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Welcome to fidoriel's Blog

Sometimes I am curious how I solved issues in the past. I like simple solutions to issues that do not break down soon. I also like practical things that solve these issues in the manner of bauhaus that I can reproduce and repair myself. Therefor I keep a collection of high quality hard- and software tools and need a way to keep the information on how I did this. Until now, I have a private collection of markdowns where I kept this information. This blog is an attempt to change this.

Bike Repair

After my latest and bike shop experience I will do everything to not bring my bike there ever again. It was €147 and an absolute waste of money. €30 was for the Bosch firmware update. I do not like that I cannot do this on my own.

But the real reason was that the chain of my e-bike jumped down. I did put it back, but it jumped down again.

I decided to bring it to a bike shop to let a "pro" do the work. Also, I missed a Warranty maintenance interval.

E-bikes have a bracket that should prevent chains from jumping. The manufacturer used a stripped screw for screwing the bracket. I pointed the bike shop to the screw that I wanted this replaced within the maintenance. I needed to lose the crank to be able to change the screw. Because I did not have the tool I decided to bring it to the shop.

Result: Chain was on but jumped off again. Why? The shop did not change the screw, so it was not screwed down correctly. Within the maintenance they did not recognize that the cassette and chain has worn out after 3000 km (1850 mi). Did they even do a maintenance?

I do not know. After that I decided to gear up my bike tools and do everything on my own. I used my Dremel to carefully cut a slot into the screw so that I can use it with a flathead.

Tools at Home

I finally decided to get a torque wrench. But I did not find a wrench that was capable of 3-40 Nm, so I decided to get two: A Proxxon MC15 and a MC60. I also have a 1/4 (23080) and a 3/8 (23112) wrench set from them. They are sadly not "Made in Germany" but are high quality tools from Taiwan Tengtools. I also use my Proxxon Ring Wrench set (23821) and my "Wera HexPlus HF" for bike repairs.

Over time, I collected some very special tools:

  • Shimano HG for cassette and a chain whip
  • Shimano TLFC32 for center lock and bottom bracket (this I sadly cannot use with my torque wrench)
  • Bosch Lockring Tool and a crank puller for Bosch
  • 3D printed Chain Wear Indicator

The only thing I still miss, despite a mineral oil set, is a proper stand. I will keep an eye for special offers for a "Park Tool PCS 9.3 or 10.3".

Bike Bag

Last year I got an "Ortlib Commuter-Daypack" Urban from my parents to my birthday, which I absolutely love. I always carry my sailing stuff including a lighter for ropes and a Leatherman for everything. I decided to add a "Topeak MINI 20 PRO Multitool" for bikes. Remember to carry always a chain pin. Within this order I also got a basic tube repair kit. As a very small pump I got a "Lezyne CNC Pocket". Multitool + tube repair + Pump was €50 and everything I need in a repair emergency. The best is it fits into the small compartment bag within my backpack.

Mobile Tools

Conclusion

A big Investment in tools, but I hate bad quality tools. Maybe they will last long and used for other things than just bikes. It is cheaper and way faster to do bike maintenance on my own. To drop the Bike at the shop and collect it later cost me around 90 Min in total. DIYing the repair is more time efficient and faster done, and I do not have to miss my bike log. To be without my e-bike also cost me a lot of time.

About home server and self-hosting

I like to self-host stuff for privacy and cost save reasons. It also keeps me independent of some policy changes and allows me to use my media, books, music, audiobooks and so on how I like. Some stuff I like is not available at the big streaming services.

I have a Raspberry Pi 5 for the local applications. A VPS hosts the tools that need to be exposed to the internet. I ordered a cheap 16Tb Seagate drive on eBay, which was stored in a datacenter as replacement but never used. Music and Audiobooks are stored on a WD 1tb drive so that the big drive does not need to spin up often. I use hd-idle, energy is expensive in Germany.

Web

All of them are run within docker compose.

