comments:
That dock sure looks neat. I've got a couple machines that basically only work well in this position so committing all the way to the bit feels like it'd make an amount of sense. Unfortunately, the seller's web site has close to zero useful information about it. Is that an 18650 out back? Presumably it would work with other 18650s if the original wore out? Does the dock step 5v in from Type-C to 1.5V for the sidecar connector if there's no battery inserted? Does it stand up well if you connect other things to the other ports, e.g. a CD walkman to the optical port or a remote/headphone/line output cable to the headphone/output port? (Similar to how the N1 and N10's dock works great for recording from other sources but the R909/910 dock really doesn't.) I do see seller pictures it with an R909 connected, which of course doesn't have USB or: is the battery needed for the dock to stand up correctly, in which case reverting back to ripcord+KRUBBET might make the most sense, depending on the use case If you have a machine in the reverse orientation, such as the MZ-R90/91, (does it seem like the dock can hold on as tight as the original sidecar would or would it be best either not to make that pairing or just use those two upside-down using a remote?) This is neither here nor there, but: I love all the work being done on replacement sidecars, but it's a bummer it focuses exclusively on lithium batteries, for a handful of reasons including that NiMH AAs are generally enough, paired up AAs would be enough to bridge the gap on machines where 1xAA is arguably not enough for some use cases (R55/RH910) Still, if it's gotta be lithium, seeing one where the battery can easily be swapped or where you can use a higher capacity battery that doesn't have an internal charge circuit is interesting. So many of us have things like the nitecore chargers that it seems like any of us building a gumstick ecosystem could also justify building up an 18650 ecosystem.