I’ve had an X-Tronic 5040 XTS soldering station since 2018, possibly longer. It’s been a great unit! I’ve periodically had to replace the iron handle, and recently had to replace the heat gun, as well as the heat gun stand. Each of those parts are $15~$30, so considering the whole station cost $300 new and…
Category: Projects
PCchips M748LMRT Motherboard Adventure!
What started out as a very misfortuned PC based off an AIR 486SH motherboard, a 66MHz Intel i486DX2 processor, and 8 MB of RAM, traveled a very bumpy road, fell off a cliff once or twice and managed to clamor its way back up somehow, and eventually became something much stronger! For my latest PC…
Repairing the $40 Ender 3 V2
Initial Fixup I’ve got a new, interesting project here! A friend of mine found this Creality Ender 3 V2 at a thrift store for $40, and I couldn’t pass it up! As an owner of a well-modified Ender 3 Neo, I’m very familiar with the crazy process of gradually working out all the kinks of…
Keyboard Membrane Repair (Updated 2026!)
Chapter I – ThinkPad Buttons Note: I titled this referencing a keyboard, even though I am working on a touchpad. This is because most touchpads don’t use this type of build anymore, so I wanted to make the title more relevant. Here in February of 2025, I have a good old IBM ThinkPad R52 laptop!…
Dell Dimension 4300 Complete Setup
I got a complete Dell Dimension 4300 computer setup! It’s been so long since I’ve done one of these project log articles, I thought now that I got this, it’d be the perfect time to get back into it! It looks pretty awesome, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t working perfectly. It can’t boot up, and…
The ‘Heated’ Adventures of a Samsung TV Repair
One evening, I found a curbed Samsung UN40J6200 – a 40″ 1080p TV. The panel looked to be in good condition, so I went ahead and took it. After I got home, I tried to plug it up, and I could see it briefly light up, then go out. Clearly, its LED backlight was failed….