At some point ago, my best friend had some youtube videos in the background (as usual) and one of the videos was talking about a vertical reed switch keyboard (I don't remember if the video was covering many unique types of mechanical keyboard switches or some older mechanical keyboard switches), and it sounded nice since reed switches last much, much longer than Cherry MX or Romer-G switches; and are hermatically sealed, so that the contacts are unaffected by the environment.
My obvious problem was that the reed switch was vertical, meaning it made the keyboard quite tall, and after a bit of poking on Mouser, I was quite sure i could make a "horizontal" reed switch keyboard ("parallel" might be a better word?). The two cheapest ones were a through-hole variant and and SMD variant, and while the through-hole variant could be utilised however I'd like, it had a specific way to form the leads. The problem with the SMD variant was that the contacts were perpendicular from the board according to Digi-Key's image (more on this in a bit).
I also looked at magnets and found a 1/8 inch diameter, 3/8 inch length rod, which I decided on, since it would be the smallest size in the X-Y plane, and that it was going to go through a hole in the PCB to close the reed switch contacts (the switches would be on the underside of the PCB. I began designing the board, obviously starting with adding the parts to the library, and ended up adding the hole to the reed switch part for less placement hassle. I also used a Teensy 2.0 as the controller, since it's it's a popular option for custom keyboards, and also used some zener diodes for anti-ghosting.
When I went to buy the parts for my "Dual 3DS Charger", I also grabbed the reed switch so I could get a better idea of what I was dealig with. When I looked at the switch, it seemed like the contacts parallel to the board, and after carefully getting it out of the tape, it was easier to confirm. Digi-Key's images are usually of the item itself for that specific configuration, but that was obviously not the case this time, and because the datasheet didn't say anything else, Digi-Key's image was all I really had to go off of.
At the least, I didn't finish or order the test PCB, so I was able to fix what I needed to and finish the design of the test board. Also with this, I also went back to look at magnets and wrote down which I think might be suitable, regardless of material. I also ordered a couple things I would also need with the test board from mouser along with some contacts for the Dupont connectors (used for stuff like the motherboard USB 2.0 headers) and some contacts for the Molex connectors used for motherboard CPU/CASE fan headers.
I've not gotten around to soldering the test board together at the time of this writing, but I have (maybe) started the order process of the candidate magnets (along with some other items to meet the minimum.
As far as the new design goes, I'm still keeping the switches underneath the PCB so that they don't get damaged as easily, but removed the hole to make it a bit easier to run the traces. I've arranged the parts, from what I remember, but haven't ran the traces yet.
Before I forget the design is for an "extended numeric pad", so the "10-key" section of a normal keyboard with a few extra buttons (shift, tab, backspace), since I have a limited board area in EAGLE to work in.
For the test, I'll be seeing the distances that each magnet closes and releases the contacts, and the shorter that distance, the better.
The other thing I want to try to do is have a minimal "over travel" distance after the switch has been activated, considering that all "standard" keyboards are just membrane/rubber dome and activates when the key is bottomed-out. Cherry MX switches generally activate at 2mm and bottom at about 4mm (I'm ignoring the speed silver), which is a bit annoying for people like me who have a "standard" keyboard at work and mechanical keyboards at home since I'm not able to fully learn to release the keys after actuation.
I also want to make the stem compatible with Cherry MX keycaps, so that it can use existing keycaps instead of having to find some place to make a custom set (nevermind that the magnet mechanism has to be made).
I looked at springs at one point from Lee Springs (since my work ordered from them), but put it on hold for now since I haven't any ideas of the mechansim itself (and that their website's not entirely friendly if you're not sure what you're looking for).
I wanted to to controllable RGB backlighting, but it's easier said than done, since i would have to have some sort of complex multiplexing algorhythm while keeping the current at reasonable levels; I'll stick with single-colour lighting since it'd be much easier to multiplex. I wanted to try to make it compatible with PS/2, but I think I wouldn't be able to backlight it because PS/2 has a very limited current output.
My best friend also would like to try to make a side business with these once everything's worked out, and so I had thought of a few different key-count configurations along with different selling configurations. Besides the possibility of it actually happening, there's also the plausibility of popularity, since it's a fairly niche item. Though if it does happen, I did also chat with him that we would be selling all the parts, so if someone breaks a stem or loses a magnet, they can just buy another instead of having to send the entire keyboard in like most major companies (thanks Logitech for trying to get me to send my solar keyboard in because one of the scissor jacks broke...).
The "extended numeric pad" would take the standard layout of the 10-key and add a long key like the + to the left of the 1 and the 0, which would be Shift; one to the right of the enter key, which would be Tab; and one to the right of the - and + keys, which would be Backspace (also Num Lock would change to Delete). The point of this is to facilitate one-handed spreadsheet operation since Tab moves the cursor rightward, Enter moves the cursor downward, adding Shift to either of the previous combinations would move the cursor in the opposite direction, and the Backspace and Delete keys would also add to the value of keeping the hand stationary. While some peripheral manufacturers usually split 0 into 0 and 00 or 000, I find it a bit pointless since it's kidna hard to hit. For toggling Num Lock, I'd probably have Shift+5 as the toggle, and maybe have Shift+(key) to activate the non-locked function without turning Num Lock off (so Shift+9 would be Page Up, for example).
