salvagedcircuit

I occasionally take this approach, but it's a chore to scrub through a few hours' long video to find the right frame. It can save your bacon though! I filmed some teardown shots when I repaired an alexa mini. That is a true masterpiece of a camera :D

That sounds like fun. I took a few courses in optics because I wanted to explore the art of lens making. Hats off to you sir!

The Nikon AI/AI-S era lenses are fun to repair, but this sigma was not too bad. I've repaired some very intricate panasonic / olympus consumer lenses that were far more complex.

Thanks for stopping by! :D

Thanks for the kind words!

Thanks for the input about Rodico! It sounds pretty useful. I've used mounting putty / blue-tack when assembling PCBs, but not much more than that. I've seen the card board trick used many times to ease in painting engine valve cover bolts.

A large focus throw and more importantly, focus consistency, is paramount for cinema lenses. When you rack focus, the lens needs to show the same field of view every time, no questions asked. The early red pro cinema lenses had a design flaw where the focus rings would come loose over time and ruin shots. Someone clearly forgot the threadlocker.

Indeed! I've had the privilege and honor of collimating a Cooke s4i. It's a thing of beauty, joy forever.

Thanks! After many lens teardowns with screws of varying lengths and magnetism, tape is truly king!

If companies could just distribute the repair manuals I'd be happy as a clam :D I'm all for automated repair!

Thanks for the kind words! The ifixit screwdrivers I linked are JIS compatible.

Thanks! The repair was a bit involved and drawn out, but well worth it :D

I just revived a 1990s Millport CNC mill from a non-functioning brick to a floppy-wielding chip thrower. I detailed the troubleshooting process and PCB level repairs needed to make this DOS based servo-drive CNC shift some 1s and 0s and throw chips again.

Looks like a very clever project. Terasic makes some nice dev boards. Best of luck to you Dean!

Neat. Too add a few: Blackmagic Davinci Resolve is a free alternative to Adobe Premiere, but limited to 1080p exports (not a big deal for most). Dia works as a partial alternative to Microsoft project. Kicad PCB is an excellent alternative to eagle. FreeCAD is a free CAD package as well.

How do you have an article about commuting into NYC without even mentioning Long Island or the Long Island Rail Road? 0_____0

It's a DVR! No, it's a DTV box! No, it's a HTPC! Seriously, it baffles the mind that you can patent a box that features a few standardized ports. Zac has been on a roll lately looking at patents. The surface duo 3 patent hinted at a very funky stand / magnetic attachment system:

https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/surface/this-is-micr...

Incredible. Server and compute costs continue to plummet yet keeping an archive around is a financial burden. Sadness.

This would be a warm welcome to the frigid waters of the phone industry. Now force the OEMs to release all radio related firmware for each phone too, and we can finally own our phones again. I'm not too old to remember completely unlocked, feature complete CyanogenMod android phones. LineageOS is completely useless without VoLTE support.

This guy is the right kind of crazy. This is truly what the internet was made for: sharing our outlandish, over-the-top projects with others. Awesome writeup!

There's always more to discover! Thanks for the kind words.

Thanks for the input! That is a pretty reasonable conclusion. I was surprised there was no mention of wear leveling or garbage collection in any of the spear documentation when that's essentially assumed today. Wild.

Thanks! You sir are correct. I must have been rambling too much on a side tangent. I'll fix this shortly. Optical encoders are most excellent.

Woah, thanks for the comparison. I'm a huge fan of the signal path and marco reps, but I don't think I've gone that far down the volt nut path yet. Maybe I need to fix up a broken 3458a for my next writeup :D

Thanks. I like to keep things lightweight :D

Absolutely! I find repair to be therapeutic at times, like repairing a stuck or dirty 1970s film camera lens. It's usually a straight forward repair, it just takes a bunch of patience and attention to detail. This repair was far more complicated than that, but it was worthwhile to get another instrument working around the lab.

Thanks!

Thanks! It was well worth it :D