Primus Firestick

Primus Firestick in pristine, unused condition

Primus Firestick always looked like fun, but also expensive for what it is: fairly standard screw-on gas burner with a design gimmick.

One day I saw this for 40€, passed it, then realized it comes with a carry bag and the Primus piezo igniter (easily 16€ by itself), went back another day and picked it up.

Already when taking it out of the box, it looks flimsier than in the photographs and the tripod "flaps" don't seem to reach very far.

Box contents, there's also a manual.

The cap needs to be removed to open the flaps, which is simple enough, but putting it back together needs a tiny amount of practice. Yes, it opens hassle-free and "automatically", but is that a major draw?

The loose cap can be considered at least a minor design flaw, it might have been a better to have it hinge on one of the flaps or something.

For a first quick test, I warmed a Duossal's worth of pea soup, and the Primus did just fine.

Jalostajan Hernekeitto, mmm...

When put together, the Firestick is not only compact but the round form is quite convenient for carrying. I'm tempted to carry it as is, but because the burner component needs protection and the cap could come loose, it's better to keep it in the bag. The bag is also a good place for the piezo igniter.

If I have to compare this to "Furno 360", the Firestick is likely not as powerful, but it takes a little less space.

At first it was puzzling that I needed to turn the valve quite a lot before the gas even begins to flow. But the valve is quite generous, a quarter-turn isn't going to send the burner into a fit. This is quite pleasant, much better than in my Primus Mimer stove.

The jagged parts don't connect with a normal pot

A little wind didn't create a problem, but on more open ground the Firestick turned out to be quite sensitive to even normal wind, when attempting a low flame. But this is quite common with burners, especially the taller screw-on models. Heating water with a full-on blast is unlikely to be a problem.

Yet I'm starting to think one of those collapsible windshields might make sense. And yes, Trangia storm cookers have solved this already.

The pot holds firmly enough, even though the tripod parts don't connect in the most ideal way. It might be there is a specific Primus pot or cup that connects better into it.

Fire Maple Feast Heat Exchanger

Notably this is the second system I've bought that has some problems with the Fire Maple Feast Heat Exchanger pot. It looks like the Firestick flaps nearly fit inside the opening inside the exchanger, but it doesn't without squeezing the flaps inward a little. So it can become "locked", which depending on the situation might be a good or a bad thing. I'm inclined to think it might be a bad thing.

Boohoo, it's dirty already

If the idea of the design is that the flap outsides would retain their color better than in other models, no such luck, the burn colorization attacked it the first time. The cap obviously remains clean.

So, yet another burner that's unlikely to pull much weight in winter conditions, but hey, the Primus piezo igniter is quite good.

Vammala Party 2026

Another summer, another Vammala Party.

I made a late moment decision to not take a Commodore 64 with me, so no Rambo. But I did not even have my traditional Linux laptop. This put some constraints to what I could do at the site.

Running some kind of Spectrum emulator online

Instead, I only took a Samsung Galaxy Tab with me, and became more familiar with it. Moving files about was cumbersome, but there were ultimately some dodgy ssh solutions that helped do it. I found surprisingly few text editors for it, a topic I might explore later.

Also, the space freed by not having the C64 allowed me to take some of my accumulated MIDI gear, with no intention to contribute to the music compo at all. I rarely have time to experiment with them, so the opportunity was welcome.

Wonder of wonders, it could all be synced

So, the long weekend was filled with movies, odd compos, food, music and gear.

One minor problem was that nearly everything needed charging, sometimes multiple times: phone, Galaxy Tab, handheld gaming device, the Roland synths.

Table full of gear, just different kind

The weather was not cruel hot, in fact it started raining on Saturday.

This changed some of the competitions, no more floppy disk throwing outside.

Previously I thought that Krita on the Android is not a good idea, but as keyboard shortcuts were now possible, it's actually quite powerful. Using Pipette (P or left control) and a semi-opaque brush of nearly uniform size, I don't even need that many keys.

"Lesser Terminators", Krita drawing, here scaled down and jpg'd

My approach is to use largely the same tools for the entire image, no layers, not special effects. Just a "palimpsest" of drawing over and over again. The outcome probably has very little appeal to anyone who isn't me. It resembles some of the things I've drawn or painted in the past using physical media.

