Nostr notes by Ari [APz] Sovijärvi

A leftover clip from the NBAFB video. This thing is relatively ...

2026-10-06T17:51:12Z

A leftover clip from the NBAFB video. This thing is relatively entertaining to watch in action. I also note this one probably has one too strong coil in it, can you spot which one? #pinball #mechanism #retrotech

I always wondered how these happen. Round here russia was the ...

2026-10-06T14:46:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…cekh
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I always wondered how these happen. Round here russia was the source for semi-professionally mde pirated stuff and it was always like this. Full of typos and oddness. My best theory is that someone translated their local version of the disc.

This one really captures the existential dread of of a 3D ...

2026-10-02T20:47:44Z

This one really captures the existential dread of of a 3D printer.

#3dprint

You know something's shit when you get excited for them ...

2026-09-22T12:28:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…233u
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You know something's shit when you get excited for them managing to do the bare minimum. We were at Finland 2 hours late and then I got to drive us home afterwards. But hey, look what surfaced at the bag pickup point! #travel

Nostr event nevent1qqsdtv77f5trv39xty8fm54j65ft5n6qs5urx8cstm6cfcxdap5lwtszyzugj4jnksge0zseh2zrxja68rmkxdvhnx8c6420l6zc3xlykfplwjjtzyl

2026-09-21T18:58:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…tfr4
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Yeah.

Nostr event nevent1qqswn3lq3jkdk2eljmy9qly4ymdjpgc783yt7yulwvh5pzzy6ve6eqszyzugj4jnksge0zseh2zrxja68rmkxdvhnx8c6420l6zc3xlykfplwyn78jh

2026-09-21T18:56:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…646l
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...

Gracious deity of preference, As we gather here upon these ...

2026-09-21T16:04:07Z

Gracious deity of preference,

As we gather here upon these baggage drop off points, we are reminded of the vastness and mystery of your creation. We come before you with heavy hearts, bidding farewell to APz's Eastpak Tranverz M suitcase in burgundy. We release them into your loving embrace and the eternal depths of baggage handling system.

May the gentle swaying of the conveyer belts carry their spirit onward, bringing them closer to your divine presence. Grant them peace and rest, free from the burdens of earthly life and KLM.

In our sorrow, we find solace knowing that APz's Eastpak Tranverz M is now part of the great pile of lost luggage somewhere. We offer our gratitude for the time shared, the memories cherished, and the lessons learned.

As we return to the shore, may your comforting grace abide with us, and may the memory of Eastpak Tranverz M forever inspire us to live with love, kindness, and compassion.

Amen.

Street Fighter II (Gottlieb, 1992) and its car crush mini ...

2026-09-20T13:01:13Z

Street Fighter II (Gottlieb, 1992) and its car crush mini playfield. I think it also may have been one of the last ones, if not the last video game based theme on a pinball until Fallout this year. #pinball #streetfighter

We finally reached the Basearcade! #pinball #belfast ...

2026-09-19T18:53:47Z

We finally reached the Basearcade!

#pinball #belfast

A lot of these new power boards now use one chip switching power ...

2026-09-17T14:07:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…g0ld
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A lot of these new power boards now use one chip switching power supplies instead of regulators that also acted as a space heater. The modern solution produces very little heat and very exact output.

A friend recently came up with a switching power supply replacement for the 5 volt regulator on Sega/Stern WhiteStar boards. The original is expensive, hard to source and the market is full of fakes that may be very bad for the rest of the electronics.

All-Prusa nightshift at the arcade. #3dprinting ...

2026-09-16T20:04:02Z

All-Prusa nightshift at the arcade. #3dprinting

This was the spot where FM synth peaked. Just couple of years and ...

2026-09-16T17:27:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…ma3z
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This was the spot where FM synth peaked. Just couple of years and then the next gen sound cards surfaced that had enough ROM storage and powerful enough CPU to have compressed sampled background music.

Today I finally got Elvira's House of Horrors ultimate Wizard ...

2026-09-13T00:38:27Z

Today I finally got Elvira's House of Horrors ultimate Wizard mode dealt with. It was added to the game pretty late, before that the game just ended when you had done everything else. Now there's a mode called Wild Market Value and the end. This meant I finally have every achievement from the game as well.

Also pretty on brand for Elvira for there to be 69 achievements in total.

#gaming

Filament recycling is still in pretty sad state. Every time I ...

2026-09-07T14:20:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…hnay
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Filament recycling is still in pretty sad state. Every time I mention the fact that I can't really send it anywhere, people are happy to point out what they googled, without digging a bit deeper into what they found and learning that the places that accept filament waste have pretty strict limitations, ranging from requirements of being local to them and having to have bought from them before.

How here's a weird one for you, from mainland China. This is ...

2026-09-06T20:09:18Z

How here's a weird one for you, from mainland China.

This is Sprite Lemon Tea. In case you go "Wait, what?" yeah, it's carbonated ice tea sold under Sprite brand. It starts with unusually sweet lemon taste unlike the basic lemon-lime Sprite and then there's this black tea after taste. Really odd.

#soda

I see it's expensive as hell (ba-dum-tss). Plenty of Japanese ...

