The ghetto mod thread

[stj]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

if a psu is light enough to blow over in the wind then i dont even open it - bin material!
besides, i dont think i'd even know a deer psu other than by that previous description!

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Speaking of the APFC cap, is it common for these to fail? That was quite odd for it to fail. The regular doubler caps, I've never seen fail...

Oh gosh an off topic post...

[momaka]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

if a psu is light enough to blow over in the wind then i dont even open it - bin material!

But from what I gather from these forums here, you do a lot of arcade machines repair. That alone should prompt you to keep cheapo PSUs like that, as they often have through-hole parts that can be used for servicing the PSUs in the arcade machines.
Besides, who doesn't like a spare set of 13007 transistors in TO-220 (common in cheapo PSUs)?

Speaking of the APFC cap, is it common for these to fail? That was quite odd for it to fail. The regular doubler caps, I've never seen fail...

Yes, fairly common for crap cap brands to fail in an APFC circuit while the same caps will do okay in a voltage-doubler circuit. In fact, some APFC circuits can stress caps enough that even the good Japanese brands can fail.

All in all, I like to avoid APFC whenever possible.

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Ah... interesting, will have to look out for that as I end up with more and more APFC PSUs (currently have a few in service now when I used to have all doublers.)

Pity that APFC caps tend to be very spendy, good reason to avoid...

Though in this case I can't truly blame this capacitor. It may have failed, but it was kind of in the heat...

Unless it was a phony?

[stj]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

But from what I gather from these forums here, you do a lot of arcade machines repair. That alone should prompt you to keep cheapo PSUs like that, as they often have through-hole parts that can be used for servicing the PSUs in the arcade machines.
Besides, who doesn't like a spare set of 13007 transistors in TO-220 (common in cheapo PSUs)?

arcade psu's dont fail.
they are oldschool open-cage psu's with convection cooling.
besides, they are 5v mostly.

old AT style supplys are good for testrigs though.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

if a psu is light enough to blow over in the wind then i dont even open it - bin material!

You are missing on a whole lot of moddable stuff then... I actually like the gutless wonders as they're easy to mod - less parts to rip out and more space to add your own!

[momaka]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

You are missing on a whole lot of moddable stuff then... I actually like the gutless wonders as they're easy to mod - less parts to rip out and more space to add your own!

+1

Also, if you need any parts, they are by far much easier to take apart than any good PSU. If you tell me I need to pull a rectifier from a gutless PSU, I'll probably have it done in 10 minutes tops. But do that from a packed Delta, HiPro, or any other good PSU - no way! On some PSUs, it takes me that much time to remove the screws bolted all over the unit.

Though in this case I can't truly blame this capacitor. It may have failed, but it was kind of in the heat...

Unless it was a phony?

Looks genuine to me.
I guess just poor thermal design with stress from the APFC did it in.

[momaka]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Hmmm.. Since I haven't posted anything here lately and I don't fee like looking into my ghetto mod pictures folder, let's have a fun game with a picture I previously posted on BCN:

Count the number of ghetto mods/items you see in this picture:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1431579180

The only clue I will give you is that there is nothing ghetto-modded on the bicycle.
I'll give you all a few days to see what anyone comes up with (and also see if there is still any interest in this thread).

And yes, I realize the above pic is not the highest quality or the biggest resolution, but you should still be able to find a few ghetto things there.

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Ghetto mods? There's no ghetto mods there, it's all top notch quality there!

[momaka]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Ghetto mods? There's no ghetto mods there, it's all top notch quality there!

Lol, thank you!

Though I beg to differ about there being nothing ghetto ^ there. Since no one seems to care really, I'll just list them for fun (and maybe my own reference, too, in case I ever forget how ghetto my last college apartment was). So here goes:

1) Starting from the left of the picture, there is a "carefully" taped-up window AC unit. This was done to stop the unit from leaking cold air from outside during the winter. Also, that unit stunk badly of mold. As to why it looks so ghetto - the masking tape came from another decommissioned contraption.

2) Custom wooden desk made from 2x4, 2x3, and 2x2 pieces of wood. Desktop was made from 3/4" drywall with more masking tape on the sides to stop the edges from leaving gypsum everywhere. I made the whole desk very deep and quite sturdy - enough to easily hold up to three (3!) 21" CRT monitors and still have plenty of desk space on top for a keyboard, mouse, and space to do homeworks on. Also made it the perfect height for me, so my arms would not get fatigued when using the mouse/keyboard for long hours or doing long homeworks. About half of the materials for this desk were leftovers I had at home. Plus, this was the easiest way to bring a big desk inside my college apartment without renting a moving truck (in fact, all of the materials fit in my econobox car).

3) Under the desk, I installed several "hooks" made from thick steel wire and screws. These were used for holding various cables. Also held a ghetto headset I made a while back that I posted here.

4) Under the desk, notice the small carpet I have. This was so that my feet wouldn't touch the cold hardwood floor in winter (house has crawl space and no insulation whatsoever, so it got pretty cold down there).

5) There is a while box under the rightmost speaker as a make-shift speaker stand. This was done so that it would be approximately on the same height as the leftmost speaker. Speaking of which...

