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WAMP 2024

Das WAMP war mal wieder eine tolle Erfahrung dieses Jahr. Ich muss mich bei den Organisierenden dafür bedanken, den Besuchern einen angenehmen Urlaub und gleichzeitig ein Chaos-Event mit Programm zu bieten. Aus der Erfahrung der letzten beiden Jahren wurden Verbesserungen extrahiert und umgesetzt. Die Teilnehmerzahl ist auf etwas über 100 gestiegen. Genau so kann das WAMP meinetwegen bleiben. Ich hätte nichts dagegen, wenn noch ein paar mehr Tickets in Umlauf gebracht würden. Platz ist da. Aber es war dieses Jahr von angenehm stressfreier Größe.

Sicher gäbe es viel zu erzählen. Aber geht doch selbst mal hin, wenn es euch so interessiert. Wer Chaos-Events kennt hat anhand der hier angehängten Fotos schon einen ausreichenden Eindruck. Ich weiß, keine Bildbeschreibungen aktuell. Also zusammenfassend: Viel Platz, wiesen, ein paar Bäume, alles mit viel RGB, in der großen, offenen Holzunterkunft das Hockcenter und der Essensbereich. Ein Vortragszelt, dieses Jahr auch ein Hardware-Hacking-Zelt vom ZLT mit gutem Lötbausatzangebot, beheizter Pool, Sauna, Feuerstelle.

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The Silicon Underground Blog

I don't feel like writing because it feels like work right now. I'm in the transition to a new job. Maybe that's why my brain is fuller than last month. But I resolved to post more regularly here now. So I fall back to a simple trick: I use interesting content that somebody else has created and link to it.

There's this blog about 80s and 90s things, with on of its main focus topics being home and business computers from the 80s up until 1999. It's so interesting to learn more about the tech from back then. Like this article about the AMD Athlon. I loved tinkering with PCs at the time. I loved the Athlon and its successors even more than its predecessors. But reading the article is more than fond tinkering and gaming memories for me because I never knew about the legal surrounding and background of technological developments back then. It was slightly pre my first computer magazine subscription.

The Silicon Underground - David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more

There are a lot of posts about computers and its components, model trains, clothing and fashion, but also other things that should work both as entry points into nostalgic reminiscing and a source for interesting but likely now useless facts.

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The web is too slow for most of what it's providing.

I have a certain fondness for the Gemini space ever since its initiation. I like the main idea and am continuesly glad to see it growing in size and usefulness. I imagine that this is similar to how the web looked like at some point. Although I'm not about to make a Gemini site, I sometimes end up browsing other's sites. And it's a better experience every time. New search engines and other services, new blogs, geeky, topical sites and collections. It's such a great space for consuming interesting information when you're not exclusively looking for one specific piece of information.

Recently I was reading some personal Gemini sites and regretting not having more time before initiating a long duration of sleep is inevitable, when I suddenly noticed that I wasn't connected to the WiFi I thought I was getting my internet through. I was getting my internet through an EDGE connection with one bar on my Unighertz. That is generally not enough to do anything on the web noawadays. I wouldn't even deem it enough for today's emails. Mastodon works with that kind of connection. But you have to wait a very long time for thumbnails. Twitter didn't work at that speed when it still existed. But browsing Gemini capsules it hardly makes a difference. Not different from what I expected. But having had this experience I'm even more confident now in saying that most web sites are shit. Even a page from this site with relatively few data to load besides the actual content often consists of more than 50% of things that are not the blog article (CSS, menu, markup).

I've often thought about different ways how the Web could be used in a way that provides a better experience by making sure that bloated, malicious and faux sites aren't even linked to, without impairing the usability too much. People had so many ideas. Some of them more viable than others. But neither those I've read or heard about nor those that I could come up with fundamentally solve the problem (if you want to see it as one) that the web technologies are extremely flexible and powerful to the extend that they might as well be seen as infinitely capable of any function (and resource usage) imaginable only restricted by the client and server hardware in combination with the fact (and I think it has been sufficiently proven as such by reality) that people will create web sites that make use of the possibilities simplified by the accumulation of abstraction layers built on the core web technologies. Bad web sites will be built and linked to. Avoiding them will always be a hassle and can probably only be reliable if huge cutbacks are made by excluding the majority of web sites completely. An improved web experience in the form I imagine it would likely be easiest to achieve by starting from the ground up and creating a new web, possibly by restricting to a set of older technologies. Often suggested are CSS2, (X)HTML4 and a very limited set of JS instructions, although any set of technologies in various versions, no JavaScript, a new set of HTML tags, etc. has been suggested by now. Trying to find a way to technologically realise such a new, independent web might be a moot task.

A web built exclusively on older versions of the technologies that make up the World Wide Web seems desirable. It's what I and many others are used to already. It's very easy to make sure existing web sites work as expected on that new web: If they worked in Firefox 2, they're good. But taking this idea of a new web further, one might want to modify the feature set to prevent the same development happen to parts of the new web that happened to parts of the current web. And that's exactly the path of thoughts that Solderpunk seems to have followed and that might have lead them to the feature set of Gemini. (I'm sepculating here.) I don't agree with every single design decision. But almost all have a very good reason that adresses something that went wrong with the Web.

I've com to believe that this is the way to go if you want to escape the bloated web.

F(x)tex Pro¹ X

First of all: Look at the title. That's how the name of this device is spelled. I've never, and probably will never, be able to spell that correctly without looking it up.

