Life Hacker

Company: Lectric Model: XP Lite 1, 1st generation Part: Microcontroller Display Protocol: UAT2 Motor Hub Power (max): 350W Microcontroller Power (max): 350W Overview Microcontroller, or the e-bike forum called as controller, is one of the part that commonly failed.  Replacing it with original Lectric controller will be 2x - 5x the cost compare with aftermarket part.  This post explains how to choose the aftermarket controller, with several options Many of the controllers have following standard connectors for electric bicycle, which exists for Lectric controller as well: Motor's phase wire - 3 power wires, which are thick Motor's magnetic hall sensor - 5-wires 2 for 5V supply, 3 from each of the hall sensor Battery power - 2-wire power input into the microcontroller board, e.g. 38V, 48V, 52V, 60V, etc Brake - 2 pair of 2-wire brake sensing wire, which will disconnect power to the motor when braking Pedal's power assist (PAS)- 3-wire to power the motor when pedaling LCD di...

Product: ASUS WiFi routers WiFi 6, 6E, 7 Overview For some reason, ASUS' WiFi 6, 6E and 7 routers are failing SFTP (ftp extension on top of ssh) in their OOTB firmware. I have their old WiFi 5 RT-AC66U and WiFi 6 TUF-AX4200.  The SFTP works in older router, but in newer WiFi 6 router, it is constantly giving following error Connected to 192.168.50.1 sh: /opt/libexec/sftp-server: not found FATAL ERROR: Received unexpected end-of-file from server Even using WinSCP to copy file, it will return access denied (false alarm) message. This blog post is to provides solution how to make this work Procedure Preparation Get a USB drive has usable space of larger than 1GB Format as NTFS, or FAT32 if it is exFAT, or Linux partition Install the USB drive into the router Login to ASUS WiFi router homepage You should land in "Network Map" screen showing Internet status, WiFi status, number of clients connected, and USB 3.0 Clicks on icon USB 3.0 to show its status You must see Media Serve...

Product: Immich Related Product: TrueNAS Overview This post is regarding Immich installation in TrueNAS by using its build-in "Apps" menu. TrueNAS provides OOTB Immich application which can be installed. The installation used existing dataset, which has ACL and username configured.  This leads to subsequent Immich installation failed to create files within the datasets due to user permission issue Error Message Log file: /var/log/app_lifecycle.log Container ix-immich-pgvecto_upgrade-1 service "pgvecto_upgrade" didn't complete successfully: exit 1 Resolution Possible Cause #1: Dataset has ACL enabled.  Therefore Immich installer (Docker) failed to create new directories inside one of the dataset Resolution: 1. Edit the dataset 2. Edit Permission 3. Edit ACL 4. Removes ACL - Clicks on "Strip ACL" button at the end of the screen Possible Cause #2: Dataset has different UNIX user assigned, and not using ACL.  Therefore Immich installer (Docker) failed to c...

Common Problems for BMW F30 3 Series Overview This post is covering common problems in BMW F30 3 series .  It is mainly focus in late F30 (face lifted LCI) gasoline engine of N20 , and B48 (hybrid).  Face lifted model year is 2016 - 2019. M3 will not be in this consideration. The LCI model is as old as 9 years now, so the common issues are highly reliable. Post-LCI model (2016 - 2019) is highly reliable than pre-LCI model.  So if you are looking for F30 , F31 , F34 , it is recommend to buy year 2016 onward. Common Problems/Issues Issue #1 Lower Control Arm - Front facing The rubber bushing in the front facing lower control arm (LCA) is a maintenance item just like any earlier BMW 3 series. For typical and regular owner, it will degrade slowly without any noise at the early failure.  Visual inspection is the only way to catch early failure.  There is no safety risk during early failure. Once you start hearing noise (metal hitting metal), this need to be immedi...

Following are cheap products that available in household to keep the car paint protected. To remove water stain, uses acidic liquid Citrix acid Vinegar To removes oil, grease, or old wax, uses ammonia base liquid Windex - any glass or window cleaner To removes oil or wax, uses alcohol base liquid: rubbing alcohol - 85% or higher This helps to prepare the car paint, or car rims/wheels before apply another layer of wax or ceramic coating.