I ended up finding out the source of Digi-Key's wrong image - it seems like they pulled it from the datasheet, which is an incorrect depiction. I've also been looking at other reed switches on Mouser and Digi-Key which are cheaper and/or smaller than the one I chose, so I may be spending more time on choosing a reed switch and magnet combination.
I did design the mechanism in CAD, but eventually decided to make the mechanism rotate the magnet instead to make it easier to control the magnet, but haven't attempted to figure out the model in CAD.
Also from using Century Spring for a Cherry MX mod, I'll probably go with them instead of Lee Spring.
Project is on (maybe permanent) hiatus since it's still a lot of work and money for something super niche.
10 June 2021
i3rd
At some point ago, something happened to the SD card for the Raspi3, which made the system freeze and it could not properly reboot... I'm guessing something ended up corrupting part of the card. I never remembered to reimage it nor did I really have the motivation to do it, and so it sat as such.
There's been some recent events that have made me kinda wish I had it up, and while I could use Triela (or Shizuma... more on Shizuma later), it's a bit annoying to use a laptop for an extended period of time sometimes... or maybe for me in my room.
I first thought of possibly buying a NUC-like thing from my best friend, but with it's low specs (Atom Z8350 or something and 4GB RAM), I decided it would be worth more to invest in a Chromebox, NUC, or another mini-STX system (I'll get to the first later).
With the lack of options, I decided on the latter and getting something more powerful than the Celery Box (the first mini-STX system). I also put the M.2 NVMe SSD in the PCPartPicker list that I used in the Celery Box, but my other friend pointed out that I wouldn't need it since there's two SATA ports - saves me 80 usd.
I first went with a Pentium G4600, since it seemed to have the best performance per value (at the cost of being able to handle some instruction sets), but toward the end, I changed it to the i3-7100 for those missing instruction sets - it was only 26 USD more (give or take).
Everything else is the same compared with the celery box otherwise - same RAM, heatsink, barebones kit. at least this time if the PSU happens to be missing, I do have a spare.
So with another VESA mount kit and a Logitech MX Ergo, I finalised my order (well orders because I bought the i3 from a different site).
Unlike the Celery Box, it'll run Manjaro, not be a headless system, and have the Wifi/Bluetooth card installed. The MX Ergo will replace the m570 (or whatever the bloody number is), so I'll have one trackball for Mei-chan and i3rd. The Wifi actually will be providing me an 802.11ac hotspot, which will be much faster when I'm trying to grab a song from the file server (or hell, from i3rd itself) than the crappy 802.11g.
Okay, so with the name, I was loosely brainstorming with that other friend, and I wanted to kinda do what I did with the Celery Box. it was a bit tougher, but she suggested doing something along the lines of "Armitage iii" (read as "Armitage the third"), and after a bit of mulling, I came up with "i3rd" (perhaps read as "I third"?) as this is literally the third Intel build for myself and it has an i3 cpu - I love it when she gives me those little sparks that light the flame.
It'll utilise a 64GB 2.5" SSD as the boot drive, and a 500GB hard drive for a more local copy of my files.
i3rd will probably spend most of its time refreshing a page (like the raspi3 was doing), but I'll be glad to have a low power, low heat (and stable) system when I need it.
I ended up using an unused M.2 NVMe SSD from a laptop (more on it in another post) as the boot drive for i3rd and added another hard drive for extended capacity (if I needed it). Later on I ended up using i3rd for a semi-successful hackintosh (more on that in another post... probably).
There's been some recent events that have made me kinda wish I had it up, and while I could use Triela (or Shizuma... more on Shizuma later), it's a bit annoying to use a laptop for an extended period of time sometimes... or maybe for me in my room.
I first thought of possibly buying a NUC-like thing from my best friend, but with it's low specs (Atom Z8350 or something and 4GB RAM), I decided it would be worth more to invest in a Chromebox, NUC, or another mini-STX system (I'll get to the first later).
With the lack of options, I decided on the latter and getting something more powerful than the Celery Box (the first mini-STX system). I also put the M.2 NVMe SSD in the PCPartPicker list that I used in the Celery Box, but my other friend pointed out that I wouldn't need it since there's two SATA ports - saves me 80 usd.
I first went with a Pentium G4600, since it seemed to have the best performance per value (at the cost of being able to handle some instruction sets), but toward the end, I changed it to the i3-7100 for those missing instruction sets - it was only 26 USD more (give or take).