I've contributed to the crowdfunding campagne in 2020. Various pandamic-related issues, a partly re-design, Chinese lock-down delays, devious shipping-issues and, during the last few years, suspected additional, unexplaned issues caused the delivery date to be postponed uncounted times. More than three years later, I've received my Pro¹ X arrived. That means that I guessed right about the makers not being the worst scum of the earth because the ran off with the money without sendind out the devices that we knew had already been produced. I don't know how this scam should have worked unless they sold the devices again to other people. But that was the general tone to which the comments on Indiegogo had goaded each other over the years.

I wanted a keyboard phone for years. I've had My experience with the Planet Computers devices, which some see as the competition. I've had more hopes for the Pro¹ X being the device I was whishing, searching and waiting for becasue it's keyboard is closer to those of the later slide-out qwerty smartphones, like Nokias N900 and because the Pro¹ X's predecessor, the Pro 1, has been reviewd positively by people with the same preferences as me.

So, the phone finally arrived. And, it didn't work. The battery hasn't been charged in years. It didn't charge. It did nothing electronic. But luckily some other campagne contributor has figured out a way to persuade the phone to charge. Interesting that they decided to send out the devices without knowing how the receipients could use them. Of course, the battery's capacity isn't what it was advertised as. In airplane mode with the display turned off and no app running the battery lasts for just over 24 hours. When used, the battery gets drained respectively quickly. But it works. Enough for a few sentences about my first experience.

The keyboard is not the theoretical ideal my brain has developed in the last 10 years. But I don't think that ideal exists. There probably are keys with a nicer preassure point and a click that feels nicer and is even more reliable. There have been in 2O02. But I didn't honestly expect that in a sub-1000-€ phone. The slide-lout mechanism is as snappy and firm as I've seen it described by users od the previous F(x)tec phone. I hope it lasts at least a few hundret times as long as the one on the Astro Slide.

The camera is fine. Much better than the alibi camera of the Titan Pocket that I'm currently using as my main phone. As it happens, I the week after I received the phone I stayed in the same hotel I was in when I tried out the Astro Slide. So I was able to make the same pointless test photos that I've posted in the Anstro Slide entry back then. (See below.) Okay resolution, mediocre sensore, unreliable auto white balance, usable but not enjoyable under artificial light (of normal brightness).

The screen is nice, which is the absolute minimum one expects in the cheapest of phones nowadays. It's bright enough, has a higher resolution than I need, has noticable colour-shift when viewed at an extreme angle. One edge is rounded, which is a first in my personal phone, but not really something I'll expect to use. It's more than fine. I don't need a display as great as what's common nowadays.

It's the best phone I had in my hands in years. The best for my preferences. If only the battery hadn't been killed by it's years-long storage period, the software would be the only thing I'd have to concern myself with in order to make this my primary phone. The pre-installed Android is very very Google-y. Not to my taste anymore. It works well, as one would expect. Not as buggy as with the Astro Slide and previous Planet Computers' Mediathek-based PDAs. Once I've installed LineageOS and replaced the battery, this may become my favourite smartphone ever. It might finally be the one to beat the Nokia 9300 for practical reasons.

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Prince Whateverer and Catastrophe at GalaCon 2024

I like seeing Prince Whateverer live. We both hope that recent years are a sign that he will be a yearly guest at this convention. That would mean that I don't have to go to another event to see him. I'll be at GalaCon anyway.

Last weekend has been the first time that I decided to take stage pictures of a rock band in years. And it was Prince Whateverer with Catastrophe at GalaCon 2024. I've made a 119 picture selection and attached it to this entry. I kind of didn't want to reduce the selection more. Although not all of the pictures are that nice or necessary to paint a picture of the concert. I did the basic post processing to the JPEG files. Let me know if you're interested in a higher resolution or a properly developed RAW of some pictures.

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New Acrylic LED Pictures

I still make st least some of these LED pictures each year to sell at GalaCon Some of them I like better than others. But there aren't really any that stand out enough for me to want to share them here. I'm making qantity above all, not investing the necessary time and effort to realise the more elaborate ideas. A sheet, a template, outlines, possibly shadows. Like the ones of which I've attached quick snapshots below (quick and dirty, including greasy fingerptints, sorry). No multiple colours, no 3D effect, no several seconds, no customised software for the LED driver. There are so man things that could be done. I'm producing what I think that people want to see at my vendow table. That's still fun. I'm just not approaching the limits of my potential, which could potentially be much more fun. I've always approached this LED picture thing like cooking for a popular restaurant. I make what I knwo people will like, plus some variety. But I'm neither a cook nor am I trying to make money with this venture. Maybe I'll explore making what I want to make more from now on. Just one more interesting picture a year, or something.

I've always had ideas for more complex LED pictures and night lights. At making some of them I've made attempts before. But Nothing that I'm proud of enough to post here. The idea to spend more time on a single picture and possibly make multiple iterations until I'm satisfied has been rekindled though by one specific conversation that I had last year with themisto97. He has made some very elaborate multi-colour LED pictures. There's Jungle Sunset, Sunset Magic, Daring Do and he told me last week that he might try and get around to adding more to his Gallery soon.

And while I'm at it, here are three more LED pictures that I like that are not just outlines: A hand-engraved Princess Luna with different area-filling styles by Ksander-Zen (more night lights from them), hand-engraved, multi-coloured Colonia by Malte279 and laser-etched, monochrome ditcher of Moon Dancer with Party Favor by VasGoTec.

Oh, look, there's an extra paragraph where a description of my ideas for multi-coloured LED pictures could be that could make somebody hold me to making them because I said I wanted to.

