"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
09/14/2020 at 05:08 • Filed to: None
6
4|
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
09/14/2020 at 05:08 • Filed to: None | 6
| 4 |
I picked up this Razer XBox 360 controller at the Goodwill Outlet for next to nothing. Not surprisingly, something inside was broken, in this case the linkage for the right trigger. I built it back up using the chemicals mentioned above, sanded it down using hand files and a knife sharpening stone (the best file for big, flat surfaces) and recreated the slot with the Dremel.
On the first try it was a little thin and broke during assembly , but looking at where there were clearance issues I determined where I could make it thicker. It was too long at first, but a bit of sanding and it fit in place and worked. It looks a little ugly but is probably stronger than stock, plus since it’s all internal you’ll never see it.
I do have other controllers but I like the feel of this one thanks to the switches used. In addition, I’m a bit bored these days and I like the job of bringing something broken back to life - it gives me a sense of accomplishment that is much needed these days.
RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
> Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
09/14/2020 at 07:08 |
|
Nice work! I do the same with computers....my side gig from teaching is tech tutoring (mostly the elderly) and repair (like, if a person’s compu
ter won’t boot up and I have to repair or reinstall Windows or MacOS, for example).
But I also repair damaged computers on the side. Was given a dead Emachines minitower the other week, bought and installed a used replacement motherboard for it form Ebay, set up Windows 10 on it and sold it for $170...the motherboard was like, $67 and it took me maybe 1.5 hours of my time to set it up (I have Windows 10 setups down to a routine now), so I made about $100 profit on that one...not bad! I have a Lenovo Yoga 3 14 convertible laptop/tablet downstairs I just fixed up too...they were like $800 computers when new, so going to sell that one for $350 at least and should make like at least $125 profit from that one with the parts I put into it.
|
Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
> RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
09/14/2020 at 07:40 |
|
I do the same. The Goodwill Outlet sometimes has older machines, but those don’t have much resale value, although I did get a nice Macbook Pro for about $5. Pawn shops are my go-to these days. I can pick up systems for $10-25 and resell them for several hundred. Some have failed hard drives and I usually just toss in an SSD. Another one was perfect but just needed the OS reinstalled. That one netted my a quick $200 profit.
I’ve got a few in the basement I got for free that I need to rebuild. I have the parts (LCD, keyboard) but just need to do it. I did build up a nice i5 for my dad but he didn’t want it so I ended up giving it to a friend that was looking for work; he’s done some federal time and was obviously having a hard time finding work, but he’s a good person that has really turned his life around and needed a little help.
One other one that I’ve been putting off is an Asus Windows tablet that needs the digitizer replaced. It was another Goodwill Outlet find that probably cost me about $3, and would probably make a good device for charts when flying.
Don’t get me started on the desktops. They are literally piled up in my home office. A friend wants one, and I want to rebuild my recently retired i7-3770K. Then there’s the previous i7, an even older 1st gen i7, a mini ITX system to build, and I need to pop a few hard drives into my 8-core Xeon workstation, as if the dozens of terabytes currently installed isn’t enough. I do need to reinstall Windows on my main desktop, yet another task I’ve been putting off. Then there’s the issue of trying to get the speed up on MSFS; it’s not bad, but I know it can be better. I was having a beautiful flight this evening but the damned thing crashed when I tried to tune the radio - grrr...
facw
> RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
09/14/2020 at 08:57 |
|
My poor HTPC seems to have given up the ghost after nine years, but unfortunately I recycled my other Sandy Bridge system when I moved, so I’m somewhat limited in troubleshooting. As a result, this one is getting a shiny new i3-9100F, B365 motherboard, and 16GB of RAM today. Not terrible for $200. I feel bad that I’m going to be chucking the old stuff when likely only one of those three components is bad, but not worth hitting up ebay to troubleshoot a nearly decade-old system.
|
RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
> Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
09/14/2020 at 16:22 |
|
Yeah....I prefer desktops to laptops, but for daily use, laptops are just more convenient!