Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
I passed another dead deer on New Hackensack Rd while hauling groceries home:
Deer Collision – roadkill – New Hackensack Rd – 2021-09-08
The next day I walked past the other side of the collision at the corner gas station’s dead car collection:
Deer Collision – front end damage
A closer look at that nice rounded dent links the two contestants:
Deer Collision – front end damage – deer hair detail
The impact didn’t blow the airbags, so maybe the car isn’t a total loss, despite extensive front end damage and some scrap metal inside the engine compartment.
As far as I can tell, Vassar College has been holding a deer cull every January, but taking out a few dozen deer definitely hasn’t eliminated the road hazard. If the folks objecting to the cull set up a fund to help drivers damaged by the objects of their affection, it’d demonstrate their understanding of the problem.
The lesser kitchen faucet began dribbling and required replacement, as there are no user serviceable parts within. One of the 3D printed adapters I built during the previous iteration had disintegrated:
Beverage faucet base plate adapter disintegration
The new faucet came with a somewhat different baseplate and I managed to conjure a firm, sealed mount from the various parts without further construction.
The nicely curved brass snout is the third in my collection. Surely they’ll come in handy for something!
While I was in a plumbing state of mind, I again replaced the spout O-rings in the never-sufficiently-to-be-damned American Standard Elite (hah!) faucet, as it was also dribbling.
This time, I used oxalic acid to remove the assorted scale and crud inside the spout. It seemed to be more effective than the usual white vinegar, although nothing seems to preserve the O-rings.
The mowing crew we encountered half a mile ahead had a chainsaw and cleared the remainder.
Stay alert out there!
Although I don’t have a picture, there was a freshly dead bat lying underneath the main trunk. I think it rode the tree down, only to get slapped hard against the gravel beside the trail. I’m sure bats power up faster than I do, but not quite fast enough.
The Micro-Mark bandsaw has a metal blade guide below the table that contributes to the awful noise it makes while running, even when it’s not cutting anything. Having recently touched the Delrin = acetal rod stash, a simple project came to mind.
A doodle with the original metal guide dimensions:
Micro-Mark Bandsaw – metal blade guide dimensions
The 10 mm dimension is non-critical, so I started with a 1/2 inch acetal rod and turned the stub end to match.
A doodle suggested how to carve the slot with a 20.5 mil = 0.52 mm slitting saw, with the offset from a Z touchoff at the top:
The V block setup required swapping out the overly long OEM screw for a shorter 5 mm SHCS to clear the Sherline’s motor:
Micro-Mark Bandsaw – acetal guide slitting
The end result looked pretty good:
Micro-Mark Bandsaw – acetal vs steel blade guides
And it looks like it pretty much belongs in the saw:
Micro-Mark Bandsaw – acetal blade guide installed
The 6 mm stud goes into a hole in the frame, where a setscrew holds it in place. You must remove the blade to extract / replace the guide, with the correct position having the end of the slot just touching the back of the blade.
The foam ring apparently keeps crud away from the stud on the backside; I doubt it’s mission-critical.
The saw became somewhat quieter; the ball bearing guides above the table now generate most of the racket. At some point I’ll try replacing them with a block, probably made from UHMW, with a simple slit to guide the blade.
Plastic guides may not last as long as the steel ones, but occasional replacements will be worth it if the saw runs quieter.
When I applied the 7/64 wrench to a setscrew, the missing ball came as a surprise.
Even though the inch wrench set doesn’t get a lot of use, it’s possible I broke the ball off during a previous adventure, but a look at the end shows the black oxide coating covering the end:
Bondhus hex wrenches – missing 7-64 ball – detail
Yeah, it was born that way.
I wonder if and how their lifetime guarantee works.
Protip: as of this writing, the Amazon listing has two other “sizes” showing exactly the same set at significantly higher prices from two randomly named sellers:
Bondhus hex wrench set – Amazon listing
It is safe to assume Amazon no longer has its customers’ best interests in mind.
The overall capacity is down by 10%, with the voltage depressed by 120 mV over most of the curve.
Although I don’t keep daily records, the back of the envelope reveals 150 to 200 hour-long rides per year during the last four years, so call it 700 charging cycles:
Anker LC40 Flashlight – Anodizing fade
High brightness draws 1.5 A and low is 50% duty cycle, so a typical ride requires 750 mA·h = 2.5 W·h. Each cell lives for three or four rides with the LED set to low brightness and the numbers work out close enough.
A depth gauge arrived with a 3/8 inch = 9.5 mm mounting rod that fit one of my magnetic bases, but another base in my collection has a 5/16 inch = 7.9 mm clamp. Having recently rummaged through the aluminum rod stash, this happened:
Depth Gauge mounting rods
The original rod at the top has an M6 thread, the drawer of random M6 screws provided suitable volunteers, and a bit of lathe work removed / shaped their heads accordingly.
The shorter rod has a blind hole, with a dab of epoxy holding the headless screw in place. Not that it matters, but the lathe held them in alignment for curing:
Depth Gauge mounting rod – epoxy alignment
The longer rod got drilled all the way through, with more epoxy holding the screw, and, even with a relatively loose fit, no worries about alignment.
The longer rod gets the clamp away from the depth gauge’s base plate for better positioning:
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 