It looks like I've not released a PETSCII since the last year's Vammala Party. This PETSCII was made quickly before even traveling to the party, not my proudest moment but it ended up second after all. 

Jänis PETSCII, Commodore 64

I'm not sure what to say about the increased presence of AI in the compos. I think it's quite fair there are dedicated AI-themed compos (Prompted graphics, and "vibe code prompt") with a very low entry threshold. It's then very clear what the entries are.

But then it's also quite obvious the main demo compo has more entries because it's now possible to use AI in support of coding. So the line between a high effort "vibe code prompt" compo contribution and a low-effort main demo compo contribution was quite blurry.

Acorn Archimedes A3020

As usual, I couldn't resist making some trades. One was a Quickshot joystick, another was an Acorn Archimedes A3020.

Vammala Party 2026 at Demozoo

The Quickshot II USB Joystick

The QuickShot II

I bought this Quickshot-like USB stick because I'd heard good things about it.

I tried it instantly with Vice emulator and Buck Rogers. This game is very revealing about joysticks, because the movement is so twitchy. Lag and poorly working diagonals make themselves known. It's also a flight game of sorts, so this joystick would feel appropriate.

The short verdict: I have to say I was disappointed. The result was not comparable to the self-made Arduino 9-pin joystick adapter and a proper Tac-2 joystick.

Let's rewind a little.

Retro Games have had a reputation of making so-so joysticks. The stick bundled with The C64 was unremarkable, even if physically quite appealing. I've heard better things said about the "black" edition joystick, but I haven't had the opportunity to test it.

Good old Buck Rogers

Now that Retro Games put out a new dedicated joystick, I expected it to be based on feedback from the earlier products, and as a few reviews seemed to give it praise I took the plunge. I perhaps ought to have read a few more reviews, as they tend to be mixed.

The Quickshot directions feel like the non-micro switch joystick the original black Quickshot was, and I can commend it for replicating that feel. There are in fact micro switches inside, it's just they are less noisy.

The grip is good and makes me wonder why I haven't been looking for the original stick before. The suction cups work, but to me this is a secondary feature, I can hold the joystick on my lap.

The real problem is that there's very little center zone for the stick, so in Buck Rogers the ship keeps moving left or right almost automatically, or even ping-pongs when I'm trying to gain control. Diagonals tend to get confused. This also makes it difficult to see if there's lag, as a micro switch might remain on while my senses tell it ought not to be on.

Trying this on The C64 and The Spectrum, as intended, doesn't make it better. In case it doesn't work out of the box, apparently you will need to hold X,Y and L,R for three seconds to change they joystick mode, after which it will register as a kind of joystick the device accepts. With later products, like The Spectrum, it should not matter.

On sluggish sim type games, like Elite on the ZX Spectrum and Stunt Car Racer on the C64 the problems are not as pronounced and the feel is more appropriate for these games anyway.

jstest-gtk

As a bonus, there are 6 additional buttons and the two fire buttons even register as a different button, so something can be made out of these when reconfigured for emulators. For example, I could use the buttons for accelerate/decelerate, arm/unarm/fire missile in Elite, which is kind of fun.

jstest-gtk is good for checking all the buttons and axes. Other software might have different numbering scheme, for example Fuse emulator starts from 1 whereas jstest-gtk starts from 0.

Looking at the insides

Opening the cover. The plate that houses the springs, is still in place.

One saving grace might be the joystick could be easy to mod. It opens easily enough, just remove five screws from the bottom and the part comes loose. 

There's a plate that houses springs for re-centering the stick. Four screws later, the plate can be removed. This actually needs to be removed for the circuit board to come loose.

After that, six more screws and the circuit board can be detached. The internal cables can be easily disconnected, they are not glued in.

The spring plate removed

Now, there are a few things that might influence how well the stick performs.

The four light springs that help return the stick to the center could be stronger I guess. Just to do something I pulled them out a little. This is not likely to achieve much.

The board doesn't look very straight when taken out of the stick. However, there are enough screws to keep it in place so I don't think it's bent when in position. So I'd rule that out.

The circuit board is easy to remove for inspection

The micro switch boxes might not be as flush against the circuit board as well as one might hope. I tried to re-solder them some, perhaps gaining a tiny improvement, but this alone didn't do anything either.