Everything else is the same compared with the celery box otherwise - same RAM, heatsink, barebones kit. at least this time if the PSU happens to be missing, I do have a spare.
So with another VESA mount kit and a Logitech MX Ergo, I finalised my order (well orders because I bought the i3 from a different site).
Unlike the Celery Box, it'll run Manjaro, not be a headless system, and have the Wifi/Bluetooth card installed. The MX Ergo will replace the m570 (or whatever the bloody number is), so I'll have one trackball for Mei-chan and i3rd. The Wifi actually will be providing me an 802.11ac hotspot, which will be much faster when I'm trying to grab a song from the file server (or hell, from i3rd itself) than the crappy 802.11g.
Okay, so with the name, I was loosely brainstorming with that other friend, and I wanted to kinda do what I did with the Celery Box. it was a bit tougher, but she suggested doing something along the lines of "Armitage iii" (read as "Armitage the third"), and after a bit of mulling, I came up with "i3rd" (perhaps read as "I third"?) as this is literally the third Intel build for myself and it has an i3 cpu - I love it when she gives me those little sparks that light the flame.
It'll utilise a 64GB 2.5" SSD as the boot drive, and a 500GB hard drive for a more local copy of my files.
i3rd will probably spend most of its time refreshing a page (like the raspi3 was doing), but I'll be glad to have a low power, low heat (and stable) system when I need it.
I ended up using an unused M.2 NVMe SSD from a laptop (more on it in another post) as the boot drive for i3rd and added another hard drive for extended capacity (if I needed it). Later on I ended up using i3rd for a semi-successful hackintosh (more on that in another post... probably).
Celery Box
With the frustration of not being able to properly keep the Banana Pis updated (since there isn't really an easy way to update the kernel for ARM), I decided to find something to replace Banpi and CFS. While looking at NUCs, I found a barebones kit from ASRock that I eventually picked because it was the best option out of the bunch.
Besides having to be able to house two 2.5" drives (from Banpi and CFS), it also needed something else for me to boot off of, which was the M.2 NVMe slot. Unfortunately the smallest and cheapest NVMe SSD I could find was 128GB for 80 USD, and for a headless server, that's really overkill, but I didn't have any other choice besides taking up some space on the hard drives, which I didn't want to do.
It also comes with a 802.11ac and Bluetooth (4.x) M.2 card, which I didn't need for it, and I was going to upgrade Triela (until I got everything and realised that it was M.2 and not mini PCIe).
It also takes DDR4 SO-DIMM memory, which was somewhat unfortunate since it's somewhat pricey, and I opted for 8GB in dual-channel, as there wasn't any dual-channel kits smaller than 8GB (are tiny headless servers really that niche? XD).
With the cooler, I was thinking I was going to use stock, but then I found a benchmark of a stock cooler and the Noctua NH-L9i, which I saw that Noctua was better in most cases.
I went with the cheapest socket 1151 CPU (after sorting by price on PCPartPicker) which was the Celeron G3930 since I wasn't going to really need anything more for a headless personal server.
I was a bit worried with having to get a previous generation CPU to be able to update the BIOS so that I could use the G3930, but luckily, I didn't have to do that.
As far as the name, I was kinda thinking about it for a while (and kinda chatting with my friend about it), and I jokingly said "celery box", which eventually ended up sticking in my head when I was trying to talk about the system with her (she jokingly suggested "cele box" at some point, in a sort of weird pun to one of my other friends which goes by "Selly"). While it does kinda sound strange and somewhat out there, "celeron" and "celery" share the first five letters, and since I was installing openSUSE on it, it matches celery's (the actual vegetable) green colour in a way.
This build is a lot of firsts for me, it's my first LGA build (the Intel computer doesn't count since it wasn't for me), it's my first Noctua heatsink (since I'm usually with the people that aren't too fond of noctua's iconic colour scheme), and it's also my first build with an M.2 NVMe SSD.
When I got the parts, I was unfortunately met with a missing power supply, and upon contacting the retailer, I contacted the manufacturer as I figured I would have to do. I still ended up doing the initial build in hopes that I would quickly get the power supply and be on my way, but it wasn't all for naught.
Building the system was surprisingly quick, when I was done, it felt like I missed something for a few minutes even though I didn't, since I was used to building larger systems that requires more work.
While I was used to the socket 775 cover being under the CPU retention bracket, the 1151's cover being clipped in the retention bracket from the top didn't phase me much since I had watched a couple or so Linus Tech Tips videos that showed how to install a similar socket CPU.
Installing the heatsink was quite easy as well (although the bend from installing heatsinks on an Intel CPU mobo makes me uneasy), though it was somewhat unnerving while trying to keep the heatsink and mobo steady as I get the retention screws threaded through the mobo holes. I actually just used arctic cooling's MX-4 instead of noctua's supplied NT-H1, as I found that that Noctua strongly recommends reapplying the compound every three years, and I wasn't up for having the Celery Box being down for an hour or something just to reapply the stuff.
