I'm still not sure whether I'm just an idiot or if there's something wrong with that connector.
I have crimped tens of RJ45 connectors before, so I did not expect any problems when I was asked to repair the wire for the pedals of a gaming steering wheel. The RJ45 connector was broken, so I just cut it off and bought a box of connectors for a few crowns to replace it.
However, this is what I got: I have absolutely no idea how to secure the cable inside. I tried pushing these two tiny pieces in as you normally would when crimping, but they are very fragile and it seems that they are not even supposed to be pushed in. I still have absolutely no idea how this connector should be crimped. For now, I just took a whole new cable and repaired the pedals by replacing the entire cable with a fresh connector. But I'm still wondering how this piece of crap is supposed to work.
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The next batch of old mobile phones has just arrived, and I'm very pleased with some of the pieces. The box was full of interesting models, but I chose the one that looked easiest to fix today.
It's a Galaxy 3 Neo with a broken micro USB connector. Unfortunately, Samsung used a non-standard one with many more pins than the specifications state.
After some tinkering with the PCB and soldering iron, the spare one was fitted into place. While it doesn't work for data transfer, it does charge the phone, which is an acceptable compromise.
This 2014 phone comes with a very impressive Super AMOLED display that looks great. The internal memory is ample at 16 GB (enough for my purposes, such as installing games), but can still be expanded using a microSDXC card. The camera and sound quality are typical of their time, so nothing exceptional now, unlike the display, but not really bad either.
The phone originally came with Android 4.3 and was upgraded to Android 4.4.4. My piece has only been upgraded to 4.4.2. This is not really satisfying for a re-release of a flagship phone. However, it was released two years after the ...
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So Iโve once again confirmed the old adage that the last 10% of software development takes 90% of the time.
Everything related to the original tracks from Stuntsโphysics, controls, menus, settings, etc.โis already done.
But for the past few weeks, Iโve been circling back to those few remaining issues that I havenโt been able to resolve.
Specifically, there are three points:
1 - physics on banked roads
2 - physics of jump landings
3 - physics of transitions from flat ground to a hill or ramp and vice versa.
And every time it seems like one of the problems has been solved, solving the next problem once again destroys the fragile solution to what had already been resolved.
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Yes, my OCD won again and I had to take the phone apart to make it perfect.
This phone is not designed to be easily repairable. The back cover is not glued on; it is clipped on very tightly and is difficult to remove. However, after a few attempts, I finally managed to get in. The battery is held in place by flexes and is glued to the body. I had to gently remove it and disconnect all the fragile flex cable connectors, as well as taking away the charging board at the bottom of the phone.
This board was also glued very firmly in place and was made of an extremely thin PCB, so this was the most tricky part. The challenge was to take it off the phone without breaking it. I was really afraid of breaking it. However, I managed it in the end.
Then it was just a case of desoldering the old one and finding a similar connector in my spares (yes, there are around forty or fifty types of micro USB ports depending on how they are mounted to the PCB), and I finally found one that fits my PCB hole ...
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As I am doing my best to use all my phones in my collection at least once every three or four months to preserve the batteries, I always hope that every phone I take out of the drawer will work as well as it did when I put it there last.
However, I was really disappointed when I took out the Xiaomi 3S. After holding the power button, it started booting and, after around half a minute, it crashed and powered off. I was able to repeat this procedure an unlimited amount of times with the same result each time.
After putting it on charge, the phone vibrated and tried to turn itself on, but with the same result as when I turned it on manually.
As it reacted to the charger, I left it on for almost half a day and then tried to boot it again, but with the same result.
I disassembled the back cover to measure the battery. This was quite difficult as it is not supposed to be easily removable or replaceable, but the battery was discharged significantly even after a day on the charger.
I then decided to measure the current on the charging cable and found that it ...
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I am working hard on porting all my Android games and game clients to iOS. It is driving me more and more mad.
As soon as I thought I had some projects that were almost finished and had been ported, I recognised one problem. Apple devices do not have a back button. This means you cannot easily return to the previous screen in an app.
This means I have to go through all the almost finished projects again and add a back button to every screen and activity. Thank you so much for nothing, Apple! ๐
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I tried to implement a basic server for sharing lap times when my game reached a playable but still alpha state.
I have currently made it compilable, and the first functioning feature is the account system, so users can now successfully register and log in. I am currently struggling to implement map distribution, which is not working yet, but I am doing my best to create the first working version as soon as possible to prove the concept.
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I'm not sure whether it's a terrible phone or a terrible joke. But this Samsung is really strange.
With its Bada OS 1.1, it is one of the worst phones I have ever seen or used. I can't install anything on it, even when I try to install the weird Bada Sync programme on a Windows 7 computer.
In theory, it should be possible to load lots of games and apps. The installers can be found on the internet. However, it is absolutely impossible to transfer them to the phone.
So, if anyone has experience with the Bada OS, please could you let me know how to sideload?
The operating system seems to be trying to replicate the Android UI; however, it looks partly childish and partly like an unfinished student project. Honestly, I'm not sure if I believe this was really sold to real customers.
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A new addition to the collection. It's a very nice, compact phone from 2015. It has a hexa-core Cortex CPU and Adreno 418 GPU, as well as 3 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage โ just enough to load up with games.
Unfortunately, the piece I got has a very low battery capacity, which makes it almost like a wired phone. However, when fully charged, it can last for almost half an hour of medium usage. However, even when fully charged and powered off, it is unable to boot for a week until the charger is connected, so I must find a way to store it without destroying the battery completely.
The phone was released with Android 5, but has since been upgraded to Android 7. It was also upgradeable. Unfortunately, my phone got stuck on the original factory system and was never upgraded. I am wondering whether it is worth upgrading it via some files or whether it is better to just leave it as it is. The upgrade process would be relatively risky due to the almost dead battery. However, I would definitely spend some time playing 'Team Awesome', which I found ...
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So, the legends were right, and kernel panics really do exist!
It's been more than ten years since I switched to Linux and left Windows behind, as it was driving me mad. During all this time, I have never seen this screen.
Of course, I have destroyed the system many times by doing stupid things, manipulating the configurations and doing other 'funny' stuff. Also, my GUI has crashed many times, but my OS has never crashed by itself. Now it has finally happened, so I believe that this thing really exists.
But I suppose it's a really good score. As I recall, when I was using Windows, I saw the blue screen of death at least once a week.
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