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V-Mount Batteries – SmallRig vs. Neweer 99Wh

Video

  By Scott • 2025-05-10 ,

I compare the superficial differences between the SmallRig VB99 and the Neweer Mini V-Mount batteries. I was looking for inexpensive V-Mounts and came across both of these on Amazon, and from the basic descriptions and product photos they seemed to only have cosmetic differences.

They’re both ostensibly 99Wh battery packs with D-Tap out, USB A and C out (with charging on the C connector), as well as 8V and 12V barrel plug outputs (and, of course, the V-Mount connector).

And they are in fact pretty much the same as far as features, weight, and capacity goes. Though, neither one was able to deliver the promised 99Wh (they got close at around 92Wh).

The SmallRig was almost twice the price, so as far as value-for-money is concerned: Buy the Neweer (or something entirely else).

This video is NOT sponsored nor affiliated with the companies featured. As usual, I just fancied comparing these two products for my own purposes, and purchased them with my own money just like anyone else would.

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Handheld Fog Machine: SmokeNinja, Please!

Video

  By Scott • 2025-05-03 ,

I examine the SmokeNinja fog machine from the company of PMI (which stands for Practical Magic & Innovation, though the logo is largely illegible and they only mention what it means in a tiny font in one place for some baffling reason). Despite them being embarrassed by their own company name, it seems to be a very well-constructed, well-designed and well-implemented device. (That’s 3 out of 3 “wells”, my highest score yet on this new scoring system I’ll never use again.)

It puts out a decent amount of smoke/fog, is easy to use, remote controllable, and has a user-swappable common type of lithium ion battery so you could use it extensively.

They pitch it for photography/videography effects or theatrics, and I guess it’d almost certainly be good for that. Now that I think about it, it would also be good for Halloween effects on the front porch or something. Though, I purchased it for the purposes of showing the airflow in computer cases, as well as the beam dispersion patterns of lighting fixtures.

As usual, this video is NOT sponsored nor did I receive any kind of compensation whatsoever. All opinions are mine and mine alone, and I paid for this thing out of my own pocket for my own reasons.

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Intel NUC Enthusiast as a Gaming HTPC

Video

  By Scott • 2025-04-26 ,

I’m not a terribly good gamer. I play Dark Souls and Elden Ring with a mouse and keyboard. It’s been my dream to actually be able to use a modern day controller, so I figured I’d force myself to by putting a “gaming” HTPC in the spare bedroom. Some kind of mini PC. That didn’t go to plan because I ended up getting distracted from this task by playing through Dark Souls 3 on my main PC.

But regardless, in this video I open up an Intel NUC Enthusiast 11, stick in some RAM and an SSD, then other RAM, then yet other RAM… then eventually play some games to see what the performance is like. It’s not too bad considering the thing has an RTX2060, which isn’t awful for 1920×1080 60Hz.

Pairing that with some Logitech keyboard (w/trackpad) and a PlayStation 5 controller, I will eventually learn to master gaming from a couch or bed. Because that’s living.

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SlimQ Easy Bake 330W Laptop & USB-C Power Supply

Video

  By Scott • 2025-04-19 ,

If you’re looking for a high-power charger/power supply that can also make toast and confections, the SlimQ 330W laptop power supply might be for you! I actually purchased this to use with a Starlink Mini and a USB-C laptop, and it should suffice for that. It seems like a really high quality unit, except that they’re trying to dissipate about 22W of power from this relatively small plastic case (at full load). Though it is around 93% efficient, that extra 7% has to go somewhere.

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Testing Tape Backup on LTO-8 and Looking at HPE MicroServer G10+ v2

Video

  By Scott • 2025-04-08

Taking a look at a Dell-branded LTO Ultrium 8 external SAS tape drive that I got new in box from eBay. (It’s actually an IBM drive and enclosure, as it turns out.) Paired the drive with an HPE MicroServer G10+ v2 that was also a NIB eBay find. Turns out it’s not the right machine with which to use this, but at least was enough to get the drive tested.

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Upgrading Cameras in the Studio (Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K G2)

Video

  By Scott • 2024-11-16 , ,

I laboriously go through the process of unboxing and testing the new-ish Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K G2, or BMMSC G2 as it’s slightly more easily said. It’s kinda a combo of the old BMMSC G1 and the Micro Cinema Camera. Also got two Mini Converters to apply LUTs to both cameras over SDI, also from Blackmagic Design, of course.

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PCIe Bifurcation Frustration with Icy Dock ToughArmor NVMe and 3 PCs

  By Scott • 2024-07-28 , ,
Icy Dock ToughArmor Review and PCIe Bifurcation Thumbnail Image

In this video I try to test out the Icy Dock ToughArmor M.2 NVMe Mobile Rack for PCIe slots. It supports 2 removable NVMe drives placed in the included sleds, and (almost) fits an x8 or x16 lane PCIe slot that supports bifurcation to get 4 juicy lanes to each of the SSDs. I test it out with Samsung 990 Pro and Western Digital SN850X 4TB drives. That being said, it turns out that not all bifurcation implementations are created equal, nor are all PCIe slots. Hence the frustrating aspect. Buy it with a generous return policy in place, if you buy it at all. Just to be 100% clear: This is not sponsored in any way. If you couldn’t … Continue reading

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Wood You Like to Repair a Raritan Dominion IP KVM?

