What have you bought recently?


I just Ordered a gen 13 i7 version of the Framework 13 laptop.... how has it been treating you since you got it?

It was really impulsive buy for me...
It's still awesome in my eyes, and still my daily driver.

I will point out one complaint re earlier boards (for which I'm affected) where the battery drains while not plugged in, even on standby, at a higher than normal rate.
There are numerous threads about it, although I've not had the time to investigate or fix property - I've been keeping mine plugged in most of the time:

Ref: https://community.frame.work/t/rewo...-battery-charging-from-the-main-battery/26922
 
It's still awesome in my eyes, and still my daily driver.

I will point out one complaint re earlier boards (for which I'm affected) where the battery drains while not plugged in, even on standby, at a higher than normal rate.
There are numerous threads about it, although I've not had the time to investigate or fix property - I've been keeping mine plugged in most of the time:

Ref: https://community.frame.work/t/rewo...-battery-charging-from-the-main-battery/26922
Sounds reassuring, and can't wait to assemble it.
 
got an L-Trac Trackball.

it's really not easy to get stuff 'nmic' (not made in china) these days.
i put a policy on myself not to buy stuff made there, mainly because their gov teamed up with russia
so i don't want to generate a single cent vat for them anymore.
also, most of the time, it means a lot better quality, so win-win situation.
downside is, longer research and it costs more. but hey, well invested time and money imo.
back to the gear, i use it for some month now and really love it. precise, sturdy built and it
has this really large ball i like.
one can even put a standard pool billiard ball in there, how cool is that?
in germany we have this saying: 'mal eine ruhige kugel schieben', it's exactly this for me. ;-)
 
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got my self a Yamaha Bass. with case and a behringer bass amp... pic not very good sorry
 
I was shopping on the German OLIGHT store, so I bought this Copper Colored Lantern, it’s quite useful: it’s got a big rechargeble batterie and should run quite long, can get charged via USB C or Magnetic charger, but USBC should be faster.. it’s only quite small , I can remember the petroleum lantern whe had at Boy Scouts but this lantern is much safer to use, as you don’t get Flames when it’s starts…
than a new flashlight in my Color I already have the Swisschamp and my Smartwatch, and this Key Ring Charger whit USBC where you can charge your OLIGHT Lights,

the mug and this small flashlight where free by as the order was over 100 €
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It was the first time i succumbed to consumeristic coercion since i woth rendered arbeitslos.

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It's actually a really good two player game. The hard thing to understand is that it never turns off. It just runs on two watch batteries for ~6 months. It's a watch.

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65 quid from CeX (shop). I love CeX!!
 
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I wanted to get something special for Miku's 16th anniversary later this month (it being one of the big ones). I ended up stumbling across the following figure.

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Two interesting things from the flea market:
1. The unusually flimsy tape recorder
If they are cheap, I buy these small tape recorders as they look nice with retro computers. Many of them are from 1970s, and some are even earlier - a few months ago I got a Philips EL, this with the "three sides" function slider from late 60s, and its mechanism was a tank - no way to damage, lots of things to tune, so even if, by some accident, the thing got a bit more wear it still can be tuned to perfect alignment.
Yesterday I got something from a similar era, branded "Astrosound Twen". I checked it a little, however something was not right. So I checked one more time - the hubs are there, capstan roller in acceptable shape, battery cover is not missing, connectors are there, buttons work including "record prevention" latch... Finally I bought it.
In the return I took a closer look at it and finally found what made me think that it is not complete - there is no erasing head.
No, not a permanent magnet or a lost/removed head - there is even no space for the erasing head! It has only play/record head.
The schematic in the Internet doesn't fit my unit as my one uses only Ge transistors. First tries shown that it does not move its hubs, however Korean motor seems to be in a good shape. Typical thing - belt is worn.
Well, this thing requires just the exact belt as the tape winding force (the force pulling the tape back to cassette, when it disappears, tape gets mangled by the capstan) is not given by hub clutch, but by the belt itself pulling on a rubber wheel with a specific rim cut in it. The belt is too loose - and the player eats the tape. Too tight - the tape just flies on a nearly rewind speed during playback.
You may think that this allows to make it cheaper by removing a second rubber wheel Philips had and have only one on the "arm"... No! What they did, they added THIRD rubber wheel to power the hub during rewind, as this playback-only solution does not work in higher speeds when capstan does not pull the tape. How is it driven? In Philips it was simple, the tape may be driven forward or backward, so the wheel is installed in a rotating "arm". Then, AFAIR, switching forward rotates the arm and the transmission consists of 2 wheels. Rewind - the arm rotates back, placing additional wheel in between, making the thing spin in the other direction.
Designers of this "Astrosound" probably initially assumed that user may want to rewind the tape in both sides simultaneously and later found that something is definitely wrong with this idea :). Not only all wheels have separate moving mechanisms for every button, but the rewind seems to be literally "patched" into existing mechanism, the wheel is forced into the transmission by using the backward move of the button pressed, the move which in most tape recorders is not used at all.
So, using this contraption to play tapes, which requires a stable rotation of the motor, would require constant looking for any mechanism malfunction or wear which directly influences the sound. Why, as in most tape players these small speed fluctuations are fixed by the motor speed regulator? Well, the thing is that here's NONE. So how to manually correct speed after changing belt? The only way to do it, to compensate these rubber wheels wear and belt fitting, is covered in the capstan roller spring clip post. A screw can be removed from here, and then the capstan roller part can move about 0.5mm in each side. This is the ONLY regulation influencing the speed. And of course speeding up introduces wow and flutter as the roller's pressure is decreased.
About the sound quality... After replacing a bad capacitor and tuning the head's skew it doesn't sound terribly bad! There is nothing awful when it plays speech. The music is totally comparable to any similar player, maybe wow and flutter is a bit bigger. The real problem is with recording - the persistent noise is enormous and sometimes, on maximum volume, tape's previous contents can be heard through the noise.

