Nah, those patch kits always take way longer than the package says.

Clean your fence track regularly with denatured alcohol, I learned that lesson the hard way too.

oh man yeah, straight swap with a fresh image works fine. i just flashed the new sd card on my pc with balena etcher and popped it in. no formatting tricks needed, honest.

Man, I hear you loud and clear. I spent way too many years on muddy jobs scraping that liner clean every 15 minutes, feeling like I was just a glorified janitor with a shovel. After I finally broke down and bought a set, I felt pretty dumb for how long I stuck with the old way. It was like I was punishing myself for no good reason. You gotta admit, when you go from constant cleanout to just dumping and moving on, it feels like cheating on easy mode. How long did your buddy have his liners before you finally caved?

Yeah, the "everyone raves about" part got me. I fell for that hype too and bought a $300 set of those magnetic levels. Total waste of money honestly. Like you said, the magnets mess up your alignment on steel studs and the levels themselves are way too heavy for everyday use. My cheap aluminum one is lighter, more accurate, and I don't have to baby it. High end gear is fine if you're doing fancy cabinet work or something but for rough framing and drywall it's just an expensive headache.