  By Scott • 2024-06-13
Raritan Dominion - Cover 01 - 1080p

In this video I repair a Raritan Dominion LX-108 IP KVM in a very professional manner using wood. It goes on for quite some time, but that’s at least more appropriate for YouTube than other platforms. No biggie, you can always skip around using the chapters. For posterity, here’s a transcript of the video in case you’d rather read than listen. But beware! It’s as transcribed by YouTube and so may include some errors and lack of punctuation (and etc). well hopefully it’s repair time today I have here a Raritan Dominion lx18 8 Port IP KVM switch which has served me well for many years now it customarily sits in a rack at an off-site Data Center and obviously … Continue reading

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New Home Backup Server (Dell T640 with 18 20TB Disks)

  By Scott • 2024-06-13
HM-BACKUP05 - Cover 01 - 360TB Raw Storage

In this video I create a new backup server from a Dell EMC PowerEdge T640 with 18x 20TB Seagate Exos refurbished drives. Also there’s some more ranting about backups in general. But idk, there are chapters so you can skip to whatever. And it’s not technically a server, in that it doesn’t serve files. It’s really more of a client that takes files from other servers and holds onto them. But I call it a backup server because hardware-wise it’s a server. Anywho, that’s the description. It’s probably not optimal for the YouTube algorithm, but hey, I’m not an influencer even though I have a TikTok account that I don’t use. For posterity, here’s a transcript of the video in … Continue reading

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Can You Put an RTX 4080 in a Dell Workstation? (Precision T7865)

  By Scott • 2024-01-05
Dell Precision 7865 Upgrades - ScottDotDot Cover Image

I just got my most expensive single computer ever. It’s an already-outdated Precision 7865 with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 64-core CPU, direct from Dell. RAM upgrades from the manufacturer are always a bit of a rip, so in this video I upgrade it to 512GB. Also, I find out for the first time whether a consumer graphics card (PNY / NVIDIA RTX 4080 16GB) will actually fit inside the moderately-sized chassis. Oh, and fit two Western Digital Black SN850X 4TB SSDs to replace the woeful 256GB el cheapo card that came with the system from Dell. Absolutely nothing in this is a paid ad. It was paid for by my wallet. Buy Dell, HP, Asus, even Razer for all … Continue reading

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LeCroy WaveRunner 64Xi-A-N Oscilloscope Upgrade Attempt

Video

  By Scott • 2023-11-03 ,

I got this LeCroy WaveRunner 64Xi-A-N Oscilloscope from eBay because I needed a faster scope than my best 200Mhz Siglent model.

On eBay it looked super clean and in good cosmetic shape, and was shown and claimed to be working. When I received it, it would kinda start up, but the display was blank and overall it was unresponsive. When I went to make this video showing the investigation, it powered right up! Strange.

So I figured I’d just be replacing the RTC battery and upgrading the HDD to an SSD. Turns out it already had an SSD and a new battery. The problem was that it would reboot every time the USB ports were even slightly jostled.

After getting the motherboard out (which is standard-ish mini ITX style), it turns out that the PCB is really badly warped. That’s probably leading to cracked and/or damaged traces, possibly in internal layers. I’d wager that’s the cause of the reboots.

I posted this video more for posterity and in case anyone wanted to see an albeit slow teardown. Apologies for the rambly nature, but this really didn’t go according to plan.

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Plex: Play Icon on Pause Screen Causes OLED Burn-in – SOLUTION

  By Scott • 2023-02-24
Plex - OLED Burn-In - SOLUTION

This is pretty much a re-post of something I put up on the Plex forums, but I wanted to archive it here for reference. So if you have any comments or questions, please add to the original thread! Server Version#: Last few years of updates through current stable build. Player Version#: Last few years of updates through current stable build. TL;DR: The orange play icon in the middle of the screen when paused causes burn-in on OLEDs. Solution at the bottom if you’re using your own server and not opposed to manipulating CSS. I need to preface this by saying that I love the Plex web player. I primarily use that to consume my media, and it puts browsing/playing from … Continue reading

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Using Clonezilla to Upgrade the SSD in a New Computer

  By Scott • 2023-02-21 ,
Using Clonezilla to Upgrade the SSD in a New Computer

Upgrading a new computer for my sister with a 1TB WD SN850X NVMe SSD. This is also my first real foray into vertical video, and was kinda a test run for shooting, editing, and general workflow. So if it looks a bit odd, my apologies. It’s an HP Envy TE01-2275xt with an i7-11700 8-core 2.5GHz CPU and 16GB RAM. I originally purchased it during the height of the video card crunch, because it came with an RTX3060 at a reasonable price. I didn’t end up using the computer itself, and though it’s really not a “gaming” PC (that’s how they sold it), it should be well more than sufficient for home productivity use. Especially with a real snappy SSD. I … Continue reading

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DATA GRAVE ⚰ Underground Backup Servers

  By Scott • 2022-12-07 , ,
DATA GRAVE ⚰ Underground Backup Servers

Related video: QILIPSU Outdoor Enclosure with a Computer Inside… Because. Visit the Data Grave coffins: outdoor.s.co.tt Hi, I’m Scott and today we’re going to talk about a couple of computers I buried in my backyard to create a data graveyard. They’re Raspberry Pies, which are great for this purpose as they’re compact and consume very little power, meaning they can be supplied by power over ethernet and won’t cause rampant heat dissipation issues. But they’re also pretty good for their intended purpose: Backups. If you’ve seen a couple of my other videos, you know I tend to go on rants about backing up data. For me, and many of you, most of the content I generate is digital. Losing all … Continue reading