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Ghetto Mods

silentbogo said:
Just a temporary solution, before I print a normal holder
Click to expand...

I'll just use this tool, to make a tool, for the tool, to make a better tool.
Love it! o_O

It sounds silly, but that's literally how 'precision engineering' came to reality over the decades-centuries
 
LabRat 891 said:
I'll just use this tool, to make a tool, for the tool, to make a better tool.
Love it! o_O

It sounds silly, but that's literally how 'precision engineering' came to reality over the decades-centuries
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You haven't seen half of it yet :D :D :D
I just sold my small bedslinger, and my next project will be 3D printing a small CoreXY 3D printer for my nephew)))
 
Count von Schwalbe said:
Anyone here tried lost-pla casting?
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not personally, but related, I recently had a customer with a borked Creality printer. He runs a small fab where they manufacture HUUUUGE plastic barrels, and they use similar techniques to manufacture aluminium endcaps for these barrels. Basically they print a template out of PLA or PETG with minimal infill, enclose it in casting sand, and just pour aluminium in it. Simple, but still cool. Though, not as cool as gigantic rotating jig for barrel forming.
 
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Count von Schwalbe said:
Anyone here tried lost-pla casting?
Click to expand...
A bit off-topic, but after I explain, it will in fact remain on topic.

I used to work at a foundry that used it. Wasn't exactly PLA, not sure what plastic was used. Normally, the part we made was first created in wax from very intricate tooling. Making the part from the tooling took seconds, but assembly and disassembly of the tooling could take a whole day.

Well, a couple parts were so tricky, we couldn't make the tooling accurately enough. I'm talking about jet engine parts made out of Titanium, a couple hundred pounds worth at pour time. The wax part never came out right, hence, the ghetto fabulous SLA part. Problem was, just the 3D print was about $20k each, and we were doing about five a week.
 
Alright, slackers. It's time for some good-ole jerry-rigged ghetto mod.
IMG_20230408_190640.jpgIMG_20230408_190640.jpg
Had this router(Archer C80) laying around for a few months, just gathering dust and doing nothing.
During the early blackouts one of my customers tried to wire it to a battery on his own, but same as usual: either dropped something or got a phone call, and after getting back to business - reversed polarity on the cable. End result - big-ass hole on the input side, few blown caps, and non-working low voltage rails. He bought a new one and gave this one to me for parts in exchange for a proper battery cable with DC-DC stabilizing module(buck-boost).

My main router at the office is very old and nearly dead (cheap-ass DIR-300 running DDWRT for the past decade or so), and in dire need of replacement. So, I dived into the rabbit hole of fixing this pile of ash and magic smoke.

First, I drilled off the burnt part of the PCB to remove an internal short. What's worse, is that I had to desolder that flimsy switch, a power jack, and half of the 12V side to do so.
Second, I attempted to revive both 1.8V and 1.2V rails. PWM controller on 1.2V was dead, while the other one ended up being alive. Didn't find a replacement or an equivalent (google couldn't even find a picture by markings, let alone a proper datasheet), so I've decided to use what I had laying around.
Tried generic LDOs, hoping that the load is low enough, but no luck. During a startup sequence the load on both rails is so high, that a puny AMS1117 goes to thermal shutdown almost immediately.
So, I swapped the IC to the smaller rail and did another ghetto-mod within a ghetto-mod. :D
Had a pack of mini560 modules in a 3.3V config. I occasionally swap the feedback resistor to make it a 5V module, but this time I've decided to go the other way around. there is no datasheet, but most sellers list a chart with feedback resistor values for 3.3V/5V/9V/12V. So, I interpolated it to my desired ~1.8V by stacking two stock 4.7k resistors on top of each other. Resulting voltage was 1.89, which is a bit high, but better than nothing.
Removed some unused thing, soldered 3 wires, fixed it all with some hot glue, and started testing.

Router came back to life immediately. Nothing exploded, nothing overheated. Did a quick reset, tested for a full work day and so far not a single issue.
I think I will add a little rad and a 5V fan to keep SoC cool, but that's a ghetto-mod for another day. :roll:

IMG_20230408_192233.jpg
 
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Recently i mount back-fan on GPU it's a backside of the VRM and seems like a good idea......

rx5700backfan.jpg
 
@Zyll Goliat
Can you notice any difference in temps for the GPU or VRAM with that mod? Is the VRM circuit actually located on the back of the card? Is it common for newer AMD cards to have the VRM located on the backside of the card?
 