2026-09-06T12:02:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…ngw9
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I see it's expensive as hell (ba-dum-tss).

Plenty of Japanese arcades from that era found their way here, the local state monopoly operator didn't save money back in the days and just bought everything they could get their hands on.

And yeah, it's #freecadfriday ...

2026-09-04T20:06:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…fx0n
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And yeah, it's #freecadfriday

Everything is fine. #pinball ...

2026-09-04T20:01:34Z

Everything is fine. #pinball

I used to work for a small MSP. We hosted mail in addition to ...

2026-09-03T21:55:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…s0lg
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I used to work for a small MSP. We hosted mail in addition to selling a large corporation's "premium" package. Our mail was way more reliable, until the big players just started shitlisting the e-mail servers for no apparent reason and it turned into a war of attrition and being in the middle of an angry small business customer and one of the large ones just putting the mail into spam by default.

Some months ago I reminisced the vending machine coffee from ...

2026-09-03T17:11:31Z

Some months ago I reminisced the vending machine coffee from #japan. Not the best coffee I've had in my life per se, but the memory of warm black coffee in a can from a vending machine and how quickly it turned into a habit there.

I have a pretty strong photographic memory that also gets triggered from smells, sounds and tastes and I just had to get some off the Boss coffee to see what happens.

So here, I finally got some! Now I just need to figure out how to warm it up properly and have a taste. I was thinking about warming an opened can in a pot with hot water as microwaving #coffee is pretty horrible thing.

I assumed this was just as basic info as "man (command)" ...

2026-08-31T21:22:43Z

In reply to nevent1q…5yjd
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I assumed this was just as basic info as "man (command)" will show how the said command works.

And since man is often basically just the barebones list of parameters and brief examples, "info (command)" gives you a lot longer explanation.

What kind of retort is "you must be fun at parties" is ...

2026-08-31T12:23:06Z

What kind of retort is "you must be fun at parties" is supposed to be? Am I supposed to feel completely pwned by it?

I was having a conversation about specific NVR HDD brands and a nameless Internet person claims their beloved brand does not use brand X. I tell them they definitely do in some products. They reply that they have been in the business for 5 years and they know that brand is not used. I reply I've been 20 years in business and here's a picture of an opened brand new device with brand X HDD inside.

"You must be fun at parties".

I guess backing up claims with proof makes me a party killer.

#frustration

Possibly, haven't followed much of the Bambu side of the 3D ...

2026-08-29T17:33:16Z

In reply to nevent1q…yd3j
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Possibly, haven't followed much of the Bambu side of the 3D printing skene outside the controversies.

Cardboard works badly on holders where the spool is supported from the spool outer ring, my own system that has wide center spools works fine with them.

Yes, it's heat activated material, so temperature selects how ...

2026-08-29T16:15:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…4ltn
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Yes, it's heat activated material, so temperature selects how it foams. At 190C it's like solid PLA. At 260C it expands almost 300% and produces foam that feels like paper in hands. At full heat the extrusion has to be like 30-35% of normal as it just blows up when it comes out the nozzle. With clever enough slicing you can switch between solid and foamy parts on the fly.

Object printed with maximum foaming feel surreal to handle. They are just so much lighter than what you'd expect. Yet it's relatively robust, works fine for RC plane fuselages etc.

It's LW-PLA so it basically prints like insulation foam. The ...

2026-08-29T15:31:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…c3q0
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It's LW-PLA so it basically prints like insulation foam. The printer can't retract it as it's no longer solid. It keeps on expanding for several seconds when the extruder stops, so head moves over empty areas leave fluff around. It has to be printed in a way that avoids head moves over empty spots as much as possible.

This material is for RC planes and stuff like that.

I recently posted about a batch of contaminated LW-PLA. I was ...

2026-08-29T15:05:18Z

I recently posted about a batch of contaminated LW-PLA. I was told to dispose of it and it would be refunded. Fine, but how do we dispose of some kilometres of filament?

Well, I respooled it through some sponges and then it was time to make something stupid of it.

Here we have Core One L's maximum bed size Benchy for your viewing pleasure. #3dprinting

Ha, I also made one, but didn't want to drill a hole into the ...

2026-08-28T21:23:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…uy7z
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Ha, I also made one, but didn't want to drill a hole into the wall so I attached mine onto a sink sewer pipe instead.

This one, but with the desktop stands removed and noted that some ...

2026-08-28T20:02:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…hnxq
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This one, but with the desktop stands removed and noted that some parts of the model are in wrong scale:

https://www.printables.com/model/872044-babylon-5-rotatable/comments

I guess this is it. The Ryanair 737-800 in 90s livery is in one ...

2026-08-28T19:11:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…ynsu
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I guess this is it. The Ryanair 737-800 in 90s livery is in one piece. The model is about one meter long so it's roughly 1:40 scale. A lot of mistakes were made again, but less than with the previous model. And I got to see how useful the laser water-transfer decal paper is! Also for the fuselage LW-PLA would've made it a lot nicer to handle, the whole thing weighs couple kilos and is made from one expired PLA spool and several spool ends.

