▲ 74 r/castiron
My wife decided to make pizza tonight.
All Lodge cast iron. 12" skillet, 10.5" skillet, and combo cooker lid.
Pizza on the smoker is delicious.
u/V0latyle — 1 day ago
u/V0latyle
r/CCW r/qBittorrent r/mk6gti r/USMC r/Dell r/railroading r/RobotVacuums r/AmIFreeToGo r/Plumbing r/sennheiser r/Traeger r/DataHoarder r/castiron
▲ 12 r/castiron
My favorite way of making chicken
Chicken thighs, seasoned and pan fried 5 min per side, then removed and spread a layer of baby red, gold, and purple potatoes with chopped onion and minced garlic, and baked for 25 min.
u/V0latyle — 6 days ago
▲ 117 r/castiron
So my wife went to the Amish market today...
We already had the 12" and 10.5", but she decided the smaller ones were "too cute to pass up"
I'm not even mad
8", 5", and 3.5".
u/V0latyle — 10 days ago
▲ 3 r/RobotVacuums
Lessons learned from fixing my Shark.
This probably applies to many brands of robot vacuums given the two drive wheel design is extremely popular.
I have a Shark UR2650 Matrix 2 in 1 that I got refurbished from Woot. It started throwing an Error 18 code, which means a drive wheel problem.
it would behave normally at first at slow speed, then one side would speed up and it would swerve to one side before erroring out.
So, here's what I found:
* If one side doesn't move at all and the robot just goes in a circle, the drive motor on the ***inside*** wheel is probably bad.
* If it goes straight at first, then rapidly veers to one side, there is an encoder problem on the ***outside*** wheel.
Here is why:
The robot drives the motor with variable voltage and uses the encoders on the motors to determine motor RPM. A bad motor (or broken drivetrain) won't turn the wheel at all; when the other drive wheel turns, the robot will just spin in a circle.
However, if it starts working then suddenly swings to one side, this means the motor (and drivetrain) are working, but the robot isn't getting motor feedback, so it increases voltage to the bad side, causing that motor to spin faster.
My robot was spinning to the right, so I initially replaced the right side drive wheel and motor assembly - which didn't fix the problem. Once I replaced the ***left*** assembly, the robot worked fine.
Figured I would share this in case it helps anyone else.
u/V0latyle — 23 days ago
▲ 1 r/Dell
Optiplex 5490 extremely slow boot and restart
We use an Optiplex 5490 AIO for our media presentations at our church. I'm not sure why, but it's extremely slow to restart or boot into Windows. I've already wiped it and installed W10 Enterprise LTSC without all the Dell bloatware. I've tried disabling secure boot and the full POST in UEFI settings. It seems fairly snappy in general use so I'm not sure what the issue might be, but despite being only a couple years old and using a NvME drive, it's orders of magnitude slower than my 13 yr old Alienware on an ancient mSATA drive.
Any recommendations on what to check or change?
u/V0latyle — 1 month ago
▲ 5 r/DataHoarder
Sabrent DS-SC5B internal inspection and fan mod
I picked up one of these to hopefully improve array performance and reliability; I was less than impressed with the internal layout and fan so I thought I might share what I found.
It's not bad looking:
The toolless, trayless design is nice:
To disassemble, remove the 4 screws in the feet, and push the internals out either end of the enclosure:
There is a thermal pad on the bottom
I immediately noticed this plastic heat guard mounted under the power supply CCA; it doesn't look like it would particularly help airflow
Worse, the backplane does not appear to have been designed with good airflow in mind
At least the chassis is steel, so that will hopefully help the drives shed heat.
The stamped steel part that holds the power supply has some cutouts for airflow, which are blocked by the backplane:
At least the fan header is a standard 3 pin:
The fan itself is nothing impressive. Very quality, much good.
It is very quiet, but it doesn't move much air, and since I'm running enterprise drives that generate a lot of heat, I have doubts about its ability to keep them at acceptable temperatures.
The fan pinout is a little weird. Standard 3 pin:
1: GND
2: VCC
3: Tach/RPM feedback
The Sabrent:
1: ??? (no voltage or duty cycle measured on pin)
2: GND
3: VCC (+12v constant)
But a standard 3 or 4 pin fan connector will fit.
I replaced it with a Noctua NF-P12 Redux 1700.
I did have to repin the connector, but that was simple enough. I put Tach on the unknown pin and matched up GND and VCC.
Since I didn't want to bother with the grille, I tucked the cables in beside the fan to keep them out of the way.
There is a yellow ground wire which connects to the power plug that may require strategic positioning to prevent interference with the fan.
The whole thing goes back together the same way you took it apart. Doesn't matter which way you push it through the case.
