Ghetto Mods

[micropage7]

replacing EliteBook hdd to ssd, but since i bought it 2nd hand, never realize that the hdd lost its screws and i can't find the right screws for that
now i make padding using foam tape to make sure that the ssd will sit tight

 

[lexluthermiester]

replacing EliteBook hdd to ssd, but since i bought it 2nd hand, never realize that the hdd lost its screws and i can't find the right screws for that
now i make padding using foam tape to make sure that the ssd will sit tight
View attachment 223988

That works!

 

[micropage7]

my old EliteBook lcd protector rubber getting gluey and melt and i have to remove it completely, the problem is after i removed the rubber it leaves holes on the bezel, if i don't cover that, the dust will enter the bezel and the lcd, so i grabbed my hot glue gun and cover it by hot glue. not much, just to make sure that the holes got covered and the dust can't enter through it

 

[Valantar]

my old EliteBook lcd protector rubber getting gluey and melt and i have to remove it completely, the problem is after i removed the rubber it leaves holes on the bezel, if i don't cover that, the dust will enter the bezel and the lcd, so i grabbed my hot glue gun and cover it by hot glue. not much, just to make sure that the holes got covered and the dust can't enter through it
View attachment 224165
View attachment 224166

Rubber that starts leeching its plasticizer add-ins and going sticky and either dissolving or going hard is the bane of many otherwise well functioning electronics. This looks like a decent fix Something like Sugru/moldable silicone could probaly do the same job too.

 

[lexluthermiester]

my old EliteBook lcd protector rubber getting gluey and melt and i have to remove it completely, the problem is after i removed the rubber it leaves holes on the bezel, if i don't cover that, the dust will enter the bezel and the lcd, so i grabbed my hot glue gun and cover it by hot glue. not much, just to make sure that the holes got covered and the dust can't enter through it
View attachment 224165
View attachment 224166

To me, that's a solid fix there. It's ghetto for sure, but gets the job done and is not unsightly. Very creative solution.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Ghetto Poe in the morning.

 

[micropage7]

Ghetto Poe in the morning.
View attachment 225333

what????
is that really safe for the device?

 

[Valantar]

Ghetto Poe in the morning.
View attachment 225333

Am I seeing this right, that you used one of the wire pairs in the Ethernet cable for transmitting power? At what voltage, and how many amps? Those wires aren't thick, so they're pretty poorly suited for low voltage applications after all.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

what????
is that really safe for the device?

Am I seeing this right, that you used one of the wire pairs in the Ethernet cable for transmitting power? At what voltage, and how many amps? Those wires aren't thick, so they're pretty poorly suited for low voltage applications after all.

12v at 300mA since the run is less than 10ft and the voltage drop is less than 0.2 v on 22Awg it should be fine if my calculations are correct it's far less than Poe+ which is what the cable is rated for

 

[Valantar]

12v at 300mA since the run is less than 10ft and the voltage drop is less than 0.2 v on 22Awg it should be fine if my calculations are correct it's far less than Poe+ which is what the cable is rated for

PoE+ is 48V though, which is far easier to transmit over thin cables. But at that short length you're probably okay-ish. According to this calculator you'll lose .1V across that length, which sounds fine. Though given that you're reducing your Ethernet speed down to 100M anyway by removing one pair, you might as well have used a second pair for power, doubling your wire thickness.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Although it doesn't seem to do anything the camera is using 2pair +1 otherwise I would have doubled up on cables.

Poe uses higher voltages because of the voltage drop, not sure of the minimum voltage a Poe device would use but it has to be between 33v and 48v since Poe is supposed to work at 300ft, that's a 15v+ drop.

 

[Valantar]

Although it doesn't seem to do anything the camera is using 2pair +1 otherwise I would have doubled up on cables.

Poe uses higher voltages because of the voltage drop, not sure of the minimum voltage a Poe device would use but it has to be between 33v and 48v since Poe is supposed to work at 300ft, that's a 15v+ drop.

Not only that, but also to deliver sufficient power - 600mA per wire pair (as per what Wikipedia says about the rating) isn't a lot at 12V, after all, if you're looking to power an access point or camera.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Took an older Lenovo E550 laptop with a broken keyboard and SSD swapped it and put it in an old Lenovo mATX case we had sitting around. The processor was throttling bad and I couldn't get the dust out of the heatsink, and the heatpipes were bent, so I modified an old Intel Thermal Solution to fit on the unusual mounting pattern. I also took a desktop ODD and made some custom cabling (SATA data only M-F extension cable) to hook it into the laptop ODD slimline SATA port. The part that I am most proud/scared of is the laptop screen I mounted on the side of the case as only one video output was still working. I will try to get a picture of the screen sometime.

The main mistake I made was soldering the 120v side of the power brick to the wrong side of the switch on the PSU, so to actually cut power to it you have to unplug it. Also, I am still working on getting the battery to go back on for backup...

 

[oobymach]

Not exactly ghetto but if you're interested in a simple weight reduction for a battery powered mouse, a gender converter can drop your weight by a few grams. AA battery on the left, AAA to AA gender changer on the right, both are duracell batteries.

 

[silentbogo]

The only thing I don't like about Supermicro, is that there are many variations of their motherboards, but almost impossible to find a proper I/O shield (or even whole proper chassis) for some models.
That's what happened to my long-forgotten x9SCL, which I put on a backburner after a postponed project.
Few days ago I found a decent 1U chassis, but once again - no backplate. Under normal circumstances I'd go commando, but it's going into someone else's rack. Gotta be a little more "presentable"
So, few minutes later, and with some help from my trusty aluminium tape and random card stock I made my own I/O shield:


It even snaps in place, only wobbles a lot. Gotta fix it with more sticky aluminium tape!

