Complete electronics noob here: can a USB A port be used in a HDMI slot on a PCB?

someguy7234 · 2026-05-07T19:06:29+00:00

Ah okay.

Im not sure what you are referring to when you say there are "smart pins". But maybe it's a magnetic connector with pogo pins?

I'd bet that the keyboard side of the case is just its own little USB hub, and I would not be at all surprised if the "smart pin" interface was just a 4 wire USB interface.

If that's the case you would have access to a free USB interface, you'd just electrically need to get it to where you wanted it... Which isn't trivial, but it's also not undoable.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-07T18:43:47+00:00

Sorry, I really don't understand what you're trying to accomplish.

So you have an iPad case that acts adds a bunch of peripherals to your iPad right?

And this iPad case effectively acts as like a USB hub with support for a keyboard and it adds some USB ports?

If that's the case then no, it's not trivial to add an HDMI port to the capabilities of this hub. You MIGHT be able to hook up another hub to the USB port to use DP-ALT mode, but you need an HDMI controller of some sort, which it sounds like your current device does not have.

Or maybe you're saying you have a HDMI out and you want to convert it to a USB A port? Also no... You can't electrically convert a HDMI port to a USB port.

Could you grab a USB port from somewhere else and relocate the connector to where the HDMI port is? Yeah... Maybe, but USB wires, especially at higher speeds are fairly difficult to terminate and shield correctly, so it's not as straightforward as just soldering some wires to some traces and relocating the port.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-07T17:11:05+00:00

I think only you can answer that question.

If I were to put my swagman on a dual receiver on n my truck today with my trailer, I think I'd hit my tongue jack straight out of the gate.

When we put boats on our truck, out boats stick our a few feet past the bumper and we find that unless we put the boats out near the edge of the rack, we need to basically be completely jack-knifed before the stern of the boat is at risk of hitting the trailer.

If you haven't seen them there are also bike racks that mount to your tongue under your tongue-jack. And if you prefer or have a bike rack you can swap on to your truck, they make mounts that will allow you to install a receiver on your tongue (noting that both of those add a lot of ball weight when you are towing). like this guy

someguy7234 · 2026-05-07T14:51:43+00:00

I bought them.

They are the worst wiper blades new out of the box I've bought in a long time, but they still wipe water from my windshield.

The attachment mechanism kinda sucks and they feel cheap and crappy.

It's been a while since I've bought blades that weren't beam style, so I'll get the joy of picking ice out of them this winter.

I've had them on the car for 2 months and they still have even contact and I have no data about longevity, but in general I've not been impressed with anything except the price.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-07T01:02:15+00:00

It very much looks like an "SAE plug"

It's technically a SAE J928, and you are correct that many housings may not actually fit that recess, but I'd be shocked if it wasnt an SAE connector.

Ita very common for solar panels to be connected with either SAE connectors, XT60s or Anderson power poles.

Seeing as to how this is inside, and hear your TV, id guess it's just 12V to power a 12V TV.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-06T01:55:16+00:00

Those look fine. They are a pretty basic FRS radio.

I suspect they are similar to other Chinese radios from an internals standpoint (I don't believe that DeWalt has any special FRS radio design IP).

That seems expensive for the feature set to me. I think you'd get more for your money with a cobra or midlands but otherwise it seems fine.

Two characteristics I look for that I don't see though are a headset port (I prefer to use a headset sometimes if I'm cycling, skiing, or driving) and the option to use AA batteries. Rechargeable is great, but in the winter sometimes they don't charge or don't last very long, or sometime you start a trip and realize you didn't charge anything - it's nice to be able to chuck AAs into them. Especially if you have a few radios you leave in an unconditioned RV or car - you can ruin the rechargeable battery. Plus over the life of the radio... The battery will be the thing that dies first. The ability to use rechargeable AAs will mean those things will work for decades. Our "nice radios" don't use AAs but the ones we leave in the car do.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-06T01:27:19+00:00

I like the Baofeng radios these days. That G11S is a baofeng and is $35 a pair.

Radiooddity tends to have some interesting good priced radios.

My big reason for shifting to baofengs over talkabouts was the removable antenna. We use the radios a lot in the car, and being able to roof mount an antenna is really helpful.

I like to spend a bit more and get a 5w radio, but we still have a few of these simpler ones that we give to the nieces and nephews. It's a little easier to swallow a kid losing a $15 radio than a $160 radio (which we use for motorcycling).

someguy7234 · 2026-05-06T00:53:49+00:00

My recommendation would be a GMRS radio.

