Just A Nerd's Garage

[jeremy_cherokee]

Colorado was great - the drive home, not so much. We got stuck in a nasty snow storm from North Platte to almost Kearney - so that was fun. Other than that, we had a great time!

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

It's been another crazy couple of months. Summer always gets crazy in my family.

Father's Day Ride
In June my old man and I did our annual motorcycle ride. We rented Harleys (I got a Street Glide and he got a Road Glide) and road from the Ames area all the way over to a tiny little town west of Omaha to meet some family. Then we road across Iowa to the SE side of Iowa and home on the second day. As usual it was a ton of fun and it's always nice to go out and see the rural side of Iowa. During the ride we were chased by some rain on the way out there but somehow managed to stay away from it the whole ride.

I Decided it was Time
After riding the Street Glide I kind of became obsessed with them and ended up finding one in Minneapolis for a price I just couldn't pass up. I ended up selling the Stryker and bought a 2015 Street Glide. I then proceeded to drop way too much money on it (which i'm finding is pretty easy to do with these things) but I've got it looking and sounding a lot better (got rid of a bunch of unnecessary chrome

I put Crusher Maverick exhaust with true dual headers, a Bahn air cleaner, a black mustache engine guard, and a bigger windshield. I also bought the Vance and Hines Fuelpak - if you haven't seen these things they are pretty sweet. You plug them in to the bike, then you connect to it via bluetooth. Then you can either pick a preset MAP (I did this but first I had an issue getting the correct MAP to select - but their support is awesome and got that resolved) but I couldn't get that to ride as perfectly as I wanted, or you can do the autotune. My first couple of attempts at autotune I only let it run for about 20 miles. That's apparently not enough because I was still having issues. Then I let it run for 100 and it's running perfect now.

The night I got the Fuelpak was the night before my big ride with 3 of my friends. We did 466 miles around the NE corner of Iowa (and that's where the pic was taken). It's beautiful up there and we had a ton of fun.

Nerdy Stuff
Before the big ride and the new Harley I had spent a lot of time upping my nerd game. I built a website years ago to track my vehicle maintenance and I had never quite finished it. So I went through and got it to about 90% now. Then, while I was working on that, i decided to upgrade all of my web services to https. Then I started thinking it'd be really cool to own my last name as a domain and make it so my email could be firstname@lastname, and I have always struggled with MS Exchange so I wanted to get that tackled. So I went through and got an exchange server setup and running great. Well, since I was doing all that, I decided to also better secure my network and setup an apache proxy server, a web-based password manager, and a network monitoring system. I also ended up upgrading my VMWare environment to version 6.5 - if anyone else is interested, stay away from this version if you don't like the web interface. There is no more vsphere client in version 6.5 ...

Not Quite The Garage ...
Now that I got back from having all that fun, I decided I wanted to get some work done and started working on part 3 of 4 of my basement. Part 1 and 2 were my office and server room. Now I'm on to the main living area which is my poker area and movie theater. Several months ago I got tired of my nice Klipsch speakers sitting in a box and got it all rigged together - but it looked pretty tacky. Now that we've been having more poker nights and other events I decided it was time to get the basement closer to done.

I started with the demo and knocked out the center wall. This was quite satisfying as it had the wonderful fake wood paneling and this weird flower-printed paneling on the other side. Plus there was some water damage from the condensation of the furnace overflowing (a problem I'm still resolving).

Once I got the wall out little man decided he wanted to help. Honestly he did pretty good. He was able to get the bolts on the impact and drive them in almost the entire way with no help. He's going to be a pretty good little helper. Now, about 2 hours after this picture, he decided to go into my server area and start pulling hard drives which made me stay up until 3 AM trying to resolve, but luckily I didn't lose anything.

Then later last night I was able to get the rest of the walls up so that I can work on electrical (which is an absolute nightmare in my basement right now) tonight.

I'm hoping to get the electrical, coax, and CAT5e done this week so that I can maybe have a few sheets of sheetrock up before the wife and I head to CO for my 30th birthday on Friday. Most importantly, i'm hoping to get done with this so I can do some actual garage updates again

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Apologies in advance, this is a long *** post:

In the last post I was doing some basic framing and, at that time, my plan was limited to just the main area of the basement and to keep it simple. Well, that didn't last. First we had people over for my birthday (which the MarioKart party was a success) and no one would use the bathroom because you could hear everything behind the door. There was a door there, but not any real privacy. Then a couple weeks later the furnace condensation pipe overflowed - which happened last year, too - and flooded out my wife's office and a chunk of the basement. One thing led to another and we decided that instead of finishing the main area and then waiting a year or two to do the bathroom we'd just do it all now so we don't have to make a mess of the newly finished basement to do concrete/plumbing work in the bathroom.

This means I get to do something IN my garage. yay!

The Design
Years ago I had played around with Sketchup and, back in high school I always wanted to be an architect. Well, being a nerd took over my life but I still like to moonlight as a wanna-be architect. With that said, I tend to over think my projects and they tend to start with a Sketchup design now since GarageJournal seems to love these and it got me back into using them.

I started with this as my concept for the second iteration of my man cave - that I really can't call a man cave because it's for the whole family, but "man cave" is a lot shorter than "poker/game area that also has a theater and is used by the kids and their friends." So, man cave 2.0's design started as this:

There isn't a ton of space down there, but it'll work nicely for our purposes.

In addition to the basement as a whole, I wanted to make a feature be the entertainment center. So I spent some time designing an entertainment center that wraps around the projection screen.

The doors on the two bases along the side will have the same glass that our kitchen cabinets have on a couple of the doors. The goal with the basement is to be a little more sophisticated of a man cave while integrating the design elements from the upstairs that were created by the previous owner.

The Plumbing

Now that I had the design figured out, I coerced the old man to help with some plumbing so that I could have a permanent solution in place. The way the plumbing was setup previously was that the shower and the sink were pouring into a floor drain. The sink had this cheap plastic tube going along the back of the wall and the shower had a little box built around the drain to keep the water isolated to the floor drain area. Then, on top of that, the water softener and furnace overflow both used rubber hoses along the back wall and also went into this area. This was not an ideal setup and had already proven (twice at least) that it wasn't an effective way to prevent the basement from flooding.

In my pre-concrete photo you can see the drain box along the floor there on the right. It was pretty nasty in there, in case you were wondering. There's a picture of the bathroom pre-demo in my previous post, but this is what was lying under the shower.

I rented the concrete saw and was pretty stoked about the deal I got. Typically they rent the wet electric saw for $110 a day (I think, or somewhere around there) and then charge you $90 to buy a blade. Then I needed a jack hammer because after doing the sewage for the old man I was able to remember how much slinging a sledge hammer around *****. I was planning on spending about $300 for renting all of this. Well they had an open box blade they decided to give me for $20 and gave me the whole rental, both wet concrete saw and jack hammer, for $180. Was pretty happy about that. Got it how and started cutting:

Then we started the jack hammering and digging. This is also where Bailey decided she could help with the digging part.

After WAY more trips than I'd ever admit to anyone back to Lowes to keep getting parts we were missing, we finally got all of the copper out of the house - with the exception to the short pieces in the walls. We replaced all the water lines with Pex (which is awesome to work with) and replaced all the sewage lines with PVC. What really made us happy (after being confused at the weird way my sewage line was split up under the concrete - we still have no idea where this one Y leads to) was how clean my 47 year old sewage lines were. Nothing sitting on them, no blockage we could see at all. Made me very happy.

The Framing

Once the plumbing was done I started framing the rest of the basement. I may have actually done this before the plumbing but I've been working so much on this it's all starting to blur together. Anyway, I got the walls framed up and insulated and the doors installed.

The TV is in this one from the MarioKart tournament - and I was dumb enough to leave it up during the concrete removal so there is plenty of dust on it I get the pleasure of removing later.

And one last pic:

Question for the fine readers of GJ here:

What do you guys/gals do to keep or tools and supplies organized during these big projects?? See that poker table full of **** on it?? yeah- that's what I'm using. And it's not nearly as effective as I think something with a little more thought could be.

While I was framing the bathroom, the wife and I decided we wanted to put in a jetted tub in the basement because we've always wanted one and because that bathroom is actually quite large. Well, if you're going to have a nice and calm environment where you can relax and hide from the crazy almost-4-year-olds you need music. There just happened to be a sale on the Klipsch sound bar that day and so I decided to buy that. When we got it, I found the perfect little cubby for the subwoofer so that we can have damn good sound while relaxing in the jetted tub

Finishing the Walls

Now this is the fun part. Well, frustrating/fun. Frustrating because I haven't ever done a project of this scale before with nicer wood, but fun because I get to play in the shop.