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Cleaning Really Very Dirty Electronics (Old Comuters)

Sometimes I come across an old computer or some other electronic device that doesn't work and is very dirty in some way. Maybe because it had been thrown away in the woods and left there for weeks, maybe because something was spilled on it while its case cover was removed, maybe because it's one of my computers and it was forced to run in my dirty home for too long. No matter what the symptoms are; A dirty PCB can be the cause for almost any type of misfunctioning.

What inspired this post was the fact that one day, Fred refused to turn on again. This time I couldn't blame a cheap power supply. I decided to clean the whole server because it was sitting in a home with nondiscript renovation activities going on for months. It was visibly dirty. Some electronics are designed with all sorts of unusual envirements in mind. Most are not prepared to be exposed to the envirement I lived in at the time, for a prolonged period of time.

Without keeping one specific computer, a specific type of dirt or one specific instance of dirty electronics in mind, the following are the main steps that I consider when I decide to clean a very dirty piece of electronics (mainly PCs).

You may decide to skip any part or any tip if you think it will do no good or even harm your specific device. I wrote this whith the dirtiest computer that I have encountered in my life in mind to cover pretty much all cases.

Checkup And Prevention

To get an idea of how dense the dirt is in various places, you can blow on parts to take away the top layer of dust. I like to use a spray can of compressed gas (often called compressed air or air preassure can) to run not-so-dense dirt out of the corners in which it has been collecting so far. There are great differences in preassure and volume of compressed gas spray cans. From those commonly found at distributors in Germany, I like Balisto best. Any gas spray can with a high preassure will do though. If you have an air compressor you can use that instead. I don't like it because of the noise. But it is cheaper and easier on the enviroment if you do it a lot.

Some people claim that there is no use in blowing on dirty electronics because that will merely redistribute the dirt inside of the device. That is not true if more dirt is blown off of the electronics than there is in the air already. Yes, the dirt gets merely blown onto other surfaces. But those tend to be outside of the device and easier to clean. If you do this to a device regularly before denser dirt builds up, you can prevent having to apply the rest of the steps.

Also, with a smart air circulation concept and clean filters on entry points (sucking fans) dust buildup can be reduced noticably.

Cleaning the surrounding of the device regularly and not letting smokers or hairy pets into the room where the device is running also helps to prevent dirt buildup in the first place.

Notice that high air humidity and nearby plants can attract bugs and spiders, which is nice, but not for electronics. Even PCBs build for the use in the outdoors develop faults if many insects are taking a liking to the warm envirement in the case. That happens mostly if the device is left outside, not moved around much and there are a great variety of different wild plants nearby. Also humidity itself contributes to corrosion in contacts, traces and possibly even wires.

Taking The Device Apart

If it's really dirty, you'll have to take it apart, I'm afraid. You need to reach in all corners and be able to make sure that dirt doesn't get merely transfered into th hardest to reach place of the casing.

To remember which part goes where, you may want to make pictures of the arrangement in the case, of connectors, orientations and marking of things, clips, screws and labeling. If it's not straightforward, make more pictures than you think you'll need. You may realise when putting something back in that two parts look very similar except from one angle, or that the orientation of a connector is not clear. If necessary, label cables and put screws into labeled containers.

Do not forget to remove any batteries. You should do so definitely before applying any liquids. But moist dirt itself can also cause trouble when it touches the wrong spots (which is why the device has to be cleaned in the first place). Commonly in PCs there is a 3 V round cell battery in a clip holder that can easily be taken out. Older devices may have soldered on lithium batteries in various casings and form factors. In modern, small form factor PCs, especially in laptops, the lithium battery also may take various forms and may require soldering to be replaced.

First Brushing

The next step after blowing is brushing. First I take a large soft paint brush and take the majority of the dust off. Its hair are long and soft, so there is no danger to any sort of soldered parts. A few brushes in several directions while holding the board over a trash can should be enough.

Now that the majority of dust has come off, what stays is the stuff that needs more intensive cleaning. If common house dust was all that there was to get rid of and you don't care about looks, you can already power up the device again to see whether the fault has disappeared.

If a more intensive cleaning is necessary, liquid gets involved. There are two ways to continue. One is with a dishwasher (if you have one that allows for the necessary settings) and one without. The latter is more work, of course.

Wet Washing (Dish Washer)

Some people don't want to believe that this technique can be safe because it involves water. But water itself is not dangorous for the PCB, if it dries off before any voltage is applied and before anything starts to corrode. A run in the dishwasher is just the right thing for getting even oily substances or crusted food residue off completely.

The three dangers that dishwashers can pose to PCBs are:

  • Water preassure - This only comes into play if you're using a special industrial dish washer and have certain delicate parts on the PCB. Water preassure is not a problem at all with household washers.
  • Heat - The most important thing is that the dishwasher has a setting to disable drying. All dish washers nowadays dry the dishes after washing them in order to prevent water spots from building. The heat during the drying period may be too high for some parts on the PCB. Dish washers usually also heat up the water in order to be able to reduce the time the dishes have to be let sit wet. Some claim to maintain a water temperature of 95 °C. That may be too hot for some parts on the PCB. If you're not sure about every piece on the PCB, you should reside on the side of caution and not use the dish washer for that PCB. If the device is specified to continuesly operate at an surrounding temperature of 60 °C or more, and you trust that it's still up to that, and you're sure that neither the water nor the air inside the dish washer gets hotter than that, it should be safe enough. Most parts don't have a problem with being heated to that temperature for a short while. But you should make sure that the temperature really doesn't rise above what the setting suggests. There are enough reasons to forget about the dish washer and do it by hand if unsure. The usual advice is to only use a dish washer if it has an option to run a cold wash, without heating up the water. If it offers a run at 30 °C, then that generally is safe also. Note though that the cooler the water is the longer it has to sit to achieve the same effect.
  • Hight/Dimensions - Lastly, of course the board has to fit into the dish washer. If your dish washer has a spindle at the top, make sure it can't collide with anything. The board should be oriented in a way in which the dirtiest or most difficult to clean by hand parts are facing the spindle that squirts out the water. If there are fiddly parts (like slot connector rows, deep heatsinks or forests of capacitors and coils) on both sides of the PCB then you may need to turn it around after one go and wash it again.