With the Noctua fan, there is noticeably more air noise, but it's pretty subtle. It's pretty quiet in my office so this sounds much louder than it actually is. I would compare it to what a heater vent sounds like when the register is closed. There's no fan whine but there is a faint hum.
https://youtube.com/shorts/bDjkJH7ZhEI?si=af308aflq-Zd3I0d
Hope this helps. I'll do some stress testing on the array later to see how well it keeps everything cool under load.
u/V0latyle — 1 month ago
▲ 0 r/DataHoarder
Anyone have experience with Yottamaster?
I recently built a DAS using a Yottamaster PS500U3, populated with 4x ST6000NM0115s in RAID 0 via Windows Storage Spaces, and a ST14000NM0121 that's my media drive. I swapped the stock fan for a Noctua NF-A8 FLX to help with airflow.
I am primarily using the RAID array for gaming and seeding torrents, but I have run into some repeated issues where all disks on the array get "hung up" every once in a while, like the SATA bridge is getting overloaded and stops responding or something. This has resulted in repeated write cache overloads and qBittorrent deciding files are missing.
It works great when it works, I see consistent write speeds upwards of 250MBps, but these performance issues have me wondering if I'm missing something, like possibly a known issue with the bridge chip in these enclosures.
u/V0latyle — 2 months ago
▲ 4 r/Traeger
Help me out with some babyback ribs
My wife made some peach BBQ sauce that she wants to try, so I decided some babyback ribs would be a good way to do it.
I've tried the 3-2-1 method but they came out a bit tough.
I'd like to keep this pretty simple if at all possible. I'm using a Silverton 620, if that matters.
u/V0latyle — 2 months ago
▲ 1 r/qBittorrent
I'd like your opinion
I am working on a change to the Share Limits logic in qBittorrent.
As some of you may know, the ability to change the share limits mode from "Match All" to "Match Any" was introduced several weeks ago in PR 24043. The logic currently works like this:
Match All: all 3 conditions must be met to trigger action Ratio AND Seed time AND Inactive Time
Match Any: only 1 condition must be met to trigger action Ratio OR Seeding time OR Inactive Seeding time
What I want to do would effectively have the following logic, to prevent the action being triggered on an inactive torrent if other limits are set: (Ratio OR Seed Time) AND Inactive Time This would require the ratio or the minimum seed time to be met, whichever comes first, before the torrent is allowed to inactive time out.
My reasoning for doing this is I use a few private trackers that require any torrent downloaded to be needed to a minimum ratio, or a minimum period of time, but for an actively seeding torrent I want it to continue seeding until it times out from inactivity.
Here is where I would like input:
- Would you prefer this be a permanent under-the-hood change, or a separate mode?
- If you would prefer a separate mode, what do you suggest it be called?
Please note that this would not otherwise affect how limits function; you'd still be able to set them to zero if you want them to be ignored, or Unlimited otherwise.
u/V0latyle — 2 months ago
▲ 1 r/sennheiser
EW300 G3 wireless mic - RF but no audio
We use Sennheiser wireless equipment for sound at my church. One of the wireless microphones isn't working. I've tried resetting it and re-tuning it; the receiver detects the RF but doesn't get any sound. The capsule is good; I swapped it to another transmitter and it works fine. The receiver is also good; I tuned the good transmitter to the receiver and got sound no problem.
We have a very small budget for stuff like this and would rather not shell out $1000 for a replacement mic. Anyone have any recommendations on what I can try to get it working?
u/V0latyle — 2 months ago
▲ 360 r/CCW
The Pasadena incident is exactly why you should NEVER be okay with a LEO handling your firearms.
I'm referring to the incident caught on cruiser dashcam where one cop pulls his handgun and points it at the officer in the car, who then pulls his and ND's out the windshield hitting the first cop in the shoulder.
I hate that we need case law in lieu of common sense but I really think this issue should be raised in court with the explicit goal of prohibiting them from handling firearms when a subject is compliant and cooperative.
u/V0latyle — 2 months ago
▲ 0 r/USMC
I don't really know what to do with my life.
Maybe it's middle age onset. Maybe it's just compounding dissatisfaction. I don't know. But I feel like I'm stuck in a rut and I'm not sure where to go from here.
Granted, I have a lot of what I want. My wife and I own a house in a quiet small town, and we have two wonderful kids. Both our cars are paid off. No one has any major health problems, although we both could afford to lose about a hundred pounds each.
But I feel like I could do a lot better than where I'm at in my career. I'm making $35/hour as a RF test technician for a company that produces aviation nav aids and radios. I did a few months at the FAA recently in Tech Ops but was fired during my probationary period for unsatisfactory performance...long story.