I made a mistake and installed the heatsink before the RAM, which gave me little space to put my fingers on the RAM stick closest to the heatsink, and while I was still able to do it, I decided it would be better the other way around if there was a next time.
The M.2 NVMe SSD was interesting to install, I had to keep the card straight and steady in the slot while I installed the retention screw. While I understand the design gives more board space, it made me miss mini PCI and mini PCIe which I felt were a bit easier to install.
While I was waiting on the power supply, I decided to give Triela's power adapter a try, since it should provide just enough power, but the plug didnt fit into the jack, so I let things be.
I decided to buy the barebones kit from a different retailer if it got too close to the end of the return window, which I ended up doing, and when I got the new kit, I used the power supply from it to check the function of the system before beginning to dissassemble the system and repackage it. (This is where I found out a BIOS update for the G3930 was unnecessary.)
After building the system again (with the new kit), I did a quick post before heading to sleep. After work the next day, I think I began installing openSUSE and I think finding that the UEFI version of MemTest86 wasn't in the repository?
Anyway, I got into MemTest86 and started it up before I went to sleep. when I returned to it the next morning, I found that it had finished 15 or so passes after 7 something hours and that it was relatively close to finishing the 16th, and once that was done, I stopped it to begin configuring openSUSE (unless I installed before I did). Since I could just disconnect the display cable or turn the monitor, I decided leaving it to run overnight was the best option seeing how long Shizuma took to run 4 passes, but I was proven wrong, though it's not a bad thing that MemTest86 ran more than I wanted it to.
I also tried to set up a VPN on it, but after a couple hours or so, I decided to just get the server up instead. with everything configured, I took down Banpi and CFS to retrieve the hard drives and removed Celery Box's motherboard to install the hard drive to the tray.
I spent another couple hours or so trying to figure out why I was having problems with the file server, since I was attempting to transfer stuff via FTP, but eventually I decided to just mount the drive with SSHFS instead... something like that anyway... I also had a bit of trouble with the bittorrent server as well, but I ended up figuring that out.
While it's a sort of shame I don't get to really see the actual speed of openSUSE booting, I at least know that the server's back up within a couple minutes (as in that I can mount the drive with SSHFS).
I've only updated packages once, and I've been meaning to regularly do it, but I've gotten so used to leaving Banpi and CFS as-is that I forget to update - I'll have to create a reminder to update weekly or something.
While using FreeFileSync, it seems like Celery Box is faster than CFS, since it only takes FreeFileSync about a 20 seconds to scan Melty and Celery Box while it took at least a couple minutes for Triela and CFS. Transfer speeds seem faster as well, but without proper testing, it's hard to say if it's the ethernet port speed (the Banana Pi supposedly was half of gigabit even though it was marketed as gigabit), the SATA speed (I don't recall seeing a speed for Banana Pi's SATA port), network placement, and/or some other system spec. (Fun fact: it takes about 30 seconds for FreeFileSync to scan Celery Box and i3rd.)
I ended up sticking Noctua's badge and openSUSE badge on the case, though unnecessary, but it was a good thing since it wouldn't be easy to tell it apart from the i3rd by looking if for some reason they were in the same place and neither had badges.
I think I ended up finding the repository for the VPN I use, so after adding the repository and installing the CLI app, I was able to have Celery Box on a VPN like I wanted.
I also ended up setting up a reminder to update Celery Box once a month because I continued to forget to update every so often.
Besides having to be able to house two 2.5" drives (from Banpi and CFS), it also needed something else for me to boot off of, which was the M.2 NVMe slot. Unfortunately the smallest and cheapest NVMe SSD I could find was 128GB for 80 USD, and for a headless server, that's really overkill, but I didn't have any other choice besides taking up some space on the hard drives, which I didn't want to do.
It also comes with a 802.11ac and Bluetooth (4.x) M.2 card, which I didn't need for it, and I was going to upgrade Triela (until I got everything and realised that it was M.2 and not mini PCIe).
It also takes DDR4 SO-DIMM memory, which was somewhat unfortunate since it's somewhat pricey, and I opted for 8GB in dual-channel, as there wasn't any dual-channel kits smaller than 8GB (are tiny headless servers really that niche? XD).
With the cooler, I was thinking I was going to use stock, but then I found a benchmark of a stock cooler and the Noctua NH-L9i, which I saw that Noctua was better in most cases.
I went with the cheapest socket 1151 CPU (after sorting by price on PCPartPicker) which was the Celeron G3930 since I wasn't going to really need anything more for a headless personal server.
I was a bit worried with having to get a previous generation CPU to be able to update the BIOS so that I could use the G3930, but luckily, I didn't have to do that.