6) (Not visible in picture) Leftmost speaker was placed on my HP NetServer E-800 PC, thus doubling the function of that PC as a speaker stand too.
But wait, there's more!

7) You think it's ghetto to use a PC as a speaker stand? Then how about using a speaker as a PC stand? ... I have that in there as well. The visible leftmost computer (my main PC - a Dell OptiPlex 170L) was placed on a crappy blown Acoustic Audio speaker in order to allow the PC to suck air from its bottom case holes more efficiently.

8) Moving to the rightmost PC, you'll notice a yellow sticky note on it. This wasn't left as a reminder but rather to block the ultra-strong (annoying) blue light from its power button. Since that PC also had problems with the network chip not getting detected in colder room temperatures after a soft-off, I often left the PC in stand-by mode. However, this ghetto solution made the power button light blink to indicate the PC was in standby. Because it was so bright and annoying, I came up with another ghetto solution to install that sticky note above. There, problem solved!

9) On top of that PC above, there is also a very ghetto headset. I showed pictures of that here many pages ago. Here 's a link back to that again, just for giggles: https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...&postcount=187

10) (Not visible in the pictures) The Realistic Nova-18 speakers (innermost speaker set) had their surrounds redone with ghetto paper ones I made by myself. Again, this is another crappy repair I posted a while back here: https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...&postcount=112

11) (Not visible in the pictures, but its picture posted below) Another ghetto speaker mod: the outermost speakers, a pair of Sony SS-MB215, had a hole drilled in the front of their cabinets (under the grille.) I stuck a short pipe (made from paper by myself ) in each hole to add a port to the speakers. This helped boost bass a good bit. However, I didn't make the pipe too long, so the speakers were only good for about 35-38 Hz at the lowest. Here is a picture of the mod:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1524015447

12) Where there are speakers, there must also be an amplifier. Oh JEE, now I wonder where that could be. ... Hmmm :thiking: ... Ah there it is! See that vertical Xbox 360 console next to the rightmost monitor? That's it. ( ) It is another audio creation (more like contraption) that I made during my "creative" free time in university. I was going to post pictures of it here at some point, but never got around to doing that. Perhaps I should, if there are enough interested parties.

And that pretty much concludes all of the more major ghetto mods/fixes/creations in this picture. I didn't count my HP Netserver, as there are just too many things to list about it. I also didn't count my custom headphone amplifier, which you can see on the picture above between the two monitors. But hey, at least I didn't do anything to my bike!

Up next, I have some video card cooler mods, but that might come another time.

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

I removed the (mechanical) channel limit from 2 channels to 12 channels in this UHF radio. Too cheap to get another 7-seg LED to display the 10s digit and too cheap to get yellow/orange LEDs to match the existing LEDs.

I should have at least bent the leads and pointed them sort of slanted but too, but too lazy to do that, even...

[goontron]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Since we are on the topic of Radios.

I picked this up out of a free pile from a yard sale down in Denver.



I plugged it into the inverter on the work truck and the inverter blew out. The line dropping resistor had toasted the standoff, fell on the mainboard and shorted the mains.

Seeing how it's a 12vDC power supply, i being the notjob i am, deleted the rectifier diode and spliced on refurbed 12v walwart!

Now it works, but FM is piled at the top of the band, AM is deaf, and the audio is distorted. All the lytics
So here are the new ones installed.


Now for the ghetto part!

This no longer applies, though, i could make it...


Added an external antenna connector and aux input.

The FM was originally coupled to line through a low value ceramic capacitor.....

And the backside



Sorry for stuffing the repair in here as well. A cheap 1980's GE radio isn't worth its own thread. Nor ordering parts. Even if it does sound fairly decent.

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

pics or it wasn't ghetto!

Oh btw, that 2-way radio, the LEDs I used were kind of weird, rectangular on bottom but round on top. They also were too tall and hit the front filter. So, I grinded off the tops of the LEDs so that they'd fit into that place. There, now I can tell if the radio is on channel 1 vs 11, or 2 vs 12 (I didn't mind channel 0 which was 10, however. Just the other two "aliasing" to n-10 was annoying.)

[goontron]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

^ Huh. Thats fuckin' wierd. The pics dissociated from the post! Fixed it.

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Ah wow... Another disturbance in the Force...

Yeah I was kind of surprised of these "early" transistor radios that also did not isolate much like AA5 tube radios. All later transistor radios seem to be isolated.

I suspect the ones that are battery operated were all isolated due to the need to run off of lower voltages. Don't know... What kind of power supply did this radio use? Capacitive dropper?

[goontron]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

^

The line dropping resistor had toasted the standoff

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

so it actually dropped 80 volts across line? sheesh... thought it would reactively drop at least part of it versus drop ALL of it across a resistor?

[goontron]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

^ Nope. I think out of that 6w rating, 2w is sunk in the radio, and 4w is sunk in the resistor. A large 1k ohm resistor.

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

I guess it's still better than burning 25W+ running tube heaters for the equivalent tabletop radio

[goontron]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

^ yeah, well now the power draw is so low its doesn't even register on my ammeter.... On the AC side using a high value (10k) current shunt, i get about 40v (0.004A). I should have been able to measure that with the amps setting on my fluke.... A disturbance in the force indeed.