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

  • Earring Laser Fixture

    Earring Laser Fixture

    Cutting or engraving patterns on earrings should go more smoothly with a fixture:

    Earring fixture - demo install
    Earring fixture – demo install

    That’s a serving suggestion, using the Biohazard test pieces, which also helped align the top and bottom layers while gluing:

    Earring fixture - clamping
    Earring fixture – clamping

    That used all my little clamps: obviously I need more!

    The bottom layer (red) is MDF for strength and the top layer (orange) is chipboard because that’s all it needs:

    Earring fixture - LB layout
    Earring fixture – LB layout

    The little tab along the top ensures alignment using the jump ring cutout. The central hole will let me cut through the earring, should that be necessary.

    The two strips over on the left get glued on the bottom, spaced to align along one of the aluminum knife blade rails, as with the craft stick fixture. With that lined up, any two of the four targets will serve to align the template with the fixture using LightBurn’s Print-and-Cut tool, as with the craft stick template.

    Now, to make some smoke!

    The LightBurn SVG layout as a GitHub Gist:

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    view raw Earring fixture – LB layout.svg hosted with ❤ by GitHub

  • Going About Their Daily Affairs

    Going About Their Daily Affairs

    The fox caught what looks like a small groundhog for supper:

    IM_00307 - Fox with supper - 2023-05-25
    IM_00307 – Fox with supper – 2023-05-25

    The tom turkeys have been forming and re-forming their groups:

    IM_00178 - Turkey parade - 2023-05-24
    IM_00178 – Turkey parade – 2023-05-24

    The gray cat may have spotted breakfast out there in the yard:

    IM_00112 - Gray Cat - 2023-05-23
    IM_00112 – Gray Cat – 2023-05-23

    We haven’t seen a raccoon stand up like this before, so something must be very interesting out there:

    IM_00089 - Standing raccoon - 2023-05-27
    IM_00089 – Standing raccoon – 2023-05-27

    Off to its far right, Mary had fertilized a new pepper planting, which evidently smelled good enough to motivate vigorous digging. None of the plants sustained damage, despite being tossed around, but dexterous paws were surely involved!

  • Punching the Exercise Ticket

    Punching the Exercise Ticket

    An unfortunate confluence of weather, schedule, and enthusiasm led to mowing all the yard in one session:

    Mowing pattern - 2023-05-27
    Mowing pattern – 2023-05-27

    I managed to remember to pause the tracker during a break in the middle, so it’s really just shy of three wall-clock hours from start to finish. It’s amazing how much work you (well, I) can get out of 100 mg of caffeine.

    Despite what you see here, the path on what’s euphemistically called “our lawn” show a much more organized solution to the problem of covering our property with non-overlapping foot-and-a-half stripes. As with my leaf-shredding track, I neither venture into the road nor mow the neighboring yards.

    Bonus: slept like a stone that night …

  • Biohazard Earrings

    Biohazard Earrings

    More desk clearing revealed a sketch for another trinket:

    Biohazard symbol
    Biohazard symbol

    That’s built directly from the original specs to get the spacing and symmetries correct. The freebies I could find all suffered from various degrees of bad design & layout.

    A chipboard coaster provided some reassurance:

    Biohazard coaster
    Biohazard coaster

    Shrunken down to 25 mm OD, the tips become vanishingly small:

    Biohazard earring - vinyl sample
    Biohazard earring – vinyl sample

    It’s the same laser-safe polyurethane vinyl as the SD card reader, this time applied to 3 mm black acrylic. The “gold” ring is just parked in place, as this one wasn’t presentation-quality.

    Contrary to the usual transfer-tape method of applying PSA vinyl, I stuck the sheet to the acrylic before cutting, then weeded it directly off the acrylic:

    Biohazard earring - vinyl weeding
    Biohazard earring – vinyl weeding

    Kiss-cutting the vinyl with dot mode ate into the acrylic, but the soon-to-be-weeded areas protected the surroundings and the result came out looking pretty good. To me, anyhow.

