What "Router" Should I Take?

Into each life, a little rain must fall. I got a "dud" deal on Craigslist. Well....actually, a partially-dud-deal. When I met the guy in the parking lot of Sears, I figured that there could  possibly be an issue. 

1. He was young. Young guys are generally NOT power tool guys.
2. He had it loose in his trunk. Old tool guys don't carry tools loose in the trunk.
3. There was rust on the bit. Tool guys aren't going to leave a bit (much less one that's rusted) in a tool they are trying to sell.

 So, you might ask yourself, why didn't I just not buy this tool? Well, it's a Sears Craftsman router that was selling for $20, and as I would find out, it works. Then, what's the problem? Uh, the shaft wouldn't lock, which precludes the removal and insertion of bits in the collett. Actually, the problem is that there's an interlock that only allows the shaft to lock when the router is off. Apparently there's a problem with the interlock, which is completely mechanical. But it's not something I could test for in a parking lot! So, I'm probably going to need to open it up and do a little work on the said interlock. I'm pretty OK with that, especially since this will be the second router.

Here's the other Craftsman router I have. You might now be asking yourself why I would need/want another router very similar to the one I already own. Well, actually after talking to my buddy Pat, we concluded that the correct number to have is actually 4. FOUR!?! Yup, 4. Let me explain. In the power tool world, a router is kind of like a file in hand tools. It may take lots of work, but you can do darn near everything with a router from cutting, to shaping, even artistic carving. Although you can do most anything with the traditional "fixed-based" router, there is also other types which speed up what you are doing.

There's the "plunge" router, that allows you to start right where you want to without having to slide into a cut.

There's also the "trim" router that's small enough to make it much easier to control when doing small jobs such as cutting off small amounts of laminent material. 

Plus, there is also attaching a router to a plate so that it can fit in a table semi-permanenantly such as this router extension which forms a section of my "new" Ryobi table saw. This makes it much easier to work with smaller pieces by moving the work-piece vs. the entire tool. However, it's a pain to attach them to the plate and remove them for use in other places. So, what most woodworkers do is to have 2 fixed base routers so they can just leave one attached to a table, whether that's a stand-alone table or one attached to something else, like table saw. 

What about the "broken" Craigslist router? It still works, after a fashion....I guess I'll just have to take it apart and fix the interlock. Is there some possibility that I can't fix it? Sure! It was $20 though and I'll take that risk. Hey, if I DO get it fixed, I'll be halfway up my route to the ultimate router Nirvanha.


 

If Someone Will Shed A Little Light.....

You guys are probably thinking that all I've been doing lately is work on my shop and it's power tools. Actually, that's not quite the case. As I've previously discussed, my brother somewhat "out of the blue" sent me some cameras, and lens adapters. Then really out of the blue, sent me a couple of Wide-Angle/Fisheye adapters Nikon made for their fixed-lens cameras. One in particular, the FC-E9 which gives the cameras a 35mm equivalent of an 8mm Fisheye lens is really astounding! Here you see it mounted on the rather smallish CoolPix 8400, but it's really big mounted on the CP 8800! Anyway, as much fun as it's been playing with these things.... and let me tell ya, they are a HUGE hit with the 7 and 10 year old crowd, what I'm really doing is trying to get these cameras integrated into my digital photography life. So far, the 8400 with it's somewhat more compact body and 28mm (35 eq) lens is winning this little battle. 

 

As I become more and more reliant on it as my "around-the-house" camera, one thing is very apparent. I really don't like that flash! Not only is it weak, it's also poorly located.

Of course, I could always go with this solution.... maybe not. That's Nikon's SB-600 i-TLL flash mounted on the CP8800 there. Trust me, you really don't want to see the "head-on" view of this. It ain't pretty. And with the hotshoe of the CP8400 in the corner, it would be even more ungainly on that camera. Oh, yeah.... that's the smaller of my two i-TLL flashes. It would be a LOT worse with the significantly bigger SB-800! I could go with the smaller and almost balanced SB-50 on there, but that flash doesn't take advantage of the newer i-TLL flash system that's not only baked into my DSLRs, but the 8800/8400 as well. What to do?

