ICY Dock Black Vortex MB174U3S‑4SB Storage drive cage Review

I recently purchased a new desktop computer that only had space for 2 HD's. I have a few other drives that I wanted access to. The new computer has highspeed usb3 ports so I was looking for some device to attach my drives through usb3. I decided on the ICY Dock Black Vortex MB174U3S‑4SB storage drive cage.

First of all, it's cool looking. It is well ventilated and has a forced air cooling via a fan on front. It also has cool blue LED lighting. The fan has 3 settings - off, low, and high. The LED's have 3 settings as well - off, some, all. I leave the LED's off, but if you want the cool blue lights, they are there.

The cage has four 3.5inch drive slots. 3.5inch drives are easy to install. A simple handle is screwed onto the drive and it slides into the dock and that's it. If you want to use 2.5inch drives, I suggest you purchase the Icy Dock EZConvert Lite MB882SP-1S-3B device, which will allow a 2.5inch drive to easily fit in the 3.5inch dock.

The power switch is on back of the unit. I presently leave the power on at all times, even if I shut the desktop down. When I power on the desktop, the drives are immediately available.

My unit is presently filled with three 3.5inch drives and one 2.5inch drive. The unit comes with 2 additional handles, so one could have 6 HD's ready for use in the unit. The drives are hot-swappable.

I have not had any issues so far and the unit has performed quite well.

You can find it on Amazon here.

Add External Flash to Polaroid EE100

I recently purchased a Polaroid EE100 on Ebay. I wanted to add an external flash rather than using flashcubes. I read on the net where you can use the two pins where the flashcube attaches to trigger an external flash. You have to solder wire to these pins and connect the other end to your flash.

Tools Needed

1) Wire strippers
2) Soldering Iron (with pencil tip)
3) Solder
4) Needle nose pliers

Material Needed *

1) 1 ft flash sync cord (to connect to pc adapter)
2) Hotshoe with pc input **
3) Electronic flash
4) Flash bracket

* get hotshoes and pc cables from FlashZebra.com
* *Hotshoe may not be necessary if your flash has a pc input

Cut the unused end of of the sync cord. Strip back the insulation. Peel back the wire braid and twirl into a wire. I apply solder to center wire and braid prior to soldering to flashcube contacts.

Scratch the flashcube contacts with a sharp object to clean off any crud or oxidation. Solder the braid of the sync cord to one contact. Solder the other wire to the other contact. You may melt a bit of the plastic around the flashcube contacts, that's why a pencil tip iron should be used.

I covered my soldering job with duct tape. Do not cover the center of the flashcube mount. The center piece must be free to operate.

You can test the flash operation without film installed as long as you have the batteries installed.

Here are a couple of images of the completed assembly.

Ownuser Camera External Battery Holder for Olympus E30

I received a Battery Grip for my Oly E30 as a Christmas present :-) from my wonderful wife. This is a good addition for the camera. It can be found at:

OwnUser

Pros:

1) Battery life - 2 batteries gives exceptional battery life.
2) Portrait shutter button - shooting in the vertical mode is easier with the additional shutter button.
3) Shutter and aperture control in portrait position.
4) Remote cable
5) IR remote

Cons:

1) Can't use remote cable with recently constructed "L" bracket.
2) No rubber or cork on bottom for friction mounting on tripod. - Seems like this would be standard.
3) A wee bit of wobble in the fit to the camera.

It also came with an external battery pack which can be loaded with "AA" cells as an additional power source. I have not used this feature yet, but with it, you should never run out of power for the camera. The external 9V power connector is a more conventional connector than the one that comes on the E30, so using an external AC power adapter might be easier as well.

I think this is a great deal.

Added 10 Jan 10: I used the external battery pack with 8 rechargeable AA cells today. It worked fine. The cells must be fully charged or you won't get many shots. The cord from the pack to the camera is short, so I stored the pack in my coat pocket. The battery pack give you another power source.