Usually PCBs don't have to be washed for as long as dishes with crusted food residue. That means that even without heated water the washing time doesn't have to be increased. But if there actually are crusts of dirt and gooey clumps on there, washing time needs to be significantly longer than it would be with hot water.

Wet Washing (No Dish Washer)

In order to save water, get a tub or a bowl or some similar container large enough to hold all the parts that you're going to wash. Wet the dirty parts with a shower head, catching the water in the tub/bowl. Use warm water no hotter than you would to wash yourself. Put some of the dirtly pieces into the bowl/tub. Add a drop or two of dish soap if you like. Don't use aggressive detergent. If the parts aren't covered with water completely, add more water.

Depending of the type and intensity of the dirt, you may want to keep the parts in water for an hour or even longer. Usually, a few minutes are enough though. When you think the dirt is soaked enough, remove the parts from the dirty water and rinse them with cold, clean water. A bit of preassure may be good. If you have an old shower with no preassure limiter, be careful not to damage sensitive parts, if there are any.

In most cases, PCBs, metal parts, plastic parts, cables and connectors are clean after that. Make sure to let everything dry sufficiantly (see below) before powering anything. If you find than some spots are still dirty, a second and possibly longer bath or a more thorough brushing may be needed.

Instead of letting the parts soak you can also try to brush them with a soft, wet brush, then rinse off the dirt and repeat until no more dirt is removed with the large, soft brush. This may be more convenient if all that is to be cleaned is one PCB. See below for more brushing tips.

Second Brushing

Before you get out the harder brushes or try to rub off remaining dirt with more preassure, inspect all PCBs that you want to brush to see if there are any parts that may be damaged by too much preassure. Pins can be bent, long legs of parts can be bent and even ripped off. Polished dies (heat intensive chips on which a heatsink will be placed) can take damage in the form of scratches. Sockets of modern CPUs need to be covered to protect their pins. If the socket can't be covered securely otherwise, consider just leaving the CPU in. Be careful around these spots and consider covering polished dies with a piece of packaging tape (or the original cover if you still have it and it doesn't cover too much other space).

Small areas of flat surfaces (like unpopulated areas on PCBs) can be cleaned with wet cotton sticks. I recommend them only for the removal of specific blobs of dirt. Cleaning more than a square centimeter or so takes too many sticks. If there are larger flat areas, like on casing parts or on modern ATX boards, use a cotton or microfiber cloth.

Any other area of a PCB, any area that is populated by anything or where there isn't much space bewteen two parts, is better cleaned with brushes. Start with a large, relatively soft brush to sweep and brush large areas at once. Then switch to a smaller, harder brush for any spot that is not sufficiently cleaned by the larger, softer one. That will be many spots. Practically any spot where there is no more than a few millimeters of space between parts. Depending on how dense, how high and in what shape parts are, I switch between the following brushes:

  • Wide, soft paint brush - for larger areas with flat SMD parts only as well as the unpopulated back of a PCB.
  • Narrow, soft paint brush with slightly shortened bristles - for areas between high parts (e.g. between large capacitors or between PCB slots).
  • Small, hard paint brush with very short bristles - This is getting closer to scratching. I use this brush to get grundge out of corners, from under legs or from between flat SMD parts. Do not use this on sensitive connectors, like RAM slots or flat flex connectors unless you need to. If you do, be very careful and only brush in the direction the connector pads are oriented in.
  • Medium-hard toothbrush with cross bristles - I use this one for light scrubbing around all sorts of areas. The crossed bristles really make a difference in getting general dirt out from the corners of tiny SMD parts and from under legs of through-hole parts. When I say scrubbing I mean with almost no preassure. The movemenet in varying directions is what matters.
  • Hard toothbrush - If there are areas that require it, this harder brush continues the scrubbing, with very light preassure. Do not use the hard brush on sensitive connectors like RAM slots or flat flex connectors.
  • Interdental brushes - Although I almost never do this, if you would want to bring the manual cleaning process to an extreme, you can go on using interdental brushes of various sizes to scrub inbween every other mm. On PCBs with many through-hole parts and a lot of solid dirt this may be necessary. But I reckon that if that much afterwork is necessary, the bathing and rinsing before wasn't done thoroughly enough.

After you're done with the process once, you know what sort of brushes you like and can prepare the right set for the next time. Shorten bristles according to your requirements to make paint brushes harder.

After brushing and possibly scrubbing every area of the board, rinse it in the shower again. Repeat brushing and rinsing if necessary.