80251 said:
@Zyll Goliat
Can you notice any difference in temps for the GPU or VRAM with that mod? Is the VRM circuit actually located on the back of the card? Is it common for newer AMD cards to have the VRM located on the backside of the card?
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No VRM is located as usual from the other side but this is the backside of the VRM circuit and as always is still hot there so I put first thermal pads and little cooler and then small fan on top of it and actually few degrees drop when I put that cooler but maybe only 1c less after I mounted fan so not a big difference but I didn't OC this card as much.....Ahh yeah also I mounted cooler from some old 4890 on this RX 5700 first so it's totally crazy/looking/unique RX 5700 with my own custom bios in it.....
gpu front.jpg


lexluthermiester said:
That is very cool, no pun intended. Creative use there.
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THX
 
342965076_197432229742613_7597205252713724748_n.jpg
 
P(l)ot twist - the knob slides outwards. :p
 
Forgot this thread:

20V solar panel to an MPTT controller to charge a battery i found in abandoned building that had a large amount of plant growing lamps, totally not a suspicious location at all

1682243720958.png


The solar panel charges the MPTT controller, which then charges the battery that absolutely needed to be topped up with distilled water despite being "maintenance free" - but it was too slow so i of course used the jumpstarter for my car and wire from a Cat6 cable to force-feed more juice into it

In the black box is my old UPS battery, and i absolutely intend to mix and match all these batteries into one bigger juicebox for fun explosions when i go camping again
 
Mussels said:
Forgot this thread:

20V solar panel to an MPTT controller to charge a battery i found in abandoned building that had a large amount of plant growing lamps, totally not a suspicious location at all

View attachment 292745

The solar panel charges the MPTT controller, which then charges the battery that absolutely needed to be topped up with distilled water despite being "maintenance free" - but it was too slow so i of course used the jumpstarter for my car and wire from a Cat6 cable to force-feed more juice into it

In the black box is my old UPS battery, and i absolutely intend to mix and match all these batteries into one bigger juicebox for fun explosions when i go camping again
Click to expand...
-Always appreciate those that are willing to play with physics and standards for their own ends.
I especially enjoy your 'boosted charging' using a 20-24awg twisted pair salvaged from 4p8c (The UTP totally cuts-down the PWM-charger's EMI. TOTALLY...) :D


I was just looking into mixed SLA parallel batteries, myself. Not a great idea as an 'appliance', but absolutely 'will work'.
I've got several old Power Wheelchair SLAs and just got a new Solar-charged gate installed for my driveway (which uses 2 7AH SLAs in parallel, out of the box). -Still working out the best arrangement of panels and batteries to give a (12V 1A) Wireless IP camera 24x7 power atop the 2-arm gate-opener.


PS: my MI25 covered in aluminum tape is going strong. Finally finagled a PowerPlayTable that works well w/ my card and cooling.
 
At the moment the battery is storing more charge each day
It had dried out, and was crystal fluff someone might snort for the final trip of their life, so i assume its slowly melting back in with the distilled water

Day one it would max out at 1.5v, yesterday around 7v and now at 9v (tho it slowly drops, with just a voltmeter attached)

Using the solar charge controller it maintains the voltage better/longer, but raises much slower - i'm assuming it's *needing* the higher voltage to help re-goop the meth into bottled zeus
 
Mussels said:
At the moment the battery is storing more charge each day
It had dried out, and was crystal fluff someone might snort for the final trip of their life, so i assume its slowly melting back in with the distilled water

Day one it would max out at 1.5v, yesterday around 7v and now at 9v (tho it slowly drops, with just a voltmeter attached)

Using the solar charge controller it maintains the voltage better/longer, but raises much slower - i'm assuming it's *needing* the higher voltage to help re-goop the meth into bottled zeus
Click to expand...
it's not so much higher voltage but higher current that'll get it working again as it should or it won't because it's F'd
 
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