First I started by building sheetrocking. Sheetrocking is frustrating enough I didn't worry about taking pictures because I just wanted it done. So once it was sheetrocked, had the mud applied, and textured, then I painted the same blue that we have upstairs on an accent wall. The picture make it looks darker than it is, but I think it turned out real nice. Once I got the paint up, I started building my wood accent wall.

Somehow I ended up being a couple of pieces short, but luckily the lumber yard I bought that from is just a few minutes away. I think it turned out pretty nice. The goal was to be a ship-lap like wall but I'll stain it the same color as the rest of the wood. Unfortunately they only had pine in 10' sections so it'll be the only wood in the basement that isn't oak.

After I had that built I started building my wainscoting. This I had only designed in my head so I was pretty nervous about it turning out nicely. However, I think it came out just like it was in my head and I think it looks pretty good.

Once the wainscoting was built (for the most part) I went and started installing the brick accents that I had included in my original design. This turned out really nice except I still haven't got all the grout haze off of the brick. I remember fighting this in my previous house and I just need to focus on it some more to get it taken off.

And the finished products:

In the middle of all of that, I decided to spend a day actually in the garage and started building the entertainment center. I made it all out of plywood and I'll finish the edges with oak trim.

That all assembled pretty nicely, however, I realized AFTER gluing the center piece together that I ended up being 3/4" too wide so I get the pleasure of rebuilding the center part to it. Not too excited about that. Not really because it's a decent project, but because I messed up by less than an inch.

Stain

That brings me to last week. I managed to get everything in the main area sanded and a coat of stain. I, unfortunately, started varnishing too soon on one section and it smeared the stain so I've got to sand and fix that this week, but the majority of it is good to go.

And lastly the mini-fridge area. I wasn't going to put this there because there's a full sized fridge in the room directly behind this but then I remembered that after a few beers 20' seems more like a quarter of a mile and for the couple hundred bucks I figured it was worth the ultimate sign of my drunk-laziness :

And, part of the initial deadline for this project was to get it done before the furniture we ordered was delivered because I knew that after doing this much work I would want nothing to do with carrying heavy furniture down a flight of stairs. Luckily I was able to get it to a point where they could deliver the furniture downstairs for me, even if it wasn't completely finished.

Again, sorry for the long post. Will try to keep it shorter next time.

 

[bdbecker]

Nice bike! You seem to be living up to the old adage about what "HD" really stands for... that says no matter what you want to do to your bike, its going to cost at least a hundred dollars.

 

[sean Buick 76]

Awesome work on your projects!!

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Nice bike! You seem to be living up to the old adage about what "HD" really stands for... that says no matter what you want to do to your bike, its going to cost at least a hundred dollars.

That definitely seems to be the case. pegs are $100. That doesn't make any sense, but people apparently spend it. Still a crazy comfortable bike ... just expensive

Awesome work on your projects!!

Thanks! I'm ready for the "sit and enjoy it" part of the projects now ...

 

[MacTexas]

I travel every year to Knoxville Iowa for the Sprint Car races so I am familiar with what you say about Iowa "corn and beans".
Enjoyed reading your thread today and look forward to your adventures in the future.

 

[CrazyAirborne]

Love what you are doing in your basement, I have a very similar situation I need to address. Gotta start a build thread on my projects!

 

[nicholam77]

Basement looks awesome. Please keep sharing pics. Looking forward to seeing the entertainment center come together. Nice work!

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

I travel every year to Knoxville Iowa for the Sprint Car races so I am familiar with what you say about Iowa "corn and beans".
Enjoyed reading your thread today and look forward to your adventures in the future.

Thank you! I've only ever driven around Knoxville but as time permits I've been really wanting to go down there for the races. All I hear is that it's a ton of fun.

Love what you are doing in your basement, I have a very similar situation I need to address. Gotta start a build thread on my projects!

Thank you! Basements are one of those things that are awesome to have until you start to realize how much work they can provide. However, when the work is complete, it's hard to imagine how folks in states where that's unheard of live without one.

Basement looks awesome. Please keep sharing pics. Looking forward to seeing the entertainment center come together. Nice work!

I will definitely continue to share my progress. I finished sanding the bathroom today so tomorrow it'll get stain. I also sanded down the areas that I messed up by applying the varnish too soon so I can get those fixed tomorrow too. I'm hoping by the weekend to be putting down tile in the bathroom so that it really starts to look like I've done something in there.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

<snip>

And one last pic:

Question for the fine readers of GJ here:

What do you guys/gals do to keep or tools and supplies organized during these big projects?? See that poker table full of **** on it?? yeah- that's what I'm using. And it's not nearly as effective as I think something with a little more thought could be.
<snip>

Jeremy, several years ago my wife and kids gave me this:

It sat unused for years... then I had a project like yours, well, not that grand, but one that required more than just a handful of tools. I put all the tools in it I needed and it worked great! Now I keep a certain amount of tools in the pockets all the time and it holds my Stanley short job saw. The main pocket gets emptied and filled for various projects. Right now it's collecting all the tools that were scattered in my garage, but they will be brought back to their correct homes in tool cabinet or my inside job bucket. I have one of those 5 gallon bucket organizers with pockets on the inside and outside. It keeps all of my most commonly used household project tools in it all the time. It tucks under my workbench. Both are great, but I use the Husky tool organizer a lot more.

And awesome job on the basement! I'm very thankful my wife doesn't look over my shoulder when I'm going through threads or yours would have made a lot more work for me.

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Jeremy, several years ago my wife and kids gave me this:

It sat unused for years... then I had a project like yours, well, not that grand, but one that required more than just a handful of tools. I put all the tools in it I needed and it worked great! Now I keep a certain amount of tools in the pockets all the time and it holds my Stanley short job saw. The main pocket gets emptied and filled for various projects. Right now it's collecting all the tools that were scattered in my garage, but they will be brought back to their correct homes in tool cabinet or my inside job bucket. I have one of those 5 gallon bucket organizers with pockets on the inside and outside. It keeps all of my most commonly used household project tools in it all the time. It tucks under my workbench. Both are great, but I use the Husky tool organizer a lot more.

And awesome job on the basement! I'm very thankful my wife doesn't look over my shoulder when I'm going through threads or yours would have made a lot more work for me.

It's funny that you mention these because we were in Home Depot the other day and the wife saw those and asked if it would work for me. I wasn't sure but was intrigued by the idea. I'm going to have to try one of those out. Today my son seems to have got food poisoning or something and it was the first bit of fuel for my "I want to turn our tiny half bath into a full bath" fire - so I might be needing something sooner than I had originally hoped.

Thanks! It's been a lot of work but I really think it's been turning out well.

This morning I got into work a little late because I was able to stain the bathroom and fix the bit of stain I had messed up from varnishing too soon. Tonight I'm hoping to get some quarter round cut and maybe start fixing my entertainment center.

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

The last week or two has been focused on the bathroom now. I've got it pretty much done. The backsplash tile took around 6-7 hours by itself. So much cutting! But I think it turned out pretty nicely. All the tile is down and grouted. I'm going to put a cleaner on the tile to get rid of the haze this weekend and then seal it.

For the bathroom I've now got the vanity to build, the panels for the front of the tub, a TP holder, and then probably a shelf for the speaker to sit on. Those things are going to take a temporary back seat to the main area so we can actually have one section of this project done. Here's a couple of pics of the bathroom:

These pics were taken right after I wiped the tile down with a sponge so you don't really see much of the haze but after it dried it definitely came back. The picture above is of the tub, and this next one is of the bathroom more as a whole:

Once that was done I went and got the wall tiled for the vanity area. I still have to build the frame for the mirror but I'm hoping that won't be too bad:

Last night we stained the entertainment center and I quickly realized how badly I want to spend a good full weekend in the shop just cleaning **** out. I have stuff everywhere. It's a mess. No pics of the entertainment center but I think it's turning out pretty nice. The plan is today to get varnish done on the wainscoting in the basement so hopefully I've got most of this project done by the end of the weekend. Unfortunately I lose tomorrow as a day of work because it's my mom's 50th birthday party, but it's worth it.

I also found out this week that I'm going to have to cut a hole into my new ceiling and move the projector screen up into it. I think it'll look nice when it's done but I wasn't expecting the work. We hung it up and it just hangs too low to fit the entertainment center under it. Hopefully that won't be too bad to do - but just another thing added to the list.

Finally, thanks to Gregor ... I got one of those "fancy pencils" last night:

 

[rodpoa]

You’re into Klipsch, wood, sketching wooden furniture, servers and stuff? Freaking subscribed.

Btw, I’m building a house to store 3 cars, a machine room with a 12U rack hosting mostly pfsense, QubeOS and CAT6 structures wiring all over the place to support my paranoid level VPNed ubiquiti waps and cameras.