Product: Linux Commands: airodump-ng, iw Overview I do not like to use the airmon-ng command to change the WiFi device name to follow its original device name, which it is hard for me to remember, e.g. device name wlp0s12u1. So in this post, I will use "iw" utility (previously called iwlist, iwconfig) that bundled with Fedora 41, or RedHat RHEL 9, to configure the WiFi adapter in monitor mode with my preferred device name.  The benefits are: I can define my own device name, e.g. wlan0mon I can use pre-defined device name in script "iw" utility offers more information in the WiFi network adapter as well as LAN NIC USB device detection is more accurate It can shows device name of my USB WiFi dongle without additional typing It can creates additional logical device that other new users like, such as wifi1, capture2024 Procedure Login to Linux as root, or use one of the following su - sudo su - Find out the physical device ID using "iw dev" command It will dis...

Product: Oracle Database 19c Symptom When login to Oracle database to a specific user with wrong password, instead of getting ORA-01017, it shown following error, and disconnected the session $ sqlplus tester1/****** SQL*Plus: Release 19.0.0.0.0 - Production on Wed Oct 26 11:12:16 2022 Version 19.3.0.0.0 Copyright (c) 1982, 2019, Oracle.  All rights reserved. ERROR: ORA-00600: internal error code, arguments: [17090], [], [], [], [], [], [], [],[], [], [], [] This only affecting 1 DB user, and not global Analysis Tested with several DB user, and found that only affecting 1 DB user account Checked alert.log file, and found the trc file that generated Following is the content of the trc file with additional failure detail: 2022-10-26T11:12:17.635430-07:00 Unified Audit record write to audit trail table failed due to ORA-1012. Writing the record to OS spillover file. Errors in file /dbf/diag/rdbms/ORCL/ORCL/trace/ORCL_ora_527371.trc  (incident=97297): ORA-00600: internal error cod...

Product: Windows 10 Command: mbt2gpt.exe Sharing my experience to convert my MBT boot partition that run Windows 10 to GPT with EFI boot. Let me list down the step I took for my ASUS Z97-A motherboard: Run "CMD" as administrator Determine the disk number diskpart - utility to query disk partition Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/diskpart list - list all disks select disk 0 - this is my boot disk, i.e. C: detail - show all partitions. Ensure the partition size match my C: and double confirm disk 0 is correct Boot into recovery mode Click Start >  Settings to bring up Windows Setting (Control Panel) Click Update & Security menu Click Recovery menu Convert disk 0 MBT partition to GPT for entire disk.  This will convert entire disk to GPT partition design.  It is not possible to only convert specific partition mbt2gpt /convert /disk:0 Example output MBR2GPT will now attempt to convert disk 0. If conversion i...

 Product: BenQ EX3501R Ultra Wide 35" Monitor AMD Radeon Ver 2021/-511.1532.24954 GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7870 Bought the popular 35" ultra wide monitor that support 3440x1440 30Hz HDR.  Tried to configure it to work with older AMD GPU, but found that Windows 10 doesn't offer a list of this resolution. All the detected resolutions are leadings to improper size, and not fill up the entire monitor. After days of testing, and struggling, then I found that I have to install the full Radeon driver in order to launch AMD Radeon Softwere to be able to create custom display resolution. When I got into the custom display resolution screen, then I was confused with a series of values to enter.  BenQ homepage provides no help to fill in the values, so I have to look online how to derive all these parameters based on the resolution of 3440x1440 29.970Hz refresh rate (got the refresh rate from other GPU that works). Following are the values you should enter when creating a custom 3440x1440...

Vendor: HP Product: HP Laptop 15 da0022ca Model: da0022ca Year Manufactured: 2018 CPU: Intel Core i3-8130U BIOS Firmware Version: F.04 Bought this 2 yr old model for under CAD$400 which has 8th Gen Intel Core technology that supports DDR4 RAM with higher capacity. The first issue I found in Internet about HP laptop is often it cannot boot from USB device, and card reader, which seems to experience by many earlier models.  This issue is encountered in my laptop that sold in 2018-2019 as well. Further testing found that booting from the build-in SD card reader is not available as well. The BIOS's boot order obviously is buggy, and don't allow to boot from both USB device, and build-in SD card reader Following is the procedure to follow in order to make bootable USB thumb drive.  These guideline could be applicable to other laptop models as well as these are general firmware programmer knowledge gap on various technologies and hardware. Option 1: BIOS Firmware Instruction: Upgrad...