Other guides on cleaning electronics often include the usage of alcohol and vinegar. So even though I rarely use them just to get off heavy dirt, I'll write about their role a bit. Vinegar is mostly useful to treat spots of light corrosion. Hopefully your board isn't that badly. If it is, cleaning might not be enough to get it working again. Cleaning alcohol (isopropanol with 90 or more % of alcohol) is useful to dissolve substances that don't dissolve easily in water. Depending on the type of extreme dirt you might try insect remover, dish soap, degreaser, silicon cleaner or diluted acid. Be aware though that anything more agressive than soap might attack some parts on the PCB or their casing. Cleaning alcohol has so far been the only thing besides soap to clean off even the most disgusting clumps or dirt. You might consider meths instead isopropanol alcohol because it's way cheaper. Denaturated alcohol will leave a residue of its additives, though. I'm not aware of any consequeces to electronics. I know it is often used as a cheaper alternative to isopropanol alcohol even in professional circles. But YouTubers tend to warn about using it to clean electronics. So, maybe they know why and you should reside on the safe side here. I don't and I'm not aware of any problems it may have caused me.

Connectors are parts you should to look out for specially if after the first round of wet washing you still have hard dirt to brush away. Many modern connectors (their pins or their fixation) are easy to bent with a brush with hard bristles. Some can be ripped off more easily than one may assume. That is the reason I like to treat some connectors longer in a water tub or dish washer than, e.g. casing parts. Cables with flat sheath are best cleaned by soaking in in water for a while, then slowly wiping off dirt by swiping it through a cloth. Depending on the number of centuries the cable has been exposed to heavy dirt, the process might have to be repeated a couple of times for each centimeter of the cable from every angle. Especially wite cables might take a dozen or more times of swiping with 10 minutes of soaking in between. Mash cable sleees, if they are really dirty, might take some brusing with a hard brush with small bristles after they have been soaked in water enough.

Drying

Before the electronics can be powered they need to dry, of course. There are a few things that can be overlooked though. If a board looks dry on the surface that doesn't necessarily mean that every part of it is dry enough already.

Coils and some other parts can hold water for days if they were drenched. If there are any on the board, a day long dry should be the minimum; Two days if you want to be sure and don't apply any drying methods. Dense connectors can hold quite a lot of water even if the rest of the board already completely dry. It may be necessary to blow them dry even after a day of waiting.

Because of my work and living situation, I often don't come back to the device for days anyway. So I just leave it in a slightly ventilated spot for 5 days or a week until putting the device back together. If you don't want to wait that long, consider the following.

  • Leave the parts in a well ventilated and dry spot in a position where only small surfaces/corners are touching anything other than air. Things will not dry otherwise and you may get a new problem with corrosion.
  • Position a fan to blow on or past the parts, especially PCBs, in a way that it can be left unattended. Even a small computer fan at low speed does a lot. A room fan set to 11 does more. But don't use a room heater to blow hot air directly at the parts.
  • Use a hair dryer on low or cold setting to blow parts dry quicker. This speeds up the drying process a lot. But don't expect wonders after one minute. You still need to give it some time. Don't come too close with a hot hair dryer and don't use the high setting unless you hold it apart a meter or so to dry a large bunch of parts.
  • If the weather allows for it, you can use solar energy to dry parts quicker. If there is nothing among them that you don't want to be exposed to UV light a lot, leave them outside in the sun for a few hours. In really hot weather, check the temperatur of the surface first and regularly. It might be too hot for some parts. Don't use glass or mirrors to increase temperature.
  • In general, what's best is slightly above room temperature (more heat doesn't do all that much but can damage some parts) and continued ventilation (the more the quicker).
  • To prevent water spotting make sure to use soft water (low amount of chalk in it), filter it if necessary. Cleaning alcohol can also help to prevent spots during the drying process.

    If you grow impatient, make sure to withstand the idea to try and use a heater. Don't place the electronics on top of a heater, don't have a heatgut point directly, at it. If you use a radiator, use it to heat the room, not the electronics first.

    Finishing And Testing

    When you are happy with the result of the cleaning process and you are sure that all the parts have dried sufficiently, you might rush and power the PCB up to see how it does. But you also might want to take the time to check whether you have damaged anything, bent any radially mounted party or connector pins. Depending on the original finish and the age of the PCB the now perfectly clean part may look astonishingly well or boring. If you want to show off your machine or sell the PCB. you might want to apply your own finishing by spraying the board with silicon spray. There are oils that advertise being best for this purpose. But I don't agree. An evenly distributed silicon coat looks best in pictures and in person. A spray can with a good nozzle allows for an evenly distributed, thin coat. Don't allow for drops to form. If you can't get it evenly distributed or your can spits, apply a bit more than enough and use a large brush with soft bristles (the one you started out with for the manual cleaning process) and brush the board in random and all sorts of directions to make it look evenly distributed.

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GalaCon and the Brony Fandom 2024

I was at GalaCon 2024. Actually, I was at every GalaCon since the first one in 2012 in Stuttgart. But the 2024 one was just last weekend and that's the one I'm going to write about. GalaCon is a My Little Pony fan convention in southern Germany that's taken the place of the largest such gathering in Europe ever since the fourth generation of the My Little Pony TV show has become the source of such a popular meme and art culture. As usually with events I write about, I'm not going to explain what it is like, what culture characterises which parts of the event or what happened in the past. I'm writing this from the perspective of somebody who is famililiar with the fandom even though they have not been involved with it much in recent years.