Also building the furniture for my diy mid-century like record console with modern turntable linked to tube amp, marantz receiver and guess where else? Klipsch bookshelf speakers of course.

Awesome taste in everything buddy!


Enviado do meu iPhone usando Tapatalk

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Sweet, but Klipsch made his name with his horn speakers... You guys have got to make some room for a set of LaScalas or any other set of his horns.

rodpoa, if you use an OPPO Blu-Ray, you can send each channel output to a monoblock amp so you can have a combination of tube and solid state in a 2-ch/surround sound setup...

Also, keep an eye out for nicer, better built vintage consoles. A lot of them have room for a better TT inside and you can modify them to really decouple the speaker vibrations from the TT Plinth. I drew up plans for a larger MCM inspired console several years ago but never got around to building mine. I may build it in the future, haven't decided if I will or not. At one time I had 4 consoles. I'm down to just one now and it may be going away once the basement is remodeled because it's a cheap Sears Silvertone model. It was the one my wife liked the best and wanted to keep, but sonically, it's too light and made from too much masonite-like material so I'm not using it as a proper audio console. It's just a piece of furniture.

I used to do a LOT of DIYaudio projects... I was doing commissioned builds and restoring/tuning a lot of vintage orthodynamic headphones for guys all over the world... a little too much actually and burned myself out. I'll be getting back to it once my basement remodel and workbench are finished. I have one last commissioned build to do, a TOTL FirstWatt F5 amp for a former customer friend who retired. The F5 amp is a 25w/ch Class A amp. 54w/ch clipping, dissipates 68W of heat. My favorite piece of kit though is an AudioSector Non-Oversampling USB DAC. One of ten kits AudioSector put together with BlackGate caps and TOTL components. FLAC files through it into a great hybrid headphone amp are just amazing. I have two sets of speakers to build for my basement and I can't wait to hear the AS NOS DAC feeding those speakers.

Since you guys are geeks, checkout the diyaudio.com forums. The members there are a lot like GJ'ers, very supportive and helpful. Plenty of info to get started and a lot of guys handle noob questions as long as you have used the search function first but still have questions.


And Jeremy, the bathroom looks great! I love doing tile work, but in our old house, it's a PITA because every wall and every floor isn't square, flat, or level...

 

[vwtom]

Good stuff - I am not too far away over by Iowa City. I have in-laws in Gilbert.

Love the posts - keep it up.

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

You’re into Klipsch, wood, sketching wooden furniture, servers and stuff? Freaking subscribed.

Btw, I’m building a house to store 3 cars, a machine room with a 12U rack hosting mostly pfsense, QubeOS and CAT6 structures wiring all over the place to support my paranoid level VPNed ubiquiti waps and cameras.

Also building the furniture for my diy mid-century like record console with modern turntable linked to tube amp, marantz receiver and guess where else? Klipsch bookshelf speakers of course.

Awesome taste in everything buddy!


Enviado do meu iPhone usando Tapatalk

Thanks! I haven't heard of QubeOS before - what does it do? I've got my VPN just isolated to a few VMs at the moment but I'm thinking about expanding it. Can never be too paranoid. I just got my first ubiquity stuff for my birthday. I got one of the cameras. Unfortunately I'm having a networking issue with the VLANs between switches. I'm pretty confident that the issue is the cheap D-Link I have in between the Ubiquity tough switch and my core switch isn't properly transmitting the tagging information. So I've got another switch to try but then the basement happened.

What I've noticed is, if you are like me and like to host your own stuff for the sake of learning, reddit/r/selfhosted is a rabbit hole that you may never come out of. I'll spend an hour or so on there and then all the sudden I need a new VM host because I'm out of resources. Lots of cool stuff on there.

The DIY audio stuff is next on my list of things I want to get into. It's always interested me but I haven't had the time to dive in.

Thanks for reading!!

Sweet, but Klipsch made his name with his horn speakers... You guys have got to make some room for a set of LaScalas or any other set of his horns.

rodpoa, if you use an OPPO Blu-Ray, you can send each channel output to a monoblock amp so you can have a combination of tube and solid state in a 2-ch/surround sound setup...

Also, keep an eye out for nicer, better built vintage consoles. A lot of them have room for a better TT inside and you can modify them to really decouple the speaker vibrations from the TT Plinth. I drew up plans for a larger MCM inspired console several years ago but never got around to building mine. I may build it in the future, haven't decided if I will or not. At one time I had 4 consoles. I'm down to just one now and it may be going away once the basement is remodeled because it's a cheap Sears Silvertone model. It was the one my wife liked the best and wanted to keep, but sonically, it's too light and made from too much masonite-like material so I'm not using it as a proper audio console. It's just a piece of furniture.

I used to do a LOT of DIYaudio projects... I was doing commissioned builds and restoring/tuning a lot of vintage orthodynamic headphones for guys all over the world... a little too much actually and burned myself out. I'll be getting back to it once my basement remodel and workbench are finished. I have one last commissioned build to do, a TOTL FirstWatt F5 amp for a former customer friend who retired. The F5 amp is a 25w/ch Class A amp. 54w/ch clipping, dissipates 68W of heat. My favorite piece of kit though is an AudioSector Non-Oversampling USB DAC. One of ten kits AudioSector put together with BlackGate caps and TOTL components. FLAC files through it into a great hybrid headphone amp are just amazing. I have two sets of speakers to build for my basement and I can't wait to hear the AS NOS DAC feeding those speakers.

Since you guys are geeks, checkout the diyaudio.com forums. The members there are a lot like GJ'ers, very supportive and helpful. Plenty of info to get started and a lot of guys handle noob questions as long as you have used the search function first but still have questions.


And Jeremy, the bathroom looks great! I love doing tile work, but in our old house, it's a PITA because every wall and every floor isn't square, flat, or level...

Thanks for the site - I've been looking for somewhere to go to start getting into this stuff. I remember the first set of Klipsch I heard in that friend's basement and I've been hooked ever since. It was just the most precise set of speakers I've heard. I've really wanted to get into the DIY audio stuff, though. So now that you've thrown a bunch of audio-nerd stuff at me I'm going to be forced to start doing some research so I better understand what all that means

Thanks for the compliment! Tile work isn't bad but I had the same issue in this bathroom on the floor. You can't see it well in the picture, but the floor actually slopes down quite a bit as you get closer to the tub. We ended up pouring a **** load of concrete under the tub to level it out and provide a solid foundation for it so that it doesn't ever crack the tub but the tile area we didn't level off. Most of the slope is behind the edge of the tub, but it was still a PITA to get that tile to stay remotely straight with that slope.

Good stuff - I am not too far away over by Iowa City. I have in-laws in Gilbert.

Love the posts - keep it up.

Gilbert is almost perfectly between my house and my parents. We have good friends there from way back when. Nice little town and one of the best school systems in Iowa. Glad to see there's some more Iowa people in here

 

[rodpoa]

Guys this thread is seriously awesome!

BoilermakerFan,
sorry I don’t know how to use this app decently. I’m replying through Tapatalk and don’t know how to refer you guys to my build thread.

I posted today a pic of the Wren record console which is more or less what I’m trying to replicate.

The problem is that I’d like to craft a low but wide wood cabinet for aesthetics purposes. The thing with this setup is that I can’t fit too much hardware.

The furniture is supposed to please my misses as room decor as well. Therefore it is not supposed to be the main set of the house. The general idea is to hold a project turntable plugged to a yaqin tube phono preamp. From there all the amplification will be done in a modern marantz slim receiver. Two klipsch books will work as stereo set up front but the receiver can go full surround for movies with 2 smaller surrounds, a central and the sub on the floor. The only media source except for the project tt will be my beloved Apple TV plugged with toslink.
That’s all the space - and money - I have now.

In the garage though there will be a full analog set with vintage hardware, mixer, pre, power, ancient turn table, a Cambridge Audio DAC connecting an old MacBook white plugged via toslink playing MQA from Tidal and again tube DAC with headphone amp for grado earsets. Everything from 70’s!

Finally I still have space in the attic to build a proper sound sealed movie room with a nice projector. However no money for that yet.

Individual mono drivers is way out of my league for now while I’m still building the house. OPPO sources are definitely on the list though side by side with my bang olufsen wall mounted CD player.

If you’d like to give me some ideas, may I ask you to search out for my thread and maybe share some pics of your record consoles to not clutter Jeremy’s thread any further if that’s not too much of a trouble?

