From 583389e019cab0bd07995b059ed1c8a2a3094d07 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Alex Scerba As mentioned in my post about my new SR60is, I made plans to fix up my old pair of worn out SR60s. Thanks to the low cost of Chinese manufacturing and AliExpress, I got all my replacement and upgrade parts for ~$10 including the cable.
The new drivers I bought were 40mm, smaller than the stock Grado 44mm, so I needed spacers or whole new cups for the drivers to mount in. Since I planed to do a removable cable mod, I opted to design and 3D print new cups based off of the original. The process was relatively smooth. I had to make a few revisions to the original file to accomodate for the solder ball that forms on the 2.5mm jack ground pin and the wire that wraps from the voice coil around the front to the rear of the driver. When modeling, I built to exact dimensions which did not account for plastic shrinkage. I found that scaling up the model by 1% in the slicer was enough to hit the target dimensions. Since shrinkage rates are different between plastics, I am debating whether to incorporate this scale change into the original model or just enlarge the file at the slicer level. I was lucky that the 2.5mm jack fit perfectly into the existing cable hole , so no extra modifcation was needed other than separating the original cup and housing, and it sit almost perfectly flush with the outer surface. Bad. Very bad... at first. The 1-2kHz frequencies were very pronounced, muddying the sound (I don't actually know proper audio terms, so bear with me if I misuse a word). Luckily, after some EQ I was able to get it closer to something that was relatively enjoyable to listen to. After the EQ, they sound much better. Pretty pleasant actually. Enough that it's gotten my back into listening to music, which is good because that was the point of the project. I was trying to mimic the sound of my SR60is with their own EQ profile. I don't think this matches it. I have to do some more back-to-back, but these have their own sound. If anyone ends up trying this and aren't trying to mimic the Grado house style, definitely feel free to ignore the sharp raise of the high frequencies. Lowering the 1-2kHz frequencies significantly is the main thing that needs to happen to make these drivers listenable. Just came up on the 5k mile mark since my last oil change, so it was time to do it. No filter this time, just oil. I'll get the filter at 10k. Luckily I have a slim enough catch pan, so I didn't need to use jacks like I do at home. I do need it up on stands though to fix a couple sensor issues I'm having along with removing the JCW mufflers to get them repaired. I had an unfortunate incident with a concrete slab that tore off an exhaust hanger and bent the pipes. That's the next adventure. Reddit is going through some changes. Not many of them good. They've become large and therefore are doing things that large companies eventually do: monetize and restrict. I've been off of Reddit for a couple years. My account is now locked, and the Reddit staff does not care enough to fix it, so I just browse without an account. There tends to be a decent amount of quick info from real humans (something you can't take for granted in this era of the internet). Unfortunately, while I was browsing today, this message popped up. Luckily, it's just a scare tactic for the time being. Clicking the "X" closes the prompt without furthur issues, but I'm sure that won't be the case for long. This is the norm now. There were plenty of reasons to stay off of Reddit for a long time, but this is definitely the nail in the coffin for a casual browser. Gone the way of paywalled content. So be it. After having owned a pair of Grado Labs SR60 headphones with a failing driver for a year or so, I finally jumped back on eBay and bought a second generation pair, the SR60i. I liked the bright signature of the SR60, but was unsure how the failing driver was affecting sound and wanted a fully working pair to really evaluate them. As expected, they were pretty much the same, minus the quiet, rattly second driver. Unfortunately, that meant the high frequency peaks that are characteristic of the Prestige Series were very much present. I like the clarity and detail it provides, but often it's too sharp and hurts my ears after a few minutes of listening, especially on songs with cymbals and high vocals like Elton John's Rocket Man. A quick search online revealed some standard EQ settings which involved dropping the 2 kHz and 5 kHz ranges to correct for the inherent peaks. With that knowledge I fiddled around in that region in EQ while also slightly raising the lower most frequencies to account for the drop off. The result is still a bright, clear pair of headphones, but with a sound that doesn't hurt to listen to. I've been having low self confidence with "just doing" lately. Just the standard self-doubt before starting any project. It's been a while since I've rendered anything, so I opened a Photoshop document and started painting shapes. Eventually I ended up with this. It's quite rough, but it's given me a bit more confidence for my actual assignments. Before I built my current custom computer case, I had ran my first liquid cooled loop in a Phanteks Evolv ITX chassis. At the time, all I knew was EK and Alphacool and that they were very expensive. eBay parts looked sketchy, and I had no idea about the world of quality Chinese parts available. I watched people like JayzTwoCents and stumbled across his video on a cheap watercooling solution. This solution was the EK Fluid Gaming A240, a fully aluminum watercooling