Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
The black-on-white look come from vinyl PS atop GITD tape atop some transparent red acrylic, which looks a whole lot better in its natural environment:
SCP Earrings – GITD in action
Making those ten samples requires 15 minutes of laser time (mostly kiss-cutting the patterns at maybe 5 mm/s) and another 25 minutes of weeding and primping. I’m not convinced this is an economically feasible activity, but I really like the results.
Draw a 42 mm circle, set the layer to cut corrugated cardboard, turn the circle into suitable arrays, flatten some boxes from the heap, and Fire the Laser:
Seedling starter pot bottoms
Collect the fallen disks from the chip tray and jam one in place as a serving suggestion, where it fits like it was custom-made:
TP roll seedling starter pot bottom
You’d still want to fold some flaps over the disk to keep it in place, but now your pot has a real bottom.
I have no idea if 42 mm is a Galactic Constant, but it worked for the pile of tubes we had on hand.
An unfortunate confluence of weather, schedule, and enthusiasm led to mowing all the yard in one session:
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.
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
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
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.
Because the lamp has a big nut apparently holding the pole socket to the base, I figured a dab of threadlock on the pole or the base would solve the problem: lock the pole to the socket, then remove the nut to disassemble when needed. That turned out to be a Bad Idea™.
The socket is a plastic part separate from the base cover plate:
Miroco floor lamp base – socket
A pair of keys prevent the socket from rotating in the hole:
Miroco floor lamp base – socket in place
Four threaded bosses (two visible there) hold the rim of the cover to the weight, with the socket doing the hard work.
A fender washer atop the weight distributes stress from the pole:
Miroco floor lamp base – weight top washer
Another fender washer on the bottom of the weight lets the nut jam against steel, rather than soft plastic:
Miroco floor lamp base – weight bottom washer
FWIW, the nut is either a perfect 15/16 inch or, more likely, a sloppy 24 mm.
In any event, permanently locking the pole to that socket will also lock the pole to the base, with no way to dismantle the lamp when I must once again repair it.
Perhaps a wrap of PTFE tape on the threads will stiffen it enough?
The bathroom ceiling fixture has a nightlight position that we use occasionally, but eventually the little 7 W Christmas Tree bulb failed and I installed this hulk from a box of CFL bulbs a friend scrapped out after switching to LED bulbs:
MaxLite CFL – overview
I never tested whether it actually drew 3 W, but, hey I could feel good. Right? Right?
Anyhow, this one failed after a few years, too. The “bulb” envelope looked like it might make an attractive blinkie or glowie, so I decided to harvest it.
The candelabra screw base felt loose and popped off with a push:
MaxLite CFL – overflow cap
Perhaps they chose the envelope before finalizing the circuitry?
This is why you need a lathe in your shop:
MaxLite CFL – lathe cutting
It wasn’t particularly well centered, so that was done dead slow and finished with a few hand turns of the chuck. Obviously, I need a crank for the spindle.
The rest of the circuitry is pretty well packed under that tall cap:
MaxLite CFL – circuitry
Pulling the PCB out revealed the tube wiring:
MaxLite CFL – tube wires
Cut the wires and chuck it up again:
MaxLite CFL – envelope turning setup
Turn dead slow again until it breaks through:
MaxLite CFL – envelope breakthrough
Then finish by hand:
MaxLite CFL – tube and envelope
It’s too cute to throw out, but … sheesh you can see why recycling this stuff is so difficult.
For whatever it’s worth, I replaced it with a 3 W LED candelabra bulb that is way too bright.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 