We are able to keep up with most of the bills, but I'm feeling the stress of the $20k or so of revolving debt we have, and I feel like my family deserves better. I want to be able to take them on vacations and fly "home" back to the PNW (we live in Kansas) to see family, not stress about whether we're going to make credit card payments. I want to be able to take my wife on date nights so she can have a break from being a SAHM. I want to move us to Idaho or Montana or something with mountains because Kansas kinda sucks.
I still have my GI Bill but I have no idea what to pursue. I have no interest in a white collar job, and I'm apprehensive about the idea of doing night classes when I'm already exhausted from work and my two kids - toddler and threenager. There don't seem to be that many electronics jobs here in the Kansas City area outside of Garmin, who typically pays people 20% less than other employers.
This isn't meant to be a bitch fest, I just don't really know what to do, and was wondering if y'all had ideas.
u/V0latyle — 2 months ago
▲ 1 r/RobotVacuums
Shark Matrix 2in1 Error 18 fix?
I have a Shark UR2650 that seems to be having problems with the right side drive wheel. It moves fine when it's going slow, but goes in circles when it speeds up. Wheel and motor spin freely, the encoder isn't dirty, and I tried replacing the motor/wheel unit to no avail. Anyone happen to know of another fix?
Yes, I know, Shark vacuums suck...pun sorta intended
u/V0latyle — 3 months ago
▲ 13 r/castiron
Help me correct my assumptions
I know everyone has their own way of doing things, but here's some assumptions I've made along the way, and I'd like someone to set me straight if necessary.
Smoke point: Only matters in cooking. Proper seasoning should be done at a temperature below the smoke point because you want polymerization, not carbonization. Polymerization forms plastic-like long chain molecules that form the durable coating. Carbonization breaks the oil/fat down into smaller molecules that form a hard but flaky finish.
Oil choice: Some may be marginally better than others, but "better" is often subjective, and knowing how to properly use and clean cast iron makes a much bigger difference than safflower vs canola, etc.
Maintenance: Once cleaned and dried, a properly seasoned piece does not need additional maintenance. A very thin film of oil may offer additional protection for long term storage, but for daily use, you don't need to oil your pan after cleaning.
Cooking temperature: Because cast iron retains heat well, you may need to use a lower temperature than what you might normally with steel pans.
The bottom of the pan: No matter what you do, the seasoning will always get burned off the bottom, especially if you cook on gas.
How wrong am I?
u/V0latyle — 3 months ago
▲ 2 r/Plumbing
On today's episode of WTF...
This is our neighbor's house across the street, built by the same builder but 2 years newer. Her water heater was replaced by Polestar Plumbing and HVAC, and they left...whatever this is.
I'm not sure what's going on with plumbers around here but we had a similar issue that somehow passed inspection...
u/V0latyle — 3 months ago
▲ 8 r/mk6gti
My experience with ECS EP24 pads
Photos are after only 5,000 miles, all street, no track.
I've been a Stoptech user for years. Now that Centric is going out of business I decided to try the ECS EP24 "Enthusiast" pads. Followed the same bed in procedure I always have - repeated hard stops from 60 to 10, cool brakes, repeat.
These cannot handle significant heat. The front pads basically disintegrated and wore out extremely quickly. The rear pads stayed together but wore heavily too. I am not impressed for something that is marketed as a spirited street and occasional track pad.
I will not be buying these again. The Powerstop Z23 hybrid ceramic pads I put on my wife's minivan can handle more heat than these.
u/V0latyle — 3 months ago
▲ 23 r/railroading
2020 BNSF Kootenai wreck
Heard a couple things I wanted to ask the Big Orange guys, if anyone was involved or knows people who were. Any truth to this?
Supposedly a signal maintainer was sitting at Crossport ID waiting for the train, when he heard the emergency call from the crew - they'd hit a rock slide, were in the river, and were trapped in the cab filling with water. No road access in the canyon so he took off down the tracks, passing signals at danger, and reached the wreck in time to help the crew get to safety.
Word is BNSF tried to fire him for disregarding the signals even though the crew of 4347 would have drowned if he hadn't.
u/V0latyle — 3 months ago
▲ 9 r/AmIFreeToGo
The agency has received millions in grant money for traffic safety, and has been telling their troopers to make as many DUI arrests as possible, including sober drivers
u/V0latyle — 3 months ago
▲ 2 r/mk6gti
2012 GTI with the OEM bixenon headlights; the mounts for the right side are broken and the control module has gone bad for the second time, so instead of spending $700+ on a new housing I'm strongly considering downgrading to aftermarket projectors with LEDs.
If you have aftermarket headlights on your car post a picture and a link, and how much you like them.
u/V0latyle — 4 months ago