As far as the name, I was kinda thinking about it for a while (and kinda chatting with my friend about it), and I jokingly said "celery box", which eventually ended up sticking in my head when I was trying to talk about the system with her (she jokingly suggested "cele box" at some point, in a sort of weird pun to one of my other friends which goes by "Selly"). While it does kinda sound strange and somewhat out there, "celeron" and "celery" share the first five letters, and since I was installing openSUSE on it, it matches celery's (the actual vegetable) green colour in a way.
This build is a lot of firsts for me, it's my first LGA build (the Intel computer doesn't count since it wasn't for me), it's my first Noctua heatsink (since I'm usually with the people that aren't too fond of noctua's iconic colour scheme), and it's also my first build with an M.2 NVMe SSD.
When I got the parts, I was unfortunately met with a missing power supply, and upon contacting the retailer, I contacted the manufacturer as I figured I would have to do. I still ended up doing the initial build in hopes that I would quickly get the power supply and be on my way, but it wasn't all for naught.
Building the system was surprisingly quick, when I was done, it felt like I missed something for a few minutes even though I didn't, since I was used to building larger systems that requires more work.
While I was used to the socket 775 cover being under the CPU retention bracket, the 1151's cover being clipped in the retention bracket from the top didn't phase me much since I had watched a couple or so Linus Tech Tips videos that showed how to install a similar socket CPU.
Installing the heatsink was quite easy as well (although the bend from installing heatsinks on an Intel CPU mobo makes me uneasy), though it was somewhat unnerving while trying to keep the heatsink and mobo steady as I get the retention screws threaded through the mobo holes. I actually just used arctic cooling's MX-4 instead of noctua's supplied NT-H1, as I found that that Noctua strongly recommends reapplying the compound every three years, and I wasn't up for having the Celery Box being down for an hour or something just to reapply the stuff.
I made a mistake and installed the heatsink before the RAM, which gave me little space to put my fingers on the RAM stick closest to the heatsink, and while I was still able to do it, I decided it would be better the other way around if there was a next time.
The M.2 NVMe SSD was interesting to install, I had to keep the card straight and steady in the slot while I installed the retention screw. While I understand the design gives more board space, it made me miss mini PCI and mini PCIe which I felt were a bit easier to install.
While I was waiting on the power supply, I decided to give Triela's power adapter a try, since it should provide just enough power, but the plug didnt fit into the jack, so I let things be.
I decided to buy the barebones kit from a different retailer if it got too close to the end of the return window, which I ended up doing, and when I got the new kit, I used the power supply from it to check the function of the system before beginning to dissassemble the system and repackage it. (This is where I found out a BIOS update for the G3930 was unnecessary.)
After building the system again (with the new kit), I did a quick post before heading to sleep. After work the next day, I think I began installing openSUSE and I think finding that the UEFI version of MemTest86 wasn't in the repository?
Anyway, I got into MemTest86 and started it up before I went to sleep. when I returned to it the next morning, I found that it had finished 15 or so passes after 7 something hours and that it was relatively close to finishing the 16th, and once that was done, I stopped it to begin configuring openSUSE (unless I installed before I did). Since I could just disconnect the display cable or turn the monitor, I decided leaving it to run overnight was the best option seeing how long Shizuma took to run 4 passes, but I was proven wrong, though it's not a bad thing that MemTest86 ran more than I wanted it to.
I also tried to set up a VPN on it, but after a couple hours or so, I decided to just get the server up instead. with everything configured, I took down Banpi and CFS to retrieve the hard drives and removed Celery Box's motherboard to install the hard drive to the tray.
I spent another couple hours or so trying to figure out why I was having problems with the file server, since I was attempting to transfer stuff via FTP, but eventually I decided to just mount the drive with SSHFS instead... something like that anyway... I also had a bit of trouble with the bittorrent server as well, but I ended up figuring that out.
While it's a sort of shame I don't get to really see the actual speed of openSUSE booting, I at least know that the server's back up within a couple minutes (as in that I can mount the drive with SSHFS).
I've only updated packages once, and I've been meaning to regularly do it, but I've gotten so used to leaving Banpi and CFS as-is that I forget to update - I'll have to create a reminder to update weekly or something.
While using FreeFileSync, it seems like Celery Box is faster than CFS, since it only takes FreeFileSync about a 20 seconds to scan Melty and Celery Box while it took at least a couple minutes for Triela and CFS. Transfer speeds seem faster as well, but without proper testing, it's hard to say if it's the ethernet port speed (the Banana Pi supposedly was half of gigabit even though it was marketed as gigabit), the SATA speed (I don't recall seeing a speed for Banana Pi's SATA port), network placement, and/or some other system spec. (Fun fact: it takes about 30 seconds for FreeFileSync to scan Celery Box and i3rd.)
I ended up sticking Noctua's badge and openSUSE badge on the case, though unnecessary, but it was a good thing since it wouldn't be easy to tell it apart from the i3rd by looking if for some reason they were in the same place and neither had badges.
I think I ended up finding the repository for the VPN I use, so after adding the repository and installing the CLI app, I was able to have Celery Box on a VPN like I wanted.