The answer is this little guy. Variously known as the Sunpak RD2000 or Quantaray XLF-50, it's small, light, and it bounces. Why not the little Nikon SB-400? Well, there is that $35-50 difference (although the Nikon is more powerful), but I also have a little secret. As most photographers are aware, Quantaray is a "house brand" of the Ritz chain of camera stores. They sell all manner of stuff using that brand, but the actual product is made by someone else, such as Sigma for many lenses, and in this case Sunpak for this flash. However, that's not the important part. It's been well publicized that Ritz isn't doing very well, and that they've gone through several rounds of store closings. What it mean is that their distribution centers often have to dump stock and these things will appear on the "secondary markets" such as eBay at a steeply discounted price. In this case, the XLF-50 can be pretty regularly bought at $50 or so. That's somewhat less than half the price of a SB-400.

I'm very OK with using a generic at that price-point!

Oh, and did I forget to mention that this flash actually bounces, vs. merely rotating the reflector like the SB-400?

Did I also forget to mention that the hotshoe foot rotates completely inside the flash body to make it that much more compact and easy to carry.... say in a pocket? No, it's not very powerful with a guide number of 20, but that's at ISO 100, which means you can pick up 2 more stops buy simply shooting at 400. On the plus side, it only takes 2 AA batteries and is quite the lightweight at 100g w/o batteries. Come to think of it; this thing is so compact, it might also make an excellent companion no only to my stable of CoolPix cameras, but to the D50 and most intriguingly the Panasonic GF-1 as well!?!

 

"Boys With Toys": Woodworking Edition

In one of the James Bond episodes (don't remember which), the Bond-girl du Jur, famously spits out, in disgust...."Boys and Their Toys"! I've always thought that to be pretty much right on the mark with the males of the species. I can completely envision, Ug and Og sitting around in the cave discussing the relative merits of the rock vs. the club. As for myself; maybe it's that I didn't get enough Legos to play with as a child... who knows? I've always like things that were modular, that could be added on to, and even better, adapted and changed to become something else. Not Transformers per se, but things that could grow, part of a system.

I very specifically remember the gun that Napoleon Solo used, that could be transformed from essentially a Walther P-38K into a telescopically-sited, carbine, with sub-machine gun capabilities!

 

 

 At the time, this was the toy that I wanted in the worse way! I suppose you could say that I never fully got over the concept.

On Saturday morning, I sold my little Black and Decker table saw, and that evening bought one of these. It's a Ryobi BT3000 "Precision Cutting System". What does this power tool have to do with a 60's spy TV show have to do with each other? For those of you familiar with the typical table saw, you can probably already see it. To the left of where the blade rises up, is a "Miter" extension that is mounted on a slide. This allows the user to push the wood over the work surface without the need to buy/build another device (called a sled). 

 

To the right of the blade area is another extension that you can see an orange dot. That's not a dot. It's a hole which along with those 4 holes around it allows for a router to be attached to this table-top, thus making use of it AND the fence for use as a router table. These two extensions can be moved from side to side or back and forth as necessary for easy use. There are also a number of other add-ons as well as other built-in innovations that eases use such as the completely shrouded blade with a bag/shop-vac port to keep sawdust largely contained. It's all mounted on a cart with wheels to allow it to be easily moved and stored.

I think this original Ryobi ad will help you relate this power tool with the Man From U.N.C.L.E. toy gun above! But that's just the beginning. Apparently, this saw has a bit of a cult following among the wood-working community and all manner of add-on have been created for it.

Here's one that the owner has built a storage cabinet inside the cart, along with miscellaneous adaptations to make it easier to use. 

These are two different types of what's called "out-feed tables" which are just a fancy way of saying a flat surface to support your wood so it doesn't droop or fall in the floor as you cut it. The top one as you can see is attached to an already extensively modified table which is quite large.

