Small high power flashlight, about the size of a tube of m&ms. People laugh at it all the time, but it comes in handy weekly, sometimes daily.

Think of how many times you pull out your credit cell phone light. Now imagine being able to light up a room like daylight if need be. Very useful.

Those same people who laugh, eventually realize the value, and come asking for my light when we’re together and it’s needed

I keep a pair of those loop ones in my backpack for the same reason

Been there, felt the pain

I was reading your post and I briefly thought you were trying to say it IS expensive, not that it is not. And I was like is this guy on crack, cubing is cheap as chips.

Anywho, glad to see I was wrong. I learned cubing at the same time as my buddies kids did, and while I never got faster than I think a minute and a half? They are well under a minute now, it’s crazy.

I still cube occasionally, but mostly just to fidget while watching TV 🤷‍♂️ Also so I don’t forget how to do it.

Goated, that’s what I wasn’t getting, thanks!

Can someone explain please?

This is very insightful, thank you

I used to like the a400, had a few of them in service, but a few years ago I tried another one and it was terrible. Just… Slow… like an HDD. I did some research and apparently they changed something with the nand somewhere along the line. Did a bait and switch. I don’t remember the details but it annoyed me.

I actually needed to buy a budget SSD just today, and I got a BX500. We’ll see how it goes. I know not to expect much from a drive without DRAM, but at least I know that going in.

This happened for me with the scene in one of the new star trek movies where they play beastie boys while busting out of a cloud or something. Idk, it was a really cool scene, but I was mad that I’d already seen it in the trailer. It’s ludicrous. I still complain about it to my wife to this day.

Yes.

Thanks, I guess I still don’t understand though.

I see now that watts and therefore kW are rates. So it’s silly to add another rate to the end by appending “per hour”. But what is the time component of the watt calculation? To me it’s essentially instantaneous, even if that’s wrong. Even if that breaks the math, it’s still essentially true on a macro scale. And if it’s instantaneous, or even just close like microseconds, then it doesn’t hurt to apend another rate to the end, does it?

So why not use it? Batteries come with capacities rated in Wh and kWh, and it weirdly still makes sense to me because of my usage rate per hour example in my last comment.

And if we shouldn’t use it, then what should we use?

Is this problem we’re discussing, one that only occurs if you try to get really accurate with the numbers and times? Because for my uses it’s always seemed to work well enough.

Not being argumentative, just trying to learn, thanks

Wait wait Wait, can you give me more on this kWh thing? I thought I understood this already.

A single kW is a unit of power, literally 1000 watts.

A kWh is a unit of energy, as in stored or delivered. Draw 500 watts for 2 hours? That’s a kWh. Or have a battery that can hold 1 kWh, then assuming 100% efficiency you could draw 1000 watts from it for an hour before it was empty.

All of this is kW times hour, I would say? But in my mind I would interchangeably say per hour as well, they feel the same.

Obviously I’m wrong, but I’d like to know why lol

Thanks!

Hmmm that sounds like it might have been deoxit. It’s worth trying again, but it can only do so much, eventually the resistive track just wears away.

If you need to solder in replacements, I wrote up a short starter suggestion comment elsewhere in this thread.

Glad I could help! It’s a skill to learn like anything else, but once you get the hang of it, it’s super easy 👍👍

I have a 600w ham radio amplifier from the 60s. It’s a Heathkit SB-200

I’m very proud of it because I bought it in rough condition, and repaired it myself. Replaced all the leaky capacitors and did some other work in there. Now it runs like a dream! It was my first time working with tube gear. The voltages in these things is 2500 volts, that’ll kill you dead before you know what happened.

I also have an SB-220 that I got broken. I fixed it up but didn’t do a full rebuild on it. It’ll do 1200 watts, but I don’t need that much power so I haven’t used it much. It’s in storage. That one is from the late 60s early 70s.

My next oldest device is also ham radio gear, a Kenwood TS-530S from the 80s. There’s a lot of solid state stuff inside, plenty of transistors doing all the work. But the final output stage is still a good ole pair of tubes. I bought this in non working condition, and fixed it myself as well. Good fun!

I have a 2600 that needs the same treatment, haven’t gotten to it

Did you try cleaning them with deoxit? That stuff works wonders on crunchy pots. Might be an easy fix!

Open it up and see if any of the capacitors are leaking! Soldering is a great skill to learn and you can fix it yourself.

The biggest problem people have is buying a bad soldering iron that gets way too hot. You can get an excellent iron for only 10 or 20 dollars more than the garbage out there. I used to recommend the TS-100, because that’s what I use and love, and they used to be way cheaper. The TS-80 was an upgrade to that, which was also nice but I never liked. If you’ve got the money, I still recommend them. However for the budget minded, the pinecil is almost the exact same thing, it’s well made, and it’s still like $30-40 bucks. In fact some people prefer it over the others. You can power it with a beefy USB-C charger if you have one, or an old laptop charger if you want to cut up the end and put a barrel jack on it. The thing pulls about 90 watts at full tilt, but only for brief periods.

Next you want to buy yourself some practice boards, you can get soldering kits from AliExpress that will let you build little flashing trees and hearts and stuff. Or even small handheld games if you’re getting better at soldering.

Then you watch YouTube tutorials, find several. You want to focus on quick work, at low ish temps like 280C, keep the tip clean, and flux is your friend. The very tippy tip of your iron should always be shiny, if it starts turning black, it’s building oxides from being too hot and not enough flux. Clean that thing with flux. If you leave it that way too long you’ll ruin it, that’s why most people struggle to solder.

Then once you’ve learned, and you’re ready to go. Watch YouTube videos on fixing the Xbox, buy the caps, crack that thing open and have fun. Caps aren’t that hard to replace, compared to other soldering projects. You’ll do fine 👍

Ham here too, what practical uses have you found? Mine is sitting in a box, I got it almost a year ago and haven’t checked the latest firmware or apps in almost that long.