#hardware hacks

[techav]

If It's a Hack and It Works, Is It Really a Hack?

I have a couple servers at home — one running Proxmox VE and one running Proxmox Backup. I use the VM server when I need to spin up a development environment, for running the odd game server, serving files locally, running Home Assistant, etc. I also like to donate spare cycles to Folding@Home. The backup server of course is in case I do something stupid on the VM server.

There's just one problem with that. My second-hand 8-year-old dual-Xeon server runs hot.

It was too much to keep running in my home office. Between the two servers, my desktop, and my work laptop, I was regularly seeing ambient temperatures around 26°C. It was just too warm for comfort.

Last summer I moved my network gear and the two servers into the front coat closet. This was great for me working in my home office, but not so great for my servers. Despite adding a passthrough vent to the closet door and a vent fan to the ceiling, the closet was still consistently in the 26°-30°C range.

The ideal solution would probably be to use an enclosed server rack and run an exhaust vent up from the top. Unfortunately, rack-mount server cases are expensive, enclosed racks are very expensive, and my closet is too small for that anyway.

So I hacked together a solution.

I built a frame out of some cheap 1x2 lumber and wrapped a piece of thin sheet steel around the sides to make a crude plenum. On top, I added a 10x6 register box with a semirigid vent hose coming out of it. This gives me a guide for drawing air out of the servers and guiding it up to the vent fan in the ceiling.

To help things along, I added a 120mm fan inside the register box. But not some whisper-quiet Noctua. This is (if the Amazon listing is to be believed) a 5000 RPM, 210 CFM monster of a fan. It's loud, but moves a lot of air.

Too loud in fact. Its droning could not be silenced by any mere closet door. I had to add a PWM fan speed controller to calm it down. It's a cheap unit from Amazon, but it came with a temperature probe and it has a configurable operating range.

The result? Where previously the entire closet was consistently above 26°C, now it's staying around 23°. There is a difference of 5°C between ambient in the closet and the air inside the exhaust duct, so it is doing its job of redirecting the hot air from the servers.

I call that a successful hack.

[b3aches]

Wii Eshop theme on motherboard error piezo speaker - Michael's Hardware

[mirqmarq428]

Unicron has a separate USB pci card, but it wasn't transferring data.

The only ports that work are on the outside of the computer.

So what I did is remove the card and route the USB cables thru the hole to the external ports.

[scipunk]

Paranoia 1.0 AKA One Point O (2004)

[adafruit]

FruitJam 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 🎮🕹️💾🍊

We're working on getting some fun emulators ported to the FruitJam

. Of course, we wanted to start with the C64, so when we found the MCUME

emulator project with many retro machines already done and ported to popular microcontrollers, we got right to checking it out! Here, Jepler is testing out the C64 with video output on HSTX. Next up is the keyboard, but for now, it's fun to test out the famous 10 print… goto 10 script

and watch the vibes generate.

[cyle]

i made a little desktop unix epoch clock. 3d printed the stand for it but it didn’t quite work out how i hoped.

[eclysia]

replaying sm as soon as i can get a damn screwdriver

@angeallen on the left

[ragsy]

anyway i swept the leaves out of my garage and built a shelf and those two actions were enough to leave me too tired to do anything about the fact that now there are two shelves in my room that only has room for one of them

[numbpill]

need a bit of advice on something rather new to me... i have been DYING to get into some semblance of diy electronics/robotics, specifically regarding the idea of building a flipper zero knockoff with a raspberry pi/esp32/arduino. or a hack rf one ripoff, etc. u get it? i wanna make a lil handheld pwnagotchi pet style device for rolljam rf shit, something that can copy and paste and send and receive rf signals, but homemade by my self....

please if anyone has experience, resources, ideas, anything at all= hit me up right now immediately asap today please.... i am so passionate and ready to do this please help me make device go beepboop

[raintheghost]

Whenever I feel bad I treat myself to sugar. Got Milk? Throw in a few teaspoons in there. Tea? Although sacrilegious, I do it anyways. Sometimes I’ll just have a teaspoon of sugar straight up.

Is it healthy? Hell nah, there’s more than enough sugar in other things I consume . But does it make me feel better? Yeah. And if it works, it works.

[spaceintruderdetector]

[mentalanguish]

[adafruit]

USB-C "Fixer" for Missing CC Pins 🔌⚡🛠️

We have a few devices missing the 5.1K resistors on the CC pins, which frustratingly don't work with Mac computers or certain smart USB-C power supplies. To solve this, we designed a small adapter that combines our sunken USB socket

and USB plug breakout

This handy USB-C "fixer" adds the necessary CC resistors and includes a power-good LED indicator. It passes standard USB 2.0 signals (5V, GND, D+, D-) and fits onto any USB-C cable end, ensuring compatibility with a wider range of devices.

[haveyouplayedthisgame]

Rhythm Heaven Fever

[cyle]

just another wild hardware hacking prototype for fun. now i know why nobody uses white PCBs, the solder burns are super obvious and painful to look at.

[pumpkinsplicelatte]

I don't know who needs to hear this but:

Restart your computer.

Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone but if you're having computer trouble restart it. It solves like 90% of computer problems because the computer will forget what the problem was and go back to being normal.