Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
If you can make those burgers turn out dry then just give up
Sharon can.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Karla said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Though the one thing I would like to reproduce is oatmeal that I had as a kid and have not been able to. I get that I'm not going to get that with instant, but even the longer cooking with whole milk wasn't the same.
Give this a try:
Pick your own dried fruits, or leave them out and finish with some maple syrup and brown sugar.
I will try, but I know there were no dried fruits in it and I think we used just white sugar. For sweetness.
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@Karla said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
I think we used just white sugar. For sweetness.
Take a page from the instant oatmeal products. Use brown sugar and maple syrup. Good stuff.
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@Polygeekery Yup, always brown sugar for oatmeal. Even gluten-free oatmeal.
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@Polygeekery Two things:
- My mom's family ate lots of meatloaf. So much that one of my uncles is known for saying "meatloaf? Me die" at the thought of eating it again.
- ... There was a second point. But juvenile onset Alzheimer's (CRS syndrome) is real. And annoying.
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@Benjamin-Hall Oh. About instant mashed potatoes
The 1.5 shifts I worked in a factory where they made those was the closest I've come to literal hell in my life. Never will I eat those again.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@HardwareGeek said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
I haven't had meatloaf in ... I'm not sure how long, but quite a while.
Meatloaf has a weird nostalgia for me. I mean, I've always liked meatloaf. It is awesome depression-era food. I have always loved "peasant foods" (such as Spaghetti Puttanesca, which translates to "whore's spaghetti"). Meatloaf is right in that wheelhouse.
But several years ago we were on vacation with my father and were in a "rural" area where grocery stores were not what I would consider to be "well-stocked". I remembered the prison meatloaf recipe and was able to get the ingredients for it and it is a really good recipe. My father loved it, and so did we. Peasant food at nearly its peak.
Pay no attention to the name, it is a really good meatloaf. Of course, if you have an issue with gluten YMMV. But if you don't it is pretty amazing. Make that, prepare some powdered Idahoan mashed potatoes (which are a marvel of modern food science and much better than they ever should be) and you have a meal for a family in relatively no time. You can even prepare it ahead of time and toss it in the oven when you get home.
Good stuff.
Franks and beans. We would eat the beans out of the can. My dad was a bad influence on us. He also drank from the milk and put it back.
Hot dogs in spaghetti Os.
The frozen Salisbury steaks.
TV dinners were rare so we were excited about them.
Shake-n-bake chicken.Couple things I hated:
Tomato soup
rice dish with mushroom soup, I hated it so much.And while I liked grilled cheese, I never like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches...UNLESS you grilled them.
I am grateful to my Jewish mother who taught me egg drop soup. Make ramen noodles WITH eggs. Now you have your protein. She also showed me spaghetti squash (treat like noodle, done), potato and leeks soup (I can try some things to add protein and lower the carbs).
When I was a kid was never particularly excited over any of the side dishes at Thanksgiving. I now like squash and green bean casserole.
Most of my squash is frozen, though I did once make a chili with fresh one instead of potatoes. I did manage a lower carb/higher protein version of green bean casserole.
Crockpot, chicken legs (you know I like the dark meat) and broth.
I needed to start the chicken first because I wanted it falling off of the bones the way it does in West Indian cooking.
Then green beans and cream cheese to make it creamy. I think I just ate a few french onions on the side as to not eat too many.
I really would cook more we has space for all things that are clogging up our kitchen.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
I have lots of good burger recipes
Go to a "good" butcher shop, where they slice bacon to order. Those places also usually grind beef to order. Order an equal amount of slab bacon and coarse ground beef and have them grind the bacon at the same time to mix them together.
Bacon burgers. Amazing stuff. You have to cook them at a lower temperature than you would normal burgers, you have to render out the fat. But your patience will be rewarded. Although, to be fair, your doctor will hate you. If you can make those burgers turn out dry then just give up and order carryout for the rest of your life.
I"m salivating.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Karla said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
I think we used just white sugar. For sweetness.
Take a page from the instant oatmeal products. Use brown sugar and maple syrup. Good stuff.
That's not the point, yes, I like brown sugar and maple syrup, but I am trying to reproduce the oatmeal of my childhood. If I figure it out...then I'll add other ingredients.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Benjamin-Hall Oh. About instant mashed potatoes
The 1.5 shifts I worked in a factory where they made those was the closest I've come to literal hell in my life. Never will I eat those again.Growing, they were never NOT lumpy. Most of the time neither were real mashed potatoes.
We were visiting my parents on Friday-Sunday on Thanksgiving to have a second one. At one time my step sister mentions that her mashed potatoes are orgasmic. She's mildly retard and really accepted the no sex until marriage.
To my step-mother and step-brother:
How would she know?
Regardless, she makes good mashed potatoes and cream cheese is one of the ingredients.
