The "Look What I Did / Made" Thread

[fastbilly1]

Had a 60ft white ash get infested with beetles. Went from perfectly healthy to dead in under a week. So had a lumberjack friend come by with his bucket truck to cut it down enough so we could fell it and not hit a neighbors house. So now I get to do cleanup. Being that it was a 40 year old ash, it will shrink pretty bad so I wont be making side tables out of it, maybe some stools. I will be burning most of it over the fall but if things go as planned, I will be making an outdoor seat out of the stump. Itll be heavy as all get out, but it will be an awesome throne.

This is after two days of cleanup. I have another solid day of cleanup, then it comes to dealing with the trunk and what it is laying on:

[Ziggy]

Image isn't working for me.

[Ziggy]

I was helping my parents out with their AV setup and ran into a small issue. Their soundbar couldn't fit under the TV, the TV had to be just a fraction of an inch higher. The soundbar couldn't go above the TV because that's where mom likes to put decorative things. I was looking for various solutions, such as different TV stands and furniture coasters/sliders, but I wasn't happy with any of them (especially the prices of them).



So, I decided to make my own coasters/sliders for the TV. They were very easy and fast to make, and are very inconspicuous.

I used some scrap pine, so this project was free! I used a hole saw bit and a forstner bit on my drill press (you could also do this with an electric drill). I had some chip out on one of them, but I wasn't about to make another one because of it. I just put that one on a back leg and you'll never see it.





They worked! So I sanded them up a little and sprayed them black. I was thinking black would make them stand out the least, as opposed to staining them. And I was right, they're pretty much invisible. If you didn't know what they were, you'd think they were just part of the TV stand.

[Anapan]

That's very impressive. The quality of the outcome is better than what in my mind was possible (stacking store-bought sticky-coaster clear plastic anti-scratch cupboard bumpers).
Despite my aversion to soundbars, the output of most modern mid-range models are easily better than most store-bought traditional sound systems from the 90s. From my limited investigation, it comes down to the crossover and drivers that were common back in the day. It's great that you're helping upgrade your parent's entertainment center. My parents are begrudgingly letting me replace their components and dispose of their old bits as I drag them into better fidelity.

[Ziggy]

Thanks!

Ugh... The soundbar is OK, it definitely sounds better than the TV's built in speakers. The thing is, this soundbar was actually a downgrade in audio fidelity but an upgrade in ease of use.

Long, boring story (unless you're into setting up AV gear!)...

Their last TV sounded *awful* to the point that even someone with good hearing had trouble with it. It was very muffled sounding, and turning the volume up didn't help. On top of that, my father is hard of hearing. So I got them a 5.0 setup. My mom had two decent stereo speakers, and I was able to get them a nice 5 bookshelf speaker set from the charity auction here. So I used her old stereo speakers as the front L/R since they were full range, and the bookshelf speakers for center and surround L/R, then no sub since the front speakers are full range. Then I bought them a Sony AVR to make it all work.

It sounded great! But the problem was the complexity of it. Wrapping their heads around all the remotes and what sources to use was a little much for them, but they got the hang of it. But then to complicate it further, I got them a new TV. The new TV is smart, and the OS is faster than what they were previously using for streaming services (a BD player) so it made sense to use the smart features of the TV. The problem there though is that now you have to pipe the audio from the TV to the receiver somehow, which is only audio since the TV already has the video. Wrapping their heads around that was a challenge. "I can see the video but I can't hear anything!" I would tell them to cycle through all the inputs on the AVR until the audio comes on, but there's a few seconds delay after selecting an input before the audio clicks on, so when you're inpatient you can just blow right by it.

On top of that, I integrated my mom's audio setup into one AV setup. So that 5.1 receiver doubled as her stereo. Which worked well, but again was a challenge for her with all of the sources and inputs to figure out. I had her BD player double as a CD player, but that was no good since the BD player had no display (only OSD) so it was impossible to know the track and seek time unless the TV was on. Then her turntable, I had to get an external preamp since the AVR didn't have a phono input. But the only phono preamp I could find that had an on/off switch also had an aux input. So she would have to figure out which input on the preamp, then which input on the AVR. A few times she told me she went to play a record and gave up trying to figure it out.

