Jump to content

ManWithBeard1990

Member
  • Posts

    2,097
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by ManWithBeard1990

  1. My favourite way to do it is to simply have a potentiometer and an N-channel MOSFET. It doesn't go all the way up to 12V (MOSFETs have a threshold voltage. It varies how much exactly, the ones I have happen to be 3V). The MOSFET acts as a source follower to the potentiometer's output, providing a stable voltage source that doesn't fluctuate much under varying current. Like this: If you want to get closer to 12V you could also use an NPN transistor as an emitter follower. They typically have a threshold voltage of around 0.7V EDIT: If you want to control them using a microcontroller it's best to just use a PWM output. Just because the fan isn't a PWM fan doesn't mean it can't be controlled that way, it's just that PWM fans have a separate PWM wire that tells them how fast the computer wants them to go instead of simply turning it on and off really quickly. But PWMing a cheap fan often works just as well as doing it with a normal electric motor. The only problem with that is that you can't use the tach sensor while the power is off IIRC. Just hook it up like you would with a regular DC motor.
  2. Apart from the SD card reader (although you could add one separately if you wanted to I think) the Velleman Vertex K8400 is mechanically very similar to the Ultimaker, but much cheaper. I've seen it at work at my local fablab and was very impressed with what it could do that my K8200 can't.
  3. Also,an advantage the jack has that USB doesn't is that it can somewhat act as a strain relief: suppose you have headphones with an anled connector, as many of them do, the connector can spin in the jack because it's round. Puts way less stress on the jack and the PCB. There's no way they can make the USB-C connector as durable as that, being mashed about in your pockets all the time it'll fail eventually. Remember it's about the same size as micro-USB which has a poor reputation already. C is supposed to be more durable but time will tell. I doubt it can surpass the good old 3.5 mm plug.
  4. For anything Intel since Sandy or Ivy Bridge, Prime95 is actually not that great for stresstesting. These CPUs will add about 100 mV extra when a lot of AVX instructions are used, and while that is a worst-case scenario in terms of heat, it's also an unrealistic one. General-use applications don't stress that part of the CPU that heavily.
  5. Well, a pair of headphones is an inherently analog thing. I can't see why the analog nature of the 3.5mm jack is a problem. Simplicity is a virtue, not a weakness.
  6. So I came back from the laser cutting place (FabLab, Leuven). I have all the parts I need. What you see here is a mockup of the bare frame of the case: at the momenty it's all held together with nothing but the fact that its parts interlock like a jigsaw puzzle. In fact, you can pick the thing up by those handles and it doesn't fall apart -it's designed not to- , but I'll still be gluing it all in place. Some parts still don't quite fit but nothing that can't be fixed with ordinary hand tools. Suffice it to say I don't have to go back there
  7. Must be the HGST harddrive which I carried over from my broken 2007 MacBook pro. Unless the 80's stereo counts which is technically also part of that system.
  8. Okay, it's time for a first look at the bits I got from the laser cutter. It's still very much "some assembly required" at this stage and some parts I've checked already don't quite fit so I'll have to go back tomorrow morning to do it properly. No mistakes this time around.
  9. Update: Cutting is coming along nicely. Apart from the modifications above, I've added double glazing on the side panel, held on by screws this time instead of glue, and a better flowing dust filter. I also made the side panels removeable from their hinges; weirdly I didn't bother doing that on the original and it would make building inside it a lot easier, I would think. I've already got a small stack of wood sitting in my room from yesterday, but today, I'm back for more. It's first come, first served here, so it'll be quite the wait before it's my turn again. Oh well, such is life.
  10. Gentlemen, it's happening: I have a week off work and I'm building a new version of my scratchbuilt case I made two years ago. I love it, it was a really good first attempt... but it wasn't without its faults so now, I'm going to rectify these problems. For the original one you can check my signature. Here's a short list of what's been changed from last time: -support for three 140mm intake fans instead of four 120mms -support for an additional 140mm intake fan in the bottom instead of two 120mm exhausts -an attempt to support up to eATX motherboards, and also a Raspberry Pi -a dedicated fan mount for cooling motherboard VRMs -two 120mm exhaust fan mounts in the rear instead of one -moved PSU down to the bottom of the case instead of the top -much better sound mufflers (hopefully; time will tell) -support for up to 24 SSDs (not that I will use that many obviously but this is just for giggles) -watercooling support for a 420mm, a 140mm, a 280mm and a 240mm radiator simultaneously (will be aircooling for the foreseeable future though) -support for adding an SD card reader. Trust me, this thing is going to be just as big as the last one, which comfortably outsizes a Corsair Obsidian 900D. And almost entirely made of MDF. I'm at the FabLab right now waiting for one of the laser cutters to become available Stay tuned.