Here's a CAD type image that someone has made most probably so that they can use it in designing add-ons to work with this saw. I'm sure you get the concept. In short, I've been seduced by the modularity of this tool! I can completely see myself, spending the next year or two adding on to and adapting it in all manner of ways to customize the new toy to fit my woodworking needs. Is it the best table saw ever? Not even close. It did cost $175 making it a "zero sum" upgrade, my favorite kind ($125 birthday gifts, $50 sale of old saw). At some point, I can completely see myself out-growing the rather gimmicky "sliding miter table". But until that point, this will be a great big-boy toy to play with!

 

"WHO" Made Me Who I Am?: Part 1

In the beginning there was this.....really! Oh, okay, it was my brother Daniel. Let's get to it then. Who made the Frugal Propellerhead what he is. After the post on the table saw situation, I started thinking about how I got into the "do it yourself" end of life. I believe that people have dispositions, but they also have to make decisions. Decisions that they not only want to, but will do what's necessary to learn how AND to actually put those ideas into action. In that light, there are a number of people who I'll credit with being my "role models". Although, my father was an engineer, he was a Chinese engineer of the elder generation. Meaning that people of his social class didn't do physical labor with any regularity. They had "people" for that! In fact, he even brought some of those "people" to the United States to do the things that needed to get done. When my dad passed away some years ago, it was with soft hands and very few scars. My brother Daniel wasn't anything like that. While he's an electronics (Not really electrical), engineer with a degree in Physics (weird huh?), he always did things himself. Furthermore, he never let Polio which left him with virtually no use of his right arm, get in the way of doing much of anything. He's a high-level management guy with a Japanese electronics firm making big money, but he recently repaired his own washing machine. He's also 7 years older than I am (although my closes sibling in age), so growing up, he was my role model. There was many a days where I was his other hand, while he worked on the old Chevrolet Vega, building model rockets or cutting a piece of wood. Along the way, I learned that if you really want to, you can pretty much do anything for yourself. Being a life-long photographer (like me), he's far less comfortable in front of the camera than behind it (just like you-know-who). So the image above is a perfect stand-in for him. It's an old (we call it "vintage" these days) drill, with a press stand. These things could be found in kit form back in the late-60's/early-70's that would allow a person to do most anything (at least the commercials said so) in place of a real "shop". I don't remember the circumstances, but he either earned the money, or somehow convinced my famously frugal mom to buy it for him. We used it in all it's various forms for a number of years because he wanted to build things, and we were not only too poor to own "real" tools, but my Dad never saw them as a priority. In fact it was my Mom who would scrounge scrap lumber from neighboring construction sites and make step-stools and things like that!

There was a hiatus of fixing and building when I was turned 10, after my brother left for college. But 10+ years after that, I met Jeff (I've always had good luck with "Jeff"s in my life). We met playing church league ball (football, basketball, and softball) and he being about 10 years older than I, so for a time he pretty much took over the role of my brother. Jeff was an engineer (detecting a trend here?); he was the operations manager for an oil mill. Although an engineer, he was the exact opposite of my dad who was also basically the operations manager, but of a textile mill. He not only would get in there an work on the machinery himself, but he would routinely wear the mechanics style (Dickies) uniforms complete with name patch (with a fake name) at work!

Although my brother put me on the road of believing that a person could do things for themselves, it was Jeff that put the specifics in place. He had build his own shed/shop in the backyard. I don't mean he went to Lowes/Home Depot and bought a kit. He just flat-out built it on his own. In fact, he had even began digging a big hole in his backyard for a pool before his company transferred him away. Inside this shop, he had a bunch of tools ranging from drill press to table saw. None were bought new. They all came variously from pawn shops to garage sales, to auctions, picked up at a fraction of the original costs. So yeah....he's the one whose responsible for teaching me that. Oh yeah, did I mention that Jeff's avocation is amateur acting and he has appeared not only on stage in many productions, but also can be seen as an extra in some real Hollywood movies?

 

Then there's my father-in-law, Bob, otherwise known around here as "Bob the Builder". Bob is a "self-made-man". He left his native California to pursue his future bride in Amarillo, Texas when he was 17. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but here's what he did in the next 10 years or so. Started out living in a little Airstream trailer, did odd jobs till he earned his GED, became a fireman, worked construction on the side, earned a college degree, became ordained as a minister, earned a Masters degree, started working as an administrator for colleges in financial aid, became a pastor, retired (as the Dean of Enrollment Management), went back to work for a college on student management software, then recently re-retired and is in the process of moving out here!