solution. Aluminum is cheaper than copper, so that was how they brought the price down. I was hooked. I bought an A240 kit on Newegg and got it installed with my R5 3600 and Nvidia RTX 2060 FE. Fast forward a few months, I was frustrated by coil whine on the RTX 2060, and hit by nostalgia from JayzTwoCents videos on Pascal-era video cards and custom loops. I side-graded to a Titan Xp and luckily found a Fluid Gaming GTX waterblock on Ebay. They had retired that block by now in favor of the 20-series cards. I was able to get some extra fittings and got the new build installed. It sat like this for some time, and I was happy with how it looked (the main reason I went watercooled). Some issues remained, however. Draining the loop was an extreme pain made no easier by the case. I also upgraded to a Ryzen 9 5950X, so I wanted another radiator for the heat load. Unfortunately, by this point EK had discontinued selling Fluid Gaming kits and their spare parts. If I wanted any new parts, they would have to be second hand or from some other source. Worse yet, the aftermarket aluminum watercooling scene is basically non-existant. You can get radiators w/built in barb fittings and that's about it. After a lot of searching, I caved and bought a Chinese 240mm radiator with built-in barb fittings. There's nothing really wrong with this functionally, but having got into watercooling from an aesthetic point of view, it irked me. This still did not solve my drain issues though. EK used to sell an aluminum 3-way junction fitting, but it required extra compression fittings to join to it. Even then, there was no aluminum plugs or valves that I could find, so even if I had purchased the junction, I wouldn't have been able to have an easy drain tube. I thought about this over the course of my build iterations, and by the time I decided to just buy a few, they were no longer sold... One of the nice things about my new appartment is that it came furnished, so there was no need to bring in things like a couch. The downside, however, is that I'm at the whim of the pre-supplied furniture in terms of storage. I can't get rid of the prefurnished items for obvious reasons, and the items have already been selected to fill the space. This makes it difficult to add new storage furniture. At my desk, I'm using one of the side tables as a stand for my computer and 4U wood rack I built for it. As part of the structure of the side tables, there is a set of cross beams forming an H about five inches down from the base of the top. Currently, I have a carboard box that's exactly the right height resting in there, and another larger one at the bottom. This works, but it's not very convenient to open the box each time. The box also doesn't take full advantage of the footprint of the table, so there isn't as much fit into the space as there could be. A system of deviders would be nice at some point as well, and if I'm going to spend a significant amount of time creating an organization system, then it better be higher quality than on layer of couregated cardboard. So, I set off to build a drawer. I'm cheap. That's how I have what I have, and usually I'm better for it. There's a story behind a lot of the objects I have that isn't "I got it from <insert big box store>." I also like the feeling of making things, even if they aren't that pretty, and I have a long shift in the wood shop today, so might as well do something with it. Luckily, there were some good pieces in the scrap pile today, and my manager and another co-worker had a couple things I could use as well. The melamine board, MDF and masonite were found in the scrap pile, and the plywood for the side and piece of sheet metal for the handle came from my manager and co-worker respectively. I got a list of measurements for the box the night before, which made it pretty easy to build out the drawer. My manager suggested pocket screws for assembly, since I wanted to be able to pull it apart again if needed. I cut all the pieces to size, drilled the pockets, and screwed it together. My last bit to figure out was the handle. I originally envisioned a slot cut into the face, but that was before I knew the front was melamine board. It can chip easily if the bits aren't sharp, and while the shop is in good condition, I didn't really want to mess around too much. I settled on the idea of a handle screwed onto the face. The rest of the box was looking kind of modern industrial with the exposed plywood with screw pockets faced with black melamine, so I thought a minimal sheet metal handle would look nice and be easy to fab and attach. While bumbling about seeing if there were any scrap sheet metal pieces, my co-worker offered up a pice that was pretty much the exact size I was looking for and at sixteen guage thikness. It also already had rounded corners, which was even better. I cleaned it up, layed out six holes to put the screws through, marked my bend points, and brought it to the metal shop to drill and bend. It was pretty straghtforward, but I did make a mistake in the order I made the bends. Always remember to think about what the part will look like after a bend. In my case, it needed to be bent in a certain order so that the part wouldn't interfere with the machine on the next bend. I did it backwards, so it undid my first bend and required me to re-bend that bend. Aside from that hiccup, it went well and was time for sandblasting. I really like the surface finish on the sandblasted part. Unfortunately, it will rust as it sits, so I'll need to coat it with something. I tried some stuff we had at the shop, but it just globbed on, probably due