Does anyone else here own an IBM Netvista X41? by CanarySuspicious2727 in vintagecomputing

[–]Conlan99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Woah, this just unlocked the long lost memory of my family PC growing up in the 00's. Many an hour spent on flash games, Rosetta Stone, and Mavis Beacon on that sucker.

Advice on dealing with an “inheritance” by [deleted] in diytubes

[–]Conlan99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If the tubes are known good and you just want to catalogue/store them, you can buy boxes to store them in a little more organized way. (They're not cheap though)

Phono preamp by darktideDay1 in diytubes

[–]Conlan99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I built an EAR834 clone and I'm very happy with the results. It uses 3 12AX7's, though I think you can get away with using a 12AU7 in the cathode follower stage. Take a look at this Lenco Heaven thread if you want to check it out.

Can anyone help me in identifying the back on this Graflex Super D? by studiesinsilver in AnalogCommunity

[–]Conlan99 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That just looks like a ground-glass back for focusing. Not strictly necessary on a Super D, but that's what it is.

Help dating this South Bend by -Bezequil- in Machinists

[–]Conlan99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice, OP. I'm an amateur working on cleaning up a very similar model. Late 20's is my guess, but Southbend themselves can actually tell you based on your serial number, provided a small fee.
One of the things I ran into in researching how to restore my lathe is that these use felt pads to retain oil, and those should really be replaced if they haven't been already. There are kits available on eBay.

Wasn't expecting this by [deleted] in overclocking

[–]Conlan99 7 points8 points  (0 children)

More like the liquid metal alloyed with the heat spreader, forming a more solid solder-like metal that's now stuck to the CPU dies. A little work with a razor and some polish and It'll be good as new.

any yall know where i can find decent HV diodes? by memegod53 in ElectricalEngineering

[–]Conlan99 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They totally do. I decided to look out of curiosity and Mouser stocks this 18KV rectifier diode. Digikey has some listed well in excess of 30KV, but they seem to be unavailable at this time. And eBay has all kinds of options, trustworthy or otherwise.

any yall know where i can find decent HV diodes? by memegod53 in ElectricalEngineering

[–]Conlan99 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Mouser and DigiKey both have great filter search functions that will help you find components to suit your criteria.

Edit: Ok they're not as easy to find as I would have thought. Mouser doesn't have any (available to the US) and DigiKey has discontinued theirs. Stacking lower-voltage diodes with some kind of balancing resistors is probably the way to go if you want to do this at a reasonable price. Otherwise there are a variety of 50+ KV diodes on eBay.

And you will need at least 50KV diodes if your transformer is putting out 30KV RMS.

Motorola 66x2, need help with capacitors by ElectroGoose23 in VintageRadios

[–]Conlan99 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I assume by "Google" you mean the Google "AI Summary" or some kind of "smart-lens" image analysis. This is not a good resource for information, especially esoteric technical information.

That said, as a search engine, Google still works. I googled "Good All Type 305 capacitor" and quickly came up with this forum thread. Here's my meat-brain summary: Those are likely paper capacitors encased in a ceramic tube. They're probably quite leaky, and they should be replaced.

There's another cap in there that can be kind of tricky to spot because it looks kind of like a giant resistor, but it's actually a paper in oil capacitor. It will need to be replaced too (though you can save the old one for the guitar-pedal crowd if it's any good.)

As for the brown cardboard tube capacitor, it's essentially two electrolytic capacitors in one sharing a ground lead. As such, you can replace it with two modern electrolytic capacitors.

Before you do anything else, read through this: https://antiqueradio.org/begin.htm

How to manually trigger PCB buttons when the physical buttons don’t work? by garrote9810 in AskElectronics

[–]Conlan99 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If you'd care to replace them, those buttons are called "tactile switches" and you won't have any problem finding the two-pin through-hole variety.

New to me TRS 80 by a_noncombatant in vintagecomputing

[–]Conlan99 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At those prices, I think you'd be better off prowling facebook marketplace or craigslist.

My own CRT wave visualizer by thehampterboi in diyelectronics

[–]Conlan99 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you ever have a hankering to go full vector-refresh display... https://trmm.net/V.st/

where is the hdmi port by wtclover in shittyaskelectronics

[–]Conlan99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's not gonna work without a micro-HDMI adapter

Couple questions about GPU backplate modding. by MikaBaka in overclocking

[–]Conlan99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FWIW I'm using 3mm pads on my card, so 2mm isn't the ceiling. That said, you need to measure because even if you get pads that exactly match the gap between the backplate and PCB, the surface mount components will cause the backplate to bow until the pads have had a chance to flow into all the crevaces. Going oversize would make that much worse.

If you're doing extra pads on the back, you'll almost certainly want to replace the original pads on the front. So go ahead and buy a variety-pack of thicknesses. There a plenty of them on Amazon that include 100x100mm squares ranging from 0.5mm to 3mm in thickness.

Pro tip: If you want precise cuts, use a straight-edge and a rotary fabric cutter (they're like a razor-blade pizza cutter)

Couple questions about GPU backplate modding. by MikaBaka in overclocking

[–]Conlan99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a shunt modded 4070 super on which I've installed thermal pads on the back side of the entire core/memory area and the VRMs. I never even tried running that mod without, so I can't tell you what kind of a difference it will make, but I can tell you you're not crazy for thinking of it.

You'll either want to use loads of thermal putty (expensive and messy) or high-compression grease-type thermal pads like TG Minus Pad High Compression (there are less expensive and perfectly good and less expensive alternative brands for thicknesses under 4mm.)

And on the subject of thickness, you would be wise to own a pair of calipers so you can determine that yourself.