The underside of the board had something looking like re-soldering, before I even touched anything myself. It could be an indication of fixing the placing of machine-inserted parts, or the switches are put in manually as they are not SMD parts.

The other thing is that if they are not well positioned in their surface coordinates, could also result in an inaccuracy. My opinion is that this isn't very likely.

It's not exactly flush with the circuit board

The plastic parts that actually push the micro switches, could be reduced a little. After a little surface scraping I concluded I shouldn't do this as there isn't going back.

So, I didn't see any one thing that would be very crucial, but taking them all together there could be uncertainties when coming out of the manufacture, contributing to diverse experiences the reviewers and commenters have had.

The circle highlights the part that pushes against the micro switch

My adjustments didn't seem to do much, as they were so minor. It's possible the involuntary "ping-pong" effect was slightly reduced, but as I don't have metric for that it could be just my mind working away the problems.

I believe the stick can be further improved, and I think Retro Games can be at least credited for making devices that are easy to open and tinker with.


Towards a solution?

It occurred to me that I could add washers between the circuit board and the holders. This would create some distance between the micro switches and the shaft elements. After a couple of different attempts I ended up using 0.5mm thick washers.

The washers were a little tricky to add, some temporary glue could have helped, but I only needed to add 4 washers there. Fortunately it all still came back together.

I'd already noticed the stick doesn't stay exactly in position. It kind of rotates a tiny bit along its axis. But now I saw it can also be lifted about a millimeter or two. With the washers installed, and joystick lifted, the controls improve, whereas if it lies in its lowest position, I get far more of that "ping-pong" uncertainty.

To counter this effect I added one washer (0.5mm thick) under the central spring. This did create the desired effect, the stick no longer lifts.

There isn't a better picture, after adding them there's nothing to see

This resulted in a more balanced experience. I did introduce some kind of occasional cracking sound, which isn't very welcome, but I can perhaps look into it more. 

Also, if I want to be precise the L/R directions are still too sensitive compared to the U/D directions. This is where removing some material from the micro switch pushers might achieve something, but I'll address that later.

But I'm finished with the Quickshot now, and will return if I come up with any improvements.

The Buck stops here

While my modded Quickshot doesn't still quite pass the Buck Rogers test with flying colors, it's already a fairly usable joystick. It works pretty nice with the selection of games that comes with The C64. Boulder Dash, Monty on the Run, Paradroid. Why not.

On emulation front, Saboteur and even Atic Atac were passable, but Giana Sisters, maybe not so much. Blue Max felt ok.

Like I said, Elite and Stunt Car Racer go well with this. It adds something to sim and 3D games, especially when the extra buttons can be redirected to keypresses.

Dyson V15 now

After year and a half of using the Dyson Detect V15 with Optic/Fluffy head, how has it been?

Generally, I've been quite happy with it. It does require some more consideration and care than the old vacuum cleaners. It's not built like a tank at all, but so far I've not broken anything.

It was quite clear I'd mostly use the ECO mode, as the battery lasts longer and all normal dirt and hair can be removed with it. AUTO can be useful when using the other nozzles for sofas and things like that. BOOST, like I initially observed, depletes the battery in a matter of minutes.

Emptying the dust "bag" should not be left for the last moment. The emptying should be performed with the Dyson mostly inside a trash bag, so the fine grained dirt doesn't float around.

More often than not, it's not enough to kick out the contents, the entire container usually needs to be removed. But I guess more often it's done, the less hassle it is. Laziness prevails and I find myself emptying an overfilled container.

Removing the filter is just a twist away.

There are a couple of warning messages that come up after prolonged use.

The "before" pictures would have been too horrible to bear, so I only added "after" pictures.

Clean filter: Gently screw out the violet back end with hand, knock out visible dirt and particles, wash the cloth part under tap water, let dry for about 24-30 hours.

Weirdly enough, I did not need to do this until after a year of use, but then I had to do it again after a couple of months. Hmm...

Airflow blocked: More mysterious, but can generally mean the dust and hair has built up to the inner intake hole. One symptom is that even if the Dyson seems to take in particles, when I stop pulling the trigger they fall down the tube again. Just clear everything inside.

The roller dirt and hair build-up does not produce an error message, although it's bound to happen. I guess it would have been wise to do once a month or so, but I didn't do it for nearly one and a half years! I think Dyson could have added some kind of hour count and a reset button.