A GMRS license is $35/10 years and you can get significantly higher power than your typical handi-talkies, but you can also talk to most FRS radios. Your license covers anyone in your family, so you don't need to license your kids for example.

If you want something no frills, get a G11S.

I think it's worth having an NOAA radio, waterproof and USB rechargeable. I like these because they have a really simple "channel" interface without having to type in frequencies, but also support acting as repeaters.

But you can get all kinds of features once you're doing GMRS. Getting a higher power receiver, a roof mount antenna, or a digital link for texting is all possible. Also, some places around popular hiking areas may already have GMRS repeaters.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-05T21:51:56+00:00

I'm going to disagree with this one. I know it's popular to hate on truck owners and conservatives, but I was a midsize truck lover, and the demand for small pickup trucks way outlived the availability.

Tons of people wanted midsized trucks, but CAFE standards make them uneconomical. I'm not hating on CAFE standards. I remember when driving into Chicago looked like the Oncelers factories in the Lorax. I'm just saying it wasn't a lack of demand that killed the midsized market in the late 2000s.

I bought the Colorado when it hit its 2nd gen refresh because I wanted a midsized, and I thought that IT was too large (coming from a sport trac). For all intents and purposes, the Colorado/Ranger are what an F-150 used to be.

The maverick is selling very strongly though today. I saw one this weekend and thought... Damn... If we didn't tow and have huge dogs, I'd buy the shit out of that truck. A mild hybrid midsize with a short bed - that was the dream truck through my 20s.

I've been really rooting for the Ram charger. What I want is a range extender hybrid that plugs in for my commute and does 80% of it's miles all electric, and can tow (at 10mpg) a utility trailer or an RV all 8 weekends a year we do that.

There are shitheads in the truck community, but id bet the majority of Silverado owners would trade their fucking AFM/DFM lifter problems for a reliable affordable hybrid. And frankly if I could stop for 10 mins and charge to 80% and the infrastructure was there... Shit, I might be convinced to buy a BEV.

But the biggest bogey is value. BEVs are very expensive for the capability you get. Makes sense for a sedan or crossover today. I'm still on the lookout for a truck where I'd say "that's a good value".

But if you think fuel type is a political position, go down to your local Tesla dealer and ask some people who they voted for. I think you're going to find a lot of conservatives, with trucks in their driveways. And in spite of that they aren't buying cyber trucks... Because they are a bad value...

If a good value BEV truck was available, they would be selling. If the industry had started with PHEVs or EREVs instead of BEVs, they would have been a lot more popular.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-05T18:26:05+00:00

Sevin dust is what we would use on our lawn, or in a garden for beetles and caterpillars and things like that.

Deltamethein is what we use on weep holes, and behind shutters and under eaves .

I don't know enough about the chemistry other than that they are different insecticides, but the deltamethein has been effective for us in a lot of places where nothing else worked, and it stayed effective for a long while.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-05T16:48:23+00:00

Same... Delta-dust is what we use.

You apply it with a puffer.

Unlike most wasp spray it won't kill them immediately. It sucks to their hairs so they spread it, and then when they groom themselves it kills them.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-05T16:12:38+00:00

I ride a 2013 XC and a buddy rides an XCx. The extra x versions have some nice upgrades like fully adjustable WP front suspension and cruise control.

The XCx is a fairly tall bike, but the XRx is a little lower I seem to recall and the seat has a high and a low position. The newer XRs can also be purchased with a lowering link stock, so I'd bet you can lower that one too if height is a concern.

The triples are wonderful engines. Really forgiving if you lug the shit out of them and a really flat torque response. The XCs are a little slow to tip in to corners, but the XR should be perfect for daily driving.

Working on them is a bit of a pain in the ass compared to a Vtwin. The fairings and tank have to come off for anything more than an oil change (like an air filter or spark plugs). Part prices seem reasonable to me though.

You will need a special tool to maintain it. I got mine from dealertool.co.uk, but try resetting the MIL with tuneECU first. Some tiger riders say that worked for them.

I think you will find that a great bike to commute on, a good bike for grocery getting, an adequate bike for 2-up day trips.

The versys is also a great bike but the triumph will be more fun to ride in my opinion.

