Month: August 2018

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Crosstour CT9500 4K 20.0 MP action camera Review

Before we get started, here is an updated firmware I received from Crosstour to enable the menu item “beep” that turns off the beep sound every time you press a button. 
To flash the firmware simply copy all of the files inside the folder onto the microSD card, insert it into the camera and then power it on, a blue light will apear and flash some eventually the camera will come on all by itself do not take out the battery or mess with it while this process is taking place. After flashing the new firmware be sure to go into the settings and set defaults or else it causes funny issues like webcam function not working. 
–CT9500-firmware-V2.1.0.3-A.zip
– firmware update (mirror)

Here are some specs directly from Crosstour.

Video Resolution: 4K(30fps) 2.7K(30fps)1440P(60/30fps) 1080P(60/30fps) 720P(120/60fps)
Image Resolution: 20MP, 16MP, 12MP, 5MP, 3MP
Lens: 170°A+ high resolution wide-angle lens with Seven-layer glass F/1.8 large aperture and Sony IMX377 Sensor
Wi-Fi Connection:  Android/IOS supported
Battery: Two Removable 3.7V 1350mAh Li-ion batteris Waterproof Case
Depth Rating: 40m/131.3ft
Dimensions: 61*45*24mm/2.41″x1.78″x0.95″
Storage: 8 – 128GB micro SD card support(128GBMax) require Class 10+

Continue reading “Crosstour CT9500 4K 20.0 MP action camera Review”

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SA Sports Fever Crossbow Accuracy modification.

Last year I bought the Sa Sports Fever Crossbow off amazon for about $120, after receiving it, trying it out.. I was pretty happy with it I was able to hold a decent group at what i thought was max range on the crossbow being a cheap recurve I figured 30 yards tops. most of my shooting was about 20 yards. i did notice that the scope mount was a little wobbly because of the range compensating "feature" that the mount has, you can click a knob between 1-10 and it compensates for the range and bolt drop. The downside is the mount is not solid, its held in place with a spring... not great, which is a reason a lot of the reviewers ive seen say they wouldn't use it for hunting purely ethically they couldn't trust the scope to be on target every shot, though it has plenty of power to bring down small to medium game such as a white tail deer.

That got me thinking, if i were to drill through the pivoting point in the mount in two spots and press a couple roll pins in it that would eliminate any kind of play it has. Not to mention the scope it comes with already has a drop reticle with 10-20-30-40-50 yd marks so the mount is kind of moot anyways. 

This article will show my methodology of fixing the mount and have some data as to how the groupings changed (if at all). To start i will shoot a total of 9 shots before and 9 shots after at 30yds or 90ft. they will be in 3 shot groups i will measure the group after each 3 shots and come up with an average total group size from before and after.

Here is a list of tools and supplies needed to do this project.

  • 1/8" drill bit and drill.
  • 1/8" roll pin.
  • small hammer.
  • roll pin punch or something to tap on to not damage the pin or bow.
  • masking tape if you want to protect your stuff.


[table “” not found /]

group number spread in inches
group 1 1.125"
group 2 .625"
group 3 1.625"
avarage 1.125"


As you can see from the data above "stuff n things happen maybe it worked maybe it didn't the white wizard will know"

video: coming soon

insert gallery of mod here

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DIY shotgun phone mount (revised for modifications)

To help with my hunting streams ive purchased a couple of tripods over the past couple years which are nice except when im moving around a bunch it can get tiresome to keep folding them up and down bending the legs or what ever, i was shopping around for some mounts on amazon but couldn’t really find anything that did what i wanted which was to clamp on and hold the camera out to the side and horizontal, on my rifle something that clamps on top wouldn’t be bad because i have a scope, on this i need line of sight down the barrel so i can aim. The best part is i had most of this stuff just lying around in the shop i only had to buy the hose clamps, so this cost about a buck.

REVISION: I had to add another hose clamp to hold it still, and the socket rail was too thin and flimsy made my phone vibrate all the time, so i replaced it with some 1/8″x1″ steel strap cut and bent to fit. I still need to find a way to more securely hold the phone on it fell out of the clamp about 75% of the time i shot.

Parts list:

  • 3/4″ pvc T fitting
  • metal bar from an old socket rail with the clips removed. 
  • 1/8″x1″  steel strap (the socket rail was too thin and flimsy)
  • 2x 1/4″ x 3/4″ bolts with nuts ny-lock is best for this application
  • 1x phone clamp this is what i used very tight spring loaded grip
  • 2X .75″ – 1.5″ hose clamp
  • 1/4″ drill bit + drill

Tools Used:

  • hacksaw
  • sandpaper
  • die grinder with cutoff wheel
  • 7/16 end wrenches
  • spray paint [flat colors for camo effect..ish]
  • flat head screw driver
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Current Server Setup

The server has changed in many ways since its first build with an old 775 socket celeron and 2gb of ram, to a dual xeon 771 setup, to a dual 6 coreopteron with 32gb of ram, back to a xeon 771 with 32gb of ram, and now its an i3-2120 i5-2400 with 16gb of ddr3 ram.

The server is running server 2012 r2 Datacenter with hyper-v for the virtual machines. here is a quick rundown of the virtual machines.

For main storage there is an array of 5x 2TB hitachi drives in Raid 5. contacam has its own 1tb blue, lancache has its own 300GB 10k velociraptor, there is a 500GB seagate i keep images of most of the vm’s on. finally the operating system with the rest of the vm disks are on a samsung 250GB samsung SSD.

Contacam: Running windows 10 ltsb and contacam software to manage my home security cameras. [4 cores 1GB-4GB dynamic meory]

Docker host debian: running docker + cockpit for docker management. Below is a list of currently running dockers. [4 cores 4GB static memory]

  • Keepass: to hold my passwords for everything im getting old and have a hard time remembering everything
  • Plex Server: basically only use this to stream music to work, and to give my dad access to my movie / tv show libraries at his house.
  • Teamspeak 3 server: i was running a vm just for this moving it to a docker was kind of a learning experience but it works great even was able to transfer all my stuff from my windows install into it with a little tweaking. That server had been running since 2013 so i have alot of config into it didnt wanna lose that.
  • ubooquity: I recently tookup an interest in reading comics this utility is nice for both remote and local viewing of comics, really cool to browse it on the tv using fire tv 
  • Jackett: gives extra indexers for radarr, sonarr, and lidarr on my download server.. i ran it in there but jackett and windows didnt seem to get along well at all and constantly crashed.

Download Server: Running utorrent pro, radarr, sonarr, and lidarr to manage my movie, music, and tv show libraries does its job.. most of the time lol. [4 cores 1GB-4GBdynamic memory]

Lamp Stack: Running Turnkey’s Lamp stack iso, most amazing people saves so much repetitive work. runs my word press site, my invoicing software (simple invoices), and a few misc web utilities. [2 cores 768MB ram]

lancache: Running NGINX in CENTOS 7 based off of multiplays lancache it caches steam and origin downloads so when its accessed a second time (i have two gaming pc’s) the second download is as fast as it can push over gigabit (or read from disk in my case hope to get this on an SSD eventually). [4 cores 1GB-2GB dynamic memory]

Pi-hole: Running Debian and pi-hole dns server this gives network wide ad blocking, works like a charm. I did try this in a docker and it seemed unstable so i reverted back to its own vm. [512MB ram 1 core]