u/735ur

I was worried about dust getting into the fan, as I've seen some pretty nasty pics on here. So... I took a look at my dustless PC: mesh dust filters over every fan. I'd much rather use up a bit of tape as I clean out the filters every once in a blue moon than blow out the fan with air or a vacuum every few months. A better solution to attach the filters would be some double-sided magnetic strips, but I wasn't sure how magnets react with electronics and the Lego in particular - I assume it'd be bad. So for now, I got some sheets of this stuff off Amazon and cut it to size with a box cutter.

From before/after benchmarks, this only shows a minor difference in temperature, about 2~ degrees higher. Masking tape is obviously not optimal here, it isn't designed for high temperatures and the adhesive will wear down over time, but I have some kapton tape coming from Amazon tomorrow which will do the job nicely. I'll also do a much better job applying it this time lol, as this application was god-awful, though it at least it's applied in the right places and not covering any important bits.

While I was taking stuff apart, I also did the joystick replacement: https://a.aliexpress.com/\_mMTjAid

Which made a huge difference and made me fall in love wirh my Lego all over again. Much tighter control and more resistance, also my old left joystick for some reason felt "sticky", it felt very unpleasant to turn. Comfort grips and joystick caps are coming soon too. All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along!