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.

Category: Oddities

Who’d’a thunk it?

Ubiquitous Surveillance vs. Electric Field Strength

A pair of cameras overlook the intersection of Rt 376 with Zack’s Way from inverted-J mounts (I don’t know the formal name) atop the steel poles supporting the traffic signals:

Traffic Cam – Rt 376 at Zacks Way – north

The inverted-J on the south side started equally high, but has been lowered as far as possible, with the camera just below the top of the pole:

Traffic Cam – Rt 376 at Zacks Way – south

My guess: the higher position put the (electrically grounded) mount inside the keep-out zone around the 115 kV power line conductor passing exactly over the pole:

Traffic Cam – Rt 376 at Zacks Way – south – detail

I’m sure lowering the mount came after an interesting discussion, but I’ll never know the rest of the story.

2026-04-07
Sickly Skunk

Skunks are generally crespecular animals, so seeing this critter in broad daylight was unusual:

Sickly Skunk

That’s taken through two layers of half-century old glass, for obvious reasons.

What may not be obvious: that skunk was not behaving at all like the ones in our previous sightings. It had unkempt fur, staggered around the house twice while twitching uncontrollably, slumping face-down, and falling on its side. I am not qualified to diagnose animal diseases, but rabies seems likely.

It eventually staggered off and, we hope, died quietly in a very secluded spot.

The Town of Poughkeepsie’s Animal Control officer now specializes in dog problems across several towns, with “all other animals” handled by the county’s Department of Health.

2026-04-01
Tax Season: 2026 Edition

Having recently filed our income taxes, this email came as a mild surprise:

IRS Audit email

The From field seemed a bit sketchy, but, hey, maybe the IRS subcontracted their email vendor after having lost much of their staff in the name of efficiency.

The attached PDF document seemed scant:

IRS Audit document

Yeah, I’m definitely clicking that link …

2026-03-20
Unbending Furnace Zone Drain Valve Knobs

For reasons long lost in our house’s history, two of the zone drain valves on the furnace apparently had something heavy fall on them from a great height:

Furnace zone drain valve – bashed knob

I was certain those knobs were made of brittle pot metal and would snap when I tried to un-bend them.

My weight bench being next to the furnace, I had plenty of opportunities to contemplate conjuring a 3D printed knob similar to the dumbbell nuts, but with the undamaged central part of the metal knob engaging the valve stem to avoid thermoplastic shapes around hot metal.

One can, of course, buy replacement knobs, but where’s the fun in that?

Expecting to cut most of the knob away, I applied needle-nose pliers to the rim and, mirabile dictu, not only did it not immediately snap, I managed to un-bend it into a reasonable facsimile of its original shape.

It wasn’t just beginner’s luck, because I did it again:

Furnace zone drain valve – unbent knobs

Both of those knobs have obvious fractures and aren’t the prettiest things you’ll ever see, but they don’t get a lot of use. I can say, without fear of contradiction, they’re in fine shape.

However, I’m certain those valves will need new washers if I ever turn those knobs …

2026-03-04
Grocery Store Self-Checkout Printer Boot Message

Apparently we were the first people through a self-checkout lane one morning, because a present emerged before our receipt:

Grocery NCR K5xx printer – boot report

I don’t know whether a K5xx printer runs a descendant of PC-DOS or NCR’s firmware just uses the DOS code page numbers, but it’s been a long time since I had to know any of them.

As Sun Tzu said, “If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.”

2026-03-03
Snow Tensile Strength

Spotted on a grocery store cart corrall:

Roof Snow Curl – bottom

If you had to make snow do this, you couldn’t:

Roof Snow Curl – top

I was tempted to touch it, but left it for the next person to admire …

2026-02-26
Blackout

Some weeks ago Mary heard a loud bang just as the lights went out. Central Hudson crews arrived shortly thereafter and began examining the transformer serving the group of houses around us. I wandered over to ask questions and learned the bang came from a high-voltage fuse atop a pole 800 feet from our house.

With all the power cables underground, the crews were locating the transformer just upstream of the problem, with the intent of disconnecting it and restoring power to everybody else. That took a few hours for our service, but folks up the hill remained in the dark maybe six more hours.

The paint on the transformer enclosures has been weathering for many decades, but I spotted this one up the hill that looks different from all the rest:

Scorched utility transformer housing

The scorched half of the enclosure pivots upward to reveal the high-voltage disconnect switch, fuses, and low-voltage connections. This one is across the street from our house:

Neighborhood distribution transformer

I think something went badly wrong in there and the transformer overheated to the point of insulation failure, whereupon the short circuit blew the HV fuse half a mile away down the hill.

I hope it’s not the beginning of a trend …

2026-02-25