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

Garter Snake: Garbage Can Guardian

A garter snake has taken up residence under our garbage can and is startled when I wheel it away:

Garter snake on the alert

This week it was curled into a compact bundle:

Garter snake in compact mode

The blue eyes indicate it’s in the process of shedding its skin, so next week we’ll have an even bigger and shinier guardian.

Shedding one’s skin apparently requires a great deal of thought, as it remained in that pose while I fetched Mary, then moved deliberately off into the leaf litter behind the can.

The small rodent population around here has definitely declined: garter snakes are murder on field mice and the hawks are taking out the chipmunks.

Go, snake, go!

2023-09-01
Onion Maggot Fly vs. Sticky Traps: Season 3 Finale
The six sticky traps guarding Mary’s onion beds in her Vassar Community Gardens plots collected this assortment of critter and mulch from mid-July through mid-August, when she harvested the last of the crop:
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap A
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap B
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap C
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap D
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap E
VCCG Onion Maggot Trap F
The labels do not match those on the first set through mid-July, because I don’t care quite enough to keep track of them.

The traps don’t collect many onion maggot flies, which suggests that a little control goes a long way. As far as she’s concerned, these traps work very well, because the crop has very little maggot damage.

Searching for onion sticky traps will produce the rest of the collection. Contact me for the full resolution images, should you need to ID all the critters.
2023-08-31
Onion Maggot Fly Sticky Trap Repair
One of the sticky traps absorbed a mighty blow during the season and its ski-pole mount snapped off. Rather then rebuild the whole thing, I decided to just epoxy the pieces together and stick a reinforcing plate on the bottom.

I added a pair of screw holes to the OpenSCAD model and produced a projection of the bottom layer:
```
if (Layout == "Projection") {
    projection(cut=true) {
        Attachment();
        Cap();
    }
}
```
Which looked like this:

Sticky Sheet Cage – projection

Cutting that shape from an adhesive sheet looks the same:

Onion Maggot Fly Trap – adhesive sheet

The somewhat raggedy large hole seems to come from OpenSCAD’s somewhat low-res SVG outline conversion.

Fill the broken part with epoxy:

Onion Maggot Fly Trap – epoxy ready

Clamp it together on a plate to keep the bottom aligned:

Onion Maggot Fly Trap – clamping

Cut an acrylic baseplate:

Onion Maggot Fly Trap – acrylic cut

Apply adhesive sheet to acrylic, stick it on the bottom of the cage, add a pair of stainless steel screws, and declare victory:

Onion Maggot Fly Trap – bottom view

We’ll see how long that lasts out in the garden next year …
2023-08-30
Popsicle Mixing Sticks

Perhaps popsicle stick mixers?

Popsicle stick mixer – in action

I made a batch to see if they’d simplify mixing my usual tiny batches of epoxy … and they do! Now I need not worry about forgetting to wipe off the screwdriver or cross-contaminating the resin / hardener tubes.

Reshaping the tip so the laser beam enters at right angles to the stick produced a cleaner cut and a slightly narrower blade:

Popsicle stick mixer – cutting

The fixture and LightBurn template I made for the engraved markers came in handy. Aligning the template to the fixture proceeds as with the larger craft stick garden markers.

A small holder keeps finished sticks ready for use:

Popsicle stick mixer – presentation box

I don’t know how long the box originally holding 1000 sticks has been sitting on the shop shelf, but it’s at least half full despite my continuing efforts. Maybe I can get ahead on my holiday gift prep?

The LightBurn SVG template layout as a GitHub Gist:

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view raw Popsicle stick mixer – LightBurn layout.svg hosted with ❤ by GitHub

2023-08-29
Zenni Optical Glasses: Metalbending

The new batch of glasses I just received makes me take back any nice things I previously implied about Zenni Optical’s nose pad alignment:

Zenni eyeglass pads – as received

Zenni does have a guide to reshaping the frames, but it does not include aligning the pads parallel to your nose, which definitely goes better with wire-bending pliers in hand.

They should look more like this when you’re done:

Zenni eyeglass pads – aligned

I suppose this is a consequence of being able to get two eyeglasses + two sunglasses in three different frame styles and two different prescriptions, each with progressive lenses and antireflective coating, for about $350 delivered halfway around the planet.

Makes owning a set of metal-forming pliers look downright economical.

A few years ago, Mary paid more than that for a single pair of badly fitted glasses from a local outlet. Those days are over.

2023-08-28
Magnetic Stirrer Resurfacing & Mug Decoration

Half a year of plunking my morning cocoa mug on the magnetic stirrer had pretty well scuffed up its platform, so this seemed like a good idea:

Magnetic stirrer – vinyl surface

Rather than add the blue disk to the small-scraps collection, I converted the Squidwrench logo into a LightBurn layout:

Squidwrench logo – laser cut layout

The roll of transfer tape I have on hand doesn’t stick well to the polyurethane sheet, so easing the vinyl onto the mug required careful tweezer work:

Squidwrench logo on mug

It’s on the other side of the mug from the original, somewhat battered, logo.

Now we can learn how long polyurethane sheets survive under the same conditions.

2023-08-25
Newmowa NP-BX1

After a year’s service in my Sony AS-30V helmet camera, the Newmowa NP-BX1 lithium cells perform pretty nearly as well as they started out:

NP-BX1 – Newmowa 2022 – 2023-08

Recharging the cells after that test averaged 907 mA·hr within 2%, so they’re still reasonably well grouped.

The camera burns 1.9 W, so the worst of the cells has a 100 minute runtime = 3.3 W·hr/1.9 W × 60 min/hr,.

Our usual weekday rides run a little over an hour and I change the batteries during our longer weekend rides, so they rarely see more than an hour’s use.

A recent 1-¼ hour = 75 minute ride soaked up 687 mA·hr, just about exactly 75% of 907 mA·hr. Gotta love it when the numbers work.

Surprisingly good performance, given the drama involved in finding those cells. I wonder if that will hold next year when I buy another set?

2023-08-24