The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Month: March 2017

  • Mini-Lathe Carriage Stop: Spring Counterbore

    While pondering the tailstock ways, I realized the spring on the LMS Adjustable Carriage Stop just needed a counterbore to make it work right:

    LMS Carriage Stop - spring counterbore
    LMS Carriage Stop – spring counterbore

    The OEM spring now sits slightly compressed with the screw tip flush at the far end of the block:

    LMS Carriage Stop - reassembled
    LMS Carriage Stop – reassembled

    That OEM screw head knurling leaves a bit to be desired, doesn’t it?

    Actually boring the hole would be a remarkably tedious process for little gain. Instead, I lined up the block in the drill press using a ¼ inch drill (the OEM hole isn’t hard metric!) in the unthreaded section, enlarged it with progressively larger drills up to an O (0.316 inch = 8 mm), then finished with a P (0.323 in = 8.2 mm).

    As it turned out, my guesstimated relaxed spring length was a bit off, so I turned a brass bushing to shorten the hole by 2 mm:

    LMS Carriage Stop - screw bushing
    LMS Carriage Stop – screw bushing

    If I don’t mention it, nobody will ever know!

    The original doodle, with close-enough sizes:

    LMS Carriage Stop - spring counterbore doodle
    LMS Carriage Stop – spring counterbore doodle

  • Another Numeric Keypad Snowflake

    I got another batch of wireless keypads that, from the outside, look identical to the previous set:

    Wireless USB Numeric keypads
    Wireless USB Numeric keypads

    The keypad on the right reports Model ID 0x4182, the same as the black plastic batch, and different from the 0x4101 of the previous batch (on the left). Apparently, the small USB dongle carries the Model ID data and the keypads can carry anybody’s logo.

    The Vendor ID, of course, still shows Creative Lab’s 0x062a and all the serial numbers are 1.

    Fortunately, the udev rules already have that combination and the streaming player can’t tell the difference.

    Those labels on the keytops still don’t quite fit, but we’re coping as best we can.

     

     

  • Monthly Science: Minimal-Woo Cast Iron Pan Seasoning

    After trying several variations on a theme, our daily-use pan now looks like this:

    Cast Iron Pan - after weekly seasoning
    Cast Iron Pan – after weekly seasoning

    Those obvious wiping marks come from an oily rag in a hot pan. What could go wrong?

    The reflected light bar comes from the under-cabinet LED strip.

    The surface withstands stainless utensils, cooks omelets with aplomb, and requires no fussy KP:

    Omelet in cast-iron pan
    Omelet in cast-iron pan

    The low-woo seasoning recipe, done maybe once a week when the bottom has more gunk than usual:

    • Clean the pan as usual, wipe dry
    • Begin heating on medium burner set to High
    • Add 0.2 ml = 10 drops = 1 squirt of flaxseed oil
    • Wipe around pan interior with small cotton cloth
    • Continue heating to 500 °F, about four minutes
    • Carefully wipe oily cloth around pan again
    • Let cool

    Works for us and doesn’t involve any magic.