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?

Optional Phreesia Authorization
Our medical practice has been Borged by Optum, which is, through a number of corporate cutout layers, owned by UnitedHealth Group, so (despite claims to the contrary) our doctors effectively work for a health insurance company. No, they may not be paid by UHG, but following the money in reverse shows the flow of influence.

Apparently this has slightly affected the original practice’s reliance on Phreesia for pre-visit sign-in information collection although, as before, Phreesia still really wants to scatter your precious personal bits to the far corners of the InterWebs:

Phreesia optional authorization – 2024 version

The wall o’ text is a bit shorter then the earlier version and cannot be scrolled or printed. It still admits:

There is the potential for my health information … to be subject to redisclosure and to no longer be protected by the HIPAA Privacy Rule.

Yes, I understand that’s the whole point of getting me to agree to release my private bits to Phreesia, so they can make money by selling it to the highest bidder(s).

What’s new is the previous page in the sequence, of which I do not have a screenshot, presumably coming from Optum, emphasizing in bold type that I do not have to authorize Phreesia’s data collection.

I infer this means two things:
- Optum / UHG has had their awareness raised about this nonsense
- Phreesia contractually requires that dark-pattern page
Yes, I understand that I have no privacy and should get over it, but somehow this sort of behavior rankles …
2024-06-13
Laser-marked Hole Drilling Spots

While setting up to drill holes in the aluminum base for the running light buck converter, I wondered if laser-marking the spots directly from the solid model would work better than my usual fumbling around.

The solid model:

Running Light – power box – bottom view

Export projections of the pieces from OpenSCAD as an SVG file:

Running Light – power box – Projection view

Import into LightBurn, set up for a very fast, very light cut and Fire The Laser:

Laser-marked hole spots – masking tape

That’s in ordinary masking tape on a hard-anodized sheet of aluminum from the pile, which looked better than I expected.

The same aluminum covered with blue tape:

Laser-marked hole spots – blue tape – hard anodize

Which looks much better in person than it does in the photo.

On a soft aluminum sheet from the Basement Warehouse Zone:

Laser-marked hole spots – blue tape – sheet aluminum

The dark outline is a comfort mark hand-drawn around a chipboard test piece to verify the layout fit between random holes drilled in the sheet during its previous life.

A closer look at a corner hole:

Laser-marked hole spots – blue tape – hard anodize – detail 1

And the center hole:

Laser-marked hole spots – blue tape – hard anodize – detail 2

The holes appeared in the right places after center-punching by eye, but the fragility of those four little tape leaves around the center point must be experienced to be believed.

And, yes, those are deliberately low-polygon approximations to a circle, because I’m a low-poly kind of guy.

I really need an optical center punch if I do more such silliness. The box with those HP plotter digitizing sights recently came to hand, so I suppose I should make something.

2024-06-12
Somebody’s Gotta Go First: Cybertruck

Encountered on the way home with a trailer load of groceries:

Tesla Cybertruck – front – 2024-05-14

It’s about as distinctive as (yet much uglier than) Amazon’s Rivian trucks:

Tesla Cybertruck – rear – 2024-05-14

What I do not understand is the lack of a license plate on that front bumper, here in New York State where front license plates are mandatory. I’ve noticed several Tesla vehicles (in their S3XY automotive series, among which I cannot distinguish) without front plates, so it must be a Tesla owner thing.

The WordPress AI image for this post gets the angular aspect right, along with the missing plate:

Tesla Cybertruck – WP AI image

Cybertruck, fear me!

2024-05-15
Samsung Microwave Gas Sensor Teardown

With the microwave back in operation, I thought I might learn something about the failed gas sensor:

Figaro TGS880 – base

Given that much information, finding the datasheet for a Figaro TGS880 sensor didn’t require much effort. In case you were wondering, the replacement sensor has no trace of branding or identification.

The sensor element has a resistance varying with gas concentration, for a variety of test gases I hope our kitchen never contains in such abundance:

Figaro TGS-880 Gas Sensor – response plot

The measurement circuit:

Figaro TGS-880 Gas Sensor – measurement circuit

I betcha the microwave waits for an order-of-magnitude resistance drop from whatever the starting value might be, then calls it done.