Jeremy,
Qubes is a totally virtualized Linux distro. For instance, if you open a new tab in your browser you have a new VM. One VM can be Windows, another MacOS, a third Tails. You can VPN your setup by using in one of the VMs the dual network VM distei called Whoonix as gateway connected to a TAILS VM routing everything through ToR and finally plugged to a pfSense router with AES-NI for instant VPN package decryption on hardware level. Not even NSA will break through. Sounds excessive but with the pfSense box and Qubes with pre-installed Woonix you won’t even notice performance degradation. Killer setup with the lightness of windows running on a fresh laptop.

Please check it out: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/whonix/

It is nothing short of amazing!


Enviado do meu iPhone usando Tapatalk

 

[rodpoa]

Thanks! I haven't heard of QubeOS before - what does it do? I've got my VPN just isolated to a few VMs at the moment but I'm thinking about expanding it. Can never be too paranoid. I just got my first ubiquity stuff for my birthday. I got one of the cameras. Unfortunately I'm having a networking issue with the VLANs between switches. I'm pretty confident that the issue is the cheap D-Link I have in between the Ubiquity tough switch and my core switch isn't properly transmitting the tagging information. So I've got another switch to try but then the basement happened.



What I've noticed is, if you are like me and like to host your own stuff for the sake of learning, reddit/r/selfhosted is a rabbit hole that you may never come out of. I'll spend an hour or so on there and then all the sudden I need a new VM host because I'm out of resources. Lots of cool stuff on there.



The DIY audio stuff is next on my list of things I want to get into. It's always interested me but I haven't had the time to dive in.



Thanks for reading!!







Thanks for the site - I've been looking for somewhere to go to start getting into this stuff. I remember the first set of Klipsch I heard in that friend's basement and I've been hooked ever since. It was just the most precise set of speakers I've heard. I've really wanted to get into the DIY audio stuff, though. So now that you've thrown a bunch of audio-nerd stuff at me I'm going to be forced to start doing some research so I better understand what all that means [emoji481]

Man you’re in trouble. If you are a bit like me, new research topics can become absolute obsessions.

Last time I wanted to buy a pocket knife I’ve spent literally months researching blade manufacturing process, grades of steel, opening mechanisms and all things knife related. Ended up with a boker kwaiken mini [emoji3]

Regarding the ubiquity stuff, I like everything fro them. I don’t like automation stuff as it makes me feel a bit spoiled and lazy but I do intend to install a smarthings diy automation hub simply to integrate motion detection of your very same ubiquity cameras with door and fibaro motion sensors. With multiple sources of data, you can build perimeter breach scenarios to avoid false alarms and ensure reliability.

The automation will also be used to trigger light and strobe alerts per demand as the intruder progresses through the electronic layers of the perimeter. The last layer though is obviously planned to be the final deterrent of the bad element’s advance and therefore, extremely low tech [emoji3]



Enviado do meu iPhone usando Tapatalk

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Guys this thread is seriously awesome!

BoilermakerFan,
sorry I don’t know how to use this app decently. I’m replying through Tapatalk and don’t know how to refer you guys to my build thread.

I posted today a pic of the Wren record console which is more or less what I’m trying to replicate.

The problem is that I’d like to craft a low but wide wood cabinet for aesthetics purposes. The thing with this setup is that I can’t fit too much hardware.

The furniture is supposed to please my misses as room decor as well. Therefore it is not supposed to be the main set of the house. The general idea is to hold a project turntable plugged to a yaqin tube phono preamp. From there all the amplification will be done in a modern marantz slim receiver. Two klipsch books will work as stereo set up front but the receiver can go full surround for movies with 2 smaller surrounds, a central and the sub on the floor. The only media source except for the project tt will be my beloved Apple TV plugged with toslink.
That’s all the space - and money - I have now.

In the garage though there will be a full analog set with vintage hardware, mixer, pre, power, ancient turn table, a Cambridge Audio DAC connecting an old MacBook white plugged via toslink playing MQA from Tidal and again tube DAC with headphone amp for grado earsets. Everything from 70’s!

Finally I still have space in the attic to build a proper sound sealed movie room with a nice projector. However no money for that yet.

Individual mono drivers is way out of my league for now while I’m still building the house. OPPO sources are definitely on the list though side by side with my bang olufsen wall mounted CD player.

If you’d like to give me some ideas, may I ask you to search out for my thread and maybe share some pics of your record consoles to not clutter Jeremy’s thread any further if that’s not too much of a trouble?

Jeremy,
Qubes is a totally virtualized Linux distro. For instance, if you open a new tab in your browser you have a new VM. One VM can be Windows, another MacOS, a third Tails. You can VPN your setup by using in one of the VMs the dual network VM distei called Whoonix as gateway connected to a TAILS VM routing everything through ToR and finally plugged to a pfSense router with AES-NI for instant VPN package decryption on hardware level. Not even NSA will break through. Sounds excessive but with the pfSense box and Qubes with pre-installed Woonix you won’t even notice performance degradation. Killer setup with the lightness of windows running on a fresh laptop.

Please check it out: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/whonix/

It is nothing short of amazing!


Enviado do meu iPhone usando Tapatalk

So this post has me doing a whole bunch of Googling to understand all the audio information. I'm still very new to the higher end audio stuff, but you've given me a lot of terms that will inevitably end up with me going down a whole new rabbit hole!

So Qubes is a hypervisor of sorts with a focus on security. Interesting. Definitely going to have to take a look at that AND Whoonix - if it integrates with pfsense then I'm game for that for sure.

Man you’re in trouble. If you are a bit like me, new research topics can become absolute obsessions.

Last time I wanted to buy a pocket knife I’ve spent literally months researching blade manufacturing process, grades of steel, opening mechanisms and all things knife related. Ended up with a boker kwaiken mini [emoji3]

Regarding the ubiquity stuff, I like everything fro them. I don’t like automation stuff as it makes me feel a bit spoiled and lazy but I do intend to install a smarthings diy automation hub simply to integrate motion detection of your very same ubiquity cameras with door and fibaro motion sensors. With multiple sources of data, you can build perimeter breach scenarios to avoid false alarms and ensure reliability.

The automation will also be used to trigger light and strobe alerts per demand as the intruder progresses through the electronic layers of the perimeter. The last layer though is obviously planned to be the final deterrent of the bad element’s advance and therefore, extremely low tech [emoji3]

Enviado do meu iPhone usando Tapatalk

Very cool. The home automation is the next step for me. Taking it by baby steps so my wallet can recover from the greatly overblown budget that has been the basement.

Minor Update

Over the weekend i was able to get all the basement wainscoting varnished. Turned out pretty good. I could probably go over it again with a higher grit sandpaper to make it even better, but honestly, I think it's pretty damn good ... and i'm in project burn-out mode right now.

I also got the projector screen moved up into the ceiling. That was more work than I was hoping but ended up looking nice and I think it'll be better in the long run.

Finally, I got all the entertainment center varnished tonight and the quarter round trim - the first coat anyway. Hoping the second coat will be enough tomorrow and then Thursday I'm hoping to get the tile sealer put in. If that all goes to plan, I should be able to start putting the entertainment center in by this weekend and start getting stuff hooked up. VERY excited for that!

 

[Denwood]

Jeremy, kudos on the massive basement build! I’m in the midst of the same sort of project, taking a 100yr old basement into the dedicated theater realm. My projector raise project also turned into a beam “flush install” and projector ceiling well to get it more or less flush to my low ceiling. I’m a former IT analyst with a few pfsense builds running things Be careful on the automation side as it’s a massive rabbit hole! I’ve been posting a fair bit on my build thread with regard to the theater project and automation...

 

[Pwaley]

This is a very thorough garage build. Thanks for the ideas.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Thanks! I haven't heard of QubeOS before - what does it do? I've got my VPN just isolated to a few VMs at the moment but I'm thinking about expanding it. Can never be too paranoid. I just got my first ubiquity stuff for my birthday. I got one of the cameras. Unfortunately I'm having a networking issue with the VLANs between switches. I'm pretty confident that the issue is the cheap D-Link I have in between the Ubiquity tough switch and my core switch isn't properly transmitting the tagging information. So I've got another switch to try but then the basement happened.

What I've noticed is, if you are like me and like to host your own stuff for the sake of learning, reddit/r/selfhosted is a rabbit hole that you may never come out of. I'll spend an hour or so on there and then all the sudden I need a new VM host because I'm out of resources. Lots of cool stuff on there.

The DIY audio stuff is next on my list of things I want to get into. It's always interested me but I haven't had the time to dive in.

Thanks for reading!!



