DIY Open Source Chronograph

3D Printing, Electronics, Software, , , ,
I got into airsoft recently, and I wanted a way to measure the BB’s velocity. The cheapest chronographs I could find were ~60-70€. I thought making one myself would be much cheaper and a good learning experience. The total cost was about 15€. I tested it with an Army Armament R504, its specs sheet says it shoots at 300 FPS, I measured 298 FPS which is within the margin of error. All the files for the project can be found on github. Schematic Below you will find 2 versions of the schematic. One using photodiodes and the other phototransistors. Initially…

Ultimate Ender 3 upgrade guide

3D Printing, ,
This is my 3d printer. There are many like it, but this is mine. My 3d printer is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it and upgrade it as much as i can. -me My 3d printer is perhaps the most useful tool that I have. It’s a Creality Ender 3 that I got back in 2019 for ~160€. Since then, I have done multiple upgrades. It has almost become the ship of Theseus paradox. Below you will find all the upgrades I have done so far, and my experiences from this long journey. I will…

Vostok Komandirskie suddenly Stopped winding – Fixed

Mechanical, , ,
It broke….again. It seems they might not be as reliable as people say, maybe I just got a “Bad apple”. This time it started unwinding while winding it and suddenly it stopped completely winding. After opening the watch, as you can see in the pictures, the screw on the big gear was loose. As a result, the big gear had climbed over the smaller one that turns when winding, as a result it would never spin. It also climbed over the ratcheting mechanism. Probably that’s why it started to unwind. To fix it, I used the iFixit poking stick to…

Vostok Komandirskie: How to fix a loose hand

Mechanical, , , ,
After accidentally hitting my watch a few times, I noticed the minute hand was not always moving. And when taping on the watch it easily moved, as if it was loose. Considering the watch is not in a good shape cosmetically anyway, I thought I would try to fix it myself. Now, I am not an expert when it comes to watches. When I started disassembling the watch, I accepted the risk. You just have to be very careful and make sure you are in a clean environment. To open the caseback you can use calipers to rotate the ring.…

EK/EJ CIVIC: Easily fixing LED hyperblink without resistors

Automotive, , , , ,
Did you just install your new shiny LED bulbs and the turn signal started lighting up like a rave party strobe light ? Congratulations! Your car suffers from hyperblink. A common yet easily curable disease. Why does hyperblink happen ? Back in the day, the flasher relays that make the turn signals blink were designed with incandescent bulbs in mind. Incandescent bulbs have a much higher power consumption than LED bulbs. As a result, the relay starts clicking faster in response to that, just like it would if a bulb went out. For more information, check out this video from…

Upgrading old cluster with glow gauges in a 97 civic

Automotive, , , , , ,
Glow gauges are a great way to massively improve the looks of your gauge cluster and its readability. Also, a great way to add a hint of personality to your car ! In my first attempt to improve the instrument cluster, I had installed green LED bulbs from AliExpress, but the bulbs were so bad that you could barely see the dash at night! I eventually stumbled on a good deal on eBay on this set of glow gauges. Glow gauges use electroluminescent sheets that light up, resulting in a beautiful, uniform glow. Step 0: Remove the instrument cluster Removing…

DELL R710 mod: Installing a x16 GPU on a x8 slot

Electronics, , , , ,
So, I have a Dell R710 that I used to use as a 24/7 home server with Proxmox (BTW, Proxmox is amazing!). But after a few electricity bills I retired the server, until one day I had the idea to use it as a desktop. The biggest issue with that concept was the integrated matrox GPU, it was only designed to output low resolutions and struggles to even play a YouTube video. Even though the R710 has free PCIE slots, they are only x8. Now, Dell did sell x16 risers, but they are hard to find and expensive. So we…

ThinkPad T420 easy hinge repair

Mechanical, , ,
So one day I noticed a gap on the left side of the screen of my ThinkPad T420. Upon further investigation as you see from the pics above the hinge broke, specifically one of the pins that holds the bar to the hinge. Resulting in higher forces being applied to the threaded inserts, detaching them from their spot. Ideally you would replace the entire hinge, but as iFixit says “Repair is noble” so let’s repair it. Tools & Parts The repair To fix the threaded inserts, I used two component epoxy adhesive (Specifically Bison’s metal epoxy). I threaded the screw…

Making the ultimate IT flash drive multitool

Software, , , , , , ,
In this guide we are going to create a flash drive with pretty much any tool you could need to diagnose and repair a pc as well as other useful tools for your everyday life. You will be able to run diagnostics, install a new OS (windows or Linux), boot into a live Linux environment, fix boot issues, run penetration testing, do data recovery, scan for malware and have a useful suite of programs of all kinds on the go. Selecting the right flash drive For what we are doing you will need a decent flash drive, a capacity of…

Reattaching a broken MiniWare cable type-c connector

Electronics, , , ,
So, i made an oopsie. I dropped my power bank and as murphy’s law commands it fell right on the cable and snapped the connector clean of the cable. And it is a pretty nice cable, insulated with silicon making it heat resistant and pretty flexible. All useful characteristics for a cable used for a soldering iron. So i attempted (successfully) to fix it. Tools needed Soldering iron: Using a fine conical tip is recommended Solder: For the best results use the finest diameter you can find Hot glue gun: A glue that hardens when cured is recommended Heat shrink…