Looking through the comments. Random engineers on Lemmy MacGyvering the most insane adapter on the spot made my day
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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I have done something similar. We were going to play Wii one night but my friend brought the wrong adapter.
As the old saying goes: "Copper is copper!"
But he used a paper clip, that is steel.
Resistance depends on material and length, steel is fine for that short distance
Incidentally Earth can carry a lot of current since though it has high resistivity, the conductor is about 18,000km across
I was thinking about the cables themselves but, you're right about the McGuyvered adapter!
Wonder if it gets hot over time. 🤔
...I really don't know electronics and want to pick it up soon haha.
Twelve audiophiles around the world just had seizures
That's the joke. They would claim that ... I don't know.. electrons are going to fall off that copper wire or something like that.
they’d be mad about the lack of shielding, which COULD result in noise from interference. it won’t, but audiophiles love ignoring real-world measurements in favor of theoretical ones.
source: i am an audiophile, but one of the “spend money on gear, not cables” kind
Audio goes over balanced cables, as long as they're close together they should receive equal and opposite interference, so interference is cancelled out
-- Ham radio licensee
Man, if that isn't the experience when visiting any niche online community around anything hahaha.
There’s a dozen of us! Exactly a dozen!
I mean, if it makes good contact and is not moving it is not going to affect audio quality any more than an equivalent length of extra cable would've
Once someone tried to tell me that the wrong cable impedance to the speakers affected sound. Asked him what is the wavelength at audio frequencies, conversation died.
If they were passive speakers being powered through the cables and an amplifier wouldn't the additional impedance of the cable result in a (probably imperceptible) reduction on volume? I agree it wouldn't effect the waveform, and thus, the quality of the sound though.
Yeah, if the cable impedance is small enough that you can still get the volume you need it doesn't matter
The comment above is informed by radio electronics - in 1980s Australia had TV on low enough frequency that we used balanced wires (two parallel conductors, like speaker wires) for best interference rejection, with opposite voltage in each conductor and interfering signal will affect both conductor equally and opposite, cancelling the interfering signal (we also needed a "balun" on the antenna to match between the balanced wires and the unbalanced antenna)
Now every antenna you see on roofs and wifi devices connect with coax cables and connectors which are impedance matched to the antennas because impedance really really matters at microwave frequencies, those cables need shielding as they can't reject interference in the way balanced cables can
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Hey, at least it's copper instead of aluminum.
Wrong API? Wrapper pattern time!
Tv started acting up today, found a bulged cap on the main board, it's a trough hole, the only one I find to match is a surface mount. I used some resistor legs to poke through the TV board and soldered the surface mount cap to the poking legs. TV is back to life ! Yay !
You're.a.wizard.harry.meme
I can't believe this picture of the "adapter" I made 15 years ago is finally relevant. Think I was just missing a cable extender so made one myself
No offense, but the quotation marks are on the wrong part lol. Yes, I'm judging your younger self for that extremely blurry "picture". EDIT: It's a joke, people...
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Not audio, but I needed to power some fans with a 12V DC adapter
Hah, I have done this before. PC fans are nice for random projects since they are square, have mounting equipment, and use an extremely common DC voltage. Mine has a little molex snake in the middle though. ;p
I don't know why, but I laughed quite hard at this. Try putting "...mine has a little molex snake in the middle..." in any other context. XD
On a more serious note, "yes" to everything you said. I "mounted" them to a repurposed bathroom rack. :)
I'm no audiophile, but wouldn't that plug fit into the port right next to it?
Headphone jack is an output. The jack they've hotwired is an input.
Me:
Before the mid-to-late 1990s, on the other hand...
Connecting cables was easy, the nightmare was getting the OS to recognise the devices.
You better hold onto those driver discs.
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It's hard to see behind the copper but I'm pretty sure that is "Tape in", an input, while the headphones next to it would be an output
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There is no wrong cable only wrong ports.
I removed the 3.3v from my sata cables last night and threw an "I told you I can figure shit out on my own as a man" up at my dead electrician father. That'll show him to not teach me to be proud of myself....
Also, help me. Fractal Node (fits 10). Proxmox. TrueNas. 1 zfs2 VDEV using 5 of 8 SAS HBA
Adding 2nd swath of 5. Using remaining 3 SAS HBA and they're working, the 3.3v fix worked including one disk on a chain with the original swath that didn't require the fix.
The 2 remaining new disks have no SAS slots to use, so using SATA but proxmox won't detect them to even setup the pass through.
Tested cables, disks, slots, etc. Enabled spin up on all sata in bios. Nada. Feels like a software or bus issue but I'm not technical. Need an adult
Supermicro X10sl7-f
Probably wanna make a separate post for this. I'm sure someone knows, but they won't be able to see it buried in the comments of a meme.
I kinda want to not repost and test the venn diagram theory in my head about this post's audience. But you're obviously correct 100%
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... Wouldn't there be enough electrical power in this that you might wanna cover that in electrical tape?
I've not jerry rigged an amp before, but I did once build a ramshackle 'home media pc' for some roommates once, out of old spare pc parts i had lying around, using the box their xbox360 came in as a 'case'.
Got a paperclip with some rubberized covering, snipped a bit off the two ends, and then you had to short the right two pins on the ... whatever the socket is that would normally go to the front io panel is, you had to do that to turn it on lol.
It appears to be a line signal, so it should be fine. But then again, we can't see what's on the other end. Could be a nuclear power plant for all we know.
Oh you're right!
I thought it might have been the main connection between the guitar and the amp... that would have a lot more current in it, potentially, right?
I keep forgetting that I actually need to use the glasses that I now have, lol.
No, the guitar to amp "instrument line" has even lower current than the line in.
The only hazard with music instruments is if someone turns on phantom power 48V to a microphone that doesn't use it. Then the grill can give a nasty shock and typically right on the lips.
Huh!
Well TIL, thank you!
A major advantage of analogue. Compatibility!
i find this a surprisingly elegant solution!!!
it's nice and simple to put in place, and if you have this class of audio equipment at your whim, you probably have something to scavenge the copper from
copper does oxidize, but so long as it can trade broker enough electrons around, i'm definitely making use of this idea in the future, thank you for the post
Just use a banana, no one can't tell the difference anyway
Banana plugs are a thing, and might even have plugged into the hole on the RCA jacks (probably not as they're usually too wide, but it's technically possible... I think - never tried it myself). However, they're single conductors, not dual like RCA plugs are.
ETA: And, yes - I'm aware of the recent Tom's Hardware article you're referencing.
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