Blog-of-gain

A tech-oriented blog from a Linux user


Latest blog updates

2026-04-14Thermoforming hockey skates: New article.
2026-04-12My woodworking journey: New article.
2026-04-12DIY wooden furniture: New article.
2026-04-10Panther's DIY Wapanese Bed: Add maintenance update.
2026-04-08Updating old USB connectors: New article.
2026-04-07Toksinen suhde (in Finnish): New article.
2026-04-07A toxic relationship: Finnish version, new titles, small revising.
2025-12-06Keychron M6 (1K, PixArt 3311) review: New article.

Filtering by tag: DIY

Learning to ice skate

Tips for newbies, from a somewhat experienced beginner

Preview

A couple of years ago I bought ice skates and made a tool to make them more compatible with my feet. Now it was time to actually finally put the skates to good use. My knowledge about ice skating and fitting skates has reached epic proportions. Check out my newbie tips from the article and get adviced and encouraged!

Updates

2022-02-27Add notes about baking new skates.

Converting modules into bitstream format

A study on tracker music conversion

Preview

If some of your favourite songs happen to be originally tracker music, you must have wondered what would be the best way to convert them into bitstream format. I did an empirical study about it. Read on if you, too, sometimes bang your head to a power plant techno.

Updates

2020-05-11Add case study: Unreal Tournament soundtrack.

Metal strap rocks

I like to fix things using metal strap

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I guess most people tend to resort to something specific when something needs fixing. The most common must be duct tape. I like metal strap, the perforated variety. In this short article I introduce some ways in which metal strap can be used for a lot of things.

ESP8266 deep-sleep repeatedly

How to deep-sleep for a long time and save power

Preview

I made my indoor plant a soil moisture meter which reports the values to Azure cloud. However, I had some trouble making my D1 mini board to sleep and wake up reliably. Turns out, just calling the deep-sleep function once doesn't do the trick. I had to deep-sleep for several shorter cycles before reporting the measurement. Check out the article for a brief how-to.

Updates

2019-11-23Add power consumption measurements.

Widening narrow ice skates with a DIY tool

I guess I have weirdly shaped feet

Preview

As a kid, I never learned how to skate properly. Due to my wide feet it was super hard for me to find fitting skates. Eventually I just bought some decent ones and, since I don't have any contacts to boot punchers, decided to build a tool to make them more compatible with my feet. In this article I introduce the super simple tool that you can make too.

Detachable cable and wireless mod for the AKG K701 headphones

Tested with the new FiiO BTR3 (a review)

Preview

For a long, long time I've been thinking of modifying my original Austrian-made AKG K701 headphones to have a detachable cable. After owning the headphones for eleven years, I finally did it. At the same time I kind of made them wireless using the new FiiO BTR3. Check out the article to see how they fit together.

WebLED: my first IoT project on the Arduino platform

...or: how to open a garage door using WiFi

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For a long time I've wanted to get more into embedded stuff and closer to the physical world when it comes to computers. As a kid I was quite interested in electronics and tweaked some small stuff, but I never really got into programming anything. Now with the market full of cheap Arduino-compatible chips, I decided to hook myself up into the Internet of Things and make a WiFi-operated garage door opener. Check out the article for an overview of the project.

Sony SBH70 bluetooth earphones review

...with a bit of modding too, of course

Preview

I wanted to have new earphones I could use when walking or doing sports. One of the requirements was they should be open design. I ended up buying the Sony SBH70 bluetooth earphones, found some shortcomings and tried to fix them with a little bit of modding. Read the full article to see some custom wingtips.

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