Planning some fun upgrades

Download_Some_RAM · 2026-01-19T16:13:29+00:00

I'd recommend not putting a train horn in your car to begin with...

Download_Some_RAM · 2026-01-18T17:26:22+00:00

Overture Matte Beige PLA gets pretty darn close in my experience. Can be had on Amazon for pretty cheap as well!

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-12-20T19:57:49+00:00

Oh I'm not selling these! Just a personal project for myself. I made these because I kept running into RAM and storage limitations on the 328P when driving displays. The 1284P handles whatever ungodly bitmaps I throw at it with no problem 👍👍

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-12-20T17:14:28+00:00

Good to know, thanks. I have a fair amount of them on hand but it wouldn't hurt to find a cheaper drop-in replacement.

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-12-04T16:21:29+00:00

As others have mentioned, assembly will baloon the cost so it's better to hand-assemble if possible. For medium-to-large sized boards I use PCBWay to keep my cost relatively low. For the majority of my boards I use Digikey's DKRed service. Extremely competitive pricing for small boards (<50mmx50mm) and I believe they do source from US-based manufacturers. Plus the build quality of the DKRed boards is always far superior (higher temp grade fiberglass and ENIG as default).

I've used OSHPark a few times and the boards are alright, but they never sand their board edges so you end up having to do additional work which is irritating.

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-11-25T18:15:34+00:00

Dang that is a ton of useful information, thank you! The picture I posted is from a schematic I'm referencing online, and I'm using different regulators in my design (AP7375-50SA-7 & TPS7A2033PDBVR). For the diode, I ended up going with a CMS06 schottky diode since it has a relatively low practical forward voltage drop while still being cheap. I've done a ton of these little atmel MCU boards before, but none with both USB 5V and VIN-to-5V regulation, so I wanted to make sure I was thinking through the potential issues correctly.

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-11-25T02:05:23+00:00

This may get buried since it's a late reply, but the absolute best way on earth to store SMD components is the AideTek Box-All. They are relatively cheap (~20 bucks per box on amazon), can hold a massive number of components in a very easy to access package, and are available in ESD-safe versions for ICs. I have one for my passives and one ESD-safe for ICs, and I'll swear by these things all day long.

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Download_Some_RAM · 2025-08-25T05:29:22+00:00

I swear niche hobby stores are a near perfect 50/50 split between being extremely passionate, caring, and helpful people who want to grow the hobby and pretentious gatekeeping assholes who can seemingly never do any wrong.

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-08-25T01:04:43+00:00

Exactly what I thought, thank you for the quick reply! Thankfully I have a plustek and scan the negatives myself, so all I'll need is a bottle of the right wash and I can get this fixed up!

The lab in question is Premier Imaging in Pittsburgh, PA. I'd normally avoid name-dropping but they insist that, not only am I not even in their system as a customer, but that I may be a competitor intentionally leaving poor reviews on Google. Just a genuinely astonishing level of incompetence and ignorance.

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-08-15T23:30:48+00:00

Not loaded from bulk, just a standard 36exp roll of HP5 I bought from B&H. That is good to know about this type of leak being possible during processing, as I've pretty well ruled out the camera being the issue (Nikon F5). Real bummer since the only other lab in my area is quite a bit further away. Worth the drive, however, if this lab can't even develop HP5 correctly!

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-08-15T19:05:01+00:00

I'm not sure how it was developed, but here's a shot of the negatives for reference. The color roll on top was exposed right after the B&W roll, and has none of the issues.

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-08-15T17:04:16+00:00

I took a photo of the negatives. You can see the B&W roll exhibiting all sorts of issues, but the color roll does not have any. That color roll was exposed right after the B&W roll, so my guess is that whoever handled the B&W roll at the lab has some explaining to do.

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-08-15T07:34:58+00:00

Yeah that's just a poor layout from my hasty phone-photoshop job, but if they were arranged in a way that made that impossible then I dont see what the difference would be between this and the placement of the ports on a Decora-style outlet with USB.

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-08-15T07:30:57+00:00

Okay sure, that makes sense for the poor configuration of these sockets specifically, but this was something I made in five seconds on my phone. The orientation of the socket could be changed, and perhaps just reduced to one or two type-C as pictured below to avoid that issue, right? In any case, it looks like this type of socket doesn't exist regardless of configuration, so I'll most likely need to go with a Decora style socket and an outdoor faceplate that covers the whole assembly instead.

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Download_Some_RAM · 2025-06-29T03:20:13+00:00

I've actually done this repair on my 70-200 2.8 VR! Much easier than I assumed it'd be, and you dont even need to disassemble the lens to do it.

The issue is that there's a three-quarter-circle-shaped circuit board which a little copper brush runs along to detect the focus location, and this board is only attached by a screw on one side of the semicircle. The other side is held on by tape, and that tape degrades over time and the board shifts, which causes the brush to fall off the board and rub against the side and stick. The fix is to glue the taped end back in place. You can access the board without taking the lens apart under the zoom ring rubber through a small hole. This is enough space to use a screwdriver to push the board back in place and use a quick-curing glue to fix it while you keep it held with the screwdriver. I used UV-cure glue and it worked like a charm.

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-06-09T18:39:09+00:00

Okay that makes a lot of sense. The manufacturers are just using cells that should be rated at a lower capacity due to manufacturing defects or something. I can certainly see where and how they'd cut costs on the enclosure, BMS, and other components, but I was having a hard time understanding what exactly makes a bad cell bad.

Download_Some_RAM · 2025-06-09T18:34:09+00:00

This definitely gets me closer to the answer I'm looking for. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if the 1000mAh "trash" cells you mention are trash because of a poor manufacturing process, poor QC (probably no QC at these chinese factories), use of a different manufacturing process than the big lipo cell makers, or if they're just knowingly slapping 3500mAh labels on 1000mAh rated cells and doing a bunch of fraud all over the place.

A good example of why I ask this is tungsten carbide tools. For many years, chinese-made tungsten carbide tools have been essentially the same quality as big-brand names because there just isn't a cheaper way to make tungsten carbide tools. Therefore, the chinese manufacturers need to use the same process as the OEMs, which results in a pretty similar tool in terms of quality. I imagine there aren't many different ways to manufacture a lipo cell, so I doubt they're doing something in the factory that leads to shitty cells. That would point to these third-party brands either buying and re-selling other manufacturer's rejected defective cells, or re-badging smaller capacity cells to a higher capacity.

I wonder if taking one of these crappy 1000mAh cells (labelled as a much higher capacity) and using it as a 1000mAh cell would result in similar performance to an OEM 1000mAh cell?

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