This model is the second most common plane I've travelled on (the A320 series being the first). Even when people crap on Ryanair, in my 20s it enabled me to see the Europe with shoestring budget. They always delivered as long as you play by their rules.

I don't know what's next, I do have a model for Babylon 5 that would look awesome when printed like 2 meters long... #scalemodel #3dprinting

After a long session of cutting and applying the yellow stripe ...

2026-08-28T17:55:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…9mtr
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After a long session of cutting and applying the yellow stripe decal, it's finally all there. Once it dries, I get to glue on the remaining parts together.

Ah, that was not intentional! Fixed.

2026-08-28T14:48:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…td6c
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Ah, that was not intentional! Fixed.

If I'd be building a scrap yard real parts sim cockpit, ...

2026-08-28T14:37:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…9khz
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If I'd be building a scrap yard real parts sim cockpit, it'd be a 737. A320 is technically superior, but I'd enjoy the actual direct flying.

I hear Starbuck agrees with me on early Vipers!

With the wing decals having dried overnight, I glued the engines ...

2026-08-28T14:30:43Z

In reply to nevent1q…yc73
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With the wing decals having dried overnight, I glued the engines on them. 737 is so easily recornizable with the flat bellied engine cowlings.

I ended up cutting the logo into pieces and sticking them onto ...

2026-08-28T14:24:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…gc25
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I ended up cutting the logo into pieces and sticking them onto the vertical stabilizer one by one. Not perfect but passable from the intended viewing distance.

I considered it, but the printer wasn't exactly loving even ...

2026-08-27T22:05:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…qk58
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I considered it, but the printer wasn't exactly loving even the first round and now the paper was bent.

I'm considering on just painting the vertical stabilizer by hand. The logo is big enough.

Oh, and the 320 CEO with Finnair livery finally found a home ...

2026-08-27T21:27:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…gc25
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Oh, and the 320 CEO with Finnair livery finally found a home hanging above my 3D printing area.

Had a bit extra time today to work on my 737-800 model. All of ...

2026-08-27T21:26:00Z

Had a bit extra time today to work on my 737-800 model. All of its parts are now painted and the rest I planned on doing with water-transfer decal paper.

I've used it back in the days on smaller models, but always whatever came with the kits. This time I'm making my own. I got transparent and white laser-printable decal paper, a new acquaintance for me. I made the pictures with #inkscape and then got onto toying with them.

The fuselage logo and registration number came out alright, ditto with overwing exit guides.

However the vertical stabilizer logo turned out to be problematic. The yellow printed on transparent doesn't cover the blue background and when printed onto white paper I'd have to cut it very precisely, which will also make it a total chore to get there in one piece.

The long yellow stripe is most likely also going to be a decal, I'll have to play around with these a bit to see how I'd do it.

#scalemodel #ryanair

Hear me out! Imagine ... a 1.75mm nozzle! It could print the ...

2026-08-25T22:32:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…4t9t
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Hear me out! Imagine ... a 1.75mm nozzle! It could print the whole kilogram of filament onto a nice roll directly!

This and many other topics soon in my TEDx talk!

I see Fiberlogy has a new spool design. A shame they still went ...

2026-08-25T19:30:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…0sxd
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I see Fiberlogy has a new spool design. A shame they still went with a plastic one, I guess it tries to add some kind of a feeling of premium.

The only borderline tolerable matcha related item for me was ...

2026-08-24T23:40:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…mlzz
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The only borderline tolerable matcha related item for me was matcha covered licorice and even in that the matcha taste was overpowered by the other parts. I just can't see what's supposed to be so good about it, but apparently it's a big thing in plenty of Asian countries.

Here's Mizu Matcha with Coconut from Vietnam. It's not ...

2026-08-24T21:09:32Z

Here's Mizu Matcha with Coconut from Vietnam.

It's not carbonated and I'd describe it as matcha OD. The taste of coconut is very subtle, while matcha has this really odd dry taste, almost like you were drinking flour.

I'm not much of matcha fan, but I was curious about this. And yeah, unfortunately it was pretty much what I had feared and isn't a thing for me. Meh.

#soda

So many people are shocked that pinball machines were made beyond ...

2026-08-22T18:41:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…h8ah
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So many people are shocked that pinball machines were made beyond 70s. I'm just slightly amused when they play a game with 20-something inch color TFT screen and the reminiscence how they played that exact game back in '72.

The displays alone help to pinpoint the rough era of the game; electro-mechanical reels = it's older than late 70s, numbers alone = late 70s to mid-80s, alphanumeric = mid-80s to early 90s, dot matrix = 90s to 2010s and TFTs after that.

Naturally there's outliers like Pinball 2000 and other platforms with their CRT screens, but that's the gist to instantly guess 99.9% of them by displays alone.

Things I hear at the #arcade "They have so many of these 70s ...

2026-08-22T13:55:54Z

Things I hear at the #arcade

"They have so many of these 70s games", says a dude who's playing 1995 Jackbot.

By the magic of buying two 3D printing I now have a new one. I ...

2026-08-22T13:04:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…aef2
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By the magic of buying two 3D printing I now have a new one. I think by this time Prusa had started to make the original part of PCCF, I didn't have that at hand so I made it of ASA. It's so light part the material didn't have a meaningful difference in weight.