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@Karla said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Most of my squash is frozen,
I'm going to try something for Christmas dinner that's way out of the ordinary for me.
Oh, that's what I bought the caraway seeds for.
It calls for turkey Italian sausage, but I'm going to use the turkey-jalapeño sausage I used for the Thanksgiving stuffing.
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@HardwareGeek said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Karla said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Most of my squash is frozen,
I'm going to try something for Christmas dinner that's way out of the ordinary for me.
Oh, that's what I bought the caraway seeds for.
It calls for turkey Italian sausage, but I'm going to use the turkey-jalapeño sausage I used for the Thanksgiving stuffing.
Sounds like it could be yummy. If I were to make it, I'd probably leave half the spices because if I still taste something I don't like, I can better identify the culprit.
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@Karla Yeah, as I said , I'm not a fan of caraway, so I may use less than the recipe calls for.
I wonder how many years that jar of caraway seeds will sit on my shelf.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
mixing in an envelope of onion soup mix per pound of ground beef
Americans and your weird units of measurements
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@loopback0 And they use a different size of envelopes too.
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@loopback0 wait until you reach the post where they measure time in °F.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
powdered Idahoan mashed potatoes (which are a marvel of modern food science and much better than they ever should be)
I actually do like the taste. It's the texture that puts me off... Mainly because I like chunks in my mashed potatoes...
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@HardwareGeek said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Polygeekery Yup, always brown sugar for oatmeal. Even gluten-free oatmeal.
Even as a diabetic, brown sugar still goes in oatmeal! (I use the 1minute oats, the instant is just too gluey)
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@dcon said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
powdered Idahoan mashed potatoes (which are a marvel of modern food science and much better than they ever should be)
I actually do like the taste. It's the texture that puts me off... Mainly because I like chunks in my mashed potatoes...
Heathen!
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@dcon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBRCZLzn5pM
“They peel them with their metal knives, boil them from twenty of their Earth minutes… then smash them to bits.”
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@Arantor said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
“They peel them with their metal knives, boil them from twenty of their Earth minutes… then smash them to bits.”
Yep. And they use salted water (or it's yuck), and mash with a good big lump of nice butter, and just enough milk to get a workable consistency. Grated nutmeg is an optional extra, but ever so nice.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Today I went and picked up the last of the PVC parts I will need to replace the iron pipe under the sink. Anyone want to wager on whether I get around to that before it clogs up again? Or before it starts leaking because my electrolysis ate most of the ancient iron pipe away?
I replaced it all today. No further leaking or clogs.
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Does anyone here have experience with any battery spot welders that are reasonably priced? I have lots of cordless tool battery packs with dead cells, and tons of tested 18650's. I just need a way to replace the failed cells to rebuild the packs. If I had one I would probably find other uses for it on the bench.
I've looked at the cheaper models and reviews of them. Some people say they're the best thing since sliced bread, other people say they are garbage, some recommend slight changes to make them work, some people make their own by rewrapping microwave transformers, others make their own by using parts from Harbor Freight spot welders meant for sheet metal, etc. I'm open to nearly anything at this point. But it seems like to get one ready to run that doesn't have a bunch of bad reviews you're looking at $250 minimum. Which, honestly would be very economically viable. Our tool batteries are ~$50 each and I have a whole stack of them.
And when I say I have a bunch of 18650's, I probably have ~500 of them that have been discharge tested and have their capacity on marked on them and stored in boxes. Between those and all the powder in our house it's a wonder the place hasn't went up like a Tesla in a Bangkok parking garage. I've salvaged them all from laptop and other battery packs. Since the move to Li-Po I've even started accumulating those. I just need something cool to do with them.
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@Polygeekery knowing lithium batteries, wouldn't it be more likely to make something hot (not cool) out of them?
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Polygeekery knowing lithium batteries and @Polygeekery, wouldn't it be more likely to make something hot (not cool) out of them?
FTFRAA
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Does "recreational" also apply to "asshole"?
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@Zerosquare You'd have to ask the asshole about that.
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@Zerosquare it's fun being an asshole, so yes.
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One UI quirk that bugs me about some lab bench power supplies:
So, I have a GW Instek GPD-3303S power supply. 33V and 3.2A per rail. You can series them and get 66V and 3.2A or parallel the rails and get 33V and 6.4A. So you would think that if you did either that one display would take over as the master display and display actual voltage and amperage. But no, you have to know what you are doing and add up the appropriate values. For instance, I am charging a lead acid (actually AGM) battery right now. Charging specs are 15.6V, no amperage maximum as long as the battery doesn't overheat. So I set it to parallel.
So right now it is charging at ~14.4V and ~5.6A. But that isn't readily apparent and if you mix up your series/parallel you could actually be feeding in 28.8V at 2.8A and burn some shit up.