to age, so I'll buy a new can of clear later this week. There's something about messenger bags that I enjoy. They don't fit well with my two-wheeled lifestyle (I need a rack), so since school started I've stopped using them. That said, I've wanted to get back into using them on a daily basis recently and have started to look out for one. While at a Salvation Army thrift store looking for various home-goods, I found one. It looked pretty nice, I didn't really know anything about it, and it was $14. The interior is orange, like my backpack, which makes finding things inside easier. Seeing as I've been wanting one, and this was nice as well as cheap, I bought it. Later that night I tried to look it up. CRHMPLER? CRKMPLER? CRNMPLER? What the heck is "the considerable embarrassment"?? A tag line? Mission statement? Trying to look this up is a considerable embarrassment. Luckily search engines know how to handle stuff like this. Crumpler. Messenger bag company est. 1995. Trendy designs. $400 bags??? Wow. How much was this thing? Numbers run through my head. $150? $200? It's always a funny game. Review from 2008 says MSRP $95. Okay, not bad. Wow, this is from the era I collect computer hardware. How well did it hold its value? Ebay. Going rate of around $60 shipped. A far cry from their current median of around $250 for a bag, but a 77% discount is nothing to scoff at. So far, it's a nice bag. Early reviews complaining about a lack of exterior pockets to hold an MP3 player were amusing to read, but I don't have an issue with it. What I do have an issue with is the lack of a top handle. While it looks sleek without one, more than half of the times I grab the bag is to move it a couple feet. I don't want to gather up the shoulder strap each time, so I end up just pinching the canvas cover and grabbing it that way. Not very elegant. It seems quite durable, however. Sturdy materials and substantial stitching. It seems well-used but not well-worn, so that's a good sign. Long term review in the future. I saw a nice, blue 244 today. Thought I'd share. Created: 2024-08-21 It's spring break this week, and seeing as there are lots of things planned, I figured I'd jot down the main points each day. This morning was spent cleaning up the livingroom and choosing which LEGO sets to bring back to school. It should be fun having more LEGO around in the dorm. My roommates have been aquiring various LEGO sets over the last couple months, so it'll be a good addition to the collection. This is what we settled on: Once that was done, we headed to my dad's again to change the oil in the truck. Before leaving, I couldn't help but capture our cars accidentally parked in a staredown. The last change was 2 years and 7,000 miles ago, so it was time to do so. It hasn't seen much use over that time, so that's why it's been so long. We had our mechanic dog sign off on the job when we were finished. After, we had dinner with my dad, hung out with Ángel, and headed back for the night to do some more cleaning up. Tomorrow we have some last minute prep to do before heading back to Detroit for school. It's been a fun break. After, we had dinner with my mom and headed back for more LEGO building. By the end of the night, we got 8 sets pretty much fully completed. I'm super happy with it. There's some missing and broken pieces on some, which is unfortunate, but everything's a lot more organized now, so I can get right back into building whenever and not have to re-sort stuff. It's spring break this week, and seeing as there are lots of things planned, I figured I'd jot down the main points each day. Today was the "final" day on the truck. We headed out and got the nuts installed for the struts and the rear wheels installed. I also tried heating up the bent plastic fender liner to keep it from catching on the tread, but it just ended up catching again later. I just need to deal with that and change the oil, and it'll be set for the trip back. In the meantime, we packed up and headed to Milwaukee to drop off Ángel and meet up with another friend to grab unch at Crave Cafe and Kopps Frozen Custard (Glendale location), both great places to eat if you're ever in Milwaukee. Each Kopps location has a different achitecture theme going on with the building which is fun to experience. Side note: Saw a cool old Corvair while walking around. Afterwards, we stopped by my other friend's appartment and saw his cat, Jack, for a bit before heading back home for the day. When we got back home we broke out the LEGO. I have been wanting to reassemble all of my LEGO sets, but just haven't had the motivation since it's a big task, but being at school and reminicing with friends about which sets we have rekindled my desire to get everything rebuilt. Plus, having two other people makes things go a lot faster, especially when they're just as excited and motivated to see the completed sets. By about 3 AM, we made some good progress and finished about 5 sets. Some were missing one or two pieces, and there were some instances of the infamous fragility of brown and maroon LEGO bricks showing itself in the form of fractured pieces. You can contact LEGO to get broken pieces replaced, so I'll be doing that once we're done for the break. Today, the goal was to swap the front struts on my dad's truck. The front end needed to be lifted to fit the new, used wheels my dad got for relatively cheap, so we set off in the morning to get started. By noon, we almost had the struts out, but were slowed by rusted bolts. We headed to my grandparents' for lunch and to see them since I was back for the week. After a nice meal, we walked around