Posts

Panasonic PT-AE100E lamp power supply repair

Introduction I was asked if I could repair a “broken” Panasonic LCD projector. The lamp would start up, flicker for a couple of minutes and then shut down. No error messages where displayed. Light! But only for about a minute or two… The owner had send it to Panasonic to have it repaired but was told that the LPS (lamp power supply) board needed to be replaced, at a cost of €450. As that was too much compared to the price of a similar new projector the owner didn’t want to invest in a repair and decided to give up on the idea of having it repaired.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013 | 2 minutes Read

Wake-on-lan (WOL) bash script on router running DD-WRT

Introduction After setting up my router to run dd-wrt I’ve used PuTTy to ssh into the router to start my desktop machine to work on it through a RDP session. After spending months looking up the correct MAC address in my phone and typing the commands by hand I finally took a bit of time to write a small bash script on the router so that I could simply run the script each time I needed it.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013 | 2 minutes Read

Ubuntu Server - setting up ZFS (part 1)

Introduction For a while I’ve wanted to learn about Linux, the way the OS works, what can be done with it, if it’s reasonable to change to it as my main operating system… As well as dual booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04 on my laptop I thought I should try and set up my home server running a Linux distro. This way I’d be forced to learn my way around the command line, setting up a system to run smoothly without the need for much maintenance.

Monday, May 20, 2013 | 4 minutes Read

Dive light LED conversion

Introduction About two years ago I bought a Hartenberger “Maxi Compact” dive light for about €60. As this was a 10 year old dive light with a halogen bulb and a well-used battery pack I think that was a fair price. Anyway, the plan was to use the housing for a modded LED light. At first I just made a second battery pack, the first one was just (not) enough for one dive with the original bulb, so I needed a second one and charge one pack while diving with the other. Also bought a Graupner “Ultramat 14 Plus” battery charger as this was an affordable charger that can be used for a variety of different chemistries, but best of all, it has a port that allows for cell balancing. As I was using a 6S NiMH battery pack, that was a feature I wanted to have.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013 | 5 minutes Read

Mares Dragonfly BCD cleaning/modding

Warning: salt, corrosion and dirt up ahead Introduction Since I began diving about two years ago I’ve mostly rented gear whenever I needed it. What I like about renting things is that you get to try different brands and models, and little by little start finding out what you like/don’t like/need/want/hate about certain gear. You also get some time to figure out how things work and what kind of preferences you have. Diving equipment isn’t cheap, but taking time to shop around can get you a significantly cheaper set of gear.

Thursday, August 23, 2012 | 5 minutes Read