Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
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:
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 …
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.
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.
The decaying ADA bump (a.k.a. detectable warning) strips at the Dutchess Rail Trail’s Overocker Road Trailhead require cyclists to carefully pick their line. We’re on our way for groceries, so I’m towing the BOB Yak trailer and have just jounced over the edge of the concrete “ramp” while making a right-angle turn to the right:
Rollover 2024-04-09 – 0020
The four-digit frame numbers tick along at 60 FPS.
The car remained stopped at the crossing during this whole affair.
Mary is approaching along the same line with the same intent:
Rollover 2024-04-09 – 0198
A closer look shows her front wheel is parallel to the edge of the concrete ramp:
Rollover 2024-04-09 – 0198 detail
We think her wheel slipped off the edge of the concrete and, with the edge preventing her from steering left to counterbalance the sudden tilt, she knows she’s going to fall:
Rollover 2024-04-09 – 0228
Whereupon Newton took control and left no way out:
Rollover 2024-04-09 – 0250
Fortunately, this is at about zero miles per hour:
Rollover 2024-04-09 – 0276
She collected a nasty bruise on her starboard ham, plus a few scuffs here and there as the bike basically rolled over her:
Rollover 2024-04-09 – 0306
And back down again:
Rollover 2024-04-09 – 0330
Elapsed time: 100 frames = 1.7 seconds.
The drivers of vehicles in both directions rushed to assist Mary, but, apart from a few bruises and scrapes, she was in good shape.
The fairing incurred fatal cracks, but held together as we completed the mission. No surprise: after nearly a quarter-century of sunlight exposure, polycarbonate loses a lot of its durability.
Now, to be honest, we both ignored the Dismount before crossing road sign at the intersection. Over the years, I have seen a few cyclists stop and dismount before walking through the trail’s at-grade road crossings, but they are most certainly the rare exception; we all stop while waiting for traffic to recognize our presence, then ride through.
Rail trail maintenance has always been a low priority and the County’s “Vision Statements” over the decades have been largely irrelevant to what actually happens out on the pavement. ADA strips at trail crossings have been decaying for years and I expect that to continue for many more.
It’s apparently customary for piano tuners to annotate their work on the keys, starting after the serial numbers on the bass notes at the left end:
Piano tuner notes
After admiring that, you can pop the hammer links off with a prybar:
Detaching piano keys
All 88 keys stack neatly into a Home Depot Extra Small moving box, filling it about 2/3 full, starting with the bass keys on the bottom:
Boxed piano keys
I harvested the lovely wood panels, then the scrapper hauled the carcass to the transfer station. Perhaps it raised the secret chord when it hit the bottom …
Lest you wonder why we didn’t try to contact X, who would surely be interested in a free piano: we did. Believe me, we tried, for many values of X, only to find nobody wants a piano in this day and age.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 