  • audiobookshelf for audiobooks and auto download of podcasts. They have a great app. I am also a small contributor there.
  • jellyfin for old TV Movies and Shows. On iOS I use Jellyfin mobile and Swiftfin
  • paperless-ngx for indexing and oranizing of PDFs and Books in PDF form mainly Pen and Paper
  • navidrome for music. Amperfy on iOS.
  • manyfold for 3D prints
  • romm for games from gog
  • filebrowser to easily manage files from the hdd
  • glances htop in the browser from the device it is running on
  • uptime kuma for telegram uptime news
  • pikvm as a KVM for some devices in the network
  • LibreChat cheap API frontend for LLMs
  • homeassistant, homebridge and esphome for smart home
  • homer for the dashboard
  • homebox as an inventory system for my stuff
  • awtrix as a 32x8 RGB Clock. They have a great but paid app.
  • OctoPi for the 3D Printer
  • FoundryVTT for pen and paper. Only paid I use. One time fee €50.
  • hedgedock collaborative markdown online editor
  • excalidraw collaborative online drawing tool. Alternative to tldraw
  • vaultwarden for passwords. Compatible to Bitwarden apps. Use Bitwarden for Production because they manage it. €9 for Bitwarden a year is fine for extra otp functions.
  • CodeCov code coverage ui. Used it within my first start up. Their managed service it too expensive and buggy.
  • gitea as a local git and hf hub mirror. Also supports GitHub actions via act

Non-Self-Hosted stuff I need to back up

  • Bitwarden
  • Fusion360
  • Brickmerge

Tools

  • CueTools for audio checksum verification (works with wine)
  • TagScanner and MP3Tag for tagging (works with wine)
  • EAC for CD encoding
  • Others people told me to use makemkv and libation but never tried it.
  • mediathekviewweb for legal (!) downloading of German TV Shows (no legal advice)

Amazon in 2024

The golden times of Amazon are over. They are not the cheapest, their special offers are not special, the customer service does not offer the goodwill of the past and prime is more expensive than ever. In 2017 Amazon was a great place to order stuff online: - best customer service - same day delivery - cheap shipping flat - best prices

With covid this changed. Other online retailers also offer very good shipping conditions like the German retailer "Thalia". They do also have a very good loyalty program and their shipping flat is free. Once a month they have a weekend with 17% on nearly everything. So they regularly have the best prices. Shipping takes around 2-3 days. Because Amazon Prime shipping has become worse, I feel they are right up now. The best thing: Thalia does not have this massive Chinese trash on their site. Lots of Chinese drop shippers are selling the same Chinese waste on Amazon. Same product images, same, copied description, some are cheap, some are more expensive. They invent a fake brand name and sell their junk in Europe. For Amazon Warehouse services they have to pay 30% in shipping and handling to Amazon. In the past Amazon had this "Plus Product" thing where they only shipped small and cheap items, <=€5 in value, with regular products for >=€20. I did not like this at the time, because there was no option to get the small items without a big order. Even ordering them with an added value bigger than €20 did not work. They dropped this rule some years ago. But then Amazon was flooded with Chinese trash. I have to pay attention to not order bike parts or other stuff that may not be safe. I also do not want to pay 10x the AliExpress price on Amazon with AliExpress shipping most items withing 10 days to Germany. If I am on AliExpress I know where to pay attention on to not get junk. But on Amazon I miss the selection of high quality items. If I order at Thalia, voelkner or alternate they preselected the items to avoid trash. Amazon does not, they do not even try. If I search for something I am flooded with trash. I have to pick items, check the sellers imprint, check the images, check AliExpress to make sure this is a value product. The times when I could just order something, and it is good are over. With Amazon becoming worse, their CMS full of junk items, I even cannot use Amazon to seek for specific items anymore. I only order small stuff from good brands there. For example the bike component brand "M-wave". They have simple solid, gets the job done items with good quality and reasonable prices. That can be ordered at Amazon with fast shipping. Sometimes I also order tools from Wera, Wiha, Knipex and so on there. But more expensive stuff can be easily and cheaper found on deal communities like mydealz with huge discounts. I have learned that other local online sellers are also grate and now even better than Amazon. Audible still has exclusive stuff, but I am not interested in their stuff anymore. The more niche stuff can be acquired somewhere else. If they have the special €9 for three months I become new customer again. Wait for 6 months and the account counts as new to audible again and qualifies for the special offer again. But audiobooks are a thing for a future post.

