lightrush

joined 1 year ago
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[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

An army surplus ammo can with its gasket removed.

[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 hours ago

Yeah, if the cells are standard, available and easy to replace and safe if abandoned, it's not a huge deal replacing them every few years.

[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Especially now that NiMH rechargeables are so affordable and power dense.

[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 4 points 16 hours ago

100%. At least Timemore made this scale trivial to open and the cell is not difficult to replace.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/31824976

Lately I've had some obviously inaccurate measurements from my Timemore Black Mirror scale. That would happen occasionally but not always. I was charging it today and as luck would have it, I was sitting beside it. I typically charge it unattended. I noticed that it took a very long time to charge and multiple times it seemed to restart charging. I grabbed it to check the cable and noticed it was quite warm in one spot. I though - that's alright, it's likely where the battery cell is, it's charging, lithium cells get warm during charging. Later I took it off the charger and while handling it I examined the hot spot a bit more. I noticed that when I squeezed the scale at that corner, the top plate wouldn't sink towards the bottom as it does in the other corners. A few mental calculations later I figured this could be a swollen cell that has grown so large that it impacts the plates and doesn't let them come together as they do normally. I took it apart. Lo and behold this spicy pillow:

The marking on it means it's supposed to be 8mm thick. It's currently closer to 12.5mm. Removing the battery allowed the two plates to come together in all corners as normal. That confirmed the hypothesis. Further, the reason why it only occasionally impacted the measurements is likely due to the weight of the cup I was using. When using a lighter cup, the total weight would be lower than needed to get the two plate to touch the battery and produce inaccurate measurement.

I ordered this as a replacement. It fits the dimensions and it's got some safety certification.

To check if your scale is a fire hazard, squeeze this corner:

Normal squeeze action looks like this. Unfortunately I didn't record a video prior to removing the battery.

If it the two plates come together as the do in the other corners, you're probably okay. If the plates don't come nearly as close, you've got an unlit petard in your hands.

[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 6 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

TBH, this is a risk for all "value" devices that don't have to pass NA/EU electrical certification. No cert means the cell can be whatever part was cheap and alright enough. Longer term reliability without specific testing isn't obvious. Every now and then I fall into the rabbit hole of trying to remember all the different devices with potentially questionable cells. The occasion today is likely to trigger another sweep.

[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 3 points 17 hours ago

โšฐ๏ธ

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/31824976

Lately I've had some obviously inaccurate measurements from my Timemore Black Mirror scale. That would happen occasionally but not always. I was charging it today and as luck would have it, I was sitting beside it. I typically charge it unattended. I noticed that it took a very long time to charge and multiple times it seemed to restart charging. I grabbed it to check the cable and noticed it was quite warm in one spot. I though - that's alright, it's likely where the battery cell is, it's charging, lithium cells get warm during charging. Later I took it off the charger and while handling it I examined the hot spot a bit more. I noticed that when I squeezed the scale at that corner, the top plate wouldn't sink towards the bottom as it does in the other corners. A few mental calculations later I figured this could be a swollen cell that has grown so large that it impacts the plates and doesn't let them come together as they do normally. I took it apart. Lo and behold this spicy pillow:

The marking on it means it's supposed to be 8mm thick. It's currently closer to 12.5mm. Removing the battery allowed the two plates to come together in all corners as normal. That confirmed the hypothesis. Further, the reason why it only occasionally impacted the measurements is likely due to the weight of the cup I was using. When using a lighter cup, the total weight would be lower than needed to get the two plate to touch the battery and produce inaccurate measurement.

I ordered this as a replacement. It fits the dimensions and it's got some safety certification.

To check if your scale is a fire hazard, squeeze this corner:

Normal squeeze action looks like this. Unfortunately I didn't record a video prior to removing the battery.

If it the two plates come together as the do in the other corners, you're probably okay. If the plates don't come nearly as close, you've got an unlit petard in your hands.

