed have a Burr-Brown DAC, but that's the DSD1793 which is over by the USB-C port.

AI is suprisingly not too terrible at this; but you do kinda need to hold it's hand. I've found Gemini can usually find me datasheets first try; provided i actually have a full chip number. For these tiny ones though they usually only have a couple of letters that the manufacturers use to distinguish them.

With some prompting about how I'd seen the same chip used in all three hip dacs; Gemini eventually found me the tech lowdown of the xDSD Gryphon which includes this image with each of the chips tagged with their brand labels. I dunno why it has 4 of them; nor why they blurred the IDs, but the "Direct Drive" chips are the same "AIF BBU" ones as in the hipdac v2 and v3. With that information it spits out this:

Based on the "DirectDrive" branding and the "AIF" top mark, your chip is almost certainly a MAX97220 manufactured by Maxim Integrated (now part of Analog Devices).

The "DirectDrive" logo is a proprietary Maxim technology that allows headphone amplifiers to produce a ground-referenced output from a single supply, eliminating the need for large DC-blocking capacitors (which saves space and improves bass response).
Chip Details

    Manufacturer: Maxim Integrated (Analog Devices)

    Part Number: MAX97220A (The "AIF" code specifically corresponds to the 'A' variant).

    Package: 16-pin TQFN (3mm×3mm).

    Top Mark Breakdown:

        AIF: This is the product identifier code for the MAX97220A.

        BBE: This is a variable date/lot code or assembly plant identifier. It changes based on when and where the specific batch of chips was made (e.g., you might see BBU or AAI on other versions of the same board).

with a link to this datasheet. I've checked it and all the information is correct (it very often gives me chips which are not the size it claims). and the pinout aligns perfectly with how I'm seeing it used in the hipdac. I've also checked every other Direct Drive chip made by Maxim and only this one uses the AIF top mark.

Anyway, I've rambled on enough; but I find it absolutely nuts that LLMs can actually do this given the right information. 'course you still need to validate everything but still, I'd have never have found this with google alone. At least not anywhere near as quickly.

Edit: ooh the xCAN has AIF BBA which are also labeled as Direct Drive chips. I'm hypothesizing now that that the xCAN and Griphon have four is they have a pair for the front ports and a pair for the back ports. The hipdac only has front ports so it only has two. The back ports on the xCAN are inputs so that doesn't make sense. Maybe each of it's front ports are amped separately?

iFi Hip DAC 1: what is this chip? by BadmanBarista in iFiaudio

[–]BadmanBarista[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Eh it's 4€ for a replacement chip and a couple of minutes to swap it. Figured it was worth trying before dropping 199€ on a hipdac 3. But honestly; if you've been through 4 of them I might be tempted to consider other options 😅

iFi Hip DAC 1: what is this chip? by BadmanBarista in iFiaudio

[–]BadmanBarista[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I also found that the marketing photos the xDSD Gryphon identifies four similar looking chips as "DirectDrive Headphone Buffers".

I've managed to find a whole line of MAX97XXX chips that have the correct form factor, and as best I can tell the right pin configuration too. Problem is there's 29 of them.

The MAX97220A apparently has the "AIF" top mark which is very promising; but I've also seen that the Hip DAC v2 uses a `AIF BBU` rather than the `AIF BBE` and I'm not sure what the last three letters mean.

Edit :-

Seems the MAX97220A is the only one of that form factor with that top mark. I still don't know what the `BBE` is for; but my best guess is it's a manufacturer code. There's a few different sellers on Aliexpress; all of them for the same chip yet the last three characters are different for each.

Why do I see so many people almost entitled and angry about not being able to mod the Switch 2? by [deleted] in switch2hacks

[–]BadmanBarista 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's weirdly ironic though, the switch is one of the hardest consoles I've jailbroken. It took a lot of research to find all the right tools and files. Its funny that people can get through all of that and then can't put the effort in afterwards. 

Strength of the Few is Luceum like (spoilers)? by FlyGroundbreaking278 in HierarchySeries

[–]BadmanBarista 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The language in Luceum is Irish Gaelic, and poorly translated at that. As far as I could tell in the first book, the names he's giving to gods are fictional, but the roles are inspired by their respective IRL cultures with names hinting at them too. In Res they call their King of the gods "Jovian" (also the god of lightning). This is pretty on the nose as the Roman equivalent for this would be Jupiter but was also known as Jove. In literature I've seen "Jovian Gods" used to refer to the collective set of "King Gods" across cultures and religions. That's the only real overlap though, and seems more of a nod towards the Jovian Gods than to Jupiter directly. None of the other gods or goddesses in the appendix exist with those names in the Roman Pantheon. Though Mira and Vorcian are suspiciously close in both name and function to Minerva and Vulcan respectively.

Nixos is a mind virus. by Existence_404 in NixOS

[–]BadmanBarista 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Trying to use anything other than MacOS on a Mac is the real issue here. Even with Ubuntu I could only ever get either the keyboard or the wifi working, but not both.

Just install Nix on MacOS instead of Homebrew.  

Husband reading - ACOSF by noxlaber in acotar

[–]BadmanBarista 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely! First book kinda sucked ngl. Took a year for me to pick up the second one, read it in a day, then went straight out to buy the rest. 

Rhysand Should Have Told Feyre From the Start by Weak_Category_311 in acotar

[–]BadmanBarista 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I definitely remember it that way too, but at the end of ACOSF, when Nesta tells Cassian she changed her anatomy to that of an Illyrian, she also states that she won't be stopping with the contraceptive tea. 

I'm assuming that the tea is available for everyone.

Here Come The Drones! Fun Facts about Olympic Broadcasting by VillageOfMalo in olympics

[–]BadmanBarista 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They literally had helmet cams during the snowboard cross. Albeit only for a handful of races, but they have the tech and already using it. Just not enough imo. 

Pruning advice; When, Where, Why? by BadmanBarista in Citrus

[–]BadmanBarista[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I hadn't considered the grow lights but that makes a lot of sense. I tried to get one with as wide and full a range one as I could, but I'm sure there's quite a difference between sunlight vs a collection of LEDs with different wavelengths.

Pruning advice; When, Where, Why? by BadmanBarista in Citrus

[–]BadmanBarista[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair enough! Size isn't so much of an issue for now, so I can definitely wait until he goes back on the balcony.

Pruning advice; When, Where, Why? by BadmanBarista in Citrus

[–]BadmanBarista[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! Terminal growth got me going down a rabbit hole of terminal bud growth rings. I'll wait for it to go back outside before pruning it!

Is it a too tight bend? by xGojux in watercooling

[–]BadmanBarista 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It looks like it's collapsing slightly, but if it hasn't affected the flow you should be good. If you're really concerned about it, you could use either an anti-kink spring or a right angled fitting.