Who is D.Sync ?.?

- dsync bio page is last updated on September 18, 2015 -

dsync [abbreviation: DeoxySynchro, also known as D.Sync, dsync, and dsync89 {@see also deluge23 at some forum}] is a typical guy who enjoys a wide variety of hobbies and skill-sets. For the nerd, do not confused dsync with dsync, which is a Dovecot's mailbox synchronization utility on Linux. Not to mentioned how much $$ have he had milked out from his bank over the course of years to enjoy such hobbies :-D. Although his wallet answers to no one but himself, he will and have to start managing his finance properly for the rainy days.

Does the phrase "Jack of all Trades but Master of None, does it apply to him"? Well you'll be the judge!

Field of expertise
- Programming!! (C, C++, HTML, JADE, Java, JavaScript, mySQL, MongoDB, PHP, Python, Android, iOS, yada.. yada.. yada..)
- Operation System (Mac OSX, Linux, Windows)
- Electronics (Arduino, Intel Edison, Raspberry Pi)
- Photography (Architecture, Landscape, Product Shots). Going to expand his portfolio into Figurine photoshoot soon perhaps?
- Video creation and editing (Lightroom, Final Cut Pro)
- Anime fansub (Aegisub)
- Gaming (casual + hacking) - 3DS, 3DS XL, PS Vita, PS Vita Slim
- Radio-Controlled Vehicle (Axial SCX10)
- FPV (First Person View) system setup (antenna, transmitter, receiver, etc.)
- Arcade hardware setup (joystick, push buttons, PCB...) + software setup (HyperSpin, RocketLauncher, RetroPie)
- CCG (Collectables Card Games) - Po-keh-mon!!
- foobar2k scripting
... and much more :-P

O.O Did I NOT see exercise here? No you certainly didn't :-P Don't get it wrong though, dsync does exercise regularly. Well not regularly but he did it sometimes! Just that exercise is not something that he can be proud of, and he really mean it! :-P

Who is D.Sync in Real Life?

Know as Gary in real life, dsync is the eldest child in his family. He is born on July 1st (the exact year is up to anyone guess, but it's certainly not THAT much old), which coincidentally shares the National Day of Canada. He is a Malaysian (Asian) and is proud of his nationality.

His physical appearance is somewhat of a regular guy that you can think of, e.g. wearing specs, average height, etc.

After undergoing tons of personality test he is officially known to have Perfect Melancholy personality.

What is D.Sync Up To Right Now?

As of the date of writing, dsync is currently in NENDOROID COLLECTING FRENZY MODE to grow his Nendoroid collection :-) His Archibishop Nendoroid is very lonely now. She had been alone for two years and getting sick of staring at Poring >.< She is now seeking for more companion!

More About D.Sync's Hobbies

How he got into each hobbies and experiences that he had with each of them...

RC Hobby

dsync got his first ever RC truck, scale truck, crawler on September 2015. Initially he wanted for Traxxas Summit but decided to go for the Axial SCX10 due to its wide range of parts distributed by local and oversea suppliers and of course, the scale looks! Besides he wanted a realistic driving experience of a crawler unlike a basher that bash around things at high speed like most people did with basher such as the Traxxas Summit. The SCX10 decal and body is also more subtle than the Traxxas Summit, which is what got him attracted to in the first place.

When he first got the SCX10 he was very shocked to see it in its 1/10th scale size, which is already gargantuan to his eyes unlike those he saw in the videos. He can't even begin to imagine how the 1/8 scale Traxxas Summit will looks like!

Prior to His Purchase...

Before he actually purchase the truck, dsync had done an extensive survey about other accessories that he would need to continue his hobby. This includes a good battery charger and affordable ones too. The iCharger 206b, although is very popular among hobbyist alike, is out of reach from him due to his resident location and pricing. At the end he decided to go for VistaPower AK610AC, which is a charger with touch screen interface. It was a breeze to use and very intuitive ones too. The feature that he like the most is the ability to view each battery cells voltage in a GUI battery display instead of numerical display.

As for the main ingredients to the truck, the battery, he chose Gen Ace 6600mAH Hard Case 2S Li-Po battery for longer drive run. That turned out to be a wise purchase as he can enjoy running the truck for more than 4 hours! In addition he also purchase a Li-Po battery voltage monitor + alarm module to make sure the Li-Po battery doesn't run below 3.70V per cell.

