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.
Mary brought this back from the garden after it fell over while she was working in that plot:
Another one returned a few days later in somewhat better shape:
We already knew lower-case letters were a bad idea and now we know a thin slab of untreated wood might survive two months when jammed into the ground.
Nothing unexpected, of course.
At least the lasering technique should come in handy for something else used in more salubrious conditions.
Spotted from our motel room on the fourth floor:
The trash truck drives up to the dumpster, stops with its front tires barely on the concrete pad, extracts the dumpster contents, and backs away over the same two tire tracks. The crushed asphalt tracks extend halfway to the perimeter road circling around on the far right, where another crushed area shows the truck’s route into the parking lot.
Google Streetview’s history suggests the parking lot was sealed and striped five years ago. The motel predates the earliest pictures from 2007, although the tree sizes suggest the place was maybe five years old by then, so we’re looking at two decades of regular use.
As far as I can tell, dribbling hot tar along asphalt cracks does absolutely nothing except give the appearance of someone caring.
Mary had been thinking of blocking the narrow path between the neighbor’s fence and her garden, so I set up the trail camera to see what went on out there when we weren’t around.
The Midnight Possum must have another appointment:
Raccoons definitely use the path as a highway:
And, as if we didn’t have enough deer already:
My recommendation: don’t block the path, because we are badly outnumbered!
I put the camera in the front yard to monitor a new groundhog hole, then mowed the lawn. Although smoke drifting in from the Canadian fires has posed a problem, the air quality wasn’t this bad:
It turns out the camera’s case seal isn’t quite up to the task:
The lip around the front half of the case presses against a rubber gasket around the rear half, which means the water on the electronics chassis is inside the camera case:
Fortunately, the water condensed on the inside of the glass lens protector, rather than on the camera itself:
I let the whole thing dry out on the bench for a few days and all seems right again.
The leak does make me think leaving it out in the rain is a Bad Idea™, which isn’t the sort of thought one should have about a trail camera.
Diurnal pumping can explain many electronic failures. For the record, the monitoring station on the Walkway Over the Hudson vanished a while ago, probably due to rampant electronic corrosion.
For just under twenty bucks, Mary has a new clothes iron and I harvested the heating element from the longsuffering Sunbeam iron:
Per the notations:
The heater measures 12.6 Ω cold, so 9.5 A → 1.1 kW.
The iron had an insulating sleeve on the thermostat shaft capped with a plastic dial, which makes perfect sense for something in contact with the hot side of the AC power cord.
The IC date codes suggest it’s been around since 2002, so it’s about two decades old. In that time, one of the two electrolytic capacitors succumbed to the plague:
I think the relay and electronics implemented the iron’s timed shutoff function, but it does seem rather complex for that.
A new wreck appeared at the corner gas station:
The black plate on the front may be a door panel from the other contestant, because it obviously does not match the vehicle. Perhaps the wrecker crew strapped it on to hold the debris in place?
The front end submarined under the obstacle and stopped just before the passenger compartment reached the excitement.
A view of the windshield and top of the dashboard:
The fan may have been tucked in there by the wrecker crew, along with assorted chunks of plastic and metal.
A closer look at the medallion resting on the dash, rotated for your viewing convenience:
The steering wheel airbag had deployed, so perhaps the driver emerged relatively undamaged, but, as always, guardian angels seem unconcerned with property damage.
The last three years have pretty conclusively shown the various gods do not care about individuals and, in fact, their presumed acts closely resemble epidemiology in action.
Drive to stay alive …
Confronted with a nice metal eyeglass case that had lost its original liner, I traced the outline on paper and scanned it:
Unlike the plastic Zenni cases, this one has nice straight edges, so:
Then:
1 so it cuts lastWhich looks like this:
Then Fire The Laser into a sheet of EVA foam:
Stuff it into the case, do another one in brown, and the result looks kinda like it should:
That was easy …
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 