Am I seeing this right, that you used one of the wire pairs in the Ethernet cable for transmitting power? At what voltage, and how many amps? Those wires aren't thick, so they're pretty poorly suited for low voltage applications after all.

It's not that bad, actually. I've seen similar solutions used "as intended" for video surveillance systems at my old workplace: (two pairs for AV signal, and two pairs for power). Some cables were as much as 20m long, but everything just worked (for years).
If that thing is powering a switch or a tiny router - that 12V or less is going to be down-converted anyways. Had quite a few switches that originally came with 12V PSU, but worked just fine even from a 5V source.

 

[Valantar]

It's not that bad, actually. I've seen similar solutions used "as intended" for video surveillance systems at my old workplace: (two pairs for AV signal, and two pairs for power). Some cables were as much as 20m long, but everything just worked (for years).
If that thing is powering a switch or a tiny router - that 12V or less is going to be down-converted anyways. Had quite a few switches that originally came with 12V PSU, but worked just fine even from a 5V source.

I would assume those cameras were some form of PoE? If so, they likely used much higher voltages than 12V. Also, if they were using two pairs for power that vastly improves the situation by increasing the wire gauge. 12V is still kinda sorta acceptable at 20m at low currents - you'll lose ~1V at 0.5A with a single 22AWG pair - but that worsens rapidly as currents increase. 1A gives you more than 2V of loss; 2A and you're losing more than 4V. Of course doubling the wires up halves that. But still, if you're looking at any type of noticeable current that's a pretty bad idea - even if your device can handle the low voltage it'll need more current to compensate, which will either exacerbate the problem, overload the PSU, or cause the device to fail to work due to insufficient power. PoE is great. Running low voltage DC through thin wires over long distances? Not so much.

 

[micropage7]

the main problem of usb slider is it's getting loose and loose so you need to hold it everytime to plug in it

the solution is fill it with plastic, yeah the slider not working anymore but it's easier when you use that

 

[oobymach]

Forgot to post the result which is a G305 that weighs less than 90 grams, not too shabby. Click to enlarge pics.

 

[lexluthermiester]

the main problem of usb slider is it's getting loose and loose so you need to hold it everytime to plug in it
View attachment 226186
the solution is fill it with plastic, yeah the slider not working anymore but it's easier when you use that

What I generally do when those retractable types start wearing out is cut the functional part of the drive out and heat-shrink wrap the ends. See below for my entry to this kind of ghetto modding;

The two on the left are 8GB drives and the two on the right are 32GB.

 

[oobymach]

Usb drive gets mighty hot and I got inspired from another user, introducing usb drive 2.0

8x tiny heatsinks and 4x zip ties

 

[ThaiTaffy]

I would assume those cameras were some form of PoE? If so, they likely used much higher voltages than 12V. Also, if they were using two pairs for power that vastly improves the situation by increasing the wire gauge. 12V is still kinda sorta acceptable at 20m at low currents - you'll lose ~1V at 0.5A with a single 22AWG pair - but that worsens rapidly as currents increase. 1A gives you more than 2V of loss; 2A and you're losing more than 4V. Of course doubling the wires up halves that. But still, if you're looking at any type of noticeable current that's a pretty bad idea - even if your device can handle the low voltage it'll need more current to compensate, which will either exacerbate the problem, overload the PSU, or cause the device to fail to work due to insufficient power. PoE is great. Running low voltage DC through thin wires over long distances? Not so much.

The cameras are some cheap Chinese things that came with my sister's NVR kit these were spare so I nabbed them to use use for the meantime, they were wireless and powered via 12v but had a Ethernet port.

I stripped them down and as I said seemed to be using 2 pairs plus a single, so I wired using the non used conductors. I have them plugged into old routers used as wireless AP so there not hardwired into my network so if anything goes wrong they will only nuke the old routers. They are more a test to see what I need as far as tensorflow for my CCTV as movement detection is out with my 17dogs. Still not totally sure what I'm going to do as those coral edge dongles seem to be rocking horse manure and unavailable almost everywhere.

 

[Ruru]

Made a PCIe x1 version from an old HD 3450. And it works.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

My new home assistant access point. Chopped the battery out and hard wired it to a usb then screwed the back of the casing to the wall and clipped it all back together.

 

[Valantar]

My new home assistant access point. Chopped the battery out and hard wired it to a usb then screwed the back of the casing to the wall and clipped it all back together.View attachment 229248

Does it boot without the battery? That's good - I've got an old phone (OnePlus 3T) where the battery connector broke (yeah, I know), making it unable to boot (it either gives a low battery or temperature error when trying) - which is damn annoying as it would make for a really nice on-desk companion display for system monitoring, touchscreen hotkeys, or other stuff.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Does it boot without the battery? That's good - I've got an old phone (OnePlus 3T) where the battery connector broke (yeah, I know), making it unable to boot (it either gives a low battery or temperature error when trying) - which is damn annoying as it would make for a really nice on-desk companion display for system monitoring, touchscreen hotkeys, or other stuff.

So there's the thing technically I think I'm slowly killing the tablet I soldered on a usb cable directly to the battery connections, lithium batteries go from like 3.6v to 4.2 and I'm feeding that 5v the other issue is when I removed the battery I did it in a hurry as it was inflated and ready to pop so I accidentally cut away the the thermal sensor.

The sensor was wired separately but still had a spot on the BMS PCB for the smd for some strange Nvidia engineering reason, so the thing sat on a desk for months untill recently I was scavenging 18650 cells from laptop batteries and came across some thermal sensors.
Soldered a new sensor and with a hefty 3 amp phone charger it came to life.