I also ended up setting up a reminder to update Celery Box once a month because I continued to forget to update every so often.
Backup Power Supply
The backup for the server at work stopped working properly some point ago, and the company decided to replace the unit instead of taking a bit of time to figure out what was wrong with it.
I was tasked to be the one to install the new backup (since I'm the unofficial on-site it), and after doing so, I found that one of the two batteries was bad. I took it to "scrap for parts", which the manager said was fine to do, and after getting a hold of a pair of batteries with a slightly higher "capacity" (because a lot of companies use amp-hours, which isn't correct), I had myself a backup power supply.
But what would I use it for? I mean, I'm at Melty when it's warm and at Mei-chan when it's cold, so connecting either of them to it would be pointless. I eventually figured the answer: put it next to my central switch and move my NAS there.
Getting it onto the closet shelf was no joke, but it wasn't impossible, and it was much nicer that the power cable has slack between it and the extension cable compared to the power cable of the switch.
The NAS was much easier to get onto the shelf, though I had to do what I could to keep the power adapter and ac cables away from the ethernet cables.
So now the NAS is at the central switch and seems to be a bit faster (probably got some AC interference when it was next to melty). I think it was also this that kinda added to the spark of making Celery Box, since Celery Box sits on top of the NAS (eventually it'll probably be attached to the back of some monitor).
The aforementioned batteries didn't have a good lifespan and I ended up having to replace them, but it wasn't too pricey to do so.
I was tasked to be the one to install the new backup (since I'm the unofficial on-site it), and after doing so, I found that one of the two batteries was bad. I took it to "scrap for parts", which the manager said was fine to do, and after getting a hold of a pair of batteries with a slightly higher "capacity" (because a lot of companies use amp-hours, which isn't correct), I had myself a backup power supply.
But what would I use it for? I mean, I'm at Melty when it's warm and at Mei-chan when it's cold, so connecting either of them to it would be pointless. I eventually figured the answer: put it next to my central switch and move my NAS there.
Getting it onto the closet shelf was no joke, but it wasn't impossible, and it was much nicer that the power cable has slack between it and the extension cable compared to the power cable of the switch.
The NAS was much easier to get onto the shelf, though I had to do what I could to keep the power adapter and ac cables away from the ethernet cables.
So now the NAS is at the central switch and seems to be a bit faster (probably got some AC interference when it was next to melty). I think it was also this that kinda added to the spark of making Celery Box, since Celery Box sits on top of the NAS (eventually it'll probably be attached to the back of some monitor).
The aforementioned batteries didn't have a good lifespan and I ended up having to replace them, but it wasn't too pricey to do so.
Repasting Triela
A while ago my parents' laptop started to thermal shutdown after a bit of use, and I had disassembled the laptop and cleaned the heatsink fins, but while trying to clean the paste from the CPU, I got some stuck between the legs of a capacitor array. I'll keep it short to say that I was unsuccessful in some way to remove it and ordered a replacement CPU. (Eventually some part of the mobo died which prevented the laptop from passing post.)
Anyway, besides learning from that to start using cotton swabs to clean laptop cpus, I decided to apply new paste to Triela since she had her original paste. I found that the motherboard has two open spots for video RAM, and that there were thermal pads in those spots on the heatsink.
I replaced the old thermal pads with some scrap thermal pads that my best friend gave me on the GPU and video RAM before applying the paste to the cpu and putting her back together. The GPU actually did have a thermal pad on top of it which had a slight crack in it, but it's hard to say if it existed before I removed the heatsink.
Triela's running cooler now, and as always, I didn't take temperatures before doing any of this, so I only really have fan noise for comparison.
Anyway, besides learning from that to start using cotton swabs to clean laptop cpus, I decided to apply new paste to Triela since she had her original paste. I found that the motherboard has two open spots for video RAM, and that there were thermal pads in those spots on the heatsink.
I replaced the old thermal pads with some scrap thermal pads that my best friend gave me on the GPU and video RAM before applying the paste to the cpu and putting her back together. The GPU actually did have a thermal pad on top of it which had a slight crack in it, but it's hard to say if it existed before I removed the heatsink.
Triela's running cooler now, and as always, I didn't take temperatures before doing any of this, so I only really have fan noise for comparison.
Shizuma
I can't remember all I previously typed (see "updates" for exactly what I mean), but essentially some things happened and my best friend was able to get Shizuma back. While it was a bit unreal, I did check the battery/hard drive panel and sure enough the misalignment on the panel at the hard drive was there (from when I put a 11.5mm tall hard drive in without knowing/realising 9.5mm was the limit), so I knew it was Shizuma.
I was going to install Snow Leopard, but ended up poking around trying some live Linux distros while I was at my best friend's place since the DVD drive didn't seem to want to read the snow leopard disk for some reason.