Now it's back in one piece.

Sigh, it's fix your tools Saturday apparently. Yesterday my ...

2026-08-22T12:55:02Z

Sigh, it's fix your tools Saturday apparently.

Yesterday my MK4S decided to make a closer acquaintance with a head cleaning tower that had come off the print sheet. I didn't instantly notice what had happened, just cleaned it up and restarted the print, only to have it make the plastic dragging sound it makes if there's a something sticking out of the print.

Here's the outcome, the print fan shroud was now missing a large chunk of it.

I returned this today and what a shit show that was. I'm used ...

2026-08-21T14:09:15Z

In reply to nevent1q…hv3a
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I returned this today and what a shit show that was. I'm used to sales people treating people trying to report a technical problem like idiots, but this one went above and beyond.

I explain I had already one of these and it had the exact same problem: it literally disappears from the USB bus for a second once you've written enough on it.

The lady at the counter is not having any of that. "You didn't initialize it!" she barks at me. Now this is translated, but she literally tells the USB stick needs to be "initialized" or else it won't work. She then proceeds to attempt to explain filesystem creation to me. I point out that those sticks come with FAT formatted and technically could be used as is, I formatted it to another filesystem and once the issue started, I checked what happens if you just write on the raw device, which ended up the same way.

She then takes the most condescending tone possible and says something in the line of "well if you don't know how to do it, then I can process a return".

20+ years of IT work and much more as a hobbyist I just bite my tongue and take the money. Oh and the exact same stick in black, bought elsewhere, works just fine. #rant

This is a new one. I open a sealed spool of filament. Printing ...

2026-08-20T15:25:19Z

This is a new one. I open a sealed spool of filament. Printing with it clogs the printer. I examine the spool, it's full of ... something. I open another one and it's the same.

Factory sealed, still vacuumed spools. #3dprinting

This was inspired by the thing I made for the Mini, the LED strip ...

2026-08-19T15:44:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…qmku
_________________________

This was inspired by the thing I made for the Mini, the LED strip is attached to the upper shelf.

Finally finished my light hack for my MK4S. I didn't want it ...

2026-08-19T15:43:19Z

Finally finished my light hack for my MK4S. I didn't want it to hover too high above the machine and the front size was kind of full with the MMU, so I built brackets to hang an aluminum L-bracket onto the MMU's mounts and slapped a LED strip onto that. It's Good Enough™.

#3dprinter

I truly hope #peertube will have some sort of an extreme bug hunt ...

2026-08-18T00:21:04Z

I truly hope #peertube will have some sort of an extreme bug hunt because this year it has leaked worse than a sieve. One critical hole after another. It even has the questionable honor of being the first ever online service run by me that got broken into, although I managed to neutralize it before anything got done.

What's worse is that last time I checked, the Peertube instances that contact mine are often wildly out of date. I see people leaving comments on those about the installation being wide open.

In case you missed it, the last one patched a hole where anyone could pretty much do whatever to your playlists.

https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/security/advisories/GHSA-37jf-59fg-9hpr

#peertube #infosec #vulnerability #fediverse

The weird thing is that I saw nothing immediately wrong with this ...

2026-08-17T23:53:16Z

In reply to nevent1q…czjr
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The weird thing is that I saw nothing immediately wrong with this one when I examined it with Linux. I also mkfs'd it after the printer started to abort prints with "Corrupted gcode" error. Not long after it failed during firmware upgrade, which was the point where it had to go.

There's been a lot of discussion about these Prusa drives on forums, but no one seems to have a definite answer of what happens to them. I assume the Buddy firmware reads them in some different way than Linux.

The fat32 on it was not corrupted, at least according to fsck.vfat.

The curious part is that it bugs out in the printer, but a PC ...

2026-08-17T16:31:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…g9uf
_________________________

The curious part is that it bugs out in the printer, but a PC doesn't seem to have an issue with it. I wonder if the Buddy firmware does something funny with it.

Speaking of crappy USB drives, these appear to die out really ...

2026-08-17T13:42:49Z

Speaking of crappy USB drives, these appear to die out really fast.

#hardware #prusa #3dprinter

Here's how this thing behaves. Notice that the first reaction ...

2026-08-16T19:22:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…hv3a
_________________________

Here's how this thing behaves. Notice that the first reaction is it just disappearing from the USB bus, the rest is just fluff of the system freaking out when the disk it was writing disappeared.

I've seen plenty of fake flash devices, this is not how those have behaved.

https://pastebin.com/6SNM0rFC

At least the connector doesn't feel like it's burning up. ...

2026-08-16T19:16:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…9fxw
_________________________

At least the connector doesn't feel like it's burning up.

This model in general has been pretty reliable in my use.

I think I'll just return this. This one was already from ...

2026-08-16T19:11:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…u3w8
_________________________

I think I'll just return this. This one was already from warranty and the first one behaved the exact same way.

Most likely a bad batch.

Yeah, it's the same crap for a penny store, I just expected ...

2026-08-16T19:10:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…uku0
_________________________

Yeah, it's the same crap for a penny store, I just expected brand stuff such as SanDisk would've been technically the same as if bought from the electronics store next door. There was not even meaningful price difference.