My father's complaint was having too many remotes. There's a remote for everything. And since he only watches the cable TV, he would always need three remotes. One for the TV, one for the cable box, and one for the AVR just for the volume. So I got him a LogiTech Harmony remote and programmed it to work with all of their devices. And it worked pretty well, I like the "all on" and "all off" feature that it has. The problem is that it has tiny buttons, and he has chubby fingers and bad eye sight. So he would constantly fat finger the remote and put it into some mode and then it wouldn't work (and he had no clue how to put it back into the correct mode). So he went back to using multiple remotes.

The soundbar fixes all of this for them. Now all of their devices plug directly into the back of the TV, and they just have to remember to turn the soundbar on when they turn the TV on. No inputs to remember, aside from the ones on the TV if they need to change from the cable box to the BD player. But they're sort of use to TV inputs. On top of that, the remote that comes with the soundbar is a universal remote, and it works FAR more easily than the Harmony. I programmed it to control the TV, cable box and BD player and it works great! It's much easier for them to use.

As for mom's audio setup, I got her a proper HiFi setup now that the AVR is gone. I went on eBay and got an older stereo receiver that has a phono input and nice big source buttons on the front. A few years ago when I was in a thrift store I scored three different 5-disc CD players. I figured at least one of them would work. Well I finally tested them all out and it turns out that ONE of them works lol. So I hooked that all up and it works very much like the last stereo unit she had so she can use it no problem.



I know I could have bought a new stereo receiver that has a phono input but also modern stuff like Bluetooth and iPod control, but since she'll never use those things I figured I'd save some money and just get something older. Also, I like that it has nice big source buttons for her to see. This particular receiver looks a lot like the last stereo unit she had, so it's perfect.

[Ziggy]

I made a tree skirt for my mom to match the color scheme that she was doing with the ornaments. Surprisingly, it's hard to find a tree skirt in the aqua family and also tree skirts are too expensive! So like usual, I figure I can make one myself and get exactly what I want and for cheaper. My only sewing machine is an antique, it works but it looks like the belt is about to crumble into dust and I also don't know how to thread it up. So I decided to just sew it by hand, which took about as long as I thought it would. Forever. It wasn't that bad though. My hand stitching is horribly uneven, but you really can't tell unless you examine it way up close. Some nice touches would have been adding Velcro or snap buttons to the back, but it works fine as-is. Maybe I can make an even better one next year. I'd like to get a modern sewing machine, which would take this project from hours down to minutes. And there's some other projects I've been wanting to do that a sewing machine would make easier, like those console dust covers.

Anyway, here it is...

[stickem]

That looks great, good job

[emwearz]

So I finally got around to 50/60Hz modding my NTSC 32X. This is what my PAL copy of Doom looked like on a NTSC Genesis with a 50/60hz switch, running at 50hz with the NTSC 32X running at 60hz, it just couldn't sink, no issue with any of my PAL or NTSC 32X titles.



So I installed the 50/60hz switch into my 32x.



And now it plays perfectly (or as well as it ever did on the system) when both are set to 50hz.



While I was also in the mood, I have had a dead cart of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure on Megadrive, I read about this fix and gave it a crack.

[Ziggy]

Nice work, emwearz!

I'm curious about that fix for the Pitfall cart, do you have a link? It looks like it's jumping a pin low.

[emwearz]

I don't have a link, but the long and short (pun) of it is this.

If a cart is removed when the console is still powered on, it can kill one of the traces on the boards.

If you grab your multi and put one end on ground, which 10th from the left on the bottom row, and check the top row, you will hit point that gives you a big fat 1, bridge the two with a 1K resistor and boom, you are back in business and current can run through again. It is apparently a common enough issue with this board layout.

If you look at the cart you can see the previous owner has taken sand paper or something to the contacts trying to 'clean' it.

EDIT:
Found a video while googling the topic I read.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCT4ZKV20RI