  11. That's way too weak a CPU for the GPU you're putting in there, and it's also old-fashioned. Even lacking any L3 cache the 860K will probably have similar or better performance but with Minecraft (especially modded) being predominantly dependent on single-threaded performance Intel is really the way to go. A GPU that powerful even with nice shaders is overkill and to be frank while in DirectX it's usually pretty close AMD has tended to largely ignore OpenGL performance so perhaps an nVidia GPU might be better for Minecraft anyway.
  12. I own a Velleman K8200. It's finnicky at first but once you get it going it kicks ass. It comes as a kit so how well it performs is somewhat up to you but I have mine running pretty well. I did put some steel wire on to brace the frame to stop vibrations from being transmitted to the gantry at high print speeds, but the gantry itself is quite robust. This makes it so that it can not only be used for 3D printing, but you could easily affix a rotary tool to it and have a CNC mill. It also has a heated bed, which is handy. I believe you could find it for as little as 450 euros nowadays although I paid about 550 at the time.
  13. Realistically drones that aren't electronically restricted should have the same transponders on board that aircraft do, so they can be tracked. They should be flown in the same style and with the same prudence and responsibility as piloted aircraft, making sure their flight plans don't interfere with others. At these heights, these things are no longer toys. I still don't think the really tiny plastic toy ones can do that much damage though. Not in such a way that the plane can't land safely, at least. As for Space Shutle Columbia, yes it was brought down by a piece of foam. A frozen, ice-covered suitcase-sized piece of foam at Mach 2 that would have been destructive to almost anything it hits. And yet the shuttle seemed fine leaving the atmosphere. It did however have a big hole in it that the heat of reentry could get into, and that brought the demise of this fine spacecraft, and her brave crew.
  14. Sure you can. The low-end hardware needed for a NAS doesn't run you much money at all. You could go with an Intel Bay Trail board for not much money or grab an AMD AM1-based platform for usually even less. Combined with a (really) cheap case, low-end but still decent PSU and a little bit of RAM, that should leave you with enough money left to grab a couple of hard drives. For the really low-end stuff it's not easy to beat the prebuilts though.
  15. Not really. Obviously the same presssure will apply to both so as long as that's somewhat matched it's alright. It's not critical though because you'd never run your case at a pressure that by definition the fan creates when no air is allowed to flow. If anything fans with a mismatched RPM or amount of blades will produce a noise pattern that's altogether more broadband than two identical ones, and might be less irritating to listen to. I'd say don't worry about it.
  16. That's good to hear. When the 4.2 kernel shipped with 15.10, the AMD drivers didn't like it very much. That and I'm still warming up to Plasma 5.
  17. There are adapters but as there are no moving parts it's not critical to mount them all that securely. In a pinch, some duct tape will do the trick. Unless of course you mean mSATA or M.2, then you'll need a motherboard that can take one.
  18. You know, these old macs are much more difficult to make boot from the floppy then they are now. Pressing C isn't it, that was introduced later with the CD-drive equipped Macs. Command-option-shift-delete might do it on some older macs but the LC is so old it might not be one of them.
  19. Yeah I haven't been very happy with 15.10 either. Holding off on upgrading my desktop until support for the newer kernel is a little better.
  20. Kubuntu is a good one. Linux Mint KDE is vaguely similar. I've always been a KDE guy myself so I'd always recommend those two. Xfce is also really good so Xubuntu is worth a try.
  21. Seems like a good idea. I guess it would be really cool if you could somehow fit a fan that's almost as big as the inner diameter of the wheel. Not sure how you'd go about it though.
  22. Didn't realise it was for a rad. For radiators Noctua NF-F12 are probably the best but as a budget option the Bitfenix Spectre (non-pro) is probably not bad (though possibly a little slow for radiator duty)
  23. If you can make it fit, the Thermalright TY147-A is extraordinary value for money. It's slightly bigger than a 140mm fan but actually has 120mm mounting holes. It's similar in design and performance to the Noctua NF-A15, the main difference being the fact that Noctua uses the SSOP bearing, in effect a proprietary variant of the dluid dynamic bearing, and the Thermalright uses ball bearings, I believe. I have the higher speed TY143-variant and those too are excellent, although not quite what you're looking for.
  24. I agree. Personally I'm all for nuclear powerplants because the infractructure to make it work is easier, since there is no need to store energy for the night, but from a power production perspective, it's entirely feasible with just solar.
×