Usually I do not return stuff. If I press buy, I am sure I need and want this. I only returns if the item is not as described or broken. I check the data sheet and so on to make sure the item is compatible to avoid climate harming returns. I know it is not great to order stuff online, but most of the stuff I cannot get around Berlin, takes a lot of time to get there and is very expensive at a local retailer. Often a combination of all three. I hope I can do a little damage limitation with being sure what I need.

I only order on Amazon if they offer the best price including shipping. Other stuff is obtained via mydealz at other retailers. The convenient days are over and Amazon tries to milk their loyal customer base and disgust away with thousands listings of the same Chinese junk. Chinese electronics and so on will be ordered at AliExpress to not overpay everything else I will order at great European retailers valuing their customers.

Personal Item Storage System

Requirements

I have a lot of Legos, Tools, cables, electronic components, computer components, screws, tabletop/pen and paper stuff, board games, 3D printing replacement parts, audio equipment and so on. Therefor a structured system for storing them in an organized way.

To build a sustainable solution I have some requirements:

  • good, future and broad availability
  • fairly priced (yes this one is subjective)
  • stackable
  • lid
  • easy to move
  • good quality

I was able to find two box/storage systems which fits my needs: IKEA Samla and Euronormbox. I bought Euroboxes from the german hardwarestore "Bauhaus" and from "Obi". Obi sells boxes from "Surplus Systems" and "Bauhaus" from their brand. Currently, I am invested in Euroboxes and Samlas with multiple hundreds of euros.

Samlas have been very cheap before covid when I started using them. Now they are pretty expensive. I have a lot of them and do not need new boxes frequently. They are also great because they are clear/transparent, Euroboxes are not available in clear, only in milky. To keep the color consistent with different manufacturers, I decided to buy gray. Speaking of different manufacturers. Pay attention on the Eurobox Compatibility. Only the outer dimensions of Euroboxes are standardized. The Surplus boxes do not fit onto the Bauhaus lids. Especialy big Euroboxes have therefore become more attractive. Nevertheless, choose your storage system wisely to not become dependent on one manufacturer you do not trust to stay in business or to sustain prices.

How do I store stuff in it? Each box only contains stuff specific to a topic, Legos, cables, you get the idea.

Special Solutions

But what to do with special items for example miniatures or small parts? Lego is sorted by brick type according to bricklink and stored in zip bags in my Euroboxes. But miniatures can become more difficult: There are these awesome but expensive "Feldherr" foam boxes. But they are big and do not fit within my storage system.

Therefor I created a storage system for them based on a 5L IKEA Samla: Samla Mini Storage You can find information on how to build your own at the Printables Listing. Spoiler it is customizable for different base sizes and will fit on a standard 22cm cubed printer. This is based on a great OpenSCAD IKEA Samla Insert design, also customizable. To store my resistors I remixed a simple Box storage system, I modified the base plate to fit the 5L Samla bottom perfectly. Resistor Storage

Type Trays

For IKEA Samla it is best to just use the inserts mentioned before, because they have such a strange shape. Also IKEA offers for 22L boxes a tray for bigger items which is also more stable than the inserts. But in my experience I need to enforce them with for example this insert stabilizer. But what to do with the Euroboxes? I measured them and decided to cut boxes.py part trays with a lasercutter. It was difficult to get the internal dimensions, because they become wider/more flexible to the top. For the "Surplus Systems 60x50x22" I decided to use 50.57*7 x 50.8*5 within the generator. I like to use the trays not only for sorting but also for temporary storage of Lego Bricks while working on a project. I can easily find relevant bricks for building a set and store them away.

Final words

I am very happy with my custom off the shelf extensions. Object management will be included in my homeserver post in the future.