    Flushed with success, I tried some almost certainly not laser safe glow-in-the-dark tape:

    Biohazard earring - GITD weeding fail
    Biohazard earring – GITD weeding fail

    The mess in the upper left is the tape’s double-sided adhesive intended to hold the glowy layer in place forever. Of course it weeded poorly!

    Seen in its natural environment, however, weeding may not be necessary:

    Biohazard earring - GITD tape glow
    Biohazard earring – GITD tape glow

    Engraving the rebated rim leaves quite a bit of debris & scorch marks around the perimeter. A mask layer atop the GITD tape seems like a Good Idea™.

    The LightBurn SVG layout as a GitHub Gist:

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  • Engraved Popsicle Sticks

    Engraved Popsicle Sticks

    Having found a handful of popsicle sticks on my desk, I had to finish this up:

    Popsicle stick markers - engraving
    Popsicle stick markers – engraving

    The fixture has the same layout as the craft stick version, sized to fit the smaller sticks. They’re a bit thicker than the chipboard sheet, but match up well enough for the purpose.

    Even though the sticks don’t have much room for cutout letters, I had to try it anyway:

    Popsicle stick markers - finished
    Popsicle stick markers – finished

    Aligning the template to the fixture uses LightBurn’s Print-and-Cut tool, which seems easier than nailing the fixture to the laser platform.

    I suppose if they ever make actual popsicles with wood handles, they can tell who gets which one.

    For whatever it’s worth, the larger craft stick markers in the garden remain in good shape.

  • LED and CFL Bulb Reliability: Another Data Point

    LED and CFL Bulb Reliability: Another Data Point

    Spotted in a soon-to-be-rebuilt rest area on I-87 north of Kingston NY, a chandelier stuffed with old-school CFL bulbs of various vintages:

    NYS I-87 Rest Area - CFL chandelier
    NYS I-87 Rest Area – CFL chandelier

    The yellowish dome on the far right might still house an incandescent bulb, but I can’t tell from here.

    Judging from the high color temperature and even illumination, the chandelier next to it has 16 newish LED bulbs:

    NYS I-87 Rest Area - LED chandelier
    NYS I-87 Rest Area – LED chandelier

    What’s of interest: both chandeliers have two dead bulbs and, perhaps, the center floodlight of the LED fixture had died, too. We don’t know how long they’ve been in place, other than that the LEDs are certainly more recent, but a 6% failure rate is nothing to brag about.

    From what I’ve seen, the reliability of both CFL and LED bulbs is greatly overstated and certainly do not justify preemptive replacement of a working bulb of any vintage.

  • Chipmunk Sprint Speed

    Chipmunk Sprint Speed

    The trail camera caught a chipmunk with cheek pouches stuffed full of maple seeds:

    Chipmunk Run - 0042
    Chipmunk Run – 0042

    The critter evidently heard something, as it froze in position for some seconds, then launched toward its burrow somewhere on the left:

    Chipmunk Run - 0047
    Chipmunk Run – 0047

    Whatever it heard must have been terrifying:

    Chipmunk Run - 0053
    Chipmunk Run – 0053

    It covered 2 m across the camera field in 1/2 s (15 frames at 30 f/s) for an average speed of 4 m/s = 9 mph from launch.

    A slide show for your edification:

    • Chipmunk Run - 0042
      Chipmunk Run – 0042
    • Chipmunk Run - 0045
      Chipmunk Run – 0045
    • Chipmunk Run - 0047
      Chipmunk Run – 0047
    • Chipmunk Run - 0053
      Chipmunk Run – 0053
    • Chipmunk Run - 0058
      Chipmunk Run – 0058
    • Chipmunk Run - 0059
      Chipmunk Run – 0059
    • Chipmunk Run - 0060
      Chipmunk Run – 0060
    • Chipmunk Run - 0061
      Chipmunk Run – 0061
    • Chipmunk Run - 0062
      Chipmunk Run – 0062

    We know this chipmunk as “Stumpy”, because of its half-length tail, and think it has considerable motivation for outstanding speed.

    Tail high, little one!