Sometime later (at home), I got the DVD drive out of Shizuma and disassembled it to find nothing obviously wrong and once I put it back in, it read the disk just fine. I installed Snow Leopard after doing a "half and half" partition scheme on the hard drive and then installed Manjaro afterwards. Booting was kinda weird since it goes straight to GRUB2 and trying to boot OSX from GRUB2 results in a kernel panic, but this was solved by disabling GRUB2's OS probe and holding option when turning Shizuma on to properly boot OSX.
I found that I could put 8GB of ram in Shizuma as long as the firmware was at least a certain version, and Shizuma had the latest version (well, the last for that model) already installed when I checked.
I applied new thermal paste since I don't doubt that Shizuma had anything but the original paste, and found that a couple of the dies still had a miniscule amount ofliquid non-solidified paste. I also found that the heatsink copper for one of the dies had oxidised unevenly in the pattern of the etched markings on the die. Surprisingly, the heatsink fins were fairly clean with some dust on the outer fins, but even though the airflow design's not really great for cooling, it's at least decent for keeping the heatsink fins clean.
I got the ram about a week after that and installed it before trying to run MemTest86 (after figuring out how why the option was missing in GRUB), finding that 4-5 passes is the usual amount that most people test for. I saw the first pass finish after about an hour, so I was thinking another three hours and it should be done, but I was wrong and I stopped the test after getting too tired from staying up.
I started again the next morning and after about an hour, the screen turned off, which I found the cause to be that Shizuma wasn't plugged in. after I plugged her in, I started it once more and occasionally glanced at the screen. First pass took an hour (as I had seen previously), second test took about two hours (which I was also aware of), third test took three hours, and the fourth took about four hours for a total of about eight hours.
I don't remember exactly when I went and reinstalled Snow Leopard and Manjaro, but I did it to repartition the drive since I really didn't need to give OSX half the drive.
The reason why MemTest86 didn't show up in GRUB2 was because of Shizuma's EFI, so I needed to use the UEFI version of MemTest86 which was luckily in AUR, and after installing and rebooting, it showed up in GRUB2.
Recently I got a laptop stand with fans, but with the minute space between the top of the stand and the bottom of Shizuma, the airflow isn't great. As of this draft writing, I'm currently designing a riser that uses the mesh to stabilise it's location and lift the hinge end about 20mm.
I'm not entirely sure what I'll be using Shizuma for, but I'll find a use at some point.
With the laptop stand, I just used rubber feet to raise the hinge end up about 10mm (unless the stand I was originally talking about is a different one, I dunno). I also changed the 5 volt fans out for 12 volt ones and designed a replacement control board that uses a Firewire 400 jack to get power from Shizuma's Firewire 800 jack (via a Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 cable). I might write more about the replacment control board in a separate post, but don't hold your breath.
I was going to install Snow Leopard, but ended up poking around trying some live Linux distros while I was at my best friend's place since the DVD drive didn't seem to want to read the snow leopard disk for some reason.
Sometime later (at home), I got the DVD drive out of Shizuma and disassembled it to find nothing obviously wrong and once I put it back in, it read the disk just fine. I installed Snow Leopard after doing a "half and half" partition scheme on the hard drive and then installed Manjaro afterwards. Booting was kinda weird since it goes straight to GRUB2 and trying to boot OSX from GRUB2 results in a kernel panic, but this was solved by disabling GRUB2's OS probe and holding option when turning Shizuma on to properly boot OSX.
I found that I could put 8GB of ram in Shizuma as long as the firmware was at least a certain version, and Shizuma had the latest version (well, the last for that model) already installed when I checked.
I applied new thermal paste since I don't doubt that Shizuma had anything but the original paste, and found that a couple of the dies still had a miniscule amount of
I got the ram about a week after that and installed it before trying to run MemTest86 (after figuring out how why the option was missing in GRUB), finding that 4-5 passes is the usual amount that most people test for. I saw the first pass finish after about an hour, so I was thinking another three hours and it should be done, but I was wrong and I stopped the test after getting too tired from staying up.
I started again the next morning and after about an hour, the screen turned off, which I found the cause to be that Shizuma wasn't plugged in. after I plugged her in, I started it once more and occasionally glanced at the screen. First pass took an hour (as I had seen previously), second test took about two hours (which I was also aware of), third test took three hours, and the fourth took about four hours for a total of about eight hours.
I don't remember exactly when I went and reinstalled Snow Leopard and Manjaro, but I did it to repartition the drive since I really didn't need to give OSX half the drive.
The reason why MemTest86 didn't show up in GRUB2 was because of Shizuma's EFI, so I needed to use the UEFI version of MemTest86 which was luckily in AUR, and after installing and rebooting, it showed up in GRUB2.
Recently I got a laptop stand with fans, but with the minute space between the top of the stand and the bottom of Shizuma, the airflow isn't great. As of this draft writing, I'm currently designing a riser that uses the mesh to stabilise it's location and lift the hinge end about 20mm.
