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?

  • Sears Kenmore HE3 Washer Teardown: Tub Grounding Connection

    Tub Grounding Connection
    Tub Grounding Connection

    Before you pull the tub out of the washer, you must disconnect the ground wire from the bearing behind the pulley. This isn’t impossible… it just looks that way.

    There’s a notch molded into the pulley that provides access to the ring terminal. IIRC, it’s a Torx T15 screw and there’s just barely enough clearance for a magnetic tip holder in there.

    For some unknown reason, the tapped hole on our washer was filled with steel filings that clogged the threads. I ran the screw in until it stopped, backed it out, cleaned off the filings, and repeated until it came out mostly clean.

    The picture is after a few cleaning passes; the screw came out covered with filings the first time!

    Magnetized Screw
    Magnetized Screw

    The magnetization comes from the holder I used for the Torx bit, but it certainly was handy.

  • You Must Learn

    Spotted this one in a stairwell while trotting upstairs for my annual physical.

    Learn Graffiti
    Learn Graffiti

    The artist’s message would have been far more powerful had he (it’s always a he) not scrawled Learn along all five floors.

    Maybe he never heard of KRS One?

  • Desktop Background From the Deep

    I snagged this gem from the Deep Horizons spillcam site a while back; it’s a screen grab at 1600×1200 with all the extraneous junk cropped off. Scaling it back to fit a 4:3 screen doesn’t do it a bit of damage: it looks just as weird.

    Something from Alien, perhaps?

    Deepwater Horizon capping - manipulator arm
    Deepwater Horizon capping – manipulator arm

    I’m pretty sure that’s Sweet Babby Jeebus™ floating over there in the background…

    [Update: Some “best of” the ROV video feeds, speeded up by a factor of 7, are there.]

  • How to Solve a Parking Problem

    The Walkway Over the Hudson has been a resounding success, at least measured by the number of people using it. The Parker Avenue parking lot has about 80 spaces and, during most days, is jammed full.

    The NYS park system now owns the Walkway and, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the parking facilities should have a fee just like the rest of their lots: $5 / 4 hours.

    Here’s what the Walkway lot looked like on the day the fee went into effect…

    Walkway Parking Lot With Parking Fee In Full Effect
    Walkway Parking Lot With Parking Fee In Full Effect

    To quote from the Poughkeepsie Journal:

    State officials hope there will be no decline in visitors with the new parking fee, said State Parks spokesman Kristen Davidson.

    Basically, there’s enough free on-street parking in the area that most folks park nearby and hike in, which makes sense for a park consisting of about two miles of walking path. The parking fee amounts to a tax on handicapped and elderly visitors who find it difficult to navigate streets and ramps.

    On the bright side, it’ll be a lot easier to bike across the bridge…

  • Wedgie-Free Undies

    Wedgie-free undies
    Wedgie-free undies

    They seem to be referring to an auto-wedgie, not the dreaded atomic wedgie.

    The weird part? This was in the ladies’ section. We were picking up socks for our own young lady…

  • Chipmunk on High Alert

    The chipmunks are busy cleaning up all the maple seeds from the driveway, but, being chipmunks, they like to stay near a safe spot.

    The absolute best spot to watch for danger seems to be the 4-inch PVC pipe I attached to the garage downspouts: you can see out, but when a threat appears you can run up the downspout!

    [Update: the Cooper’s Hawk just swooped on a red squirrel, missed, and landed on the patio railing as the rodent vanished up the pipe.]

    Chipmunk peering from drainpipe
    Chipmunk peering from drainpipe

  • Do You Feel Lucky Today?

    Drugs by Nostrum
    Drugs by Nostrum

    Just got a new shipment of dope from our usual mail-order med supplier. The new dope comes in a livid red capsule, a disconcerting change from the previous green.

    So, being an educated and somewhat wary consumer, I check the label to see what’s new. It seems my supplier is dealing from a new manufacturer!

    Hitherto, I’d only encountered the word nostrum in phrases preceded by words like quack. The dictionary definition, at least for some values of dictionary, seems to back that up:

    Noun

    Nevertheless, Nostrum Pharmaceuticals appears to be a legit concern.

    There’s a reason why big companies spend all that money to come up with names that are equally meaningless in all known languages…