The hobby doesn't just stop here. Wanting to know more about RC trucks he then begin to mod its various parts. This includes the lighting (using G.T lighting kit) system. While most people go for 1 lighting setup/module, dsync actually uses 2 in his SCX10 since he wanted more lighting and a better way to separate the body lights and the chassis light. Since the SCX10 body shell doesn't came with any holes pre-drilled, he had to spent half a day trying to drill those holes to fit the LEDs. To hold these LEDs well to the body and for aesthetic reason, he also purchased 2 sets of Axial Light Mounting Kit from Amazon for the light bucket, plastic light cover, and holder.

His final mod for the SCX10 was the FPV (First Person View) system. This turned out to be the hardest mod since he had no experience in FPV in priori. So sourcing and purchasing the suitable parts doesn't come easy. At the end he decided to purchased the RunCam 600 TTL camera + 1.3 GHz transmitter/receiver system + 4" FPV monitor (actually a reverse car monitor but still works with FPV since it also has analog video input) from SecurityCamera2000 since they can underdeclare the package value and the shipping is FREE! Since they were shipped directly from Hong Kong warehouse he expect probably one to two weeks of shipping. And guess what, it only took 1 week for the item to arrive at his doorstep, and this is FREE shipping!

For FPV hobby, it is important that the FPV monitor doesn't shows blue screen when there is no signal or signal interference. Luckily the FPV monitor that he purchased doesn't have this issues, plus its relatively cheap too at $35 compared to other FPV monitor in the market.

As for the antenna, the stock whip antenna that came with the kit wasn't enough to cover a long distance viewing, so he purchased the best antenna that money can buy, the Mad Mushroom 3-Lobe and 5-Lobe antenna from HobbyWireless. In addition he also purchased a 1.3GHz filter so that the FPV operating frequency will not disturb the 2.4GHz RC transmitter due to second harmonic. Without the filter he would have to have at least 30cm of separation distance between the RC receiver antenna and the FPV transmitter antenna. This is not possible given the body length of the SCX10, whereas a RC plane could easily have this kind of seperation distance.

The purchase experience is not what he expected, as the item was detained for custom tax and GST when it arrived in Malaysia. Plus he had to apply for SIRIM license in order for the custom officer to release the package. At the end he had to appoint FeDex agent to broker the application and forked out additional RM350 for the fee. What he learned from this is... Never use FeDEX shipping method. Come to think of it, he actually chosen USPS as the shipping option but HobbyWireless somehow decided to ship using FeDEX.

When it comes to connecting the FPV system together, he had to manually solder and modify various connectors since the connector that came with the SecurityCamera 1.3GHz kit is not a plug-and-play solution for the RunCam camera. Additional connector such as Deans and JST-XH connector is then used to power the whole system using his 2200mAH Gens Ace 3S Lipo battery instead of power adapter. Luckily he didn't burned his finger during the soldering!

To put everything together, he used a transparent lunch box to fit the receiver + antenna + 2200mAH Gens Ace 3S Li-Po battery together. He also used a bendable aluminium strip (not sure what that is called) to mount the RunCam on the SCX10 roof. Velcro ties are then used to secure the transmitter on the roof.

Although other mod is also possible, such as upgrading the receiver for longer remote control distance, he decided to leave this for future room upgrade since he is now occupied with other tasks.

Overall he is very content with his SCX10! Not to mentioned the price that he had paid for this hobby!

Nendoroid Hobby

dsync first obtained his Nendoroid (#132 Archbishop) back in 2011 when he was still an undergraduate. Reason is Ragnarok Online is his favorite online game at all time, with Granado Espada coming after. It was his first MMORPG in the days of dial up modem. Not to mention how many times he had listened to the game soundtrack!

Fast forward 5 years he suddenly have a crave to start expanding his Nendoroid collection. Main drive is after he saw Nendoroid #357 Flonne in Farenheit store in Kuala Lumpur in the latest box art. He knew that he will have to get her and theregoes his Nendoroid collecting frenzy mode! Just within 2 weeks he had placed more than 10 orders, mostly local order + 1 order from Nippon-Yassan for Nendoroid that he couldn't find in any local store. Some of the order are from used Nendoroids, such as the K-ON all 5 members + Cultural Festival A+B which was sold only for $90. He knew he had to buy them off!

To display the Nendoroids in their glory, he also purchased 2 acrylic display case (ADC) measuring 30cmx30cmx30cm and 30cmx25cmx25cm from ShiroToys, a local hobby store in Malaysia.

As of now he now have more than 25 Nendoroids. Going from 1 Nendoroid to 25 Nendoroids within 2 weeks is simply... outrageous when he now thinking back about it! He is now officially running out of space in his room with all the Nendoroid boxes!

