cmnybo

I got an old thermal receipt printer, plugged it into the parallel port and echoed some text to /dev/lp0 and it printed. I didn't have to set anything up. I did have to write a simple python script to make it print images though.

I've got an old Motorola AMPS phone around somewhere that has a charging cradle that will fit either the whole phone or the battery on its own. Most commercial two way radios still work like that, I wish they would still make phones like that too.

The dual laptop batteries are handy too. I've got a Thinkpad T480 and it can hot swap the external battery. The high capacity battery lasts so long that you rarely need to swap it, but if you use the slim batteries, you will need a couple to get through a whole day. Unfortunately, that's the last Thinkpad model that can hot swap batteries.

It is being pushed beyond its ratings, so there's no guarantees that it will work. There's no harm in trying Cat5e at higher speeds if it's already installed, but don't install it with the intention of using it at more than 2.5G.

It's impressive that they got the power consumption down to less than 2 watts. I think this is the first 10GBASE-T NIC I've seen that doesn't have a heatsink on it.

Heat makes lithium ion batteries fail much quicker. A non rechargeable lithium AA would last a long time and they don't leak like alkaline batteries.

Gas valves and igniters don't even need much power. They could put a battery in there so it could be used when the power is out. My propane fireplace runs for years on 4 AA batteries and that's powering the receiver for the remote too.

It looks interesting. It has nearly twice the audio bitrate of DMR and it has 4 timeslots.

Why do they need an app instead of just using cell tower data? I guess you just take a flip phone then.

No, they are not socketed. They are 8 pin SOIC packages, which are not too hard to solder.

Look for an SMD solder practice kit that has SOIC packages and practice with that. The motherboard will have a lot more layers, so it will take more heat than the practice board though.

To remove the old chip, I would carefully cut the pins off and desolder them one at a time with some solder wick. Then clean the pads up with the wick. Use lots of flux and don't drag the wick across the pads. That can damage them.

Get a soldering iron tip with a flat surface on it. The round, fine pointed tips don't transfer enough heat. You will also want a wide chisel tip for the solder wick.

To solder the new chip, hold it with tweezers and align it on the pads, then tack one corner pin down. Then solder the opposite corner, then the rest of the pins. If you bridge any pins, just clean it up with solder wick.

with one poster claiming to have received almost $1,800 this week for a TV returned to the retailer in 2018.

Wow, I would have filed a charge back and deleted my account if Amazon did that to me.

As long as you have a backup image, you can just order a new flash chip from Digikey and restore the backup.

The most common grades of neodymium magnets will demagnetize at around 60-80°C. Even if they could handle the temperature, they wouldn't stay in place well since they are smooth.

Epoxy and super glue both work well for gluing the magnets in a hole. Rough up the back side if the magnet so the glue has something to hold on to though.