Are You All Geniuses or Idiots? - Reacting to Your Best Tech MacGyvering

[Plouffe]

We wanted to check out the r/techsupportmacgyver sub-reddit to find out just how savvy the tech community is. Necessity is the mother of invention, but it's not always a good excuse.

 

 

[BaidDSB]

when did LTT become linus react tips?

 

 

[Dutch_Master]

I don't mind. Yet.

[paul_bace]

Figured out my 20v Power Tool batteries would directly power my monitor in my DIY van build. So reverse engineered an old charger base to connect the batteries when using. 5ah battery is good for about 2.5hours. Have several.

 

 

[Zarkaram]

We used these to charge extra Lenovo T560 batteries for 3 different areas for our Respiratory Therapist at the Hospital I work for.  They wanted to use 15" laptops for their carts that they round with, but they had issues with getting the laptops to last all day (of course). The T560's have an internal battery and an external battery so as long as your internal battery had enough power you could swap the battery without turning off the laptop. 

 

 

I had searched for charging stations that could charge spare batteries, but the only ones I could find were around $5k USD a piece and charged 15 batteries. We didn't need to charge 15 batteries and need to have them in 3 different areas of the hospital. So the next closest thing I could find was an external charger for T410/20 and t510/20 batteries. The contact points for the batteries lined up but not the way they were being held. So I modified the charging docks cutting in the front off and had our research institute come up with and 3D print holders for the batteries. One of the maintenance workers built the boxes to hold 2 docks per box. 

 

These were in use for Feb 2018 until August of 2024 when the laptops were replaced.

 

The price per box came in around $150 USD

 

 

 

[monopoly_hater]

What happened to the tech tips?

[mini-z1994]

I do like the DIY stuff done from home here as well, either repairs or making something myself for a purpose & sometimes just too see if that idea works or to have something to do.

Like going up in fan size on my Gigabyte 1660 super with some zipties, de-shrouding the cards heatsink & a gpu to pwm adapter from phobya (think it was spelled that way.)
Original ones had started to sound pretty bad on the bearings so swapped them out with some arctic p12 PST 120mm fans with a max speed of 1500 rpm.
And they have a pigtail so you can hook up multiple fans together.
Which was perfect for this & they happened to be cheap as well at the time, think both of them cost me like 12 usd in total & the vga to pwm adapter was like 10$ as well.

Or what i did a few months back to test out a Vintage Tamiya Boomerang a bit, i may have posted this previously on here or another forum probably.
Battery is zip tied on top of the car because the 8.4v hump pack doesn't fit in the buggy, ESC just hanging out the side there & same with the receiver but it was enough to make it run at least up & down the street a bit.

This one is still underway as i haven't ordered the parts needed to renovate it to a more restored state, chassis has cracked the front bumper mounts which is why it's missing in that picture & the mounts are cracked on the bumper too.

3rd pic is me trying a heatsink on another card to make a silent card for troubleshooting before i got hold of some better passive cards.
Which was a nvidia 8300 gs which I'd say is more of a display adapter then a video card.
Came across a dead ati x1600 from HIS with an arctic vga silencer gpu cooler.

HIS used it a lot back in the day & its UV reactive those coolers plastic shrouds whenever you come across one of their earlier cards, Turning that heatsink sideways made for a good passive heatsink rather then that tiny fan as well.

4th is self explanatory really. i think about 12 small zipties 2x 120mm 3000 rpm fans & a pair of pringles cans, already had powersupply powered externally for another set of fans on a fan controller, though those 3000 rpm fans were a bit too noisy for me so this got broken down again.

5th pic i discovered the cable guys tails i had bought to hold my phone when on charge at my desk & as cheap Game merch.
Also holds 2 zip tied 120mm fans pretty well, used this all summer basically.
Works great as long as you don't move the desk too much.

[GarlicDeliverySystem]

2 hours ago, Dutch_Master said:

I don't mind. Yet.

The "yet" might be good feedback.

Personally, I kinda like these pure react episodes as a change of pace, though specifically because they are out of the norm and something different. So please don't overdo or constantly make these, they are only fun in small doses every now and then.

[Needfuldoer]

I've actually modded a remote control very similar to the one at around 8 minutrs in! At work we have a ton of wall-mounted TVs  and they're all Samsung, so they all use the same remote. Some of them are in arrays right next to each other, more than 25 feet off the floor. (Seriously, Samsung remotes are considered contraband because someone could be shockingly inconvenient with just one.)

 

It has a piece of stiff heat shrink over the IR LED to turn it into the sniper rifle of remote controls. Now you have to very deliberately aim it directly at the receiver on the intended TV, or it doesn't work.

 

Then I went a step further and put a very commonly used connector between the remote and LED, so we could disconnect it, put a video cable in the middle, and attach the LED to the end of something like an extension pole. Thankfully this hasn't been necessary yet, but it's nice to know it could work if we needed it to.

[Inskipp]

Needed audio on a Pi Zero W one time:

Needed a display for my stereo after it's display stopped working (had an old laptop that didn't work anymore):


I needed a functional mouse in a pinch but only had basic components and a NodeMCU:

The top row of buttons controls the cursor (up,down,left,right) and the bottom is for clicks (left,right) and scrolling (up,down). I couldn't figure out a layout to fit a 9th button on for middle clicks though.

[maplepants]

On 10/6/2024 at 7:30 AM, Inskipp said:

Needed audio on a Pi Zero W one time:
[removed for space: an audio setup that is both ugly and beautiful]

I love this!

[nether1234]

On 10/5/2024 at 12:41 PM, BaidDSB said:

when did LTT become linus react tips?

 

 

These videos get just as many views and requite A LOT less work on LMGs side. I enjoy these videos every now and then.

[LMGcommunity]

On 10/5/2024 at 9:41 AM, BaidDSB said:

when did LTT become linus react tips?

 

 

I looked into this, and we've uploaded 11 react videos since July last year. It doesn't take much searching to see that we don't do these as often as some may think.

[Needfuldoer]

15 minutes ago, LMGcommunity said:

I looked into this, and we've uploaded 11 react videos since July last year. It doesn't take much searching to see that we don't do these as often as some may think.

So you have enough to make a "top 10 Linus reacts videos" video... 

[BaidDSB]

18 hours ago, LMGcommunity said:

I looked into this, and we've uploaded 11 react videos since July last year. It doesn't take much searching to see that we don't do these as often as some may think.

ok then. count from july 22 to july 23 and get back to me.

 

i can bet its less than 1/3rd of that.

[Tridefender]

Your case is 37mm limited but your heater is 47mm

Solution: buy Hexagonal Copper Columns of 10mm instead of throwing away the case.

The dangling 4 pin is synced CPU fan for extra cooling, seen it's such a small case

[aminit]

On 10/8/2024 at 11:24 AM, BaidDSB said:

ok then. count from july 22 to july 23 and get back to me.

 

i can bet its less than 1/3rd of that.

"ok then. count from july 22 to july 23 and get back to me.

 

i can bet its than more 2/3rd of that."

 

but seriously though as someone who watch ltt videos your bet seems way way off, are you sure about that?

[Luis Capobianco]

I created a router rack out of legos.