The belly band holding the steel mesh to the plastic base is no match for a Dremel slitting wheel:

Figaro TGS880 – opening

As the saying goes, Sensoria est omnis divisa in partes tres:

Figaro TGS880 – teardown

A closer look at the sensor element:

Figaro TGS880 – interior

The granular surface does not get along well with the 5× digital zoom required to fill the phone’s sensor, but you get the general idea:

Figaro TGS880 – element detail

The heater measured 30 Ω on the dot and the sensor was an open circuit on the 100 MΩ range. Connecting the heater to a 5 V supply dropped the sensor resistance to 800 kΩ @ 50 %RH and a warm breath punched it to about 2 MΩ. That’s with an ohmmeter because I haven’t yet unpacked the Electronics Bench, but seems far above the spec of 20-70 kΩ in air.

So it’s still a sensor, even if it’s not within spec.

The WordPress AI-generated image for this post is … SFnal:

Figaro TGS-880 Gas Sensor – AI generated image

My pictures apparently aren’t up to contemporary blog standards …

2024-05-14
3-In-One Motor Oil: Mystery Inclusions

Our new-to-us house included a heavy-duty basement dehumidifier with a blower motor calling for a few drops of SAE 20 oil twice a year. Some searching turned up a specialized flavor of 3-In-One Oil for motors.

It arrived with free inclusions:

3-in-One Motor Oil – top inclusion

Backlighting makes them more obvious:

3-in-One Motor Oil – top inclusion – backlit

There’s also a free-floating jellyfish slightly denser than the oil:

3-in-One Motor Oil – bottom inclusion – backlit

As is now the typical case with Amazon purchases, the only choices are to return / exchange the item, as the seller cannot be contacted directly. I tried sending 3-In-One a question through their website, en passant discovering they’ve been Borged by The WD-40 Company, only to be rejected by the site’s Captcha without ever seeing the test images.

AFAICT, it’s oil and the motor will just have to get used to it.

2024-04-23
Mailbox Post Repair

One doorbell ding came from a guy who sheepishly admitted he had just collided with our mailbox, which sits on the outside of a gentle curve and sticks out, IMO, a bit too far into the street.

This not being my first time in this rodeo, I allowed as how if he’d replace whatever broke, I’d do the fixing and it’d be all good. As it turned out, the only broken part was the foamed-plastic post, which split neatly along its length around the crosspiece hole. After looking things over, I said I’d just epoxy it together and call it done.

That afternoon, I mixed up a generous cup of the casting epoxy I’d been using for coasters and suchlike. It is now well past its best-used-by date and somewhat cloudy, but I figured it would suffice for the purpose; nobody will notice cloudy epoxy on a mailbox post.

I have Too. Many. Clamps. and know how to use them:

Mailbox post repair

He departed, quite literally in tears, over my not raking him through the coals. I figured anybody who’d stop and admit to property damage needed encouragement, not chastisement, and replacing the headlight on his pickup would be more than enough punishment.

That was easy.

2024-04-22
AI Artistry

My techie news feed spat out a reference to an AI text-to-image generator, so I figured I’d try it out.

The caption is the prompt producing the image, with the style in parentheses …

steam engine black and white engraving full page detailed (art)

Much wheel! Such hinge! Crazy piston! Also, where do the red cowcatcher and amber headlight come from in a “black and white engraving”?

diesel engine black and white detailed (photorealistic)

Well, it is an “engine”.

diesel engine black and white detailed (anime)

Now, that is a manly engine, but with red widgets.

steam boiler
black and white engraving full page detailed (anime)

It has the appearance of an old catalog page, until you look closely.

OK, let’s try for some wildlife …

pileated woodpecker line drawing, black and white, on tree (art)

So. Many. Legs.

stained glass window bird motif (photorealistic)

Not bad. Not bad at all.

coloring book chickadee on twig (art)

Chickadees seem like relentlessly cheerful little birds, but that oddly spherical critter is definitely having a hard time.

phoebe sketch, black and white, detailed, full frame (art)

Oops.

phoebe bird sketch, black and white, detailed, full frame (art)

That must be a mil-spec phoebe, because it definitely doesn’t resemble any phoebe I’ve ever seen.

Bottom line: Although the pictures are much better drawn than I can do, the (in)accuracy of the content prevents it from solving any problems I have.

2024-04-16