Listing out troubleshooting process when shift knob stuck at P (Parking) gear for Honda or Acura. 1. Press on BRAKE pedal - check whether rear brake light turns on If no light, see Solution 1 2. Check brake fluid - check it has brake fluid If low fluid, see Solution 2 3. Manually press on BRAKE switch above BRAKE pedal - ensure brake light turns on If switch doesn't turn on brake light on pressing, see Solution 3 4. Connects 12V to shift control solenoid to each pin connector (one pin control 1 solenoid) - it looks like below.  If no clicks when the pin touch 12V, see Solution 4 5. Test battery when cranking (starting) car - make sure it is above 11V If low battery, see Solution 5 6. If needs to drive the car immediately, and no time to diagnose the issue, see Solution 6 as temporary workaround Solution 1 - No brake light 1. Replace fuse for the brake light, if fuse burned 2. The brake light fuse control the gear locking solenoid 3. Temporary w...

Product: LG G4 Model: H810, H812, H820, H830 Tested Country: Canada Other related product: LG G3, G4, G5, G6 and newer I bought a used LG G4, and without considering Android's Factory Reset Protection, I went into Setting, and done a "Factory Data Reset" from the menu. After boot up, then I am shock that I have to login as previous owner's Google account in order to use the phone. I went into firmware hard reset page below to reset it, but still can't bypass Factory Reset Protection (FRP): With the phone off, hold both Power + Volume Down buttons to power it up When the very first LG logo (static picture) appears, temporary release Power button while holding Volume Down button Within split second, hold both  Power  +  Volume Down  buttons again.  Some internet homepage said keep holding, and some said release both temporary, but I found both are not applicable to my phone The phone should still be in the static LG logo, and not in the animate...

Product: Thunderbird My Yahoo Spam Folder disappeared from Thunderbird, and I do not see the "Bulk Mail" folder any more. Following is the configuration steps to re-enable it: 1. Subscribe to Spam folder 1.1. Right-click on Yahoo.com account 1.2. In the pop up context menu, select " Subscribe... " 2. Select " Bulk Mail " folder, which is Spam  folder in Yahoo web mail 3. Repeat step 1.1, and select " Setting... " to configure spam folder configuration 3.1. Under Yahoo account, select Junk Setting  menu item 3.2. Select radio button "Junk" folder on: Yahoo.com  entry 4. Now Bulk Mail  will be visible under Yahoo account in Thunderhead

Product: Apple macOS Mojave 10.14.x Partition type: APFS Container & Volume Someone reminded me that macOS runs faster than Windows 10, even the latest 10.14 Mojave OS.  So I spent few days to install it into my Lenovo Thinkpad W530, and managed to get it up in 3 days. After few more days of playing around with Clover bootloader, and "Recovery" boot menu.  I stumble on a tool in "Recovery" partition which called Disk Utility > First Aid. First Aid acts similar to chkdsk (Check Disk) in Windows, or fsck in UNIX, which will umount the drive to perform disk repair, e.g. bad sector, lost cluster/inode, etc. 10.14 Mojave always converts the partition from earlier HFS+ to APFS (latest) file system during installation or upgrade.  The "Recovery" partition in earlier HFS+ now become one of the volume in the APFS container (every partition become a APFS volume in 1 container).  When First Aid trying to umount the volume, it further tried to unmount ...

Honda/Acura Head Unit/Stereo Connector This connector is used prior of ~ 2000 models and earlier.  These wire hardness doesn't has AUX in, and CD changer connector used a 8 pin DIN connector. Following are various primary connector:  Following is for the 8-pin DIN connector Alpine Pin# Acura Pin# Pin Name Pin Function Wire (ext) Wire (int.) 8 8 GND Ground Black Orange/White 6 6 BATT +12V Yellow Blue/White 7 7 ACC Accessory Red White 1 1 BUS Bus Green Red/White 3 3 B.G Bus Ground Black Orange/White 4 2 R Right Signal Red Blue/White 2 4 S.G Signal Ground Black White 5 5 L Left Signal White Red/White Shell Shell Chassis Chassis Ground Black Chassis Ref: https://www.nsxprime.com/wiki/CD_Changer

Saeco Incanto RS Automatic Coffee Machine Maintenance Overview Saeco Incanto has several sub-models, and across the years, the brew group is progressively changed.  However, 90% of the maintenance part are identical. This post is to show total maintenance parts when maintaining Incanto.  Please note that most of the o-ring are food grade, which should be orange or red in color. This post is specifically checked using Incanto Rapid Steam model.  The objective is to provide generic parts, if there is one, which will save the cost compare by buying from coffee machine retailer, or online store. If you have multiple parts to replace, it is best to search for "repair kit" in eBay, as the total price for the parts and o-ring will be cheaper than getting the parts separately.  Moreover, the o-ring cost will be lowest when it package as repair kit. Boiler Water Spray There are 2 o-ring needs to be replaced if you see water leak below this spray head.  Onc...