This is what Bob actually looks like. He can build pretty much anything. It may or may not be pretty, but it'll work and it'll last. I'd say that about a quarter to a third of the furniture in our house was build by him or he had a hand in it. Significantly, he buys me tools. As I began the "putting down roots" stage of my life, of course he was there. And for a number of birthdays and Christmases, he either gifted me with tools or money so I could buy tools. Right now, my plan to upgrade my table saw from the base $300 is due partly to his contribution for my birthday this year. 

And then there's my friend Pat. I use Japanese "Pull" saws to represent him since, as I've said before....he's a "craftsman". He's actually half Okinawan from when his dad was stationed at the American airbase there. He is a bit unusual in the he mostly spent his formative years in Germany when his dad was stationed there and speaks German well, probably better than his Japanese, although I'm no judge of either! This little tidbit is maybe all you need to know about him to draw some conclusions. He has a BIG table saw made out of MDF (medium density fiberboard) that he designed and built himself. He's also responsible for the most nicely built piece of furniture in my house; the big audio/video cabinet that I spent a year on-and-off designing. The drawers have classic dove-tailed joints, there are pocket-doors, and it's completely modular. Oh yeah: he took my original design and put the whole thing on CAD with animation showing how the drawers and doors would work before we cut the first piece of wood!

So, is it any surprise that I feel a little bit like Luke Skywalker when I go into the garage to work on a project?

.....And Outta Left Field......

I know my international readers may not get this reference... Sorry guys! We're going to talk wood-working today. Actually, it's not as "out of left field" as it might seem. This has actually been ongoing for some time. I've always like tools and woodworking to some extent, however, I never lived in one place long enough to literally "set up shop", and learn the hobby. Then about 15 years ago, several things came together. I got married, then moved back to Lubbock, Texas, then bought a house. House should be an obvious indication of some permanence, but when I married my wife, I also married into her family including my father-in-law, "Bob-the-Builder." No....I mean literally, Bob (which is his name) can build pretty much anything since he not only worked construction during part of his life, but built his own house and much of the furniture in it. Being in Lubbock also meant being around my long-time friend, Pat. He's not a builder; he's a craftsman. It takes him forever to build anything, but it's made like an artisan would have done it. During those first few years, I participated mostly as an extra pair of hands and kind of an idea guy (read: not of much use). 

Then this happened. Ten years ago, we moved to Forney, Texas. It's still in Texas, but it's 300 miles or so away from my buddy Pat in Lubbock, and my father-in-law in Midland. As far as being a woodworker was concerned, it was probably the best thing to ever happen to me. Now, if I wanted something done, I pretty much had to do it myself. Yeah, there's been a few weekend projects that Bob help on when he came to visit, but mostly I did what needed to be done. After a year of renting a house, we had our current home built, and included a 3rd car bay in the garage, but without a door. That's because, we have this weird idea that we would want to park our cars IN the garage instead of using it as "attached storage" which is common in this area! Along with sharing that extra bay with the lawn equipment, and actual storage, the rest was mine to do with as I saw fit. 

As a big screen TV and a sectional wasn't going to fit, and having a bar, pole and attendant dancer was out of the question, it's pretty much my "shop". In the heart of that shop, a little $100 Black & Decker table saw came to live. Over the course of the last 6=7 years, this cheap little table saw has done a lot. Other than holding up various boxes of random computer junk, it's built a number of things for my wife's classroom. Although, I can't hold the ugly cubicle style of mailbox against it, since that was done wholly with a circular saw, it's made 2 book cases, a rolling/folding whiteboard, my desk-hutch, my computer monitor stand and numerous other little items. Well, it's time for the "little saw that did" to go. It got posted onto Craigslist last night for a whopping $50. I'm going to say that it's been well worth the $50 difference that it will have costs these last few years of slightly out-of-square cuts. 