Thanks for the site - I've been looking for somewhere to go to start getting into this stuff. I remember the first set of Klipsch I heard in that friend's basement and I've been hooked ever since. It was just the most precise set of speakers I've heard. I've really wanted to get into the DIY audio stuff, though. So now that you've thrown a bunch of audio-nerd stuff at me I'm going to be forced to start doing some research so I better understand what all that means

My username on diyaudio.com is the same as here... Been a member there for years and a site supporter, but I haven't really been back on there in about five years (told ya' I got really burned out)... they're doing a major upgrade soon so the timing will be good. I'm sure all the pics in my threads there are dead. I was using photobucket and deleted everything just before their fees went live... I have non-disclosure agreements with several high end amp builders. I got to do development and torture testing for a few headphone amps. That put me in the Good Ol' Boys network so I scored some really hard to get components for my builds. Rare power and signal transistors for the most part, but I also chased down a set of rare MWT 6V6GT tubes through those connections and found a matched quad in Switzerland.

I have far more components than I need for building my stuff, so when you're ready to build and want to build an amp I have parts for, I'll hook you up with a parts kit. I bought the parts in bulk around 2010 or so in a closed group buy for about a half dozen guys around the world. We took advantage of the huge piece price discounts so I got most of my parts for 1/10-1/20th the cost of a single piece. I just charge what I paid for the parts... back in 2010.

When you're ready to get into DIY audio, shoot me a DM and we'll go from there. I'll send you links to some other good sites of members from diyaudio plus a link to a nice, affordable soldering station. I'll be getting back to my audio builds this winter after my workbench and basement are finished.

Guys this thread is seriously awesome!

BoilermakerFan,
sorry I don’t know how to use this app decently. I’m replying through Tapatalk and don’t know how to refer you guys to my build thread.

I posted today a pic of the Wren record console which is more or less what I’m trying to replicate.

The problem is that I’d like to craft a low but wide wood cabinet for aesthetics purposes. The thing with this setup is that I can’t fit too much hardware.

The furniture is supposed to please my misses as room decor as well. Therefore it is not supposed to be the main set of the house. The general idea is to hold a project turntable plugged to a yaqin tube phono preamp. From there all the amplification will be done in a modern marantz slim receiver. Two klipsch books will work as stereo set up front but the receiver can go full surround for movies with 2 smaller surrounds, a central and the sub on the floor. The only media source except for the project tt will be my beloved Apple TV plugged with toslink.
That’s all the space - and money - I have now.

In the garage though there will be a full analog set with vintage hardware, mixer, pre, power, ancient turn table, a Cambridge Audio DAC connecting an old MacBook white plugged via toslink playing MQA from Tidal and again tube DAC with headphone amp for grado earsets. Everything from 70’s!

Finally I still have space in the attic to build a proper sound sealed movie room with a nice projector. However no money for that yet.

Individual mono drivers is way out of my league for now while I’m still building the house. OPPO sources are definitely on the list though side by side with my bang olufsen wall mounted CD player.

If you’d like to give me some ideas, may I ask you to search out for my thread and maybe share some pics of your record consoles to not clutter Jeremy’s thread any further if that’s not too much of a trouble?

rodpoa,

I'm following your build. I'm traveling for work tonight and I'll be back home tomorrow. I'll see what I can dig up. I'm on a crappy hotel WiFi so there is a lot of lag. So give me a few days and watch for a DM.

I have a Project 1.2 TT from 1998. It does a good job, but I'm looking forward to when my son is either in HS or out of the house to upgrade to a Rega. We call my son Crash McDaniels because he tends to break everything accidentally. My Project TT is still running a Grado Green cartridge because I won't put the Grado Gold on it until I figure out a way to keep it safe from Crash.


And guys, DENWOOD is the man when it comes to automation!

I went down that path in 2000, wifey hated the "complicated" lighting so I took it out, but thanks to Denwood I am looking at HUE. I think it will easy for my wife to just flip light switches, but give me additional control when I want it.

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Jeremy, kudos on the massive basement build! I’m in the midst of the same sort of project, taking a 100yr old basement into the dedicated theater realm. My projector raise project also turned into a beam “flush install” and projector ceiling well to get it more or less flush to my low ceiling. I’m a former IT analyst with a few pfsense builds running things Be careful on the automation side as it’s a massive rabbit hole! I’ve been posting a fair bit on my build thread with regard to the theater project and automation...

I read through your thread a while ago but I know I'm missing a ton. I'm definitely going back through it to day because I'm less than motivated to work today pfsense is probably my favorite router OS. It allows you to do complicated stuff in the easiest way possible. The automation stuff is going to be ...... expensive. So at least I've got a financial block for a little while to keep me from the rabbit hole.

This is a very thorough garage build. Thanks for the ideas.

Thanks! It's been a lot of work but I'm excited to actually use it when it's all done.

My username on diyaudio.com is the same as here... Been a member there for years and a site supporter, but I haven't really been back on there in about five years (told ya' I got really burned out)... they're doing a major upgrade soon so the timing will be good. I'm sure all the pics in my threads there are dead. I was using photobucket and deleted everything just before their fees went live... I have non-disclosure agreements with several high end amp builders. I got to do development and torture testing for a few headphone amps. That put me in the Good Ol' Boys network so I scored some really hard to get components for my builds. Rare power and signal transistors for the most part, but I also chased down a set of rare MWT 6V6GT tubes through those connections and found a matched quad in Switzerland.

I have far more components than I need for building my stuff, so when you're ready to build and want to build an amp I have parts for, I'll hook you up with a parts kit. I bought the parts in bulk around 2010 or so in a closed group buy for about a half dozen guys around the world. We took advantage of the huge piece price discounts so I got most of my parts for 1/10-1/20th the cost of a single piece. I just charge what I paid for the parts... back in 2010.

When you're ready to get into DIY audio, shoot me a DM and we'll go from there. I'll send you links to some other good sites of members from diyaudio plus a link to a nice, affordable soldering station. I'll be getting back to my audio builds this winter after my workbench and basement are finished.



rodpoa,

I'm following your build. I'm traveling for work tonight and I'll be back home tomorrow. I'll see what I can dig up. I'm on a crappy hotel WiFi so there is a lot of lag. So give me a few days and watch for a DM.

I have a Project 1.2 TT from 1998. It does a good job, but I'm looking forward to when my son is either in HS or out of the house to upgrade to a Rega. We call my son Crash McDaniels because he tends to break everything accidentally. My Project TT is still running a Grado Green cartridge because I won't put the Grado Gold on it until I figure out a way to keep it safe from Crash.


And guys, DENWOOD is the man when it comes to automation!

I went down that path in 2000, wifey hated the "complicated" lighting so I took it out, but thanks to Denwood I am looking at HUE. I think it will easy for my wife to just flip light switches, but give me additional control when I want it.

Awesome! I'm hoping to start tinkering at least with the concepts after . I think that by then I should have my projects caught up and I should be able to focus my attention again on something new. You'll definitely be hearing from me when I'm ready to go that direction!

 

[rodpoa]

So this post has me doing a whole bunch of Googling to understand all the audio information. I'm still very new to the higher end audio stuff, but you've given me a lot of terms that will inevitably end up with me going down a whole new rabbit hole!

So Qubes is a hypervisor of sorts with a focus on security. Interesting. Definitely going to have to take a look at that AND Whoonix - if it integrates with pfsense then I'm game for that for sure.



Very cool. The home automation is the next step for me. Taking it by baby steps so my wallet can recover from the greatly overblown budget that has been the basement.

Minor Update

Over the weekend i was able to get all the basement wainscoting varnished. Turned out pretty good. I could probably go over it again with a higher grit sandpaper to make it even better, but honestly, I think it's pretty damn good ... and i'm in project burn-out mode right now.

I also got the projector screen moved up into the ceiling. That was more work than I was hoping but ended up looking nice and I think it'll be better in the long run.

Finally, I got all the entertainment center varnished tonight and the quarter round trim - the first coat anyway. Hoping the second coat will be enough tomorrow and then Thursday I'm hoping to get the tile sealer put in. If that all goes to plan, I should be able to start putting the entertainment center in by this weekend and start getting stuff hooked up. VERY excited for that!

Pics!!!

My username on diyaudio.com is the same as here... Been a member there for years and a site supporter, but I haven't really been back on there in about five years (told ya' I got really burned out)... they're doing a major upgrade soon so the timing will be good. I'm sure all the pics in my threads there are dead. I was using photobucket and deleted everything just before their fees went live... I have non-disclosure agreements with several high end amp builders. I got to do development and torture testing for a few headphone amps. That put me in the Good Ol' Boys network so I scored some really hard to get components for my builds. Rare power and signal transistors for the most part, but I also chased down a set of rare MWT 6V6GT tubes through those connections and found a matched quad in Switzerland.

I have far more components than I need for building my stuff, so when you're ready to build and want to build an amp I have parts for, I'll hook you up with a parts kit. I bought the parts in bulk around 2010 or so in a closed group buy for about a half dozen guys around the world. We took advantage of the huge piece price discounts so I got most of my parts for 1/10-1/20th the cost of a single piece. I just charge what I paid for the parts... back in 2010.