2. Who knows what "Made in Denmark"
A small device consisting of a "0"-"9", "up", "down", "local", "remote" and "store" keypad, a two-digit 7-segment display, an analog trimmer labeled "RF Vernier" and a steel cover, hiding two turning switches with label "MAX TEST". There is also a switch between "PROGRAM" and "TEST" under the cover. The only description is "Made in Denmark", "RE Instruments" and "RE901". An output to the world is a DB25 connector. There are also up, down and some other functions put to the rear to drive externally by using "banana" connector sockets.
Inside there is a mess, 3 PCBs one on the other. It looks like it seeks the ?system bus? to address some kind of memory and then loads it into the register. If the register's value is equal to the value on the other register, the one that is put on the display (and probably keyed in), it puts low on lots of lines, including these which have been used for the value. The trimmer controls the VCO and it goes to the system too. Well, this is a bit more difficult to connect to Arduino than expected.
 
Ah cool this is the Watch the "Retro" Watchface for my Garmin Smartwatch was made off ^^ Its got also this world map
Maybe i will add the Pictures later, but i bought:
- A Keyring Charger for Garming Instinct Series Watches,
- An Apple Magic Keyboard for the 10,9 ° Ipad Air
- a FjällRäven Summer Rain Jacket
- And a Fleece Jacket from them
- a Camping Cocking Set whit 2 Pans, some cluttery, bowls, in a quite compact package..
 
As do I. The bones I mentioned are sheep knucklebones, which were likely the earliest dice... These types of bones, that is. They are found in many animals.
 
Finally a nice workbench power supply. I have a "small" one, made by myself, with a maximum of 20V at 4 amps with more or less good regulation, and the 10A monster which is too big for my workbench. Unfortunately the thing I bought is a bit old, but I got it for the scrap metal price. It is something called "Gossen Pantam T4 33 2", maximum of 33V at 2 amps. Older transistor technology, using 4 2N3055s to regulate current with maximum of 2 amps (maybe these times 2N3055s were weaker? the same effect can be done with two).
Looks like one from this site: https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/gossen_pantam_konstanter_t4_33_2.html
The device had a few problems:
- The fan motor had its coils covered in rubber. The rubber got hard and started to fall apart, pulling the wires. The wires got disconnected and burned the fine wire coils. Unfortunately this made the motor beyond salvaging - the initial idea was to use an old computer fan, but no brushless motor used in these fans can spin the heavy propeller blowing at these 2N3055s. Finally I adapted the bracket and put there a motor from an old, 1960s hairdryer. The fan spins well, the only side effect is that it emits the sound exactly like the "motor blade trap" from Half Life 2. I tried to slow it down, although this is a shaded-pole motor it looks like it's really stubborn to the capacitor method.
- The ammeter was not working. It looks like someone before me already cleaned the shunt contacts and the V/A meter switch, however, the problem was somewhere else - the output cable voltage drop compensation is stabilized with 3 electrolytic capacitors. These "gold" ones which notoriously fail in German equipment. I generally replace them without testing, except these with larger capacities as these larger ones seem to keep the parameters better. These caps however were hidden under the contacts block and it was needed to look at the certain angle to see that they are there.
What is interesting, I found that probably the only difference between this and 4A (or maybe even stronger) version is the transistor count (probably 4A has 6 or 8) and the measurement/setting parts. I started to externally load the transformer and it started to loose the voltage below its 35V with more than 5 amps.
 
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