Guess what I asked for, for my birthday? Actually no; not a $600-800 table saw. I asked for Lowe's gift cards or money so I can buy a saw and the stuff that I'll need with it. So far, I've accumulated just north of $300. Typically, somewhere in the $300-500 range buys a pretty nice used saw. What? Did you think that the Frugal-propellerhead wouldn't be the Frugal-woodworker? That's right, although I don't know as much about power tools as computer equipment, the same principles apply on buying and selling. In computer terms, I'm trading up from the new "Acer" of table saws to a used "ThinkPad" of table saws. No, I don't know yet what I'm going to get. I've found a nice Jet like the one in the image above for about $400, and a nice Rigid TS3650 for about $200. "No-Brainer" you say? Not so fast, the Rigid's cast-iron top is covered with rust. I'm not going to drive across Dallas unless I've pretty much decided that I'm ready to do the work necessary to deal with that rust!

Where am I going with this project? Here it is. You might not be aware, but all the saws I've been looking at are "contractor" style saws. That means that they are basically pretty compact designs/ed to be mobile or semi-mobile, when detached from a stand or legs. Although, lucky to have a shop at all, I'm not blessed with a big one, therefore I need to maximize what space I have. What the above illustration shows is what can be done with a smaller (non-cabinet) saw where you can attach a router and use the "fence" and top for dual purposes. Of course, then, below it, the space is used for storage. Awesome right!?! Over the course of the next few weeks and months, you'll see a series of "posts" that will chronicle this transformation of my shop area....hopefully for the better!
 

Everybody Needs a "Plan B"

It's been a heck of a week! It started out pretty darned bad and ended in a rush! You may or may not know it (or even care), but the Johnny Manziel led Aggies kicked a field goal with time expiring to win a shootout vs. Ole' Miss. in Oxford, while earlier that day, my other school Texas Tech survived a scare at home over the Iowa State Cylones: Go TTU Kingsberrys....I mean Raiders! Anyway, back to business (literally). I've talked about a commercial client I have several times that's in kind of a bad position technology-wise. 

At the point where I was introduced to them, they had computer problems, with 2 working machines, 1 of which was a stand-alone machine dedicated to running a cutting machine (more on that later). Other than the owners Sony laptop that he often carried for work, their communications with the outside world consisted of landline telephones and one of these. An old PIII, Gateway (before the Acer buyout) computer. The picture shows a mid-tower, and theirs was the full-tower version, but you get the idea. Most people remember these things from the "Cow-box" people. They weighed a ton, and were built for bear outta good-ol' American steel. The poor thing was limping along on Windows XP/SP3, with 512Mb of RAM (BIOS limitation)! Ultimately, I built them an inexpensive (about $500, $600 including 20" Dell Ultrasharp Monitor), Quad Core machine, running Windows 7. They are very happy with it. 

A few months later, I took an old Dell Dimension 3000 machine that was given to me, by an old friend and co-worker. Added RAM, reloaded the Windows XPP OS and now they have a back-up in the back office. I even got them an external HDD so they could back up their critical files! Things were going along pretty well, but I knew that the machine in the back might be an Achille's heel for them. After convincing them to let me clone the HDD onto another drive, I thought we were in good shape.

This company makes custom gaskets. Most of them are stamped using metal die cutters, but anything really sophisticated is sent to them via a CAD drawing and that's put onto a computer controlled water jet cutter that's hooked up to it's own dedicated PC. This PC is old, not PIII mind you, but old never-the-less.....Athlon XP 2200+! So I went over one after noon and cloned the drive from it. They were working on something that day and didn't have time for me to test the HDD so we just put it away. A couple of months later (last week), I got a call that said that they could test it now, but could do it themselves so I didn't need to come down. Just send some instructions. Yup; you guessed it! The instructions were ignored and they disconnected pretty much everything inside the case and when it was connected back, nothing happened.......Uh, Oh. To make a long story short, apparently, not only were there two different on/off wires (One from the console cabinet panel), but apparently there were 2 drives as well. You see, what they didn't tell me was that there had been a previous issue, and the machine had been rebuilt by the manufacturer, but they left the old (bad) drive in the case. We had been connecting to that one and trying to make it work. So, I actually repaired and cloned THAT drive, so they ended up with the old system from several years ago! Guess who got to run over there to reconnect the new (good) drive back to get them going again!?! After all was said and done, I made 2 clones of that drive to make sure we have a back-up!