I had a vendor table again, selling my LED pictures. (I hope I remember to link the post here that I plan to write tomorrow.) So I didn't exactly have the time to walk around all day and attend panels and workshops whenever I liked. But I took enough time to walk around the vendor hall (which really is just everywhere around the corridors of the venue). My overall impression was that mostly established vendors with experience had a table, and only one new name was there. More than one new to GC. But only one who was trying out how things go for the first time. The fandom did change over the years. It's not as young and brisk anymore and the vendor hall reflects that. The establieshed cosplay, plushie and other fandom culture has the power to conceseal the fact that this has become an old fandom. New things arise, and a new generation of the show ensure new content and dialogue. So it is not a dying fandom or a fandom occupied with the past. But it has come a long way since 2013. The mountains of fresh memes, edgy video shorts and its affiliation with the troll cuture has faded to the point I don't expect people I talk to to know anything about it. Many remember the biggest memes and running gags. Others have heard about the funniest controversies or the most cornerstone events of the fandom. But I don't expect anybody to know. And nowadays I'm not actively involved in the fandom much. GalaCon once a year and two or three post on social media a year are pretty much the extend of what I see of it. I'm one of the 2013 bronies. And by now it doesn't matter anymore what your definition of a brony is or whether I myself define me as one. A 2013 brony simply is what I am and that's the role that I play at fandom events. I may catch up on the new generation of the show. But it will lack the enthusiasm that I experienced during a livestream of the new episode with a chat in 2015 or so and I will not be tempted to created memes and GIF animations from the new episode like I used to. It's a G5 fandom now. Not the one controversion or wholesome news articles were written about. Just one cartoon fandom among many. This is not to say that it's character changes. Lover and Tolerance are still values that are held high by many and referenced to at times. It is not the motto of everything most people do most of the time anymore. But in the end, I really like the plushie culture, the implied freindliness and the kind of show-related talk that occurs during an event like GalaCon, aside from the show itself.

I was surprised at how many pictures I took this year. Nothign special. I'm not the hobby photographer anymore who takes his camera everywhere and overuses it's ability to take 6.3 photos per second for pretty much no cost. But it did show, like in the lest of my life, that I'm getting off the years-long period of being too stressed to even read a paragraph of anything or to thing about how to frame or light a photo of something. So, to my surprise, I left out many photos that weren't that bad or even interesting, to draw a more even picture of the entire event as I experienced it. The attached photos are meant as an impression of what I saw from my table, while walking arounf or socialising outside suring and after the event. In addition to the photos below I took a lot of photos of the concert on Saturday. To be honest, almost exclusively of Prince Whateverer's performance. Over 190 pictures got into the shortlist of pictures that I will post in an additional entry in this blog. It was the first time that Prince Whateverer and My SLR camera were at the same venue. And I too the chance to try and get as many nice stage pictures as I could during the half hour he and the band played. Well, the best I could do with the two focal lengths I had packed (30 mm and 8 mm at a 1/1.6 crop sensor). I plan to edit some of them this week and post them in my next entry.

As for my LED picture selling stuff, it's incredible how close I keep getting to a bottom-line-0 almost every year. I didn't make any money again this year except if I exclude the convention ticket for me and my helper and calculate with an hourly wage of 0 € for everybody involved. It really is a loss. But I'm not planning to quit. As every year, I didn't sell every last thing that I made. So I have some merch to start with in the next year. And I always have enough ideas to make new pictures that I can then sell. I also have ideas for some elaborate ideas that would be far too expensive to sell. (Althoug, I should try before I claim that.) And one of those years I'll probably make one ore the other of those. I think I'll probably write more about that in my upcoming post about my LED picture hobby.

There are so many details that I though I'd write about. But I don't see the point right now to spend a lot of time on jokes and references only people who attended the convention would get. So, instead I'll just describe some of the convention's surroundings. Since I didn't write about GalaCon last year (the first year at the new venue in Waiblingen), I'd first like to emphasise how much I like the Bürgerzentrum compared to the Forum in Ludwigsburg. The Forum was great. It could hardly have been any better. The building, its style, the square in front of it. The parking area and the park nearby. I thought it would probably be worse in Waiblingen. But: The venue is very much in the same style; even the fountain on the square in front of it. There is a park even closer to it. There is a beergarden with good food very close, which is arguably better than the Irish bub in Ludwigsburg. The parking is just as cheap (but only a very limited number of spaces for vehicles higher than 2 m is available) as it used to be in Ludwigsburg. And the only thing you even need to cross a street for are the two discount markets that are right across the strees, way closer than the next supermarket or similar store used to be in Ludwigsburg. I can't speak for other attendies or the organisers. But I like the new venue very much. There are way fewer hotels in the entire town. Many more attendies than before have to commute from Stuttgart. There is no Bodencon or Stair Con or similar venture that I'm aware of. But in principle the park area would hold enough places for settings up tents or maybe even very small camps for the night. That would probably not go well as lonog as it did in Ludwigsburg since more passerby would notice them in the morning and such a camp would be difinitely illegal in Germany. But I'm just saying, in principle, there are nice places under some bridges and next the the stream.

I watched the recording of the livestream on Tuesday. Monday was for sleeeeeeeeeeeping. (There's this many 'e's in the word because I slept for such a looooooooong time.) And honestly, I think that a nice way of adding that content to my con experience. I still rememberd the people that I met and the memes that were going around and the cosplayers and the genral vibe of the event when I watched the panel recordings. I really like that GalaCon not only does high-quality livestreanms and free recordings but also publishes the unedited livestreams on YouTube right away. I've watched everything that happened in the mane hall in those two days. (Well, I skipped some bits.) And I was not disappointed by the amount of ambition that many attendies of the charity auction have put into keeping years-old jokes alive, developing them further and in one case, taking it over the top. I consider this the GalaCon at which one particular shark has been jumped (figuratively, even though there were shark plushies around). If you know how GalaCon charity auction go and you remember the Swiss bronies vs. the Joker fondly, you should watch this years's auction. Above that, I guess it's nothing special nor worth watching for somebody who doesn't know what I'm talking about. More about the actual convention in the image descriptions below.

