I did several semesters' worth of biology fieldwork in college that involved handling many of these guys, under the guidance of a professor who was obsessed with them. Their toxicity was discussed more as a point of interest rather than an immediate danger. We always wore gloves when handling them, but the rationale was more for the newts' protection rather than our own. I never heard of there being a newt poisoning incident during the past decades of this professor overseeing similar fieldwork. Of course, eating them was out of the question.
The straps tend to break after a few years. Casio G Shock straps last a lot longer, despite being very similar. Not sure if it is because the F91W strap is thinner or made of a less durable material.
The American Alpine Club publishes an annual journal called "Accidents in North American Climbing" entirely dedicated to accounts of climbing accidents that happened during the previous year.
The SF90 resale values seem to also be impacted by issues with the battery and charging system. I remember reading quite a few stories about electrical gremlins on FerrariChat. Even if the issues are worked out by later updates (which they may or may not be), that kind of bad reputation can have a big impact on depreciation.
...to get an allocation for the latest and greatest model. Pretty sure you can walk into most Ferrari dealers today and order a Roma, for example, without previous ownership history.
> Ferraris have to be serviced by licensed mechanics.
"Have to"? Says who? "Licensed"? By who?
As someone who is very close to both the "factory authorized" and "non-authorized" sides of the Ferrari service industry, this is incorrect or at best a gross oversimplification of things like warranty service or the Ferrari Classiche process.
There are a lot of misunderstandings and myths circulating about Ferrari ownership, but this is a new one to me.
We used old HP Laserjets in a warehouse up until about a year ago. Towards the end, we had to repair and replace them with increasing frequency due to the beige plastic becoming very brittle. As a result, the printers became hard to service and more prone to damage during regular use. Replaced with a cheap Brother laser.
Regarding desoldering tools, I also hate solder suckers and instead use a mix of desoldering stations and desoldering braid. I used to very heavily use desoldering tools in challenging situations, such as large traces/joints covered with a lot of flux residue or conformal coating. I ended up working my way up the Hakko desoldering line and developed some opinions.
The Hakko 808 is discontinued and the FR-301 seems to be the current replacement. I used a FR-301 for a while and it was a fine tool. I've now switched over to a FM-2024 which connects to a FM-206 base station (among others). I found out that with heavy use I had many more issues with the FR-301 due to the longer tube between the nozzle tip and the solder capture chamber. The FM-2024 has a much shorter tube and the nozzle is integral with the tube. These factors make the FM-2024 more reliable and easy to clean under heavy use. The FM-2024 is also more lightweight and can be used with a gun or pencil grip. So if you do a lot of desoldering, desolder a lot of gunky/fluxy stuff, or have/want a compatible Hakko soldering station, I would suggest the FM-2024 over the FR-301.
As someone who owns a FA430 and has a sensitivity to flux fumes causing headaches and drowsiness, I agree with everything in this comment. Keep in mind you can become sensitized to flux fumes after repeated exposure (happened to me) so IMO it's better to go overkill on fume extraction before it becomes a problem.
It's "absolutely useless" because it doesn't do the thing its advertised to do, which is extract fumes from your workspace. It dilutes and mixes the air right in front of your face, but your workspace will still gradually fill with solder fumes as you work. If you're an infrequent solderer, that may be fine. But if you are making a habit of soldering, or its your job, get something that actually filters or removes the fumes. I'm giving this advice because I used a setup as effective as yours for years and it caused me health problems through sensitization even though it seemed ok for a long time.
My belief is that people who review the FA-400 positively would be as well served by a regular fan (and even better served by a box fan with a decent furnace filter in front of it). Possibly they are infrequent users or just not sensitive to flux fumes like I am. My understanding is that activated carbon filters like in the FA-400 rapidly lose effectiveness when exposed to the air.
It's probably possible to DIY something as effective as the FA-430 by adapting an existing purifier or fan, as long as you carefully seal the pre-filter path. Since I use the extractor every day in a workshop with coworkers, I need something durable and idiotproof with parts and filters easily available. So it made sense for us to shell out for the FA-430.
I would add a good fume extractor as a must-buy to this list if you're soldering once a week or more. The fumes from flux are noxious and prolonged exposure can cause sensitization. I have always been slightly sensitive to flux fumes, so since I began soldering on a daily basis for work I have always used some form of fume ventilation. I use a lot of the MG Chemicals 835 flux mentioned in the article. Even with a ducted extraction fan removing the smoke from my workspace, I began to develop headaches and fatigue from exposure to the flux vapor. These symptoms worsened over time and began starting with less and less exposure. Now I use a fancy Hakko FA430 extractor, which has a bulky HEPA filter and allows me to solder all day without ill effects. Even so, I watch my exposure and have drastically reduced my liquid flux use as just the flux aroma can make me feel a little off. I believe I have been permanently sensitized from using sub-optimal ventilation and that's not a good feeling.
I don't think you need to go buy the $700 FA430 I use, but I would say the extractor needs to have:
- a hose/duct that can be positioned right at the soldering site
- some kind of HEPA filtration or equivalent, even if it is exhausted outside your workspace
- well sealed ducting/hose/fan housing, so fumes don't leak out. I first used a duct fan with some hoses and loc-line for fume extraction, and I now believe it was leaking fumes into my workspace the whole time because the system wasn't airtight :(
Those little "benchtop extractors" with a fan and a carbon filter are absolutely useless. I wouldn't be surprised to learn companies buy them for "regulatory compliance purposes" as they don't really do much of anything except be cheap.
They specifically removed the text on the website saying you can get API access from feeding, replaced this with a link to their paid RapidAPI (under "Enthusiast Usage Terms") and no longer automatically give you API access with an active feeder key. That seems like a pretty clear message even if they made an exception for you. Besides, how long do you think your free access will last under the new ownership?
EDIT: In their FAQ it currently states: "In very limited situations ADSBexchange.com may choose to allow non-profit, research, or educational entities access to the historical data or API at reduced fee, in these situations such entities must meet all other requirements including hosting a feeder. ADSBexchange.com API pricing is a fraction of the cost of ADS-B data available anywhere else." To me that is quite different than their previous policy of providing automatic noncommercial API access to anyone hosting a feeder. It removes an incentive to feed and discourages use of the API.
ADS-B Exchange used to have another incentive to feed in the form of free API access, subject to certain limits and for noncommercial use only. They stopped that a year or two ago, I believe because various commercial operations kept abusing it.
Well, dang. I have been maintaining a Twitter bot that uses the ADS-B Exchange API, but paused development after Musk started going after ElonJet aggressively and Twitter began to ban aircraft tracking accounts. I just restarted work this week to implement Mastodon support, but looks like I need to pause again to reassess what ADS-B data source(s) to support.
I would really like to know the story behind this acquisition as my previous interactions with the ADS-B Exchange owner (edit: after checking back in on the discord maybe this person was not the owner, but one of the main team members) on discord were positive and they seemed like a very passionate and principled person. This was like more than 1 year ago now, though. My suspicion is that the loud, polarized public discourse around the ElonJet controversy, which led to ADS-B Exchange getting banned from Twitter, may have caused them to reassess their priorities. I hope they are not under any kind of legal threat from Musk.