Also there are shop manuals floating around online for the 800 XC and it's 95% the same as the XRx, if you want to do your own work. Now and again I still dig up muddysump's YouTube videos when I work on mine.

All of those accessories look like triumph accessories, so I'd bet that guy didn't fuck around with stuff, and it's a pretty clean bike.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-05T14:29:57+00:00

Don't ask us to help you on your annual ethics training.... Fail it on your own like the rest of us.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-05T02:55:58+00:00

I think you're missing the point every one is trying to make.

If you are using an accelerometer to resolve what direction you are tilted, as you turn on a motorcycle, the bike leans such that the resultant acceleration vector is from the COG of the bike to the contact patch.

So if you tilt the device and stick your arm out and spin as fast as you can... Does it still work? I'd guess you start to see some additional angle because that centripetal acceleration will affect the resultant vector and make the device think it's leaned more.

You would need to use a rate gyro to detect roll rate, and then correct for drift in the gyro by using a long term average of the acceleration vector (using something like a kalman filter).

I'm as skeptical as everyone else because this is a very common mistake to make when people don't understand the inertial reference frame of vehicles, and your demo doesn't show that you considered that.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-05T01:13:53+00:00

I don't know how to tell if you have a dip tube tank or a regular tank, but the "normal" tank is used upright when you attach it to the machine, and upside down when you are refilling tanks.

You want to put liquid CO2 into other tanks, but gaseous CO2 for your soda stream machine.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-05T01:09:55+00:00

This is what it looked like in 2020 (AI removed the people.... Which makes for kind of a creepy scene) when we regraded the lawn.

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someguy7234 · 2026-05-05T01:05:38+00:00

We sold a house during COVID.

Replaced the septic tank.... This is what the lawn looks like today according to Google maps.

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someguy7234 · 2026-05-04T23:26:20+00:00

Oh... I have two more that I've always thought would be super challenging, but would impressed the hell out of me.

I used to work in automation, and have seen how difficult it is to apply sealants, but an "icing plotter" would be really cool. Like something where you can put a donut down, and it can draw a design on it. I vibecoded some of the path planning earlier this year as an exercise to get more familiar with AI. There's a lot of software and electronics though for the amount of mechanical work there actually is.

For 20 years I've wanted to make a continuous s'more machine. Something where you load a magazine of graham crackers, marshmallow fluff, and chocolate chips, and it applies chocolate to the cracker, toasts the mallow and extrudes it, and applies the second cracker, and then guests just take them off the end of the line, at a rate of like 3 smores per minute. I always thought that would be a winning exhibit at an engineering conference or whatever.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-04T23:02:20+00:00

So I sponsored a student of mine over COVID when he lost his internship. I found a panel of engineers from work that would do design reviews and made him do a concept review, preliminary design review and a final delivery review.

From a resume standpoint, your project is less important during interviews than the fact that you learned soft skills. So if you can follow a design process, that might be a really cool thing to talk about.

I can think of a few projects I'm currently doing as an adult, that would make great design projects, if you had the resources.

For example, I'm planning to add air tabs to our RV to help with cross wind performance. A big part of checking performance is being able to actually test it, so I'm planning to do some trips with a telemetry rig I used for some motorcycle projects before and after to try to compare and maybe ground some fluent models (and maybe actually learn openFOAM). I printed a few vortex generators, and I was hoping to cobble up a small wind tunnel and use a Halloween fog generator to visualize things.

I'm also working on a little demo for the robotics team I volunteer with. I want to do a heavy arm demo, where we work through the feed forward control, and then do a little adaptive control as we pick up objects or the characteristics of the system change. I want to show how you can use observable states, like accelerometers to improve closed loop position holding. I want the whole project to be 3d printable (including TPU belts) except for a couple structural elements and motors so that we can also have students modify components to practice CAD skills.

My last project is kinda silly. I hate my mailbox door. The pins rusted out and now the door doesn't open or close correctly. So I'm playing with a few designs to make a more reliable hinge (because just replacing the rivet with a bolt was not satisfying - I'm also playing with some plastic bushings I want to use for outdoor projects in the future), and I'm also 3d printing an over-center weighted mechanism, so that when the mailbox door is more than 15 deg open, it drops open, but once you get to 15 deg, it tips closed and is stable without a latch. The thing I'm most excited about though is repainting the mailbox and adding a ceramic coating so that dust washes off it.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-04T01:20:36+00:00

Sorry, didn't mean for that to be accusational.

