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Here is to a happily caffeinated Saturday morning... HS

Do they throw in the Trump 2024 flags for free?

Now you think I live on a estate with ample parking. 🙂

Tired of fucking around with dealers with shortages or price increases. Tomorrow buying either the X3 M Competition or a loaded Rubicon in stock locally. Just trade them in on a Lightning in 2022-2023.

Congrats. Do you dodge or ram (old Chrysler joke)?

Seems you have built yourself a first world prison.

Beater truck for hauling and a comfortable AWD car for daily use?

In a bidding war on a horse at auction now so I at least have one alternative to the motorcycle as a daily driver/rider.

Since Brent has screwed up one of my choices I am adding another to try today. Of course I would drive directly to a tire place and get 37s on as the 33s look goofy. Limited edition 75th Anniversary Power Wagon that usually sells before the make it to the lot, but people are probably afraid of the color.

I’ll respond to that with a meme I stole from Zach.

No more collet wrenches or resetting zero. Next up, fully automated tool changes. IMG_4403.MOV

You have no idea how shitty everything about my stupid house/property is.

Yes to vacation. Hard pass on basements and that other stuff. RE: the truck/car scenario, if the X3M rides like dogshit I'd look elsewhere. And seriously, why not lease something so you don't have to deal with even considering that you "own" it. See what someone would do for a one or two year option. It's not like you need much mileage. Punt the decision without much commitment, that's my real opinion.

Drove the orange truck and riding a Clydesdale as my daily driver would be more comfortable. No Hemi Grand Cherokees in stock here so cannot really try that one. Looking at a Limited 1500 now, the last one in the area that I can find.

I think you're doing the correct thing exercising some patience, VPI. I've been there and in situations like this it is difficult. Have you given any thought to a Jeep Grand Cherokee with the 5.7L HEMI motor? They are very nice, come with 20's that aren't as tooth rattling, especially if they aren't the shitty run flats I'm running on my Trackhawk? You might be impressed with the interior if it's one of the nicer ones and you can get AWD of 2WD depending on availabilities. I truly believe we are in the famine of a feast and famine cycle and in a few months it is going to look VERY different...will be too many vehicles and discounts will return. Timing, as they say, is everything...I feel for ya. I personally think that would be far easier to live with than a Wrangler. HS

I finally created yokes for my Stax L700 Mk1's that I'm happy with for sound and comfort. I get a great seal and I can move my head freely without the plastic creaking. It took me several attempts to reduce the clamp - and at first I thought I'd gone too far, but for the last month they've been awesome. They're almost as comfortable as my Koss Esp95X - though they sound better. I'd be happy to share the STL I used to get them printed, but I take no responsibility for you damaging your headphones. I think the only risk is that the existing stax bolts are torqued on very tight, using an o-ring for retention. If you're not careful, the screwdriver can slip and cause damage. For that reason I went with countersunk bolts and replaced the o-ring with a nylon washer. The end result spaces the pads out 2CM if hung from a headphone stand. I'm actually now using the wooden Stax stand I have, without fear of wearing out the pads due to the clamp. I had my yokes printed out of vapor polished nylon from Jawstec in the US.

Local dealers are marking up the last remaining Rubicons over MSRP now. Might just hire a car service for the year to let all the bullshit get past before buying a car.

X3M gets by $, I think Jeep's resale is going to take a hit as soon as Ford starts delivering Broncos.

Went and test drove a back-up option if I cannot find a nicer F-150.

New flagship IEM's from Senn: https://en-us.sennheiser.com/ie-900 They are $1300

In other news, I just got back the analog input board and assembled the amp. The sandwich is 6.2mm thick + bottom components for a total of about 9mm thick. Batteries are about 10mm on top of the input board. Back plate on and plugged into USB-C (charging LED on) Why we did this... Portable music Just analog from my phone at the moment. DAC is up next PS The Weight is 12oz or 340g

Here's the final board I just sent out to get manufactured... I added some more optional parts that help stabilize the current sense circuitry. The board is now 10mm x 58.4mm x 1mm. Parts are ordered, so it's a race to see if Mouser can ship my order before the boards arrive.

I just finished designing this battery protector board. It has a built in balancer to try and keep the cells at the same voltage. I added a thermistor that gets fed up to the battery management on the amp board. This also has it's own thermistor in the middle of the board. I'll set this to about 50 C for both and do some testing once I get this built. The board is 10mm x 56mm.

Resident Evil Village is unlocking at midnight eastern, for anyone who has it preordered.

Done some soldering exercise today. This small board contains 100 x 0402 10K resistors. Hand soldered with a Weller station, XNT-H tip and 0.3 mm solder wire. A few of the resistors are not flat to the board but I think they are acceptable soldered. Looking at your board, Kerry, there seems to be some really nasty things. Any chance for part numbers? I have to convince myself that the best way is to pay for a prepopulated board…

Thanks. I think I'll pick one up. I've had the amp playing from 9:00 this morning (did I mention it really sounds great ) and batteries were down to 9.8V at 3:20PM. They are not perfectly balanced so one battery is at 3.1V which is below the minimum 3.3V recommended. So looks like I'm getting a little over six hours with these batteries (3x2000mAH). I can look for larger batteries and also play with some optimizations. I've also been running additional 5V and 3.3V supplies for the DAC that consume extra power. They're not needed for just the analog input. The balancer should have kicked in to turn off the battery pack, but it didn't. I suppose it would have at some point, but I plugged it back in to charge. I have a different and smaller balancer that I'm going to try. Maybe that will do a better job.

Some more good progress. The amp is up and running I've got two issues on the board, but the amp, power supplies and USB-C PD / battery management are all working great. The wires going to the pot are temporary. There'll be a board for the analog/DAC inputs. The PD chips are small with lots of pins on them. I'm surprised I could solder them Lots of 0402 chips on the right side of the board... Here's the amp running with the battery (I need to have the input board done before I can put the batteries in the chassis). This is with the amp running and USB-C charger plugged in. Below, it is sending .18A to the batteries. The battery management will stop charging once the batteries are at about 12.5V. It drops the current as it gets closer to a full charge. With the charger plugged in and batteries fully charged, it doesn't draw any power from the batteries. At the moment, it negotiated 5V from the charger (source) and is boosting it to just above the battery voltage. If we wanted, we could source power so it could charge you phone too. I'll do a drawdown test tomorrow to see how long it will run on a charge. Overall, I'm very please with this amp. Kevin's amp design is fantastic. I've been listening to it for the last several hours with my SR-007's

Making some good progress on the amp... I’ve got the USB-C PD all soldered on and ready for testing Here’s the face plate with the jack Here’s the amp assembled, but I still need to finish the power supply and amp sections of the main board

I will just borrow Brent’s.

Sales manager decided to add a $10k market adjustment fee to the red truck so I told them to fuck off and I am planning what I will do to them the next time I am in Texas. Now I either get a vehicle that will lose little value for a year and pick up a Ford next year or get the BMW and just stick with a tiny, fast SUV. Biggest drawback to the M Competition is I am not sure the stealth hitch that works on it will have enough clearance to actually tow a trailer with the low rider or if it is just for hitch mounted bike carriers/etc.