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Pissin about with solar panels and saving the planet ideas

Discussion in 'General Chit Chat' started by Bootsonground, Oct 22, 2018.

  1. KeithAngel
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    KeithAngel 2063 Lifetime Member

    I bought a

    Dell OptiPlex 7010 SFF 3rd Gen Quad Core i5-3470 8GB 128GB SSD DVDRW Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit Desktop PC Computer (Certified Refurbished)

    £178 with a new SSD lightning fast the only issue is windows wont recognise my HP scanjet so having to use the old and slow dell to scan and save on a stick to save on it but hey ho have linked it up to a 46" TV in my office and its a great monitor / media center have a tiny pair of monitor speakers and a origional Nad 3020 so all recycled bar the TV
  2. graham59
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    graham59 Banned

    I'm typing this on a Dell XPS L702X (17") laptop, 6gig RAM.

    My son had been using it ('broken') to hold open a door in his apartment for about a year.

    I 'rescued' it, and with a few new bits I fitted, and Win 7, it's been working fine since... now in the Phils. :like:
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2018
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  3. Jim
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    Jim Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    Mine won't boot up, it was ok the last 2 days, then this morning it booted up then after 1 hour it just stopped working black screen. Tried booting with the F8 key but no luck.
  4. Dave_E
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    Dave_E Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    PC support help-desk / Question number one: Is it plugged in?
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  5. Markham
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    Markham Guest

    Yes, it's plugged-in to my keyboard, mouse and printer. :)
  6. graham59
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    graham59 Banned

    Then again... my OTHER 'rescued and revived' Dell, that I brought over and donated to the Mrs... whilst working perfectly for me back in England, is now mysteriously totally DEAD, apparently after the other half attempted to use it for the first time. :(
  7. bigmac
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    bigmac Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    So whats a brown out ?
  8. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member

    A British black out / cut in leccy supply.
  9. Jim
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    Jim Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    Same as a Black out With out electric. controversially some would say a brownout is reduced power and a black out totally no power.
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  10. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    That is actually the easiest thing to get over Paul :) for years I refused to buy ThinkPads because of that and I was wrong, it's easy to adjust to and you can swap the keys in the bios if you just can't adjust.

    The Fn Ctrl key positions have been in the ThinkPad pretty much from day one.

    Their technical support was excellent however I think it is not quite as good as it used to be according to some sources.
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  11. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member

    Yes it was day 1 experience of the keyboard layout and having to get the laptops in service. Like anything we get accustomed to certain things but Im sure after a day or two it will be a distant memory... until I switch back to a standard keyboard :)

    Not availed of tech support yet but will give a heads-up if anthing like sales :D
  12. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    That switch was what I worried about before I bought one, now I swap between them with ease, I use a Filco mechanical keyboard at work and it is heaven, and the Ctrl key is in the normal correct location but I switch between the ThinkPads and the Filco with ease.

    The much bigger atrocity is the layout of the Ins, Del, Home End, PgUp, PgDn block, you are probably used to the current layout but I utterly hate it and cannot ever get used to it, the X1 would be my first with that layout apart from the x230 I bought my daughter, the X1 looks gorgeous and has a great keyboard action with a horrible layout but it is all you can get now.

    The original ergonomic reason for having Fn in the corner was in part because of the ThinkLight which no longer exists on modern models, you could switch the light on with Fn + PgUp, diametrically opposed keys at either corner of the keyboard easy to find in the pitch dark, my Surface Book 2 15" has a keyboard backlight switched by a key in the middle of the F-keys and the F-keys are by default media and other settings keys not F-Keys, you have to press Fn to get the bloody F-Keys by which time you are F-ing and Blinding :D

    The Fn system on old ThinkPads actually made a lot of sense once you got used to it, I am less happy with the really tiny F-keys on new ThinkPads and the mess they made of the layout.
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2018
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  13. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member


    Invariably I will be using an external keyboard so I suppose the issue will be negated in some respects. We have other Lenovo laptops in service with docking stations, well at least that is the term I used for our Dell's as indeed that is what they were, docking stations. The current batch of Lenovo's have a USB-C dock, so more tethered than docked IMO.