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Saul Gutmann, a lawer very much in character most of the time posing for the camera after his other standard move: giving everybody that he just met one of his business cards_
Saul Gutmann, a lawer very much in character most of the time posing for the camera after his other standard move: giving everybody that he just met one of his business cards.
Saul Gutmann meating bronies in the park_
Saul Gutmann meating bronies in the park.
One of my favourite outfits that weekend_ Casual, Dash shirt, small scoot plush, proper hair, friendly wearer_
One of my favourite outfits that weekend. Casual, Dash shirt, small scoot plush, proper hair, friendly wearer.
Bronies at the beergarden close by_ At a certain time of the night at least one table will have loud electronic pony music playing_
Bronies at the beergarden close by. At a certain time of the night at least one table will have loud electronic pony music playing.
So many plushies at the beergarden as well_ That is mostly how I determine that it's a brony table_
So many plushies at the beergarden as well. That is mostly how I determine that it's a brony table.
I just liked the pictuure_ Couldn't not share it_
I just liked the pictuure. Couldn't not share it.
The second of two chalk paintings this year_ I have no idea why this trend suddenly plummeted like this_ The Hamburg meetup ended up taking their group picture not in front of the drawing but closer to the building, maybe because of the weather_
The second of two chalk paintings this year. I have no idea why this trend suddenly plummeted like this. The Hamburg meetup ended up taking their group picture not in front of the drawing but closer to the building, maybe because of the weather.
Scootalooplushies were one of my favourite thngs to take pictures of this year_ This is the only one with hairy hair_ Looks punky_ I like it_
Scootalooplushies were one of my favourite thngs to take pictures of this year. This is the only one with hairy hair. Looks punky. I like it.
Another Scootaloo plush_ It doesn't get much cuter than this_
Another Scootaloo plush. It doesn't get much cuter than this.
The "black market" at the camper parking area close to the venue_ Speculations were brought up that they were selling OnlyFactory and other chinese cheap pony plushies there, like at that one stand close to the old venue in Ludwigsburg once_ But I don't know anybody who has met anybody at that trailer_
The "black market" at the camper parking area close to the venue. Speculations were brought up that they were selling OnlyFactory and other chinese cheap pony plushies there, like at that one stand close to the old venue in Ludwigsburg once. But I don't know anybody who has met anybody at that trailer.
The front window of the "black market" trailer_ There is a hint of a huge plush further back in the camper_
The front window of the "black market" trailer. There is a hint of a huge plush further back in the camper.
I just like how many plushies are poking out of backpacks_ Can be cute_
I just like how many plushies are poking out of backpacks. Can be cute.
Sparkling drinks with pony theme_ I guess somebody made them themselves some years back_ This brony had six of them left still unopened_ Sounded like he couldn't decide whether he was a collector or wanted a soft drink_ But he ended up continuing to be a collector_
Sparkling drinks with pony theme. I guess somebody made them themselves some years back. This brony had six of them left still unopened. Sounded like he couldn't decide whether he was a collector or wanted a soft drink. But he ended up continuing to be a collector.
The other chalk drawing this year_ Looked really good from the right height_
The other chalk drawing this year. Looked really good from the right height.
Looked weired from the wrong height_ But they did take the time to extend the lines inbetween_ I like that work_
Looked weired from the wrong height. But they did take the time to extend the lines inbetween. I like that work.
Poking out might be an understatement in this case_ She was gazing at the clear sky or trying to fall out_ I don't know_
Poking out might be an understatement in this case. She was gazing at the clear sky or trying to fall out. I don't know.
Raise the flag_ Raise the flag_ …
Raise the flag. Raise the flag. …
Dusty Katt and [refraining from any speculation_ I don't remember who that is_ I probably should know_] in great costume in this year's theme_
Dusty Katt and [refraining from any speculation. I don't remember who that is. I probably should know.] in great costume in this year's theme.
My vendor table after setting up but before cleaning up_ (I always forget to clean up before the con is over_)
My vendor table after setting up but before cleaning up. (I always forget to clean up before the con is over.)
My favourite piece this year_ It wasn't sold; a little bit to my surprise_ So I gifted it to my helper_
My favourite piece this year. It wasn't sold; a little bit to my surprise. So I gifted it to my helper.
I made some non-MLP pictures this year_
I made some non-MLP pictures this year.
Corner broke off, so I decided to make it a Tempest picture_ Sold it including the broken-off horn_
Corner broke off, so I decided to make it a Tempest picture. Sold it including the broken-off horn.
This plushie maker didn't apparently wanted to feed the Fanta joke but she said she didn't want her plushies to end up at the auction_ So she made a Spezi, a Sprite and a Coke plush_ Really great work!
This plushie maker didn't apparently wanted to feed the Fanta joke but she said she didn't want her plushies to end up at the auction. So she made a Spezi, a Sprite and a Coke plush. Really great work!
Folr the first time there was a vendor at GalaCon who mainly sold similar items as me_ He has laser-cut and -etched vectors, a limited slection of pictures, a nice table set-up with black backgrounds, just one type of base_ Nice work_ A more professional-looking version of my table_ But a smaller selection of characters as well_
Folr the first time there was a vendor at GalaCon who mainly sold similar items as me. He has laser-cut and -etched vectors, a limited slection of pictures, a nice table set-up with black backgrounds, just one type of base. Nice work. A more professional-looking version of my table. But a smaller selection of characters as well.
