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Alroh 28BCT Nip and Tuck

I’ve been fortunate to be able to get my hands on an old large mower for $200 AUD. Where I live this is very rare. One that barely works, or might only have 1 season left on it’s reel, starts around $750. This is going to be a little weird as I bought it when I was going through some stuff and yes it was my emotional support mower. This is by far the widest lawn mower I own. I gave ‘her’ the personality of a THICC older lady who’s “seen some things” while trying to make ends meet. That statement explains “Nip and Tuck” in the title. Is that weird? Probably…I present to you < drum roll > Bertha Bertha is an “Alroh 28BCT” – 28 inch cutting reel, and BCT I think stands… Read More »Alroh 28BCT Nip and Tuck

Pioneer VSX-330-K – Stuck in Standby

This AVR was a quick pickup from Market Place for free. It was advertised as “Was working fine until other day when the standby light was just blinking red.” A closer look revealed it wasn’t a standby light, it was a flashing HDMI LED. From the service manual: The two keys it’s mentions are [ADVANCED SURROUND] and [STANDBY/ON] keys – Press and hold the keysfor 2 seconds, it then sprung back to life and displayed audio volume. Compared to the Pioneer SC-2022 the feel of the controls on the front appear cheaper and not as refined.

Denon AVR-2310 – No Audio

The Denon AVR-2310 was $30. The symptoms were no audio, but all else works fine. I tried a CD and DVD, the display indicated the change in detected audio formats, but there was no sound. I would have tried the tuner but for some reason there doesn’t appear to be a way to change source to the tuner unless you have the remote. I removed the top cover and used an air compressor to blow all the dust out. I read online to pay particular attention to the headphone jack when there is no audio. Put it back together and it started with no issues. Watched a few movies and the sound was excellent. I do note it wasn’t very loud until I turned all the filters off like Dynamic volume, Dynamic EQ and Audyssey… Read More »Denon AVR-2310 – No Audio

Yamaha RX-A740 – Power issues

The Yamaha RX-A740 was my first real electrical challenge that wasn’t already published online. It took the longest to fix, and I ended up buying 2 additional Yamaha receivers for parts. Purchase price was $30. Technically: +$10 +$20 for the additional receivers but more on that later… This receiver was hit and miss – it could work for an unknown amount of time or not work at all. To diagnose it, I made sure it was off and drained of power, reconnect power cable, hold Tone Control and Info, then press power/main zone. This displayed “PS3 PRT:131 L”, then turned off. After consulting the service manual (very easy to find). Sometimes I’d get 5-10 minutes before it died. I ran heat test to see if it made it worse. It, infact did not, and when… Read More »Yamaha RX-A740 – Power issues

Pioneer SC-2022 – EU22 Error

The Pioneer SC-2022 receiver was the first of many audio receivers I’ve purchased broken and then fixed.The fault of this receiver was “intermittent audio”. When I picked up the amp, it was very clean with remote, manuals and setup microphone. It was also the most expensive at $50 AUD. The unit powered and ran fine for the first day, then was moved into the TV cabinet. It was this movement that triggered the instant stopping of all audio and displaying the error “EU22” Thankfully it’s a fairly common problem and I had researched the symptoms before I bought it. If you search the internet for Pioneer and EU22 you’ll find many posts and the solution most of the time is to go at the DTS chip with hot air gun. The hot air gun I… Read More »Pioneer SC-2022 – EU22 Error

Batocera and LCDProc

To finish off a retro PC running Batocera, I purchased a second hand Alutek case. There isn’t a lot of information about it online any more, but I did find this page from 2007. The case comes with an Imon VFD which I wanted to utilize but Batocera doesn’t come with LCDProc installed. I’ve not had much experience with Arch Linux, but thankfully the Batocera team have a very helpful page dedicated to recompiling it from source. The source I compiled was from version 38 and after a trial run I had to upgrade the host to Ubuntu 22.04, after that upgrade the guide worked mostly flawlessly. The stock ‘.config’ worked well and installed on the host PC fine. When I made modifications there was issues with drivers – the USB keyboard would be detected… Read More »Batocera and LCDProc

Mystery Auction 2022

After some poor auction bids I ended up with two boxes, one of very old computer cards and one with 4 single board computers – which is what drew me to it. In the box with the cards, most of the interesting ones looked like they had been damaged. The single board computers were four somewhat identical motherboards with TFT LCD’s , 2.5 inch IDE hard drives, GSM modules and some basic I/O ports. After checking the larger and older cards, there was nothing that could be saved, it looked like they had something large dropped on them. From what I can tell they were custom cards that plug into a back plane that acts as a bus between them. The only chip of value I found was an Intel MG80C186XL-20 which was apparently military… Read More »Mystery Auction 2022

LinuxCNC and Tuya Smart Plugs

It has been a long wait to have automatic dust extraction on my PrintNC. It comprises of two elements: An extractor – to replace the 20-30 year old Vax/Bunnings bucket combo, and a smart plug to have it automatically turning it on and off. The Extractor The extractor was purchased second hand at a great price ($50AUD). The 5 inch nozzle was reduced to 4 inches, mainly because of the price of 5 inch PVC pipe. The flexible tube is 100mm Ag pipe. I had initially planned to use all Ag pipe, but there was performance issues during testing when using long lengths of it. Automation – Tuya Smart Plug To turn the extractor on and off I purchased a Powertech Smart Plug from Jaycar on sale ($19AUD). My researched shows it was based on… Read More »LinuxCNC and Tuya Smart Plugs

V-Carve Inlay with Estlcam – Solved

I’ve wanted to do some wooden inlays for a while. I’m reluctant to learn any new software since Estlcam has been awesome to use for everything else. I’m sure there will be a need to move on at some point, but that time is not today 🙂 I did buy a month subscription for Carveco to complete an inlay, but it turns out I didn’t need it. I found a way to perform the same functions in Estlcam. By following most of this tutorial for Carveco, I was able to use the same basic idea in Estlcam. The basics behind why it works: WARNING – Manually start your spindle before starting the male carving as its “Start layer” is 5mm below the timber surface. If needed, add a have a small shape to mill at… Read More »V-Carve Inlay with Estlcam – Solved

PrintNC – CNC

For those not familiar with the PrintNC project: Home page, Wiki. This has been a project that’s been in design and construction for over a year. Main delays have were due to shipping, manufacturing and poor quality replacements, over all poor communication from vendors, but mostly the reluctance to spend the money – What can I say, I’m cheap 🙂 This CNC was (as it is for many) to replace my MP-CNC that has been mostly unreliable and needed another rebuild. It got to the point the mancave was getting so hot, that plastic parts under tension were warping over time. For the record, it was 52 degrees C this summer. Design and Purchase I went with the default size as it gives me about the same size of work area as the MP-CNC for… Read More »PrintNC – CNC