    Yep I too find myself sat in the dark, just like now, laptop on my lap as I'm sat in bed. I can't imagine life without an illuminated keyboard. The days of slightly closing the screen/lid in order to shed light upon a none-illuminated keyboard are hopefully long gone :) . Okay with faffing around with the keyboard illumination. On this Dell it is activated with Fn-Right Arrow key, multiple clicks of this combination result in different intensities of illumination and off of course. I find myself just leaving it permanently on, on it's lowest illumination level.
  14. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member

    I know this thread was originally talking about solar panels but do any of our Philippine based residents have any experience with water wells? After Googling about the differing techniques of solar I found myself getting quite immersed (pardon the pun :) ) in well drilling. The shallow well drilling (max depth of say 35 foot) looks really easy to accomplish with narrow bore drilling. In the right conditions (sand/clay environments) it can be achieved even with PVC piping (yes PVC as the drilling bit too) and water. I've been enlightened with some Youtube videos.

    I ultimately got drawn (possibly another pun there :) ) to this American based site, http://drillyourownwell.com/

    I discovered that site from this YT video,
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  15. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    The backlit keyboard on the 2800 quid Surface Book 2 is crap, it is visually fine plenty bright enough but basically it is hard to turn on and while it helps a tiny little bit it is nowhere near as useful as a Think Light, the Think Light was an LED in the top of the panel's bezel which shone down onto the keyboard no backlight :) this might not seem so great but it provided ambient light for reading things other than the keyboard, think mini desk lamp.

    A backlit keyboard is a one trick pony the Think Light on the other hand is a versatile adaptable repurposable device which the ba**a*d's no longer make :frust:


    edit: See the picture at the top of this article



    the thread itself highlights the opposing opinions of new and old ThinkPad users, the oldies feel deprived but the newbies are content with their back light :D
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2018
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  16. Jim
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    Jim Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    We drilled our own well or at least we got a local to drill. He used the the traditional way by pulverizing a solid metal rod into the soil, the rod/pole was about 2 meters long and tethered to a rope and used the pulley and bamboo tripod, pulling the rod up as high as it would go then release it letting it smash into the ground. 49 foot later we hit water, that was in 2008. Hard work yes, but I got bored (pun intended):)
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  17. Dave_E
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    Dave_E Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    Can the backlit keyboard not be adjusted?

    Google tells me that (F7) toggles through 4 levels of brightness including off, are they all crap?
  18. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Yes it can and yes F7 does cycle and yes they are all crap :D

    Backlights are not that useful and the Surface Book bleeds light badly around the keys, it looks horrible from any angle where you might use the backlight, for instance lying in bed sideways using Netflix to watch a movie or more often to listen to an old Red Dwarf episode to put me to sleep or a Rick and Morty episode :)

    The point about the backlight being hard to turn on is that in the pitch dark fumbling around to find the F7 key somewhere in the middle of a not great keyboard is not very easy, once you have some light it is obviously easier but you cannot read the grey on silver text on a Surface Book keyboard in low light, you just can't and it is even worse at an angle.

    Whereas with an older ThinkPad you could be in a pitch black room with a black desktop and a couple of icons i.e. no ambient light and you could still switch on the ThinkLight by touch alone, reliably, every time, that's what makes the super dooper expensive fancy Surface Book utter sh**e by comparison, someone thought about how the ThinkPad would be used, the people that designed the Surface Book only cared about the looks, just like Apple.

    Shame on Microsoft for being so shallow!
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  19. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member

    What diameter is the well and is the pump atop or inside the well?
  20. Jim
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    Jim Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    Hi, the diameter is about 4" can't be sure to be exact. The pump is at the top, that pumps water to a tank on the third floor.
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