It's not fake in a standard sense. The fake ones have a flash ...

2026-08-16T19:06:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…0a8q
_________________________

It's not fake in a standard sense. The fake ones have a flash controller that retains X amount of data before it "wraps". I've seen my share as I investigated several insanely priced drives, that promised terabytes for pennies and they typically had just some gigabytes of actual storage.

This one however just disconnects itself from USB after couple of seconds of sustained write. I tried writing stuff on it directly with dd and tried to make a note if there's some threshold after it dies but no, 500M-2G of continuous writing and it dies. Curiously it can be filled further with small, random writes.

It has the exact USB ID of earlier bought black one, which has worked for years now.

I have plenty of these too and the ones I've bought earlier ...

2026-08-16T19:00:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…ey77
_________________________

I have plenty of these too and the ones I've bought earlier have seen plenty of use, which is why I kept buying them.

I was wondering too if flash shortage was driving them to make ...

2026-08-16T18:58:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…ldwh
_________________________

I was wondering too if flash shortage was driving them to make these out of recycled toilet paper.

I toyed with this thing with dd in Linux. I can read the whole thing, all of the 128 gigs come out just fine. But even a short sustained write makes it flip. Mkfs'ing it works, but very soon afterwards it just does the disappearing act.

Curiously this is not the typical behavior of a fake size drive, which just happily takes in data until it starts falling off the other end.

Now here's a weird one from France. This is mango and dragon ...

2026-08-16T18:55:26Z

Now here's a weird one from France.

This is mango and dragon fruit Fanta. After seeing the can, my first thought was: wait, dragon fruit itself is pretty mild, I wonder what the soda would be like.

This smells of raspberries. But tastes like something weird with a very strong coconut after taste. I wouldn't guess either of the things it was supposed to taste like. Again, not bad but not going to my shortlist either.

What a weird thing.

#soda

I have plenty of USB sticks laying around and for most part ...

2026-08-16T18:44:48Z

I have plenty of USB sticks laying around and for most part Sandisk Ultras have been okay enough for basic use. I picked up this 128G one from Clas Ohlson, a cheapo store and curiously this Sandisk Ultra is some kind of special edition for them. It bears their store blue color and the packaging has their logo too, otherwise it looks like the real thing.

It's all good except it dies after couple of gigabytes have been written on it. At first I assumed I got a dud and had it exchanged. But the next one behaves the exact same way.

Windows, Mac, Linux, they all behave like it was pulled and then couple of seconds later reinserted, which makes me think something in it goes internally very wrong. Linux's dmesg was the most helpful about it and verified the USB controller actually loses this device for a while.

I wonder if they've made an extra shitty version for the bargain store. I'm almost tempted to take it apart and compare it to a normal one. Its USB ID however is the exact same as the standard 128 gigabyte version.

Anyone else encountered these?

#usb #linux #hardware

Yes, it is a delta machine. Looks sick when it's printing.

2026-08-15T21:20:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…yyaf
_________________________

Yes, it is a delta machine. Looks sick when it's printing.

I have Flsun S1 which is a native Klipper machine. I got it to ...

2026-08-15T21:10:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…furs
_________________________

I have Flsun S1 which is a native Klipper machine. I got it to liberate it from all their bullshit and use the open source version that also had a lot of cool stuff.

But before stabbing it, I just wanted to play with it for a while. One of it's axis control boards crashed while it was doing a high speed head movement maneuver. It landed the print head in the middle of the bed so hard it made a huge dent in both, the print sheet and heater element.

After recovering from that it decided that it no longer wants to control the nozzle heater, something probably gave up in the small board on the effector.

But damn it's a big and cool looking beast.

I don't know if you've followed my rantings, but I have ...

2026-08-15T21:01:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…uypm
_________________________

I don't know if you've followed my rantings, but I have one Klipper machine and that was a rather sad story, where a brand new machine has stood 8 months now stuck in warranty limbo. I'm thinking about ditching it and building a Voron or something for the lulz.

Because it has technically a lot more moving parts than a single ...

2026-08-15T20:56:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…4jd2
_________________________

Because it has technically a lot more moving parts than a single board controller? They seem to get away just fine with the current setup without having something to run Linux on.

There's two separate things behind the whole "oh noes, ...

2026-08-15T20:48:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…ua8h
_________________________

There's two separate things behind the whole "oh noes, Prusa went closed source".

Their Buddy boards only flash signed code. This can be overridden so you can flash whatever you want, but disabling the verification means they're off the hook if the thing catches fire or something because of a bug.

Then there's the Core One, which is probably the point where they realized that they do a huge development work and then every Chinese manufacturer just copies it and sells them for $199 or something. So they kept the board proprietary and released the mechanical side under a license where you're not allowed to resell machines built from those blueprints.

A lot of FUD and intentional misunderstandings were spread when these things were announced. For anyone just wanting to hack their printer, this is one big, fat nothingburger.

AFAIK it's right there on Github unless I'm missing ...

2026-08-15T20:40:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…jg4j
_________________________

AFAIK it's right there on Github unless I'm missing something here.

The smallest USB stick I had at hand was 128 gigs, fortunately ...

