Thanks!

Glad I could help! It’s a skill to learn like anything else, but once you get the hang of it, it’s super easy 👍👍

I have a 600w ham radio amplifier from the 60s. It’s a Heathkit SB-200

I’m very proud of it because I bought it in rough condition, and repaired it myself. Replaced all the leaky capacitors and did some other work in there. Now it runs like a dream! It was my first time working with tube gear. The voltages in these things is 2500 volts, that’ll kill you dead before you know what happened.

I also have an SB-220 that I got broken. I fixed it up but didn’t do a full rebuild on it. It’ll do 1200 watts, but I don’t need that much power so I haven’t used it much. It’s in storage. That one is from the late 60s early 70s.

My next oldest device is also ham radio gear, a Kenwood TS-530S from the 80s. There’s a lot of solid state stuff inside, plenty of transistors doing all the work. But the final output stage is still a good ole pair of tubes. I bought this in non working condition, and fixed it myself as well. Good fun!

I have a 2600 that needs the same treatment, haven’t gotten to it

Open it up and see if any of the capacitors are leaking! Soldering is a great skill to learn and you can fix it yourself.

The biggest problem people have is buying a bad soldering iron that gets way too hot. You can get an excellent iron for only 10 or 20 dollars more than the garbage out there. I used to recommend the TS-100, because that’s what I use and love, and they used to be way cheaper. The TS-80 was an upgrade to that, which was also nice but I never liked. If you’ve got the money, I still recommend them. However for the budget minded, the pinecil is almost the exact same thing, it’s well made, and it’s still like $30-40 bucks. In fact some people prefer it over the others. You can power it with a beefy USB-C charger if you have one, or an old laptop charger if you want to cut up the end and put a barrel jack on it. The thing pulls about 90 watts at full tilt, but only for brief periods.

Next you want to buy yourself some practice boards, you can get soldering kits from AliExpress that will let you build little flashing trees and hearts and stuff. Or even small handheld games if you’re getting better at soldering.

Then you watch YouTube tutorials, find several. You want to focus on quick work, at low ish temps like 280C, keep the tip clean, and flux is your friend. The very tippy tip of your iron should always be shiny, if it starts turning black, it’s building oxides from being too hot and not enough flux. Clean that thing with flux. If you leave it that way too long you’ll ruin it, that’s why most people struggle to solder.

Then once you’ve learned, and you’re ready to go. Watch YouTube videos on fixing the Xbox, buy the caps, crack that thing open and have fun. Caps aren’t that hard to replace, compared to other soldering projects. You’ll do fine 👍

Ham here too, what practical uses have you found? Mine is sitting in a box, I got it almost a year ago and haven’t checked the latest firmware or apps in almost that long.

We use our breville for hot water too

I did this last month in my 04 Honda CRV, such a massive upgrade. I don’t have steering wheel controls, and I didn’t want to tap a screen for volume control, so I went with the boss be7acp because it has a physical volume knob. Added a backup camera because why not.

It’s been a massive upgrade! Crutchfield is the bomb, installation wasn’t that hard, a bit fiddly getting to the wires for the backup and park, but I was done in a couple hours, backup camera included.

This for me, the only success I’ve had is with network issues.

Cool!

Can you put the listener count on the page? I was curious earlier as to how many were listening but couldn’t find it

Woo!

We’ll see how it plays out lol

I mean, I guess it depends. Oats are pretty cheap, I’ll give you that. But eggs? The cheapest I can source in my area is about $2.50 a dozen, maybe less if I looked harder. That’s 20 cents an egg, and since you said eggs, plural, I’ll assume two eggs. So 40 cents, that is cheaper than my 50 cent concoction, but… eh.

I do like eggs for breakfast, and I do change up the routine on weekends. But for work days I don’t want to have to think about my breakfast, and I want to be able to eat it with one hand, so I can run.

Toast and jam is a little too much like dessert for me, not enough protein 🤷‍♂️

I’ll agree there are cheaper breakfasts, but there are also way more expensive ones 🤷‍♂️

I mean, I admitted it’s not healthy 🤷‍♂️

There are worse things

I’m all about the cheap breakfast man. While you CAN make some truly cheap breakfast, I’ve been making one that only costs 50 cents per serving, and I can make in less than 10 minutes, sometimes 5. For the time saved, it’s worth it for us.

Food is so expensive, it’s crazy.

I’m stealing this. I need to change up my breakfast routine, I’ve been making the same breakfast for 3 years. Cheesy chicken patty tortilla melt thing 🤷‍♂️

I’m cheap, and I also have barely any time for breakfast in the morning, and my wife likes it when I make her breakfast but she leaves for work an hour after me.

So this is what I do, and have done for almost three years straight now.

You get yourself some Some And a big bag of shredded cheese, your choice

First thing I do when I walk into the kitchen is start the toaster oven, getting it hot. Then I take a chicken patty out of the freezer and break it in half on the edge of the counter while it’s still in the bag. Then I take a half sheet paper towel, and fold it in half, because I hate doing dishes. I put both halves of the chicken patty on it, pop it in the microwave for one minute, 30 seconds per half if I’m only doing one. Then while that’s going, I slap two tortillas on the counter, sprinkle a healthy dose of cheese on them and spread it out evenly. By the time I’m done, so is the chicken, so I put each half on one side of each tortilla. Next comes the flavor. You can sprinkle a little garlic salt and pepper, or a dash of worcestershire, or my favorite was a dab of Chick-fil-A sauce under the patty. Then, slide it onto the rack in the piping hot toaster oven. Then I walk away to go start getting ready for work, just a simple task like finding socks or something, then I come back a minute or two later and the cheese is nice and bubbly, the tortilla is browning on the edges, it’s just about ready to pull out. Then I pull them out, fold them in half, put mine on my water bottle to cool, and hers goes back into the toaster oven, but it’s a fancy oven so I set the temp to 160f so it’s nice and hot when she gets up, but doesn’t keep cooking too much.

The whole process takes less than 10 minutes, maybe even 5 minutes if I’m really on my game in the morning.

The whole thing costs like 50 cents, and is plenty filling for me. It’s probably not the healthiest option, but… 🤷‍♂️

Why don’t I use something more breakfasty, like sausage? Because I can’t find it as cheap as the chicken. Funny enough, I actually started this whole process during COVID, with frozen precooked sausage patties. We got a bag of them with one of our low income commodity boxes, and couldn’t figure out what to do with them. So I started doing this. Then when the bag ran dry, I transitioned to chicken. Not as good, but still good, and like I said, I’m cheap lol.

Hope this helps!

It should be default on, with a setting to turn it off for power users