When you're ready to get into DIY audio, shoot me a DM and we'll go from there. I'll send you links to some other good sites of members from diyaudio plus a link to a nice, affordable soldering station. I'll be getting back to my audio builds this winter after my workbench and basement are finished.



rodpoa,

I'm following your build. I'm traveling for work tonight and I'll be back home tomorrow. I'll see what I can dig up. I'm on a crappy hotel WiFi so there is a lot of lag. So give me a few days and watch for a DM.

I have a Project 1.2 TT from 1998. It does a good job, but I'm looking forward to when my son is either in HS or out of the house to upgrade to a Rega. We call my son Crash McDaniels because he tends to break everything accidentally. My Project TT is still running a Grado Green cartridge because I won't put the Grado Gold on it until I figure out a way to keep it safe from Crash.


And guys, DENWOOD is the man when it comes to automation!

I went down that path in 2000, wifey hated the "complicated" lighting so I took it out, but thanks to Denwood I am looking at HUE. I think it will easy for my wife to just flip light switches, but give me additional control when I want it.

Man, you're scary. This is too much pro for me. 'A' level game. I'm more in the trying to choose a good cost benefit hardware and plug everything together level I guess.

I mentioned earlier the full vintage analog set I have which is today my current TT setup that I use every week specially when I help the ms. to cook This one while is stereo only has 4 big speakers from the 70's. You know those horrible wooden boxes with passive membranes. I listen to it, I like the vintage like sound it makes, but quality wise I'm aware it was crappy before, it is crappier today. Maybe these could be candidates to a diy revamp with better crossovers, probably new air vents, twitter, I don't know. At least they are big, very big. Exactly like those old JBL speakers. It means I'm not short of space for improvements.

As Jeremy said about the reddit threads, I don't think it is safe to pursue your tips into the diy amp audio world as we may never find the way out again

Gladly somehow I was never bitten by the automation bug. I'm a computer engineer and probably because I do work with large enterprises business architecture I don't like that much of technology outside of the office. I don't mind walking over the light switch a bit. This is why I'm into analog audio, cigars, whisky and carburetors I think. Security is a different subject. I'm one of those doomsday crazies who think the more the better. I operate with plan b and contingencies for all things in life That's why I'm looking into automation hardware for security purposes.

I will start reading everything from DENWOOD now! Thanks for the tip!

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Ha ha ha! There is a reason why I have the tag line Too Many Hobbies, Not Enough Time in my signature.

But I also started DIY audio a complete noob. I asked tons of questions, read 3 or 4 blogs religiously, read thread after thread on the forums, and then asked a lot more questions. I did this for YEARS. And there are a lot of rabbit holes in DIY audio you can fall down... I tried to watch where I stepped, but still inadvertently found a few and fell... The neat thing about audio amps is that there really isn't much new out there. It's just taking different parts of different architectures and tweaking them or recombining them. A company might promote something totally new, but when the circuit is finally leaked, it's just a tweak or mix of something older, which was tweaked from something older yet, and so on... Hell, the latest phase a few years ago in the ultra high end audiophile market was cleaning up circuits designed in the late 1910s and early 1920s for large theaters to work with modern sources in smaller venues, i.e., our houses! These were large SET setups and the vintage tubes cost US$80K-US$130K a piece because they are so rare! This was being done by a small group of guys around the world. The internet makes the Earth a very small place when you find the right place to hang out and discuss things. That was a cool rabbit hole to fall down.

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Pics!!!

Man, you're scary. This is too much pro for me. 'A' level game. I'm more in the trying to choose a good cost benefit hardware and plug everything together level I guess.

I mentioned earlier the full vintage analog set I have which is today my current TT setup that I use every week specially when I help the ms. to cook This one while is stereo only has 4 big speakers from the 70's. You know those horrible wooden boxes with passive membranes. I listen to it, I like the vintage like sound it makes, but quality wise I'm aware it was crappy before, it is crappier today. Maybe these could be candidates to a diy revamp with better crossovers, probably new air vents, twitter, I don't know. At least they are big, very big. Exactly like those old JBL speakers. It means I'm not short of space for improvements.

As Jeremy said about the reddit threads, I don't think it is safe to pursue your tips into the diy amp audio world as we may never find the way out again

Gladly somehow I was never bitten by the automation bug. I'm a computer engineer and probably because I do work with large enterprises business architecture I don't like that much of technology outside of the office. I don't mind walking over the light switch a bit. This is why I'm into analog audio, cigars, whisky and carburetors I think. Security is a different subject. I'm one of those doomsday crazies who think the more the better. I operate with plan b and contingencies for all things in life That's why I'm looking into automation hardware for security purposes.

I will start reading everything from DENWOOD now! Thanks for the tip!

Pics will come tonight I'm hoping as I am going to try and get the entertainment center sitting where it should be finally. I think I'm going to have to tweak my wainscoting a little bit to make this work, but I'm hoping it won't be too bad. I would say my automation focus, right now, is much more on security than anything else. I'm not a big fan of having my information sent out to companies - so I won' do anything until I find something I can host and keep contained. But, knowing myself, once I start going down that path then I'll likely start getting it a little more advanced.

Ha ha ha! There is a reason why I have the tag line Too Many Hobbies, Not Enough Time in my signature.

But I also started DIY audio a complete noob. I asked tons of questions, read 3 or 4 blogs religiously, read thread after thread on the forums, and then asked a lot more questions. I did this for YEARS. And there are a lot of rabbit holes in DIY audio you can fall down... I tried to watch where I stepped, but still inadvertently found a few and fell... The neat thing about audio amps is that there really isn't much new out there. It's just taking different parts of different architectures and tweaking them or recombining them. A company might promote something totally new, but when the circuit is finally leaked, it's just a tweak or mix of something older, which was tweaked from something older yet, and so on... Hell, the latest phase a few years ago in the ultra high end audiophile market was cleaning up circuits designed in the late 1910s and early 1920s for large theaters to work with modern sources in smaller venues, i.e., our houses! These were large SET setups and the vintage tubes cost US$80K-US$130K a piece because they are so rare! This was being done by a small group of guys around the world. The internet makes the Earth a very small place when you find the right place to hang out and discuss things. That was a cool rabbit hole to fall down.

That's what I expect to do. I'll start asking a LOT of questions and then slowly find something that gets me excited and start moving down that path. Hopefully the bank account has at least a few months to recover before I make it that far ...

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Pics will come tonight I'm hoping as I am going to try and get the entertainment center sitting where it should be finally. I think I'm going to have to tweak my wainscoting a little bit to make this work, but I'm hoping it won't be too bad. I would say my automation focus, right now, is much more on security than anything else. I'm not a big fan of having my information sent out to companies - so I won' do anything until I find something I can host and keep contained. But, knowing myself, once I start going down that path then I'll likely start getting it a little more advanced.



That's what I expect to do. I'll start asking a LOT of questions and then slowly find something that gets me excited and start moving down that path. Hopefully the bank account has at least a few months to recover before I make it that far ...

Well, that's the nice thing about DIY... first you can buy the boards... then the components as budget allows... then an enclosure, or repurpose old radios like I do... then the little stuff you inevitably forget to order...

I didn't buy the power transformer for one of my projects (a phonostage for my turntable) until last year when I needed to order the $3 in parts to fix the free 58" TV... I added it to the order to reach the free shipping requirement. I think I still have two power transformers I need to buy for a couple of amps that I have all of the other parts for. And then there is expensive iron I have to buy for an all tube amp I want to build... I'll break that up into manageable chunks when the time comes to actually build it.

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Well, that's the nice thing about DIY... first you can buy the boards... then the components as budget allows... then an enclosure, or repurpose old radios like I do... then the little stuff you inevitably forget to order...

I didn't buy the power transformer for one of my projects (a phonostage for my turntable) until last year when I needed to order the $3 in parts to fix the free 58" TV... I added it to the order to reach the free shipping requirement. I think I still have two power transformers I need to buy for a couple of amps that I have all of the other parts for. And then there is expensive iron I have to buy for an all tube amp I want to build... I'll break that up into manageable chunks when the time comes to actually build it.

Nice - it's nice to see that you can break it up and buy it as you need it/can afford it. Excited to start going down that path

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

I got out of work Friday and spent the afternoon finishing up some minor details and started playing with my new Nvidia Shield (more on that in a bit) and on Saturday I was able to clean up the basement and make it usable. Over the weekend I'm pretty sure we watched 5 or 6 movies and a couple of TV shows. It was a good weekend to sit back and enjoy the progress so far on the basement.

