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.
Our new back-yard groundhog made extensive renovations and improved the landscaping before moving into the unoccupied burrow against the garage wall:
It seems the same architect designed this project:
I cannot explain the post in the middle of the walk; perhaps they’ll remove it when everything’s finished.
The top photo is through three layers of 1950s glass. I cropped the bottom one from a helmet camera image.
According to the Forester’s manual, the Tire Pressure Monitoring System kicks in after the car reaches 25 mph. It evidently takes a while to figure things out after that, because the TPMS light blinked on a mile from home on the way to Mary’s Vassar Farms garden. I pulled into the next parking lot, measured 20 psi in the left rear tire, then found this staring me in the eye:
Well, that certainly simplified the diagnosis!
I unloaded two bags of shredded leaves and a pile of hoses, swapped in the (limited use, donut-style) spare tire, and continued the mission.
The TPMS light wasn’t on when I drove to Squidwrench the previous evening. Judging from the wear, that screw appeared during the various errands following our 800 mile road trip, which is good news of a sort, and depressurized the tire over the course of a day or two.
The receipt from the fix-it folks cautions that a plug is a temporary fix, because “the injury has compromised the integrity of the tire”. On the other paw, the Forester manual tells me “All four tires must be the same in terms of manufacturer, brand (tread pattern), construction, and size. You are advised to replace the tires with new ones that are identical to those fitted as standard equipment” and then provides a checklist:
When you replacing or installing tire(s), all four tires must be the same for following items.
(a) Size
(b) Circumference
(c) Speed symbol
(d) Load index
(e) Construction
(f) Manufacturer
(g) Brand (tread pattern)
(h) Degrees of wear
There’s absolutely no way to get an identical replacement tire, let alone one with the same tread wear, but I am so unready to replace all four tires after 12 k miles / 2 years.
We shall see how this works out…
Looks like I’m getting the stinkeye:
The extensive garden armor remains effective, although we know groundhogs can run straight up a chain-link fence when given sufficient motivation. They generally give up after encountering the galvanized chickenwire around the buried concrete blocks; the garden is just to the left of the picture.
The front-yard groundhog suffered a fatal automobile accident shortly after it finished excavating its burrow against the front foundation. This critter may have moved into the abandoned summer home near the garage at the back of the house.
After half a dozen years, the bearings in the blender impeller felt pretty bad:
I wiped everything clean, found the box containing the box containing the tube of bearings, packed the base with more silicone grease, reassembled everything in reverse order, and it’s all good again.
The first repair lasted for a year and the second for six, so I think overpacking the base with grease helped a lot. Maybe I’m getting better at ignoring horrible grinding sounds.
I can do this twice more, although the Jesus clip holding the shaft into the bearing stack definitely needs replacing.
The 2016 Transit of Mercury, as seen from Red Oaks Mill:
Hint: Mercury is (almost certainly) the tiny speck below and left of the crosshair.
The larger speck is (almost certainly) Sunspot 12529, one of the few in this part of a historically weak Solar Cycle. Its shape would be obvious though a real telescope.
If you know what you’re doing, you can measure the size of the sun and scale the entire solar system from observations like that. Takes more science than I’ll ever accomplish, that’s for sure!
I realized the show was on just before Greatest Transit (roughly what you see above), so I duct-taped a 1 inch spotter / finder scope to a camera tripod, taped a sun shield on the scope, bent some card stock for a screen, then assembled everything on the patio:
Astronomy mostly happens at night; this was an unexpected delight!
Another of the knockoff Neopixels in the Hard Drive Platter Mood Light failed, even limited to PWM 63 to reduce the temperature. This time, however, I had some help finding the failed blue LED:
Spiders seem no less bizarre in white light:
A day later, she’d built a small web, presumably to improve the odds of catching something yummy. Who am I to disagree?
I should set up a test fixture for all the knockoff Neopixels and run some numbers. They’re definitely a disappointment, even to a bottom feeder such as I …
After devoting the last few months to setting up the Makerspace Starter Kit and extracting / organizing / stashing the stuff I wanted to keep:
I now have some difficulty accomplishing what needs to be done:
During the rest of May I must write a pair of columns, unpack / arrange / reinstall my remaining tools / parts / toys, endure a road trip to our Larval Engineer’s graduation (*), enjoy bicycling with my Lady, and surely repair a few odds-n-ends along the way.
I’ll generate occasional posts through June, after which things should be returning to what passes for normal around here…
(*) For reasons not relevant here, our Larval Engineer’s schedule includes a final co-op and wind-up semester after “graduation”. Perhaps she’s entering the Chrysalis phase of her development?
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 