Recently I discovered how handy a small and inexpensive tablet can be for stuff like reading e-books or connecting to Bluetooth serial for debugging embedded applications. Not quite sure how much I actually needed it and didn’t want to spend much on a new tablet, I came across a bulk listing of 10 faulty Google… Continue reading Flashing (unofficial) LineageOS 20 on a 11-year old tablet (Google Nexus 7 2013)
Troubleshooting Slow Read Speeds from LTFS Volumes on Windows 10
Background A while ago, I got two LTO-6 tape drives for practically free (previous post here). Since then, I’ve been using them for archival storage of video files. I chose LTFS for its open format and independence of backup software, and I’ve been using it on my primary PC running Windows 10. To make sure… Continue reading Troubleshooting Slow Read Speeds from LTFS Volumes on Windows 10
Troubleshooting a Failed Import in a Pyinstaller Build
Introduction In late 2020 – early 2021 I wrote an inventory system in Python for the Formula SAE team I was in (GitHub link to the project). To make distribution easier, I used Pyinstaller to compile the Python program into a binary executable for Windows. The setup worked on several different PCs that don’t have… Continue reading Troubleshooting a Failed Import in a Pyinstaller Build
Turning an HP BL460c Gen8 Server Blade into a PC
In a previous post, I wrote about getting an HP server blade and getting it to work without a blade centre. In this post, I’ll document what I did to turn the setup into a self-contained PC. Chassis Build Firstly, I needed to house everything together in a strong enough structure. I chose the 2020… Continue reading Turning an HP BL460c Gen8 Server Blade into a PC
Running an HP BL460c Gen8 Server Blade Without the Enclosure
Introduction A few months ago, while browsing a computers auction store as usual I noticed a $1 reserve server blade – the HP BL460c Gen 8, with two E5 2640 v2 CPUs. That looks like a good deal to me! I got to know about blade servers when I was looking at getting some cheap… Continue reading Running an HP BL460c Gen8 Server Blade Without the Enclosure
Weekend Build: Simple High Voltage Feedback Circuit
Warning: working with high voltage like this is dangerous. This post is just for documenting my work and sharing knowledge. It is never intended as a tutorial. Introduction Recently, I had the need for an isolated 400V source for testing some circuits, and it needed to be ready in a weekend. I had a simple… Continue reading Weekend Build: Simple High Voltage Feedback Circuit
HP T610 Thin Client Mods and BIOS Dump
Earlier this year I discovered used thin clients as a source for cheap, low-power computer hardware. They are designed to be low power and low performance, only enough for being used as a remote desktop client. But under the hood, they’re mostly just standard low-power computers that can run any OS. In where I am… Continue reading HP T610 Thin Client Mods and BIOS Dump
LTO Tape Drive Repair
Background My partner is into video content creation as a hobby, so there’s a need for us to store many gigabytes of video files. I’ve been achieving this by having the files stored in used hard drives. I used them as cold storage, putting them on an HDD docking station and copying files over. I… Continue reading LTO Tape Drive Repair
Hello world!
A personal blog has long been something I wanted to have but never high enough on my list of things to do. Recently, I realised this may be a great medium to document my various projects, big or small, from time to time. It’ll probably also be great to document some of my hardware “hacking”… Continue reading Hello world!