2026-08-15T20:36:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…kemd
_________________________

The smallest USB stick I had at hand was 128 gigs, fortunately that formatted into FAT32 without many objections.

Yeah, for the ones with 32bit board. I think the Mini was first.

2026-08-15T20:33:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…26zt
_________________________

Yeah, for the ones with 32bit board. I think the Mini was first.

So that's how you gonna play it, Core One L? At first it died ...

2026-08-15T20:21:46Z

So that's how you gonna play it, Core One L?

At first it died mid-print with an error code about binary gcode, now it chokes on firmware update too.

I hope it's the USB stick.

#3dprinter #prusa

The animal videos are either lazily thrown together or AI crap, ...

2026-08-15T14:46:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…c66v
_________________________

The animal videos are either lazily thrown together or AI crap, the stuff grandma would post on facebook.

In an example video a crow is saved from water. Dried and given food. Then a crow with two adolescent ones are shown coming in a house from a window. People pet the little ones. The narrative is how the appreciative crow brought its young to meet the human who saved it. The comments explode with "awwwwws" and praise.

Except the bird in the second clip is a jackdaw, obviosly different bird.

There's also similar rescued kitten/puppy becoming a healthy adult ... of other breed or with obvious other markings.

The connection here being that people want the same "awwwww" and reject reality as with the video of the woman with arm missing.

This is such an interesting topic from human behavior perspective ...

2026-08-15T14:35:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…jc38
_________________________

This is such an interesting topic from human behavior perspective too. People want happy endings for everything. They want problems solved. They are also happier if they are lied to and the solution is not actually usable.

On Reddit there was a video of a woman with right arm missing. She got a hi-tech arm and hand by some silicon valley team. People rejoiced this in the comments. Some went far enough to fantasize cutting their arm off to get something this cool.

But then someone commented and said the woman in question found it useless and was back in the semi-static protesis she had used since kid. That got downvoted to hell. The commenter was attacked mercilessly and ridiculed.

Then they posted a link where the woman talked about this very topic and how the cyberpunk-inspired arm just wasn't working for her in day to day use. People didn't like that either because everyone wanted a happy ending where technology fixed a woman who had dreamt of having a working hand since a car accident when she was a kid.

And don't get me started on the animal videos, where the rescued animal is different species in the "it came back to thank us" video.

This thing is pretty high end and can also operate without a ...

2026-08-09T15:38:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…z6rc
_________________________

This thing is pretty high end and can also operate without a computer, you could for example read a ROM into its memory and then burn copies of it.

The large empty area on top of it is for the optional expansion modules. Most I've seen don't have anything as the 4 DIP sockets are more than enough for most use cases. I however have this one, which adds long DIP sockets and two PLCCs.

Some really old streams might have its rules explained, although ...

2026-08-08T00:39:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…408m
_________________________

Some really old streams might have its rules explained, although there's not much to explain.

Here's some gameplay footage from 3 or so years ago:

https://youtu.be/wZSW0LDzcbQ?si=LYeKJjnEAK5aOs3M&t=6552

Plenty of fun toppers in the 80s and 90s pins. Here's ...

2026-08-07T23:23:50Z

Plenty of fun toppers in the 80s and 90s pins. Here's Williams' Fire! that has a firebell which actually works. It's driven by a solenoid very similar to the game's knocker. The volume level can also be adjusted by a screw that limits the plunger's travel distance.

Taking this thing off is a very common thing with Fire! The game uses the bell a lot by default and it'll start getting on people's nerves over time. The sad part is that you really don't have to pull it from the game, in addition to just unplugging the solenoid, there's adjustments to how much it's used in the game, from very liberal use to completely disabling it. Would've saved me from having to hunt this thing down had a previous owner read the manual or knew what the hell they were doing.

#pinball #arcade #mildlyinteresting

Oh it's #freecadfriday already! Well here's one for the ...

2026-08-07T14:40:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…2wrz
_________________________

Oh it's #freecadfriday already!

Well here's one for the "must you 3D print everything" category.

Our arcade's new toilet has this tiniest of the tiny sink. We've had the soap dispenser on it awkwardly behind the tap while I've been hoping to find some kind of a wall mountable solution. All I could find was those flimsy suction cup mounted ones that you'll find on the floor after a while.

I measured the the space between the wall and the sink and then made this. It fits there snugly and holds the soap bottle where it's actually easy to use from.

#3dprinting #freecad

I love this old behemoth. It's the Stag Solar ROM burner. I ...

2026-08-06T18:59:38Z

I love this old behemoth. It's the Stag Solar ROM burner. I also have one of them crappy and lame USB burners too, but this is just so much cooler.

It runs with StagCom 95. The 95 meaning it's not any of those tired old Windows 3.11 programs, but the new 32 bit Windows 95 ones! And in 2026 it runs just fine under Wine in Linux, although from the last time I had used Wine, it had gone through an evolution of being split into 32 and 64 bit versions, so I had to recover the StagCom installation.

#retrotech #wine #eprom #linux

Se oli ihan ok maailmaan mihin se oli tarkoitettu. Www:n ...