I'm not entirely sure what I'll be using Shizuma for, but I'll find a use at some point.
With the laptop stand, I just used rubber feet to raise the hinge end up about 10mm (unless the stand I was originally talking about is a different one, I dunno). I also changed the 5 volt fans out for 12 volt ones and designed a replacement control board that uses a Firewire 400 jack to get power from Shizuma's Firewire 800 jack (via a Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 cable). I might write more about the replacment control board in a separate post, but don't hold your breath.
(Backlogged) Updates
I had some stuff updates and projects typed out that I had on my flash drive, and after confusing one of my flash drives for the other, I lost everything I had written. I lost a lot of motivation to even attempt to write whatever I had written, and so I didn't bother for a while.
In this though, I also decided to make a new folder that would sync with my file server, so in case something did happen, it's not a detrimental blow.
While I don't entirely recall what I had written about, I do remember that it was about the celery box, triela, shizuma, my parents' laptop, and maybe a project or two.
I think during this time (or possibly before) I had decided on a large, long term project, to make a magnetic reed switch keyboard of my own. I'll talk more about this (and those other things) separately.
So hopefully, this means I'm relatively back, and not feeling so demotivated and lethargic.
I was thinking of using pcpartpicker and depreciating the machine reference page, but pcpartpicker doesn't have mei-chan's specific processor nor anything before it (lie-chan and ziggy), and while I could try to grab links from newegg and use the "other" field, I don't think it'd be worth the time.
Please note that I have no idea when the following posts were "written" since I never kept track of the date when I added them to my backlog of updates, that "Reed Switch Keyboard" is the last of the written backlog, and that some of these probably should have accompanying images somewhere, but, at this point, I'd rather get the posts out as quickly as possible.
In this though, I also decided to make a new folder that would sync with my file server, so in case something did happen, it's not a detrimental blow.
While I don't entirely recall what I had written about, I do remember that it was about the celery box, triela, shizuma, my parents' laptop, and maybe a project or two.
I think during this time (or possibly before) I had decided on a large, long term project, to make a magnetic reed switch keyboard of my own. I'll talk more about this (and those other things) separately.
I was thinking of using pcpartpicker and depreciating the machine reference page, but pcpartpicker doesn't have mei-chan's specific processor nor anything before it (lie-chan and ziggy), and while I could try to grab links from newegg and use the "other" field, I don't think it'd be worth the time.
Please note that I have no idea when the following posts were "written" since I never kept track of the date when I added them to my backlog of updates, that "Reed Switch Keyboard" is the last of the written backlog, and that some of these probably should have accompanying images somewhere, but, at this point, I'd rather get the posts out as quickly as possible.
It's been a while...
It's been a few years since my last post, mainly because I was focusing on writing my stories and such, though I kinda was still doing projects. I think my previous post covers it fairly well (just ignore the Pokémon Sun stuff), so it's still fairly relevant.
I've kinda stopped caring and tinkering with Linux distros though, since Manjaro and openSUSE Tumbleweed are working just fine as a daily OS and server OS respectively, and the fact that it takes time to get and test other distros.
I'll be making a few posts from the backlog, but I can't guarantee I'll be posting regularly again.
Responses to articles (examples) are probably also going away since I had some problem with Google's Newsstand algorithm and had to change to a similar app.
I finally fixed the broken theme today, so now the blog is as readable as it used to be before it broke.
Some images are broken (I'm guessing the ones from the Google Sites version of ElectroDigital Blog) and while I'm aware of this, I'm not going to hunt them down and fix them... at least not anytime soon.
Also there's now a way to preview posts (and maybe the site) while emulating the screen sizes of a smartphone, tablet, etc, and sorry to those on a smartphone or tablet for this site not being adaptive. I think when I created the blog on blogger, it said it'd show some sort of mobile site for those on mobile devices, so either something changed or it just never worked.
Machine Reference Page will eventually be updated.
I've kinda stopped caring and tinkering with Linux distros though, since Manjaro and openSUSE Tumbleweed are working just fine as a daily OS and server OS respectively, and the fact that it takes time to get and test other distros.
I'll be making a few posts from the backlog, but I can't guarantee I'll be posting regularly again.
Responses to articles (examples) are probably also going away since I had some problem with Google's Newsstand algorithm and had to change to a similar app.
I finally fixed the broken theme today, so now the blog is as readable as it used to be before it broke.
Some images are broken (I'm guessing the ones from the Google Sites version of ElectroDigital Blog) and while I'm aware of this, I'm not going to hunt them down and fix them... at least not anytime soon.
Also there's now a way to preview posts (and maybe the site) while emulating the screen sizes of a smartphone, tablet, etc, and sorry to those on a smartphone or tablet for this site not being adaptive. I think when I created the blog on blogger, it said it'd show some sort of mobile site for those on mobile devices, so either something changed or it just never worked.
Machine Reference Page will eventually be updated.
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