Author Archives: Scott

About Scott

I'm a computer guy with a new house and a love of DIY projects. I like ranting, and long drives on your lawn. I don't post everything I do, but when I do, I post it here. Maybe.
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Making an XLR-Barrel Splitter for BMMSC & Fiber Converter (+ Pace Soldering Station Tangent)

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  By Scott • 2025-06-07 , ,

I’m sprucing things up in the studio (basement), which includes removing most light stands and tripods. They’ll be attached to the ceiling instead, and with that comes re-wiring everything. Also, upgrade of a couple of full-size Blackmagic Studio Cameras (gen 1) to the much smaller and lightweight Micro Studio Camera 4K G2. Unfortunately, whereas the old BMSC devices have SFP slots for fiber connectivity, the BMMSC G2 does not.

So I’m also using a couple of Blackmagic Mini Converter Optical Fiber 12G modules with the cameras, but as with the cameras they require power which can’t be provided by fiber. (I did look at structured cable, but it wasn’t worth it.) To keep things somewhat neat and tidy, I decided to provide power remotely using 4-pin XLR cables going into custom splitter boxes with 3 barrel jack outputs. That’ll run the camera, converter, and a small LCD monitor if necessary.

Mostly this video ended up being about the adapter box, and I didn’t get into the fiber converter as much as I intended to from the outset. That’s because the whole project got a bit sidetracked by the power supply not working out of the box. I’d picked up a Core SWX Cube 200 Power Supply from B&H, which is supposed to put out 14.3V constantly, but was putting out 16V occasionally when I banged on it. Just a faulty unit, I suppose. Might return it or investigate further.

In a subsequent video I’ll go over the actual setup of the cameras using the adapter boxes, as well as the fiber converter (and hopefully a working high-amp PSU).

As usual, nothing in this video was sponsored and I’m not promoting anything. I paid for all this stuff out of my own pocket, for my own reasons.

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Sandisk Pro-Dock 4: Too Well-Made for My Purposes

  By Scott • 2025-05-29 , ,
Sandisk Pro-Dock 4 - Teardown and Review - YT Cover

I got this Sandisk Pro-Dock 4 card reader holder and laptop dock a while back for a bargain, hoping it would be somewhat slapdash in its electronics such that I could “convert” it to be used as a simple USB 3 card reader apparatus. Turns out, it’s so Thunderbolt that Zeus himself is scared. The engineers at Sandisk (and/or Western Digital) did an absolutely masterful job with this hardware, though the product appears to have been let down by poor software/driver support. It seems to be discontinued now, which is a shame. In this video, I tear down the thing and check out its components. Relatively high-res photos of the two internal circuit boards:

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Schaffner Interference Simulator: Posting Spikes on Mains

  By Scott • 2025-05-24 ,
Interference Simulator - Cover - v01 - 1980s IS

I got this Schaffner NSG 200E Interference Simulator mainframe with an NSG 223A module a while back to test a device featured in a previous video. That was quite a while ago, but I finally got around to taking a look at it. In this video we’ll check out the device’s internals and power it on for the first time in years. Then test some USB power supplies for interference (spike) pass-through. The USB PSUs were the cheapest I could find for fast delivery from Amazon, at about 4 bucks each. I wanted them to be of questionable quality, but they seemed surprisingly well-made. Though I’m not an expert, I am a fan of ⁨@DiodeGoneWild⁩ and would love to send … Continue reading

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What really scares me about AI generated videos. (Veo 3)

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  By Scott • 2025-05-23 ,

A.I. generated video content presents plenty of problems in the short and medium term: Job loss in the commercial, TV and film industries. False or misleading information. Dystopian idolatry of fake celebrities.

But IMO people are missing the really frightening aspect of all of this. The road leads to bespoke content generated for each viewer in any given moment. Once it becomes cheap enough, why would a company spend 0.5 cents to create a commercial to show to 100 million people when they could create 100 million commercials to show to each person individually? And why wouldn’t streaming platforms create content on-the-fly to cater to each individual’s preferences? It’ll lead to cultural isolation wherein all of us consume only our own media, in an infinite feedback loop. We each become an echo chamber of one, disconnected from our fellow humans.

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Tape Backup – Custom Server Build

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  By Scott • 2025-05-17 ,

I gave up on the HPE Microserver in the previous video on this subject and decided to go with a custom build. That went.. well.

It’s an iStarUSA D-300 case, ASRock Rack motherboard, Xeon Silver 4509Y, 64GB RAM and a Samsung 990 Pro NVMe. And, of course the Dell/IBM LTO-8 tape drive. Finding the right power supplies and fans was a bit of an issue due to my poor planning.

The PSU originally was a Thermaltake Toughpower PF3 1050W, but that full-size ATX form factor didn’t 100% fit so I ended up using a Corsair SF1000 SFX-sized PSU which was technically too small but whatever.

The fans were almost completely replaced between the beginning and end. I went with Noctuas for quietness and reliability, but the small ones in the back of the case didn’t move enough air. (As found out in the “smoke test” — not what you think). Swapped those out.

Of the two CPU coolers I tried, one suffered from extremely bad vibration at medium and high RPMs. The other also vibrated excessively (but less so).

Could I have made this a little easier on myself? Sure. But this was also my first ever custom rackmount build. And though I’ve probably built scores of computers over the last 30+ years, they were all desktops, and lately I’ve been buying so much used enterprise hardware that I lost the knack. Hence the super-long video.

BTW: Absolutely NOTHING in this video is sponsored, endorsed, nor otherwise shilled. I paid for everything out of my own pocket, bought it for my own reasons, and have no relationship whatsoever with any of the companies I’m about to mention below. There are no affiliate links or anything similar. You do you as far as these products go.

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V-Mount Batteries – SmallRig vs. Neweer 99Wh

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  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!

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  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

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  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

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  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.