 

Lately I've had some obviously inaccurate measurements from my Timemore Black Mirror scale. That would happen occasionally but not always. I was charging it today and as luck would have it, I was sitting beside it. I typically charge it unattended. I noticed that it took a very long time to charge and multiple times it seemed to restart charging. I grabbed it to check the cable and noticed it was quite warm in one spot. I though - that's alright, it's likely where the battery cell is, it's charging, lithium cells get warm during charging. Later I took it off the charger and while handling it I examined the hot spot a bit more. I noticed that when I squeezed the scale at that corner, the top plate wouldn't sink towards the bottom as it does in the other corners. A few mental calculations later I figured this could be a swollen cell that has grown so large that it impacts the plates and doesn't let them come together as they do normally. I took it apart. Lo and behold this spicy pillow:

The marking on it means it's supposed to be 8mm thick. It's currently closer to 12.5mm. Removing the battery allowed the two plates to come together in all corners as normal. That confirmed the hypothesis. Further, the reason why it only occasionally impacted the measurements is likely due to the weight of the cup I was using. When using a lighter cup, the total weight would be lower than needed to get the two plate to touch the battery and produce inaccurate measurement.

I ordered this as a replacement. It fits the dimensions and it's got some safety certification.

To check if your scale is a fire hazard, squeeze this corner:

Normal squeeze action looks like this. Unfortunately I didn't record a video prior to removing the battery.

If it the two plates come together as the do in the other corners, you're probably okay. If the plates don't come nearly as close, you've got an unlit petard in your hands.

[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago

It's terrible. With that said this ASRock isn't that offensive. Other than this thick plastic sheet, the rest looked fine. Very little offensive RGB.

[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

While true for the component itself, there's material difference for any caps surrounding it. Sure the chipset would work fine at 40, 50, 70ยฐC. However electrolytic capacitors lifespan is halved with every 10ยฐC temperature increase. From a brief search it seems solid caps also crap out much faster at higher temps but can outlast electrolytic at lower temps. This is a consideration for a long lifespan system. The one in my case is expected to operate till 2032 or beyond.

I don't think other components degrade in any significant fashion whether they run at 40 or 60ยฐC.

[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Unfortunately I didn't take before/after measurements but this thick plastic sheet cannot be good for the chipset thermals. ๐Ÿฅฒ

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/30850573

 

[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 weeks ago

Found the GNOME developer.

[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It is. I just wish it wasn't this expensive. Will have to live with it for a while. ๐Ÿ˜…

[โ€“] lightrush@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago

So generally Pegatron. :D I used to buy GB because it was made in Taiwan when ASUS became Pegatron and went to China. Their quality decreased. GB used to put high quality components on their boards in comparison. But now GB is also made somewhere in the PRC. I've no idea where MSI are in terms of quality. We used to make fun of them using the worst capacitors back in the 90s/00s. Looking at their Newegg reviews, their 1-star ratings seem lower proportion compared to Pegatron brands and GB. Maybe they're nicer these days? The X570 replacement I got for this machine is an ASUS - "TUF" ๐Ÿ™„

 
26
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by lightrush@lemmy.ca to c/coffee@lemmy.world
 

I'm syncoiding from my normal RAIDz2 to a backup mirror made of 2 disks. I looked at zpool iostat and I noticed that one of the disks consistently shows less than half the write IOPS of the other:

                                        capacity     operations     bandwidth 
pool                                  alloc   free   read  write   read  write
------------------------------------  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
storage-volume-backup                 5.03T  11.3T      0    867      0   330M
  mirror-0                            5.03T  11.3T      0    867      0   330M
    wwn-0x5000c500e8736faf                -      -      0    212      0   164M
    wwn-0x5000c500e8737337                -      -      0    654      0   165M

This is also evident in iostat:

     f/s f_await  aqu-sz  %util Device
    0.00    0.00    3.48  46.2% sda
    0.00    0.00    8.10  99.7% sdb

The difference is also evident in the temperatures of the disks. The busier disk is 4 degrees warmer than the other. The disks are identical on paper and bought at the same time.

Is this behaviour expected?

 

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I wasn't aware Steve Paikin and John McGrath had a podcast on Ontario politics. I like it!

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