As you can see that the current poker table sticks out like a sore thumb down there. It's decently constructed by the previous owner but the plain oak just stands out. I've figured out how I'm going to build a new one, I just need time because I want to really focus and make sure it's built to the quality that I want it to be.

The Entertainment Center

You might also notice the bright colored shelf on the right. I was too excited to get the surround sound going so just grabbed the shelf before I've had a chance to stain/varnish it. That will be happening this week, I just wanted to watch movies. There are a few things I would have done different on the entertainment center, most importantly spend more time on the finish, but I think it looks decent in there right now. I ended up having to cut out my wainscoting on both sides in order for it to fit in there but I thi nk it turned out well like that.

Bathroom Update
I forgot to take pics last night but last week I put a satin finish sealer on the tile in the bathroom. It turned out really well. I ended up using a couple different things to get the finish the way I wanted.

1.) I used the higher strength grout/haze cleaner from Lowes. Originally I just winged it and applied it how my brain thought was the correct way. It wasn't. So the process is you spray some water on the area, then spray the cleaner, then agitate it with a scrub brush, let it sit for about 2 minutes, then wipe it up with a clean towel. That worked extremely well and got all the haze up.

2.) I then took their lighter cleaner as one last pass and cleaned up whatever little residue was left over. That seemed to work well and I used the same basic process as the heavier cleaner.

3.) Applied the sealer to the tile with the applicator recommended on the bottle. This actually went really smooth and the gallon I bought was WAY overkill for the room I did.

Sorry no pics, I was too distracted with other things last night.

My Office
The "other things" I was distracted with was cleaning my office. My office had become a catch all for just anything that didn't have a place in the home and it was driving me insane - and, to top it off, the floor was nasty from the remodel and everything was covered in dust. The carpet was only about 2 years old but I pulled it up because the dust from the basement remodel had ruined it but even before that the carpet was already coming apart (which was sad considering it wasn't cheap carpet). I pulled everything out of my office and got new carpet tiles installed last night around 9PM (we were too busy watching movies all day to get started sooner). I think it turned out pretty nicely - I just have some trim clean up to do now that I had to break all the nails from the tack strips out with my ********* bar.

I learned from that small project that carpet tiles are super easy to install and took maybe an hour tops to do that entire project. Most of the time I spent last night was removing all the **** from my office. I'm a big fan of "everything has a place and should be in that place" so now I'm sorting through all the junk and only putting stuff back into my office that I will actually use and has a place for.

While I was installing the carpet tiles I noticed this and immediately though - hey! Denwood is up there probably freezing his *** off right now :cheers:

nvidia Shield
For a while now I've been pretty hooked to my Apple TV. I wouldn't call myself a Mac fanboy, but I generally have preferred iOS for my phone and I don't mind using the MacBook at home. The Apple TV, when I bought it, had by far the better interface compared to the Roku and the Amazon Fire stuff. The Roku is usually more my style being more open and has a ton of apps you can use, but the interface has always seemed outdated and slower - although I will say I have 2 Roku TVs now and I love them both.

For a while, I had been using a desktop I got from work (Optiplex 7010 with a different video card), running Windows 8 or 10, and then I had Plex home theater set as the default environment instead of explorer.exe. That worked but only worked for Plex. Netflix has an app for Windows 10 but it isn't remote friendly. That meant I had to download and install an app that would replicate the keyboard via the remote. That worked, but wasn't consistent or reliable. Then, if I wanted to watch DirecTV now, I had to grab a keyboard, open chrome, and watch from the browser. None of this was part of my "sit back, relax, drink a beer and watch movies" process so I wanted a change.

I could have gone with another Apple TV but it lacked DTS audio support, which is something I really like having. I started doing a bunch of research and found the nVidia shield TV can use DTS audio, can run DirecTV now, can run Netflix, uses Android as the OS, and can play games with their gaming controllers (we are not at all gamers, and I haven't played a video game other than MarioKart in probably 10 years, but we do like our MarioKart). I decided to give it a try and I have to say, I'm really impressed. The interface is really slick, fluid, and consistent. There is no lagging between apps. The Plex interface is actually better on the Android app than the Apple one and everything just works seamlessly. Very impressed with the nvidia shield. Now all I need to do is get an HDHomeRun and broadcast the antennae channels over the network and it's good to go.

The Aftermath
And this is what the shop looks like after working constantly on a basement remodel ...

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Monday night I was able to spend some time IN the garage for a change. I got the pleasure of using this beast:

I'm not sure exactly how old this is, however, it's one of the very few things my old man got from my grandpa. He passed when I was in middle school. I never got to know him real well, but I do have some memories of him. He used to let us ride around on this old wheel horse tractor he had - it was the highlight of our day when we got to go see him. When he passed I was too young to get anything handed down to me, however, my dad got this belt sander and now I get to use it when I need it. It's always neat to use it because I immediately remember that old wheel horse.

I used that to sand the hell out of the walnut pieces that I had glued together. I don't really have the tools to do this properly (read: this is the excuse I'll use when I explain to the wife why I need more tools) but I think it's turning out decent considering this is the first time I've worked with "raw cut" wood like this and the first time in a LONG time I've joined wood together like that.

The original plan was to stain this to match the rest of the woodwork, however, I couldn't stand the thought of covering up the beautiful walnut. It was just too nice to cover up. So, instead, I put a couple layers of poly on it and now I think it's turning out pretty nice:

Then last night I got to do a little more work IN the garage, which was nice. In my office in the basement, because of the way I shaped my bathroom, it created a little nook of sorts in the entryway to my office. Originally I was going to just fill that with shelves as there's a little 9" section that sticks out on the right as it opens into my actual office (I'll have pics of it tomorrow). However, as I started unloading my office of all the junk in there Sunday night I started thinking about where I wanted to store my tools for inside the house. A couple years ago I bought a new toolbox and so my very first tool box, a Craftsman top box, has just been sitting in the shop. I decided Sunday that I'm going to clean that up and make it my inside tools box. In order to use that box, I'd need something to sit it on that's sturdy and can handle the weight. That brings me to this:

This is before I put a top on it, and before I've finished it. But you get the idea at least. I performed the Denwood strength test and stood on it and it didn't fall over and I didn't break a limb, so I call that a win. I didn't see that giant chunk cracked on the right leg there until AFTER I had all the shelf slots in it, unfortunately. But I'll get that covered up with some trim here in the next few days and you won' even know it's there.

The center section I'll buy more of those storage containers from Harbor Freight. I know some people on here are a fan of a certain brand but, honestly, I think these cheap $8 ones from HF work really well and ... they're cheap.

Nerd Stuff
Really excited that this weekend I should hopefully be able to exercise the nerd muscles again. A few weeks ago I got a real good deal on an R710 and R310 to add to my server rack. The R710 will be new shared storage with a 10Gb fiber card that will connect to the 2 R610s and provide its shared storage. Then the R310 will become a dedicated backup server because I lost pics the wife took once, and that's the only time I'll do that.

By moving my shared storage from my current file server to its own box, that'll free up 2 3TB drives in my file server. I'll move that into my storage pool and give me another 6TB of usable space as I've got quite a few new Blu-Rays to rip (I raid the Wal-Mart and Best Buy $7 bin of Blu-Rays ever time I go there).

 

[MacTexas]

I like your nerd stuff even though I don't understand 90% of what you post. Being exposed to the "language" is an education and I enjoy learning something new.

 

[Tynee]

Jeremy, would you believe I lived in Roland from about 1990 to 1993? Middle school and freshman year of highschool. Really nice little town

Nice work on your projects.

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

I like your nerd stuff even though I don't understand 90% of what you post. Being exposed to the "language" is an education and I enjoy learning something new.

I think just exposing yourself to the environment is the first step. When I'm about to embark on a new project, I go to reddit or some other source and just start looking at what everyone else is doing. That gives me a lot of vocabulary. When I don't understand something, I research it then start looking more in depth at those topics back at my initial source. That is how I've learned much of what I know and I think it gives a deeper understanding of the topic.

Jeremy, would you believe I lived in Roland from about 1990 to 1993? Middle school and freshman year of highschool. Really nice little town

Nice work on your projects.

What a small world! It's a tiny town but so far we really like it. Really quiet, cheap taxes, affordable housing, and the people have all been nice so far. Thanks for reading!

 

[rodpoa]

I think just exposing yourself to the environment is the first step. When I'm about to embark on a new project, I go to reddit or some other source and just start looking at what everyone else is doing. That gives me a lot of vocabulary. When I don't understand something, I research it then start looking more in depth at those topics back at my initial source. That is how I've learned much of what I know and I think it gives a deeper understanding of the topic.