Edit: Oh, and if you try to switch on series or parallel with outputs enabled it doesn't do what you would expect and shut off the outputs or something like that. No, it just locks up the power supply and requires you to fully power it off and back on again.
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@Polygeekery I'm not sure how the power supply is supposed to detect that you're running the outputs in series / parallel?
edit: Misunderstood and thought that the device does not have series/parallel buttons.
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So I ended up getting the cheaper Chinese spot welder. It's really nothing more than a bunch of MOSFETs that you hook to a car battery with a microcontroller to time the pulse duration. Super simple. Works well enough. It even has an automatic mode where when it detects continuity between the electrodes it beeps and then trips the spot welder after one second. Spiffy.
To get a feel for it I took some completely dead 18650s and did some test welds. The "timer" is just a scale from 1-100 for weld energy. I settled on a setting of 65 to get a good weld from nickel strip to battery. All went surprisingly well. I did discover that two battery packs seem to be entirely fine, but the charge indicators seem to have stopped functioning and I learned that battery packs keep themselves in a sleep state until they are put under load so if you check them with a multimeter they only read ~8V. So a red herring on those two.
Pro tip: Pressing the button to turn on the charge indicator wakes up the battery and allows you to get a true reading.
Then I remembered this little drill I had that I always liked but the batteries died years ago and replacing them was always too expensive, might as well buy a new drill. It is a 12V "3rill" by Rockwell. Not very high quality, but it was always handy for stuff around the house and such. So I find it, use a spudger to open the packs and get to rebuilding them. The battery configuration is three 18650s in a triangle with the positive and negative and two balance leads. I decided to reuse as much of the original tabbing and stuff and swap things over as I went so I didn't get confused and mix up the balance leads as I thought that might be able to cause a short or maybe a doubling of voltage on the balance circuitry. One of the balance leads is attached to a small strip of nickel that is spot welded to the primary nickel strip. I pop that off the old battery, double and triple check that I was spot welding it to the right location, use one electrode to hold it in position and press the second electrode to trigger the automatic function.
It was right after the welder beeped that I had just long enough to wonder:
"Hey, I wonder if I should turn down the welder since I'm not welding to the battery and just welding one thin strip to another?"
-POW-
Those nickel strips were vaporized in a blinding flash of light as all the amperage a red top Optima car battery can deliver was dumped into 0.15mm nickel alloy strips with no battery to sink the heat and peppered me with tiny little balls of molten metal, instantly burning tiny little holes through the athletic shorts I was wearing. Everything was white for a moment and gradually faded back in to view.
I sat there, in absolute awe of the dumbassery I had just enacted. Then another thought:
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I vote for Tim Allen to play @Polygeekery in the sitecom ... working title 'Fire! Fire!'
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@Luhmann said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
working title 'Fire! Fire!'
"The wrong side of the Ballmer Peak"
"How hard can it be?"
"Ballmer Peak meets Dunning-Kruger"
"Brute force and ignorance"
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
"Brute force and ignorance"
Brute Force, Ignorance and Fire
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Or at least a safety tie!
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@Applied-Mediocrity I have one of those. My son bought it for me as a
$holiday
gift.
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I have a slight need for a cordless soldering iron. I can get by with a corded one but I do enough around the house where a cord would not be convenient that I really want a cordless one.
I've looked at the various TS-XX soldering irons and most of them would work with a USB-C power bank and such. But they all have proprietary tips and I really don't want to stock yet another item unless I have to.
I almost bought a Ryobi soldering iron. It would work with my Ryobi batteries and seems to take the same tips that my Weller soldering station does. But the leads on it are absolute shit. I'm very used to the flexible silicone leads on my other soldering irons and now it is a must have.
Then I remembered that years ago I bought a clone of one of the first open source soldering irons and it takes Hakko T12 tips, which I already stock for my FX-951 station. So I considered adapting it to use my Ryobi batteries. I even have a cheap charger that came with some other tool that I could cannibalize for an interface to the batteries. It should work with anything from 12-24ish volts. I tested it with 21V (maximum of my "18 volt" Ryobi tools that are a 5S Li-Ion configuration) and it pulls 2.5-3A at peak and only intermittently.
Tonight I was mulling over the idea and it occurred to me that now I have a battery spot welder, I have a ton of 18650's and a bunch of Li-Po cells. I'm just a battery management system and some 3D printing from a purpose built cordless soldering station. If it wasn't for laptops now being 7.4V or 11.1V I might even repurpose one of their BMS boards.
A 6S Daly BMS board can be had from China for $15-20, I should have some time tomorrow to design something.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
I have a slight need for a cordless soldering iron. I can get by with a corded one but I do enough around the house where a cord would not be convenient that I really want a cordless one.
I'm really curious what you're doing around the house that you need a soldering iron that much that cordless would be a big improvement.
