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.

Author: Ed

  • Using DVDs for Backups and the Futility Thereof

    Early this year I made backups of a friend’s PC hard drive on DVDs (using partimage, my full-partition-backup hammer of choice) and now must recover a file for her.

    Each of the seven DVDs has two 2 GB files on it and, on every DVD, the second file is riddled with errors.

    Thousands, nay, tens of thousands of errors.

    The first file on each DVD is perfect: zero read errors.

    I’ve tried them on three different drives and, while the errors vary, the pattern is basically the same.

    Tick me right off. I’ve had a PC running ddrescue on ’em for the last few days. I’m hoping that by reading them on various drives, the recovery program can merge the good parts, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope. (Update: worked like a champ. Whew!)

    Because I’m that type of guy, I always verify the data when I write a CD or DVD, so I know these were good when they were written. Most of the DVDs seem to be visually OK, but some have dark spots in the dye layer. There aren’t any scratches or defects beyond what you’d expect for a DVD that’s been written once and handled by somebody who’s neurotically careful about that sort of thing: they’re not pristine, but they’re not far from it.

    Also because I’m that type of guy, they’re generic no-name DVDs, but so what?

    Achtung: use the GNU version of ddrescue, because it’s the one that creates & uses a log file to help retry the errors on different machines. The other non-GNU version doesn’t do that.

    Memo to self: next time, record -three- sets of DVDs and store the sets separately.

  • Blender repair

    Blender blade bearing repair
    Blender blade bearing repair

    So a while back I replaced the blade bearings in our cheap-after-rebate Farberware blender: a $20 pack of ten bearings (5 repairs!) from eBay for a $15 mixer.

    [Update: They’re 6 mm ID x 13 mm OD x 5 mm thick.]

    Of course, it turned into a shop project. I added spacers that held the shaft in the right position by eliminating some vertical play, dripped Loctite around the housing to fasten the outer races in place, silicone-lubed the seals, and generally did the last few dollars of engineering & manufacturing they couldn’t afford in a cheap blender.

    The blender now works better than it ever did before. It used to emit a horrible whining rattle and didn’t have much go-power. Now, while it’s not silent, it whirs solidly and engages the pancake batter with a vengeance.

    Blood no longer runs out of our ears…

    I think the original bearings were crap quality, badly sealed, poorly mounted, and failed so fast we never knew how the mixer should behave. Grumble, etc.

    Now that I know what to do, the next four repairs should go much quicker. If, indeed, the new bearings ever fail. The old ones were, IIRC, “dishwasher safe”, but I think that is a cruel hoax from the Planned Obsolescence & Early Failure Department. We’re rinsing the blade assembly by hand now.

    If I thought spending more on a blender would get better bearings, I’d probably still buy cheap-after-rebate ones just for the quality shop time…

    Memos to self: left-hand shaft thread, slightly shorter bottom extension, make stainless hardware.

  • Ed’s High-Traction Griddlecakes

    Speaking of blenders and things that happen in the morning: when I manage to wake up fifteen minutes before everybody else, this is what we have for breakfast.

    Ed’s High-Traction Griddlecakes

    • 1-2/3 cup rolled oats
    • 1-1/4 cup water
    • 1 egg
    • 1-1/3 cup cottage cheese (or ricotta in a pinch)
    • 3 Tbsp almond butter (peanut butter = ptooie)
    • 1 tsp gen-you-wine vanilla extract
    • 1 tsp baking powder

    Dump everything in the blender in that order, blend until smooth, then pour on hot griddle and flip when the top sets up. Slather in honey (ideally from one’s own bees, but anything local will suffice). Serves three and keeps you full until lunch.

    Mighty tasty, but you gotta run it through the blender or it just won’t make…

  • Christmas Day Ride

    Couldn’t pass it up: a family bike ride on Christmas Day in midstate New York!

    A mere 40 F and breezy, but no snow on the roads… a good time was had by all.

    Memo to self: fleece + bandanna is fine at 40 F.