2026-08-06T16:04:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…yaf3
_________________________

Se oli ihan ok maailmaan mihin se oli tarkoitettu. Www:n aikakausi vaan oli vähän brutaali datamäärille mitä perus webbisivu kuvineen tarvi. Purkin menut piirtyi 14400 modeemilla ihan ripeästi ANSI-väreissäkin.

Yeah, I've unfortunately met a lot of those too with my ...

2026-08-06T15:54:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…nc0g
_________________________

Yeah, I've unfortunately met a lot of those too with my arcade hobby. I generally go through ebay as I usually get my money back with less hassle when they send me useless crap, like write once ROMs with data on them and their customer service helpfully telling me to "just empty it".

Crap on a stick. I found an ebay seller for these ROMs but ...

2026-08-06T15:35:40Z

In reply to nevent1q…axel
_________________________

Crap on a stick. I found an ebay seller for these ROMs but it's one of those "well we didn't actually have it on stock" sellers. My search continues.

A friend versed in embedded design visited me. We toyed with the idea of a DIY sound card with midi patches for sounds.

huumori tässä oli, että siihen aikaan oli paljon ihmisiä ...

2026-08-06T15:32:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…02yw
_________________________

huumori tässä oli, että siihen aikaan oli paljon ihmisiä joilla ei ollut joko nettiä tai edes koko tietokonetta. Mielipide perustui lööppiotsikoihin, missä siihen aikaan oli joku pieni draama kuinka "kuka tahansa voi käyttää nettiä pornon katseluun" ja sitten asiasta ymmärtämättömien välitön refleksi kieltää koko netin käyttö.

Samanlainen kohu oli aiemmin "internet-pommeista" mikä saattoi olla monelle epätekniselle ihmiselle ensimmöinen kerta kun kuulivat edes koko sanan Internet. Ja taas se piti kieltää kun ei tiedetty mistä on kyse. Luultiin vakavissaan että tietokone muuttuu pommiksi tai jotain. Oikeasti kyse oli ftp-palvelimelta löytyneistä pomminteko-ohjeista, mitä oli pyörinyt purkkimaailmassa vuosikymmenet.

Ja purkkimaailmahan se vasta oli moraaliton paikka. Sieltä pysty vaikka lataamaan tissikuvan 320x240 korkeassa resoluutiossa ja vielä 16 luonnollisenoloisessa värissä.

En ole ikinä nähnyt aidosti hyvää argumenttia jollekin ...

2026-08-06T15:19:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…ugeh
_________________________

En ole ikinä nähnyt aidosti hyvää argumenttia jollekin ääliötasolla toteutetulle valvonta- tai rajoitussysteemille minkä pitäisi "suojella lapsia". Jo 2000-luvun alussa tapasin erään suomalaisen järjestön edustajan, jonka mielestä Internet pitäisi kieltää ettei lapset pääse katsomaan tissikuvia.

Fakta: me katsottiin tissikuvia aikana milloin ne ladattiin nauhalta tai lerpulta.

Thanks, Aliexpress. It was the "adapter" I was looking ...

2026-08-05T20:56:37Z

Thanks, Aliexpress. It was the "adapter" I was looking for!

I pulled the dead ROM from the board and installed a socket. ...

2026-08-05T15:10:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…5u2j
_________________________

I pulled the dead ROM from the board and installed a socket. It's going to be exciting to burn the new one as these PROMs aren't erasable. A messup means it goes to e-waste.

I found one from my collection eventually. Just had to check ...

2026-08-05T14:17:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…q2e7
_________________________

I found one from my collection eventually. Just had to check every machine that used that specific one.

I have a lot of ROMs in my collection 🤣 - all platforms from all manufacturers I can name. Maybe some bootleg brands are missing.

After some digging of my ROM archive, I came across the ROM image ...

2026-08-05T13:03:06Z

In reply to nevent1q…x5yu
_________________________

After some digging of my ROM archive, I came across the ROM image for the sound ROM. It was not with Star Trek's files, but Supersonic had it.

Since it's a sound ROM, you'd probably expect it to be huge, at least compared to the ROMs that have the game CPU code. But no, it's 32 bytes long. You read that right. 32. BYTES.

This is because these sound cards have no sampled sound at all and this data basically defines the "notes" the card plays when specific command is sent.

Here's the entire sound ROM hexdumped.

I was thinking about using one also for writing it. These are ...

2026-08-04T20:52:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…zurd
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I was thinking about using one also for writing it.

These are TINY compared to the more commonly seen ROM chips in pins.

Yeah, pretty decent game from 1978: ...

2026-08-04T18:23:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…sta7
_________________________

Yeah, pretty decent game from 1978:

https://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2165

Oh, the Internet isn't just for porn and fighting with AI ...

2026-08-04T18:19:40Z

In reply to nevent1q…x5yu
_________________________

Oh, the Internet isn't just for porn and fighting with AI chat bots on forums. I actually found out that Lost World, Six million dollar man, Playboy, Supersonic and Kiss use the same ROM image.

Pretty common games, I know several fellow pinheads who have those titles.

The ass-part of this operation is that naturally the ROM isn't socketed. Not that it's a problem but it would've been so much easier to just plug the chip out and read it.

I wonder how many different sound ROMs there are for this age of ...