The other pictures at his table_ I especially like the cut-out edges_
The other pictures at his table. I especially like the cut-out edges.
Large plushies can poke out of backpacks as well_
Large plushies can poke out of backpacks as well.
One of the few elaborate theme-related costumes this year_ (Few is more than there usually are_) I think this may be my favourite viking cosplayer at this year's GalaCon_ The costume fits him_ And he was super-nice_
One of the few elaborate theme-related costumes this year. (Few is more than there usually are.) I think this may be my favourite viking cosplayer at this year's GalaCon. The costume fits him. And he was super-nice.
Sweetie Bot was there again_ I heard they even had a panel there_ Still have to look that up_ I don't know if there are recordings from the smaller rooms_ Sweetie Bot has changed since the last time I saw her_ She did seem to be more reliable in the movements that she does_ Or her controlling human had more experience_ She can turn her head 360, show several emotions on her mouth display, wiggle, shake, nod her head, open up her back_ The pistol with soap bubbles wasn't with her_ But there's apparently plans for an improved version of it in the future_
Sweetie Bot was there again. I heard they even had a panel there. Still have to look that up. I don't know if there are recordings from the smaller rooms. Sweetie Bot has changed since the last time I saw her. She did seem to be more reliable in the movements that she does. Or her controlling human had more experience. She can turn her head 360, show several emotions on her mouth display, wiggle, shake, nod her head, open up her back. The pistol with soap bubbles wasn't with her. But there's apparently plans for an improved version of it in the future.
Vinyl Scratch hogging the base cannon_ (Well, one of the tweeters is all that this small one can manage_)
Vinyl Scratch hogging the base cannon. (Well, one of the tweeters is all that this small one can manage.)
Many ponies hogging many parts of the base cannon_ I like that the base cannon seems to be an annual attendence now_ It's a great build of the iconic device from the old fan animation_ I don't know the name of the person who made it, though_ No idea what to link to_
Many ponies hogging many parts of the base cannon. I like that the base cannon seems to be an annual attendence now. It's a great build of the iconic device from the old fan animation. I don't know the name of the person who made it, though. No idea what to link to.
This guy suddenly appeared to inspect my table_ He took a lot of notes, made sure that there are no sharp edges on my products, made sure that I knew who's best pony and asked a couple of other safety-related questions_ Kudos to him for staying in character even though I talked a lot of crap_
This guy suddenly appeared to inspect my table. He took a lot of notes, made sure that there are no sharp edges on my products, made sure that I knew who's best pony and asked a couple of other safety-related questions. Kudos to him for staying in character even though I talked a lot of crap.
Colorful variation of LED pictures at my table_
Colorful variation of LED pictures at my table.
I found orangehaj_ Nemo is not in this picture_ What a confusing plush_ Sold to another vendor_ The maker of this shark had also some other uncommon plush items_
I found orangehaj. Nemo is not in this picture. What a confusing plush. Sold to another vendor. The maker of this shark had also some other uncommon plush items.
Familiar faces are sometimes accompanied with familiar outfits and plushies_
Familiar faces are sometimes accompanied with familiar outfits and plushies.
Plushies of this size were hanging out on the railings ore than I remember from last year_
Plushies of this size were hanging out on the railings ore than I remember from last year.
This year's roll-up_ It was auctioned for charity later_
This year's roll-up. It was auctioned for charity later.
Sweetie Bot alive_ Sweetie Bot like regular pony_ Sweetie Bot has equality_
Sweetie Bot alive. Sweetie Bot like regular pony. Sweetie Bot has equality.
Sweetie Bot kiss brony
Sweetie Bot kiss brony
:p
:p
More and more plushies accumulated on these railings_ Weirdly, they seemed to move whenever I wans't looking_ I haven't seen one of them in the same spot twice_
More and more plushies accumulated on these railings. Weirdly, they seemed to move whenever I wans't looking. I haven't seen one of them in the same spot twice.
Pinkest Pie in the Länd_
Pinkest Pie in the Länd.
Scootaloo has the perfect colour scheme for a pony (or dragon), winged or otherwise)_
Scootaloo has the perfect colour scheme for a pony (or dragon), winged or otherwise).
The largest plush I've ever seen was this one of Discord_ He has a blow-up baseball bat, which proved to be perfect to hit passing bronies without hurting them_
The largest plush I've ever seen was this one of Discord. He has a blow-up baseball bat, which proved to be perfect to hit passing bronies without hurting them.
Best dragon costume again_ Petting cute human_
Best dragon costume again. Petting cute human.
Princess Ember is best princess_
Princess Ember is best princess.
? poni
? poni
This artist wasn't at the con_ But a friend sold prints of hers at their table_ I like thagt style_ And the price of these prints is really low_
This artist wasn't at the con. But a friend sold prints of hers at their table. I like thagt style. And the price of these prints is really low.
People like Sweetie Bot_
People like Sweetie Bot.
That Flutterguy was there, too, of course_ I think he's been at avery GalaCon I've been at, or more if you consider those meetups that happened during the time GalaCon would have taken place if it hadn't been cancled because of the pandemic_ And for some reasons I always habe to take a photo of him_
That Flutterguy was there, too, of course. I think he's been at avery GalaCon I've been at, or more if you consider those meetups that happened during the time GalaCon would have taken place if it hadn't been cancled because of the pandemic. And for some reasons I always habe to take a photo of him.
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