their field for a bit... ...and saw some really old LEGO boxes in the basement. Lunch was over, and it was time to get to work. It took the rest of the afternoon and evening to get the struts installed and the wheels test fit. The last thing needed are the nuts that hold the struts to the tower and to swap the rear wheels. The lift spacer makes using the old nuts impossibe, so we'll run to the store in the morning to get new ones. But we were able to test it, and it does mostly clear now, so I should be able to take it back to Detroit. I'm pretty happy about that because being car-less in Detroit is pretty frustrating. Maybe I can also bring the RX50 back if the parts come in before Sunday... It's spring break this week, and seeing as there are lots of things planned, I figured I'd jot down the main points each day. Today I finally got a haircut. On the way out, I noticed a red Willys parked next to me. We had a big adventure planned, pick up Ángel from Milwaukee, and I hoped to take the CJ-7. I've been trying to figure out the ignition, and narrowed it down to the ignition switch, so I picked it up from the parts store and installed it. In typical fashion, it wasn't the problem and didn't solve anything... tomorrow I'll actually break out the continuity tester that I should have done almost a year ago and track down the culprit, but right now, I didn't have the time. We took off as it was with a very janky bypass wire for the ignition coil and my friend in his Miata as a backup car. We kept off the interstate, so the drive took forty minutes longer than normal, but we did make it, albiet with a singed connector. We stopped for lunch at Café Hollander north of downtown and started the long drive back. After a few close encounters with traffic, we made it out of the city limits and cruised back home. Tired, we hung out for bit before starting up the movie "Bullitt." It's spring break this week, and seeing as there are lots of things planned, I figured I'd jot down the main points each day. Finally, it's time to head back home. I'm really looking forward to it, and I'll have Ben and Rex joining for the majority of the trip. I tried to pack light this time, bringing only a few bags and a jacket. We got everything packed and left around 10:00am. Stoping for gas an and errand run, we finally hit the road for real around 11:00am. We made it to Wisconsin by 5:00pm. Just in time for the huge storm passing through. There were some tornado warnings for towns a bit north of where we were headed, and we got a decent chunck of that storm, with hail, wind, and heavy rain. Luckily the rain died down a bit, and we made it to dinner with my dad. We got back to my mom's around 7:30, and I pulled out the CJ-7. I really just needed to drive something and was eager to pull it out of the garage. We cruised around town for a bit and stopped by the bay before heading back home for the night. I finally was able to set up my subwoofer I got from another friend a while back, so we spend the rest of the night testing it out. Autorama. Bigger than the Detroit Auto Show (somehow). This is definitely the event of the semester. Other than maybe industry day/student exhibition. It was a good show, with lots of cars I know little about and bikes that I know a little about. My two friends that have actual knowledge on the subject were our guide. We weren't just there to see the show, however. Tickets were paid for by the school so that we could man the school booth and sketch for the public. It's always a great time. You get to draw whatever you want and meet new people. While on our shift, we met Andrew Berry, a senior at LTU who is also majoring in transportation design. He was friendly, very talented, and we got a bit of a first-hand look into what it's like at another school. I've very glad we got to meet. Of course, the rest of the day (before and after) was spent walking around the show. I don't really know many details about the cars, but here's a truncated selection of what I found most interesting. I'm a bit embarrassed of my lack of knowledge. I'll get my friends to correct me, and I'll update the info at a later date. We had our midterm presentation in studio earlier this week. It went well with lots of great feedback from Joe Dentale (Ford Creative Design) and Matt Tandrup (Livewire Creative Director). I think this is one of the best classes so far. Lots to still improve on, but I have a direction now. I'm looking forward to fleshing out the details and getting a good start on the model over break. Created: 2024-02-29 There was a big storm a night ago, and I got a picture of the lightning lighting up the clouds. My friend built a Y-wing from some clone battle packs. I reworked the gunner area and build a stand for it. Created: 2024-02-29Custom SR60 Headphones
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R53 Maintenance
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SR60i
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Digital Painting
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Midterms
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Couple of Pictures
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A while back, I noticed that the passenger side turn signal on my 1985 Jeep CJ7 was out. The right turn signal indicator would stay solid when the headlights were turned on. I pulled the bulb assembly and found this:
Pretty happy with how it turned out given that I didn't spend anything or go anywhere other than my garage to get it done. Here's a video of it being tested:
Now to repair the muffler I blew… but that's for another day.
-- cgit v1.2.3