2026-08-04T18:07:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…6840
_________________________

I wonder how many different sound ROMs there are for this age of games. I've made a note that I've heard several games use exact same effects. If I can determine which games have the same ROM, I could probably just read that and get an image for this thing.

The MMI 6331 appears to be 32x8 PROM, nothing special about it and plenty of compatible options from other brands too. I see these go for 5-10€ on eBay empty.

The annoying part is that the form factor is nothing that'd fit my EPROM burners, may have to DIY an adapter.

Since it's semi-alive, it's a matter of going down the ...

2026-08-04T17:53:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…v80k
_________________________

Since it's semi-alive, it's a matter of going down the stream from control signals to sound production.

First observation: we get the CPU's control signal to this boards so the CPU is okay, as is the wiring.

Then I poke the thing chip at a time. It's definitely trying to do something, I can see the repeating sound signal from the test mode activate a lot of stuff here.

But it goes dead after PROM chip. Come to think of it, I observed several cases where a wrong effect was played before it died completely. I guess I witnessed it starting to die.

The fun part is that I need a 6331 and the image. I think I might be able to use something physically larger there with an adapter.

I removed the old solder and resoldered it. No dice. It has 5, 12 ...

2026-08-04T17:04:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…rpq6
_________________________

I removed the old solder and resoldered it. No dice. It has 5, 12 and 43 volts present and we have speaker hum, so now starts the hunt of what failed on the logic side.

On the second though, it's always the cracked solder joints, ...

2026-08-04T16:42:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…lw96
_________________________

On the second though, it's always the cracked solder joints, isn't it?!

I'm investigating my Bally Star Trek's sound board. It ...

2026-08-04T16:37:31Z

I'm investigating my Bally Star Trek's sound board. It lost sound some time ago and I had hoped it's the typical solder cracks in the big Molex KK connector but nope. Looks like I have to do actual head scratching here.

I hear a hum that changes depending what's on the displays, which is normal and tells me that at least the amp works and the speaker is connected.

This one is going to at least get recapped before it goes back.

#pinball #repair

Next the one for the Prusa MK4S. This isn't intended to be ...

2026-08-02T19:17:43Z

In reply to nevent1q…yunq
_________________________

Next the one for the Prusa MK4S. This isn't intended to be attached to the printer itself, but to freely stand next to it. I've done it like with with my Mini+ for a long time.

For this the mount was a lot simpler.

I ditched the rest 3rd gen Ubiquiti cameras from my arcade ...

2026-08-02T19:12:39Z

I ditched the rest 3rd gen Ubiquiti cameras from my arcade installation, which left me with these G3 Flexes. This means my Snapmaker got an upgrade and MK4S finally got its own camera.

I've strongly preferred having my printers with the NVR as often having the possibility to rewind back in time is more important than seeing what's going on right now.

First the Snapmaker. I quickly modelled the arc-like attachment, which is a simplified version of Ubiquiti original one. This one attaches to the aluminum profile of which the enclosure is made, just one screw and it's there.

#3dprinter #freecad

Cracked solder joints are one big annoyance in pinball. Thanks to ...

2026-08-01T21:00:25Z

Cracked solder joints are one big annoyance in pinball. Thanks to the game's mechanical nature, there's a lot of vibrations coming from various mechanisms firing non-stop as the game is played.

The outcome is often weird issues. On lamp boards these are easy to diagnose, just wiggle the connector and if the lamps mysteriously return, take the board for a closer look. These days I can spot the issue even without a magnifying glass, just rotate the board under the work light and look at the solder. There's often a visible crack at the point the problems manifest themselves.

Naturally these happen elsewhere too, I had one game that rebooted at random while it didn't have the typical 5 volt issues. However tapping its CPU board made it reboot and sure enough, the power feed connector was barely hanging in there.

I'd also like to reminder that the wiggle test is not a fix. I've seen way too many wiggle a connector and then close up the game happily, thinking they fixed the issue. This one absolutely needs some hot soldering iron on pin action to go away.

#pinball #repair #arcade #pinrepair

#caturday lap time! #cats #cat ...

2026-08-01T20:48:04Z

#caturday lap time!

#cats #cat

Looks like today finally became the day when I got around to get ...

2026-08-01T19:17:14Z

Looks like today finally became the day when I got around to get rid of my Snapmaker A350's original print sheet and go with the all steel one as I print mostly PETG and likes with it.

This was prompted by a print job I had started yesterday, but I came here to see a disaster. The print head had literally grinded itself into the sheet. I scratched my head for a second for what had happened, of this 2 material job one material had printed fine while the other was like 0.5mm lower than it should.

Turns out the nozzle had gotten loose and had now signed the old print sheet.

Here's the new one installed. At least it's pretty. I've come to love this model with my Prusas for its excellent PETG printing properties, so I went with one here too.

But The A350 is absolute pain with the nozzle Z level calibration. The OG 3D printing module didn't even come with a load cell, you had to put a calibration sheet between the nozzle and the sheet, manually lowering the print head until you could feel a slight contact.

But this one has the upgraded multi material 3D printing module that can sense if the head touches the bed.

#3dprinting

#3dprinting