The "Cool" Factor

The last week or so, Samsung has been running a bunch of ads on TV for a "smartwatch" which is supposed to work with their Galaxy line of Android phones. If you're unfamiliar with these things, they've actually been around for a while going back to the huge Palm OS watch some years ago, but with the advent of smartphones, the reality of a watch that links to them, while the phone hides discretely in your pocket is alluring..... at least conceptually...... which is probably why they have thus far been commercial failures. 

Even the mighty Sony hasn't even gotten it's 2nd version to make so much as a ripple in the market. I'll admit it; I've been sorely tempted by it. As a teacher, I don't have the luxury of grabbing my phone to look, every time it buzzes, to see if it's just another Facebook notification, or that call-back from the doctor's office I've been waiting for all morning! However, I just can't seem to get myself to pull the plug on spending somewhere between $100 and $200 on something that requires me to charge every day or so (just like my cellphone), and is still somewhat glitchy, plus I might not find myself using on a regular basis. 

Of course, some of it might be that I'm kind of a crusty old guy who wears one of these on a daily basis. Yup, my dad's old Omega Constellation, which is a "perpetual", a completely mechanical "self-winding" watch from the late 60's! The other watch that I wear regularly is an older Timex Expedition which is a similar completely analog watch with a plain white face and a simplistic brown resin case. 

Even if I could run out and buy any watch I wanted, it'd be one of these Omega Seamasters. I know what you're thinking. I've loved them long before James Bond started wearing one in the movies, instead of the Rolex Submariner that he wears in the books. Is this a post on watches then? Actually, no; it's a post on "Cool" concepts that don't turn out to be all that useful.

In fact this whole line of thinking started the other day when I realized that I have a really cool device that I virtually never use. Awhile ago, I saw that Iomega had released an external storage solution built on a 1.8" SSD. So, not only was it incredibly small and light, but it's in a really nice embossed metal case. Of course price ranged from $230 (64Gb) to $750 for the 256Gb version! Yikes, that's a lot of money for cool! I decided that I'd do an eBay search anyway and see what the price ends up coming down to when they hit the used market. Then I came up with some ads posted from China (where else), for the cases w/o drives for something like $15 after shipping. As it turns out, I had an unused 64Gb Samsung OEM, 1.8" SSD that came out of my old X300 ThinkPad. After sitting in a drawer for over a year, it needed a job. A 3 week wait ensued after which the package finally arrived via China Post. Indeed, the thing came in the Iomega packaging complete down to the paperwork for the device. I slipped in the drive, and one quick format later, I have this really slick external storage device with the capacity of....... a nice flashdrive...... Yup, after all that, I rarely ever use it, since it doesn't give any more capacity or have any advantages over the 64Gb flashdrive that you can run down to Walmart and buy for $35-40. Kind of a letdown.

Then, there are these guys....Ultrabooks. You might be aware that Intel periodically puts together concepts that they create prototypes of and encourages manufacturers to build. 

Kind of like this '56 Firebird "Concept Car" from GM. Mostly they are really cool ideas that don't turn out to work that well in real life. A few years ago, Intel thought that it'd be a great idea if you put a small LCD screen on the outside of a laptop so you can see when email comes in or what music track it's playing etc. Turns out that nobody wanted to carry around a notebook computer in place of a iPod or Smartphone.... who Knew! Anyway, back to my original thought; the Ultrabook. At the time, it seemed like an idea who's time had come. An ultralight, ultraslim (hence ultraportable), ultracool (ultra-like-the-Apple-MacBook Air), notebook computer. Even ultra-sealed-up (like you know who), so that you can't even change the battery w/o taking it apart. ......and as it turns out, Ultra-not-really-salable either since they've been met in the marketplace with a collective yawn. Conceptually, it seems like a great idea, but I think there are a couple of issues here. 