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@ObjectMike as an example, I've put up WS2812 addressable LED strips in both of the kid's rooms that are controlled by WLED running on D1 Mini microcontrollers. That entails a fair amount of soldering while on a ladder, etc. Those strips are mildly heat sensitive so you really need a temperature controlled iron to solder them. Trying to use a "dumb" soldering iron would just destroy the solder pads. A butane soldering iron would probably just burn the entire strip all to hell.
I also ran those same strips on their beds. Our oldest has bunk beds in his room and I ran them around the frame of the upper mattress which meant soldering while sitting on the bottom mattress. Moving from point to point, without getting tangled up in a cord was a pain.
A friend asked me to help him install those same strips as permanently installed Christmas lights on his house, more soldering while on a ladder.
I solder in situ more than most people ever do.
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Don't those LED strips have connectors, or at least pads where you could solder ones beforehand?
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@Zerosquare they do. But I rarely have the opportunity to be able to pre-solder them, in cases where I can it is a cleaner install to solder in situ.
For the strips above the crown mold in the boy's rooms each wall had two very different connections. Those strips are powered via 5V and for best color reproduction you can only run 2.5-3m without power injection, or injecting power at the end of each 5m strip. Then you have the center solder pad which is your signal pad. In each corner of the room I had a home run power feed through the attic back to the power supply in his closet. This branched out to both strips that met in each corner.
So, in theory, I could have measured each strip, cut to length, soldered on the 18ga power delivery wires and fished those up through the holes drilled on an angle in each corner. I could have also maybe soldered a signal wire to one end of every strip.
But I was doing this all by myself, so accurately measuring each length would have been difficult. Accurately measuring long lengths of non-rigid materials is also not easy to do. It was just easier to skip measuring and apply the tape to the wall and cut it when I got to a corner.
Plus, and this varies by area and country and all of that, but where I am it is generally accepted as okay to solder splice low voltage connections outside of a box but wire nuts need to be in a box. So if I had added the power connections and fed them up through the fish holes at each corner I would have either had to solder them in the attic or install boxes at each corner of the room to hold the wire nut connections. Given all of that, it was just easier to solder in situ even if it meant having a corded soldering station sitting on the top of a ladder.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
A butane soldering iron would probably just burn the entire strip all to hell.
There is a place for that, but not in your own kids' rooms.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
So, in theory, I could have measured each strip, cut to length, soldered on the 18ga power delivery wires and fished those up through the holes drilled on an angle in each corner. I could have also maybe soldered a signal wire to one end of every strip.
But I was doing this all by myself, so accurately measuring each length would have been difficult. Accurately measuring long lengths of non-rigid materials is also not easy to do. It was just easier to skip measuring and apply the tape to the wall and cut it when I got to a corner.What I meant was something like this (those ones don't need any soldering at all and are pretty expensive, but you get the idea):
https://bigamart.com/product/3-pin-10mm-led-strip-connectors-diy-strip-to-wire-quick-connection-for-12v-24v-tunable-dual-color-dimmable-led-strips-lights-pack-of-10/But hey, there's nothing wrong with soldering. I'm in no position to criticize anyways ; the Ethernet wall jacks I have here are soldered, too (I got some flexible Cat6 cable, realized too late it wouldn't connect properly, and chose the option.)
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Dunning-Kruger
Sp. Donner-Keurig. Common mistake.
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@ObjectMike said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
I have a slight need for a cordless soldering iron. I can get by with a corded one but I do enough around the house where a cord would not be convenient that I really want a cordless one.
I'm really curious what you're doing around the house that you need a soldering iron that much that cordless would be a big improvement.
Sounds like soldering.
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@Zerosquare said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
What I meant was something like this
No space, and from what others have said they can be rather flaky. Plus, I am a cheap bastard.
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My TS-100 is now my main soldering iron. So much better than my (genuine) Hakko 936 it's not even funny. Even the new-ish Wellers we have at work are inferior.
Plus, while the TS-100 tips are unique to the iron, you can use Hakko T12 tips. Biggest problem is they're a lot longer, but there are people who have made 3d-prited models to give you a grip closer to the end.
A better options nowadays is probably the Pine-cil. It takes the TS-100 tips, but can power either by barrel plug (which runs great on my lithium drill battery) or USB-C/PD.
Edit: Adding link to IronOS firmware. My favorite feature is making the "A" button a temporary "boost" that changes the set temperature to 800F for the duration the button is pressed, and reduces again when released. Very handy for ground planes.
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@Circuitsoft why do you prefer the TS-100 so much? Is it because of the higher power? I ask that specifically because my Weller WT1010H has me spoiled at 150w. It puts out 2X as much heat as my Hakko stations. Heat up time is maybe 5 seconds-ish.
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@Circuitsoft said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
IronOS firmware
I have never used a soldering iron that needed firmware.