Locations where the hair easily accumulates.

It's far more easy to open than I thought. There's a sort of lever at the side and the part comes off without any use of force. 

The axle outside the roller had collected so much hair it was rather tricky to remove. I used scissors and a sharp paper knife, digging and cutting into the furry torus. I don't have much confidence in the strength of the part, so I tried to be careful.

The furry striped bar can be pulled out. Any visible hair and dirt is removed, then the furry part can be washed under the tap, taking care not to wash the connector part. I used Q-tips to clean that end. Again, wait until next day before re-assembling.

Only after cleaning the roller I saw how slow it had been before, because now it's quite nippy again. Ideally, the yellow-black stripes shouldn't be visible, but lost under a zoetropic blur. 

A vacuum cleaner is perhaps not the most ecological way to kill banana flies. But I was happy to see Dyson with the short nozzle is good for this task. The BOOST mode positively disintegrates them and they end up dead, not sure exactly why. With the less aggressive modes, not all flies end up inside. Those that do mostly remain alive. They won't get out, though. A house fly is not so easily fooled.

Nedis USB-C 3-in-1 Multi-Port Adapter

This caught my eye in Tokmanni, and thought why not try yet another adapter. I already have the USB-C to HDMI adapter for using Samsung Dex with an external display, but I was kind of stuck with wireless mice and keyboard so I largely forgot the whole thing.

Back then I was also worried that a USB hub would be too large, but this is not much bulkier than that video-only adapter.

So, apart from HDMI it has one USB-A style port and a USB-C.

The happy outcome here is that the USB-C to HDMI works with the Samsung Dex phone desktop for displays, and the Samsung S23FE also joyfully accepts USB keyboards, gamepads and mice. This is not something that was explicitly promised on the box, but I think it can be taken granted these days. Or can it?

I have to make the choices carefully as I have to use both port types. So one C-connector mouse and A-connector keyboard, or other way round, but not both of either type.

Does this make Samsung Dex much better? Well, at least the experience improves. Perhaps I'm more intrigued about the possibility of using a keyboard without actually invoking the Samsung Dex desktop.

It's still not a very coherent experience. For example the Slack app doesn't work well with a physical keyboard, after typing one letter it insists on opening the virtual keyboard after all.

I could have connected a keyboard without the adapter, but somehow my Samsung was picky about sticking some USB-C keyboards into it directly. Besides, today cheap small keyboards tend to be either wireless or with a hardwired USB-A cable. Admittedly, a simple USB C/A adapter might do the trick too.

What about games? Asphalt 8 Airborne had worked with the Shrimp USB-C connected keyboard, so I could expect Logitech F350 to work too. And yes it did, but I had to do some other things before I could properly try the game.

Samsung Dex works in two modes, either as a dedicated desktop that uses the external display resolution and sets the touch screen as a trackpad, or as 100% mirrored phone screen, showing exactly what I'd see if I only used the mobile. 

In the Dex desktop mode, if the game is launched and put into full screen, all kinds of weird screen resolution hiccups would appear. I didn't find a solid way to launch the game in the external display resolution, although it's obvious the game can do this. (Because it runs on different resolution Android phones and tabs).

Worse than that, the gamepad direction keys stopped responding until I refreshed the Dex trackpad screen.

Things were better with the full mirrored mode, as the game screen is set up nicely, if not altogether taking advantage of the external display resolution. There were no control anomalies, probably because the Dex trackpad is not invoked in any way.

It's silly to mirror the screen, and it uses battery power too. No doubt the better option would be to have the phone screen shut, but so far I didn't find a suitable configuration. For games it might be wiser to use the phone or tablet screen directly anyway.

If only I just could find an interesting gamepad-controlled mobile game. Don't get me wrong, the actual Asphalt game play was kind of nice but all that wading through menus and opportunities and "coins", in short the full-on mobile game experience, got to my nerves rather soon.

In any case it looks like car and flight games have lenient controls, negating any lag and inaccuracies, but as soon as I try some retro shooters the limits are more obvious.

Apart from that F350 gamepad, the Arduino 8-bit joystick adapter worked too, making this one of my most cross-linked blog posts ever. Not that it works well with any modern games, but I might explore some emulators later. My expectations are not high.