Mind you, these are my not-too-scientific analysis here, but we can start by it's poor timing of coming to market around the time-frame of the iPad/tablet revolution which has swept all before it. They also tend to be somewhat pricier than the typical consumer market notebook (about double). And while consumers are OK with tablets being dependent on downloaded apps/content, I think they are still somewhat leery of a full-blown PC coming w/o an optical drive. You add to that the rather inept staff of blue-shirted zombies at the big-box stores trying to sell them. I'd say that it all conspires to hold down these things in the marketplace. And remember, this is all coming from an X301 user, which after all is one of the original computers that kicked off that form-factor.....albeit in "super-ultrabook" form given that it does have an optical drive! 

Who, knows; maybe there's life in these products still to be sparked. It's rumored that Apple is going to bring out an "iWatch"(?), as well as M$ and some other industry heavy hitters. I know that I still think that the concept is interesting and that I could see myself using one at some point, but then again: I used the Palm V up until last year!

Building Desktops The Frugal Way: Part 3

If you didn't already know, the "Blackbird" is in the planning stages of a rebuild. This will the 4th motherboard, and 3rd processor, although the CPUs and MBs didn't come and go together. All the board have been Gigabyte. The first was the GA-EP43 since I could only afford either the board I wanted, or the CPU I wanted, so I went with the Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale processor. Eventually, I came into a GA-EP45 that I really wanted originally, so in it went and the E8400 got moved over. The following year, I was able to get the higher end, dual Ethernet version of the EP45, so another switch. This was followed by the Q6600 last year, which lasted less than 6 months, until I got a great deal on the "Yorkfield" Q9550. 

Then this happened! I've previously talked about this Gigabyte GA-Z77X board so I won't rehash it other than to say that I've received notification from Gigabyte's RMA facility in LA that the replacement is on the way back. 

That's kind of convenient since I just sent the HD 7750 that I bought back to them on another RMA yesterday. For those of you keeping score at home, I'm up to $110 now, $65 for the motherboard and $45 for the video card. I'm going to bet that my brother will send me his old i5 so, there'll probably be nothing spent there. So, what does that leave to be done for the new guts?

Well; there'll be the RAM of course since the move will necessitate a change to DDR3 memory of which, I don't any laying around. My philosophy on this is going to be that I'll start where I leave off on my current system, but leave room for growth. I'll start with the same amount (8Gb) of RAM, but in less memory modules (2 instead of 4), that way, I'll be able to upgrade to 16Gb at some point down the road. That's exactly what I did on my current system, starting at 4Gb in 2 modules, then adding two more when I upgraded to 8Gb. That's pretty much the poor-man's way to do it. You can spend a ridiculous amount of money on RAM by going with all the cool looking-high-spec'd-"gaming" stuff. I tend to buy "mid-line" which typically has a nice long warranty period and enough headroom to be good for later updates. I've usually regretted it the times that I've bought "value" RAM, so I just don't do that any more.I expect to spend somewhere in the $65-80 range for this. 

Then there's the issue of storage. You might think that with a Samsung 256Gb SSD in my current system, I'd just reload and call it good. But, noooooo.....my drive is the OEM version of the 470 Series. Yup.....SATA-II....... OK, on a day-to-day basis, I'd bet that I really wouldn't notice. But here's the deal. If I'm going to make a major change, why wouldn't I take advantage of every possible technological improvement. And we're not talking an incremental change here, we're talking doubling the throughput! 

However, I think I've found a loophole for myself that'll be a bit of a money-saver. The main place where you really feel the difference in speed is loading the OS on a super fast drive, and maybe some key applications like the browsers and a few others. So, if I don't replace the SATA-II, 256Gb Samsung with another drive of the same size, but I use a smaller one, I could put the OS on the smaller....say, Intel 330 180Gb or maybe Crucial M4, then reuse the Samsung as a secondary application drive, the 1Tb Hitachi could then continue on as a storage and "scratch" drive. I would be a 3 tier situation with storage being allocated to different storage solutions based on their size and need for speed. What the deciding factor will be based of course, will be $$$. I say somewhere about $120-130. 

So, when it's all said-and-done, I should be "all-in" at right around $300. That's a 2nd generation i5, with close to 1.5Tb of storage. I'm going to say that, I'll be happy with that.