Sirius Stiletto mods, tips, and experiments, Part 1.

My first annoyance with the device, was that you could not have the included antenna headphones plugged in at the same time as the charging cable. The plastic piece that plugs in for the headphones, hangs over the edge of the plug much further then it needs to, and because of this it makes it impossible to have both plugs in.

This design is probably on purpose, so that you basically have to by a dock to get around it.

Well, I decided to get around it with a Dremmel.

Basically the headphone plug has a lot of extra plastic around it on each side. All I had to do was remove about a centimetre from the side closest to the power plug. I used a large rigid wafer type cutting disk, I used it to cut initially, but did most of the work using it as a grinder, slowly grinding away the plastic.

The one thing you will want to watch out for is the little metal hook that comes out the side to hold the whole assembly in the Stiletto. Do not grind or cut this.

Also do this process slowly, and check it often to see if it will fit it yet. You DO NOT want to go any further cutting/grinding then you have to in order to get it to fit. Otherwise you will find that the clip no longer has anything to push against to stay in place.

So it worked beautifully, and I now can simultaneously have the DC power adapter, the included antenna headphones, and some additional headphones, or line out, all directly on the Stiletto, no dock. This works on the both the Stiletto 2 and Stiletto 100.

This is handy for me, because I have a few places I use the Stiletto throughout the day, but I do not want to buy 3 docks, at 50 bucks a piece, I would end up spending more on docks then I did for the Stiletto 100!

Sirius Stiletto tweaks, mods, and experiments intro.

When my room mate got a Stiletto 2, the first thing I thought was, "I wonder how many mods are out there for it".

I was pretty surprised to find virtually no information on even basic mods, which in reality, was all I was looking for.

So the next few posts will be just some of my tips, experiments, and a basic modification or two, of the Stiletto 2 and also the Stiletto 100.

PAiA Fatman Analog Synthesizer

The Fatman is a DIY, midi controlled, analog synthesizer kit from PAiA.

Essentially you get a bag full of resistors, capacitors, potentiometers, IC's, a PCB and some other odds and ends, and put it all together following the instructions. This project requires some patience, a still hand, and lots of beer.

I have read of people stretching out the build over the course of a month or longer, but not I. I had this thing together after about 3 days/nights of nothing but soldiering.

There is a certain sense of pride when you build it yourself, and it works correctly. I highly recommend PAiA products if you are interested in electronics, as well as music.

One problem I ran into initially, was with the power supply. The "wallwart" style transformer it comes with is an AC to AC adapter, not AC to DC like most you have around the home. My original power supply was not providing any voltage, I noticed it was 12V 2A, and just assumed it was DC. I found a 12V 2A "wallwart" transformer I had laying around, and plugged it in, of course it was DC, not AC. The unit did power up, sort of. The LED's were doing some strange things, and there was a weird constant drone sound coming from it, that was not affected by any of the potentiometers.

Anyhow, after emailing PAiA's tech support, I got a prompt reply, that nailed it right on the head, of course, the DC vs AC PSU.