Trangia Triangle

Attached to the "X-Briv" Trangia-compatible burner

The Trangia Triangle is made of four pieces that can be dismantled for maximal flatness. It's not especially heavy either at ~105g, counting the carry bag. Putting the three walls and the circle together doesn't take much effort and it's not slower to set up than the standard Trangia.

Four pieces

Using a Trangia-compatible gas burner, it does give some "spider" vibes, but perhaps with better wind protection. This could be one rationale for the product. Also, it is not fixed to some particular burner, so for example the spirit burner can be used with it too.

Correct way up

Even if not immune to wind, the wind shield works quite well and the food kept bubbling quite evenly. I have a hunch that this combination worked better than the cheap "spider" I've used previously.

The instructions show the three protrusions at the top, but it shouldn't make much difference if the Triangle is upside down? That might even in some situations work better. At least one Fire Maple pot with the heat sink didn't sit that well on the suggested orientation.

The Knorr test

But, practice sometimes proves these ideas wrong. One of the walls ended up slightly bent from heat, possibly because there's a pocket where the flame could be pushed to. Or, somehow the heat is more easily distributed to the wall this way as the pot is in more contact with it.

It's hardly broken, and can be bent to shape again, but it's another small lesson learned.

The not so correct way up

Carrying a pot, the burner and some gas, it's all bound to take up some space anyway, so it might not be that much more space efficient than the Trangia 27. Why does that configuration need to be so darn perfect, leaving no room for invention?

Bullseye Bore

Box, container, laser

Waiting time in crowdfunding is sometimes problematic. I forgot why I wanted this Kickstarter in the first place. In any case I was probably one of the last people to receive this. And it's been some years when it arrived, I've kept waiting to do more with it before posting, but it doesn't seem to happen.

The Bullseye Bore is a laser guide attached to a power drill, with the purpose of assisting straight drilling.

Bullseye Bore connects to the drill chuck with a strong magnet. The lasers are powered by two batteries. When the drill rotates, so does the device, emitting two beams projected as circles. Drilling straight, the circles are concentric. If not, their positioning is lopsided.

Easy to connect. The chuck has to be magnet-friendly, but aren't they all?

There's another version of the device, with three circles rather than two, but I chose this simpler one, "Core Red".

So, bullseye or BS? Ha, ha, I wonder how many reviewers made that joke. Am I being a bore? 

Before I even tried the Bullseye, I envisioned a few problems with the concept. Firstly, there are many drilling tasks where straight drilling might be desirable, but the circles might not be clearly visible. For example, drilling deep into the side of a narrow board.

Secondly, the tool has to rotate quite fast to see the lasers as circles. So I have to go full speed before I even start drilling the hole. This could be confusing.

Can't even photograph it just like that

A little disclaimer. Though I have some educamation on the topic of woodworking, I don't do it as a profession. I know that drill type, diameter, RPM go together with the target material and the task at hand. But currently I only use an ordinary power drill occasionally for small tasks, and go with whatever feels fine.

After inserting the batteries, I tested the laser functionality and was ready to go. There's a really tiny on/off switch in an easily reachable position.

My DeWalt drill has an automatic LED light, which casts shadows with the rotating part, but this isn't too distracting and the LED can be covered if I really want to.

The operation reminds me of the docking sequence in Elite. I watch these glowing circles while drilling, going closer in and hoping without any great assurance, that all will be well.

Looks sturdy enough.

In practice, I was able to drill even a weirdly-shaped piece of wood. The fast dry-rotating felt suspect at first, but it's something one could get used to.

I was surprised to find that even with the first try the result was quite correct, certainly less than 0.5mm off when measured from the edges of opposite sides. You can argue that's not a great achievement for a 21mm thick material, but believe me I've been able to botch comparable freehand drill holes.

As the drill gets closer to the wood, the circles become smaller and it's no longer as easy to compare them. But at that point the drill hole ought to be growing in the correct direction anyway.

It won't fit everywhere, that's for sure.

Bullseye Bore is well made, the magnet is strong enough and the lasers are a fun addition to the drilling process. It's not an universal solution, and as with any tool and drilling assist, it likely has a specific role. Perhaps a repetitive task where mounting a jig or assist would be bothersome.

Since this arrived, I've had a number of household-type drilling tasks, but I didn't really feel a need to use this laser. It's not that often I need a deep, accurate drill hole that couldn't be done with a dowel jig.