What a small world! It's a tiny town but so far we really like it. Really quiet, cheap taxes, affordable housing, and the people have all been nice so far. Thanks for reading!

I've always seen myself as an obsessive weirdo with whatever new topic I decided to research on until there's almost nothing else left to read about.

It is refreshing to browse GJ threads sometimes

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Nice - it's nice to see that you can break it up and buy it as you need it/can afford it. Excited to start going down that path

Oh, when you get started, DO NOT BUY ANY HEATSINKS. I have hundreds of them! I forget what I paid for them but it was like 25% of what they cost on Mouser or Digi-Key. A friend who has the other one of two amps like mine lived in Dallas and scored the tallest versions of all the common heat sinks used in DIY audio for dirt cheap. I think he bought 500 of each size so I bought at least 100 of each size from him. Honestly, I way over bought, but they were so cheap I couldn't pass it up.

And the walnut top looks great.

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Oh, when you get started, DO NOT BUY ANY HEATSINKS. I have hundreds of them! I forget what I paid for them but it was like 25% of what they cost on Mouser or Digi-Key. A friend who has the other one of two amps like mine lived in Dallas and scored the tallest versions of all the common heat sinks used in DIY audio for dirt cheap. I think he bought 500 of each size so I bought at least 100 of each size from him. Honestly, I way over bought, but they were so cheap I couldn't pass it up.

And the walnut top looks great.

Good to know!

It's been a productive few weeks and then I had a week out because I was fighting my NextCloud setup. There are plenty of other ways to copy pictures from my phone, however, I'm the type of person that when something's supposed to work I'll obsess over that instead of finding an alternative.

House Stuff
Anyway, Denwood convinced me as I read through his build that I needed to buy a CO2 meter ... so I did. I got that setup downstairs and did a quick look at it and see that I'm over the 1000 ppm threshold and probably need to start looking at how I'm going to remedy this. I like the unit that Denwood was using but I'll have to go through his build again to find it. This whole system is pretty new to me - along with the concepts surrounding it - so I need to do some research and figure out what will work best for me.

Nerd Stuffy
I finally got the basement to a position that I felt comfortable enough with it that I could clean my server rack. It definitely NEEDED it. Unfortunately when I did the concrete work for the plumbing I didn't get the server area sealed as much as I should have and the servers took a beating with dust.

Luckily I had a little helper to make the process much more enjoyable. He legitimately cleaned and I was a pretty proud dad.

He actually mopped this whole area by himself. For not quite being 4 yet, I was happy he actually did a quality job. And if I pointed out he missed a spot he didn't freak out, he just went on and cleaned it again.

Once we had the area mopped and I had taken the servers outside to dust them off, he got to install his first fiber card. I've been anxious to get my fiber conversion up and running and at least now I have the cards in place.

After we got everything racked (apparently I didn't take an after picture), I realized that I'm going to be short on outlets on the UPS to power the two new additions to my environment. I've been running my file server as my shared storage as well for a while and I've actually ran out of space on it. So I bought an R710 for a good price and he threw in an R310 as part of the deal. I'm going to turn the R710 into a dedicated shared storage server and use the R310 for backups. However, my UPS only has 6 outlets and what I currently has already fills that. So now I'm on the hunt for a good deal on another APC UPS so that I can get everything up and running.

Basement Update
A week ago from last Friday I had the first poker night in the new basement. I actually came out alright and it was a lot of fun. The day of the party I decided to get the bathroom closer to completion so people could actually use it and so I got the vanity mounted:

That was a much bigger pain in the a$$ than I expected. I broke 3 or 4 lag bolts trying to get that thing in there but I finally came to a size that worked and kept in in there nice and snug. I think it turned out pretty good. I apparently missed a spot of varnish on the right side of it so I'll be fixing that here shortly.

The door to the right of that goes to my server room. I added a keyed lock to it since, during the remodel, little man just started pulling hard drives from my servers as they were running (somehow i didn't lose data). I also bought locks for the rack itself, but I haven't installed those yet.

Last week I also had a little time to finish up the frames my brother in law made for me. I provided the wood and design and he built them then I stained/varnished them. I think they turned out really nice and I've got 3 of 4 of them up and installed.

The black one above the toilet was purchased, not built.

The Garage
Once I got a bunch of things completed in the basement, and after I put the flooring down in the wife's office, I was finally able to get some cleaning done in the garage.

I have had this cabinet for a while and I painted it a year or two ago. It had been pretty much empty for most of that time so I started thinking that it would make a great wood scrap storage. I have a bunch of small but still useful pieces of oak and walnut and I wasn't about to let them go to waste. So here's all my scraps:

I've been moving in small sections at a time because I want the garage to be put back into a more permanent place when I'm done so I'm not rushing. I probably don't have a before picture here, but for the first time in a year and a half you can see my floor in this corner. I've had a pile of steel sitting there that I intend to build a steevo-inspired bench with but haven't had time to build it yet.

After a few hours of cleaning I took the wood scraps not worth saving and made a nice and warm fire on our sub-50 degree night

Tonight I'm going to plane the shelf I'm putting in the vanity downstairs and fix one of the frames. The rabbet was cut just a little off and the glass won' fit. Should have the last frame up tonight after that and then I can spend some more time cleaning the shop.

 

[rodpoa]

That’s just awesome to teach the little one how to clean, handle electronics with care and be gentle around the server equipment. I really liked you assistant!

The rest is very nice as well. You have a very good taste.

I missed a bit your car updates as well

Btw, did you cabled the house or are you mostly relying on wireless? Is there any sort of structured cabling? My box of shielded cat6 just arrived


Enviado do meu iPhone usando Tapatalk

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

That’s just awesome to teach the little one how to clean, handle electronics with care and be gentle around the server equipment. I really liked you assistant!

The rest is very nice as well. You have a very good taste.

I missed a bit your car updates as well

Btw, did you cabled the house or are you mostly relying on wireless? Is there any sort of structured cabling? My box of shielded cat6 just arrived


Enviado do meu iPhone usando Tapatalk

One of the first things I did when I moved in was run CAT5e throughout the house. I could have done CAT5, but I had access to free CAT5e so went with that. I have wifi, too, but don't use it when I don't have to. Every room in the house besides the bathrooms has a network jack and I made 5 pulls to the garage.

It's nice to see the little man is getting interested in it. My daughter is usually a great help, too, but she was out with mom that day.

XJ Update
I also forgot to add that after about a MONTH of my XJ being down, I FINALLY got it back running a week and a half ago. Little man and I were driving home one day and it just died on the interstate. I was convinced it was the fuel pump because that fuel pump has about 185k on it and that's what it felt like. We towed it home and I did a fuel pressure check and it still had 50 psi (35-45 is within spec for the XJs). We tried the cam sensor, the crank sensor, the coil pack, and a WHOLE bunch of other random things and nothing would get it to start. It would crank, we had spark, we had fuel, we had air, but we couldn't get it to start.

Finally we were messing with putting the coil pack on or something and we noticed the the oil pump shaft had a scrape mark on it around the little clamp that holds it in. We pulled that out and it was completely seized up. I have no idea how that didn't destroy my cam but it doesn't appear to have done any damage to the engine. I bought a new oil pump shaft (not an easy thing to find, apparently) and that did the trick. Really glad to have the work horse back up and running!

 

[rodpoa]

One of the first things I did when I moved in was run CAT5e throughout the house. I could have done CAT5, but I had access to free CAT5e so went with that. I have wifi, too, but don't use it when I don't have to. Every room in the house besides the bathrooms has a network jack and I made 5 pulls to the garage.



It's nice to see the little man is getting interested in it. My daughter is usually a great help, too, but she was out with mom that day.



XJ Update

I also forgot to add that after about a MONTH of my XJ being down, I FINALLY got it back running a week and a half ago. Little man and I were driving home one day and it just died on the interstate. I was convinced it was the fuel pump because that fuel pump has about 185k on it and that's what it felt like. We towed it home and I did a fuel pressure check and it still had 50 psi (35-45 is within spec for the XJs). We tried the cam sensor, the crank sensor, the coil pack, and a WHOLE bunch of other random things and nothing would get it to start. It would crank, we had spark, we had fuel, we had air, but we couldn't get it to start.



Finally we were messing with putting the coil pack on or something and we noticed the the oil pump shaft had a scrape mark on it around the little clamp that holds it in. We pulled that out and it was completely seized up. I have no idea how that didn't destroy my cam but it doesn't appear to have done any damage to the engine. I bought a new oil pump shaft (not an easy thing to find, apparently) and that did the trick. Really glad to have the work horse back up and running!

So scary!!!! Glad it turned out for the better!

About the Ethernet jacks, that’s smart. I didn’t plan for it. Hope I don’t miss more jacks.