Tour Easy Daytime Running Light: Annotation
Posted by Ed in Machine Shop, Recumbent Bicycling, Software on 2017-08-17
The flashlight mount need not be symmetric after applying all the rotations, so recording how it’s aimed and which end goes forward seemed appropriate:
Fairing Flashlight Mount – Mount Annotation
Optionally, with rounded ends just for pretty:
Fairing Flashlight Mount – Mount Annotation – rounded
Because the rounding comes from resized spheres, the plate gets a ridge along the top to (maybe) lock the nylon screws / wing nuts in place:
Fairing Flashlight Mount – Mount – rounded
Or discourage them from turning, which would be OK, too. After the second tightening, they don’t seem to come loose, so this may be overthinking the problem.
All in all, they look pretty good in cyan PETG:
Fairing Flashlight Mount – rounded
Believe it or not, that’s aimed so the top edge of the beam is roughly horizontal to keep the hot spot out of oncoming traffic. They’re plenty bright, even on the “low power” setting.
The flashlight mounting balls produce a decorative brim that ought to be useful for something:
Slotted ball on platform
Maybe earrings?
The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:
Wasabi NP-BX1 Batteries: FAIL
Posted by Ed in Electronics Workbench, Oddities on 2017-08-16
I just got a new pair of Wasabi Power NP-BX1 batteries for the HDR-AS30V helmet camera, charged them up, and ran them through the CBA:
Sony NP-BX1 – Wasabi FGHI – 2017-08-08
Huh.
The new ones (H and I) cost near twice as much as the 2-1/2 year old previous pair (F and G), while delivering less energy at a lower terminal voltage. Tested ’em twice to be sure and the curves overlay just about perfectly, so it’s not a fluke.
The rep assures me the replacement cells will deliver their promised capacity. We shall see.
Monthly Image: Cross-striped Cabbageworm
Posted by Ed in Home Ec, Photography & Images, Science on 2017-08-15
In the normal course of events, this critter would become an undistinguished brown moth:
Right now, it’s a two-day-old cross-striped cabbageworm. Its kin are voracious consumers of Brassicacae out in the garden and Mary’s raising it as a show-n-tell exhibit for her Master Gardener compadres; she advised it to not start any long novels.
Taken hand-held with the Pixel XL through a clip-on 10x macro lens.
J5 V2 Flashlight: Switch Tightening
Posted by Ed in Electronics Workbench, Machine Shop, Recumbent Bicycling on 2017-08-14
From the start, the (second) J5 V2 flashlight had an erratic switch that flickered the LED at the slightest pressure. Not enough to switch modes, as it does with a half press, but enough to show something’s not quite right inside.
Taking it apart requires a pin wrench, which I have, but the deeply recessed ring required more reach than any of the tips I’ve made over the years. Introducing a pair of stainless steel 10-32 screws to Mr Grinder added two more pins to the collection:
J5V2 Flashlight – custom pin wrench
The lock ring in the flashlight cap turned out to be finger-loose, certainly contributing to the problem. Removing the lock ring, peeling the rubber dome out of the cap, and poking with a punch sufficed to drive out the guts of the switch assembly:
J5V2 Flashlight – switch parts
Which is, as you’d expect, the cheapest possible parts that don’t immediately fail.
The (steel) tab sticking out of the actual switch (in the upper right) contacts the inside of the (aluminum) cap. I bent it slightly outward, added a trace of DeoxIT Red, reassembled everything in reverse order, and it’s all good for the first time in its brief life.
I’d rate J5’s QC as Below Average, given that the first light arrived with built-in dirt and its replacement (this one) had an alien egg next to the LED, plus this loose switch lock ring + crappy tab contact.
The J5 V2 light claims 750 lumen output, but the spot is nowhere near twice as bright as the LC40 lights on the bikes and much dimmer than the LC90 light (which is too big for the bikes), all tweaked for equivalent-size illuminated areas. Given that lumens measure total output and candela measure lumen/steradian, there’s some wiggle room for misinterpretation.
Won’t buy another, for sure.
Amazon Packaging: Lindt Chocolate
Amazon may toss lithium cells into a cardboad box without much care, but chocolate requires attention to detail:
Amazon – Lindt Chocolate packaging
An ice pack, with a lump of ice in the middle, snuggled under the chocolate carton. The box arrived UPS Next Day from Amazon’s Kentucky distribution center, with the carton inside still cold to the touch.
On the average, I suppose, Amazon’s packaging averages out, but I’d rather they paid more attention to protecting hazardous material.
The picture shows a reenactment of actual events, because we were in the middle of something else when the UPS truck arrived.
Monarch Caterpillar Windshield
Posted by Ed in Photography & Images, Science on 2017-08-12
The Monarch Butterfly egg produced a teeny caterpillar:
Monarch caterpillar – 3 mm – 2017-08-02
Each time it molts, it eats all of its skin except for the transparent cap over the first body segment:
Monarch Windshield – 2017-08-09
If the rest of the caterpillar were behind the windshield, it’d be feet-upward with its “face” at the top.
The picture comes from a focus-stacked set of microscope images captured with VLC; I turned the positioner’s elevation knob the smallest possible amount between each of 16 images along the 1 mm (-ish) height of the capsule. This magic incantation applies more weight to high-contrast and high-entropy regions:
align_image_stack -C -a monarch vlcsnap-2017-08-09-18h4* enfuse --contrast-weight=0.8 --entropy-weight=0.8 -o Monarch_Windshield.jpg monarch00* # empty line to reveal underscores in previous line
That came out pretty well.
Tour Easy Daytime Running Light: Improved Ball Mount
Posted by Ed in Machine Shop, Recumbent Bicycling, Software on 2017-08-11
The original ball around the flashlight consisted of two identical parts joined with 2 mm screws and brass inserts:
Flashlight Ball Mount – flattening fins
Providing enough space for the inserts made the ball bigger than it really ought be, so I designed a one-piece ball with “expansion joints” between the fingers:
Fairing Flashlight Mount – Finger Ball – solid model
Having Slic3r put a 3 mm brim around the bottom almost worked. Adding a little support flange, then building with a brim, kept each segment upright and the whole affair firmly anchored.
Fairing Flashlight Mount – Finger Ball – solid model – support fins
Those had to be part of the model, because I also wanted to anchor the perimeter threads to prevent upward warping. Worked great and cleanup was surprisingly easy: apply the flush cutter, introduce the ball to Mr Belt Sander, then rotate the ball around the flashlight wrapped with fine sandpaper to wear off the nubs.
The joints between the fingers provide enough flexibility to expand slightly around the flashlight body:
Flashlight Mount – finger ball
I made that one the same size as the original screw + insert balls to fit the original clamp, where it worked fine. The clamp ring applies enough pressure to the ball to secure the flashlight and prevent the ball from rotating unless you (well, I) apply more-than-incidental force.
Then I shrank the ball to the flashlight diameter + 10 mm (= 5 mm thick at the equator) and reduced the size of the clamp ring accordingly, which made the whole mount much more compact:
Flashlight Mount – LC40 – finger ball – side
Here’s what the larger mount looks like in action:
The flashlights allegedly puts out 400 lumen in a fairly tight beam. The fairings produce a much larger and brighter glint in full sunlight than the flashlights, so I think they’re about the right brightness.
The OpenSCAD source code for the new ball as a GitHub Gist:
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