Hopefully he will start his figure photography soon to show these Nendoroids poses.

dsync Nendoroid 'First Timer' Milestone
First Nendoroid to Purchase - 132 Archbishop from Ragnarok Online
First Nendoroid Play Set - Cultural Set A+B
First Nendoroid to Break - NONE SO FAR

dsync Completed Nendoroid Characters from Series
First complete Nendoroid characters - K-ON
Second complete Nendoroid characters - Persona: Aigis (on its way), Kuma (on its way), Yukiko (on its way)

dsync is now targetting the following series for his Nendoroid Completion:
# Makai Senki Disgaea (Have: Etna, Flonne ; Missing: Raspberyl)

The nendoroid that dsync is eyeing and drooling over is R** but he is just to expensive for him >.< 

Photography Hobby

To be added...

And more...

What Have He Learned from His Hobbies?

With so many arsenal of hobbies that dsync had went through, dsync is now able to purchase stuffs internationally with PERFECT buying track safe record (**touch wood as he is typing this one out**). While he was being modest, one can easily tell that he is a savvy online shopper.

So far he had purchased more than 25 packages/items internationally (US, European, Asia) and 200 items locally. This can be seen with the delivery slip notes that he had been collected ever since his first online purchase back in 2006! Name any major international online store and he is most likely to purchase before, e.g. Amazon, E-bay.

Before he made any purchase, he always put on his FBI cap and deeply go through the seller profile, selling credibility, selling records, associated Facebook account, associated Twitter account, other webstore, forum engagement (post/threads), bank account number, scamming and fraud record under the given email and bank account number. While this might seemed paranoid to most people, and frankly, most people doesn't even care to go THIS deep, it has proved to be worthwhile as all his purchasing records are solid GREEN :-D And frankly, he can't afford to have his money thrown out in the air!

For international purchase, he also had experience to clear local customs for detained items and apply for license for certain restricted products, e.g. antenna operating under unlicensed frequency band. He always personally approach the seller and make sure that the sellers are able to under-declare the package value if it exceeds RM500 (~USD 118) to minimize or prevent the chance of having the items detained and taxed, which ultimately leads to longer delivery time and spending unnecessary money. At times he also had to split the order to avoid the tax. He also have experienced when it comes to selecting a shipping courier. He would factored in the nature of the item, location of which the item was being shipped, postage fees before deciding one.

The Flaw/Achilles Hill of dsync

Like many of us, dsync does have some flaws, nothing big of a flaw though.

dsync is a very organized person, and this can be easily seen from how he categorized and stored every single stuffs that he owns. He is able to locate anything that you asked of him, even down to a paper clip! Nothing is left out under his nose. While being an organized person is great, there can be downsides too. For instance...

dsync always keep things that he purchased, and he mean everything! Yes this includes tracking notes, delivery slip notes, boxes, plastics, and even the bubble wraps that came with the items! Luckily there is one item that he always throws away, the newspaper, if there is even one that came with the package! Basically no one thing is thrown away unless his mom decided to throw some while he's not at home. When that happens, he can easily tell thanks to his organizing memory. Until this day no one knows how dsync inner brains compartments looks like, but it certainly have a lot of drawers with clear labels and categories of them.

dsync is also very enthusiastic about his work. Indeed, once he decided to pursue a thing, be it a hobby, new real world skill set, new programming language, etc. he will go ALL-OUT for it. Of course $$ is always something that he keep in check. While this gives him the edge to getting things done fast, accurate, and efficiently, this passion for work can also be a double-edged sword by sacrificing his health. Thankfully there is always his parents that keep him in check. Plus lots of supplements that he had to consume in >.<

At times, dsync can also be OCD (Obssessive Compulsive Disorder) when it comes to his stuffs and work too! He had to make sure everything came and was done perfectly and flawless in the condition. This can be seen and acknowledged by others through his work, purchase of gadgets, and hobbies. Everything that he owns always guaranteed to have a protector casing, sleeves, silica gel or anything that can protects his treasured stuffs. Having OCD is good when it comes to programming and such, as it allows him to spot and debug any possible code error faster. However, at times, it can also cause him to be too focused on one stuffs and ignoring the rest. Thankfully there is always something that keep himself check thanks to a bunch of time tracking app and alarm that he had setup on his gadgets!

dsync is also always keep an eye for new stuffs to learn. In fact, some hobbies are started with a spur of the moment! Can you guess which hobbies are those? While this eager learning attitude is good, again, he often ends up spending way over budget!

Interested to Know More About D.Sync?

In case you're interested to know more about dsync, be it asking his opinions for the hobbies or experience that he had gone through with, you can find his various profiles over the social network/forum that he had engaged in. He is always willing to help others out!

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Lowyat (Malaysian Largest Community Forum)

An many more which you can found at the footer of the blog or Google :-)




- End of dsync bio -