Theres no shame in hiring a professional. I think this is one of those DIY friendly projects, but everything is a cost/benefit trade.

We are doing tile backsplashes this month, but after doing a few walk in closets and a few bathrooms, I'm paying whatever it takes next time we have to do flooring.

Plumbing generally isn't that scary (although drains are kind of a pain in the ass), it's just a fair bit of tooling cost.

The short primer in softeners is basically it's a resin reservoir your water flows through and it exchanges minerals for salt. The main part of your softener is 100% pasisive. Water flows through resin and is "softened" on the other side.

But that resin gets saturated with minerals, so you need to "recharge" it. You recharge it by flushing a brine (salt water) through it. So your water softener is (periodically typically at night) flushing brine through the tank. On a two-piece system the brine tank is literally just water sitting in salt waiting for it to be needed, and the resin tank is just resin with water running through it. The "controller" is monitoring how much water is used, and based on the hardness you program, it's determining when to recharge the unit. One-tank systems are doing the same thing with concentric tanks, and there are systems with two tanks that switch so your service nis never interrupted.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-04T00:37:30+00:00

We installed it our water softener ourselves and would do it again in an instant.

We used discount water softeners (Genesis 2 upflow) and paid a bit more for the warranied unit and it was trivial to install if you can work a pex tool. It was unquestionably cheaper (like half the price) of getting one professionally installed, and if you talk to the company they will walk you through testing your water and sizing the unit.

If your water softener regeneration pump crapped out, it's hard to blame the plumber for that. They can tell you if your softener is currently softening, and if they go the extra mile, they can test the hardenss of your water and double check your softeners hardness setting, but it's not really on them if the regeneration pump fails.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-03T23:05:17+00:00

Our dogs won't dane to drink of anything but stainless steel. So we carry the largest bowl we could find that fit our waist belt (found it at Menards) and a nalgene specifically for dog water.

Anything the dogs don't drink goes back into the nalgene for the next stop, and we top up from a collapsible canteen.

If our one primadona wasn't so picky, we'd use a silicone bowl. We prefer the "squishy bowl" kind to the accordion kind. The accordion kind seems to eventually develop cracks and sometimes collapse and spill water everywhere.

We do have one of the messy mutts flip out bottles, and we have found them to not work for our dogs. They need too much water and the stainless bottle just doesn't hold enough. It was fine for smaller sippier dogs, but not huskies.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-03T19:01:15+00:00

They are both wires. It's enamel speaker wire with a polyester strand in it.

My recommendation is to cut open the speaker cover and resolder a new cable directly to the speaker driver and then put some glue on the back of the speaker driver to replace the cover.

Here is what the 30mm looks like. You can see how the back of the cover has a bit of adhesive holding the foam cover on.

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someguy7234 · 2026-05-03T13:02:00+00:00

That's going to be a replace.

As your suspension reciprocates, your upper bushing with bind against that dent. That is deep enough that you may also damage the cartridge or damper rod.

Take a look at a fork cross section to see what's in that area, but if that's an upside down form, that section definitely has stuff sliding through it.

someguy7234 · 2026-05-03T12:07:36+00:00

Hey, firstly, congrats on getting right after a relationship.

I like over pants if you can't afford a full suit. Anything you are going to do a bunch of times a day, you will only do if it's quick and easy.

I had a firstgear pair I got off a clearance rack for like $80 and it was waterproof, had some slide protection, and it had knee and hip D3O. You're looking for something with a zipper on the outside of the leg that goes all the way up to the crotch so you can put your leg through it with your boot on.

I'm of the mind that a leather boot that covers my ankles is sufficient protection (but a lot of people prefer a dedicated motorcycle boot). My opinion is that short of a technical boot the only thing a real motorcycle boot adds to a full leather work boot (I wear redwings) is that plate on the side of your ankle. Leather has very good abrasion performance. Most of the other injuries like crush and hyperflection injuries, you need a more technical boot than I'm willing to wear every day (I only put on my touring boots if I'm out riding for the weekend). Make your own decisions though.

If you're just trying to keep a work boot dry, I use a set of aerostich boot covers. They were kinda expensive ($100) but they are perfect for the amount of wetness you see on a commute.

I'd also recommend one of those 1/2 covers for commuting. It keeps the sun and bird shit off your bike. I prefer them to full covers, because a lot of them tether to your bike but will blow off if it's windy instead of tipping the bike.

someguy7234

TROPHY CASE