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?

  • Radio-Equipped Turtle

    Radio-Equipped Turtle
    Radio-Equipped Turtle

    We met this lass while walking around the high school one evening.

    My first thought was that eliminating the Morse Code requirement has definitely broadened the amateur radio population, but it turns out she’s part of the Hudsonia Blanding’s Turtle study. Perhaps the new construction around the school has opened pathways for her to explore the world.

    She seemed to be looking for a way up-and-over the curb to return home. We figured she was big enough to figure this out on her own and old enough to have done so many times before, so we left her to her own devices. When last seen, she was chugging along the curb at a pretty good clip.

    Listen for tag 123122 (or 817) on 150.888 MHz… she’s running AM QRP with a bad antenna.

    Update: It’s hard to tell with turtles, but it’s a girl! When I reported the tag number to Hudsonia, they said “817 is one of our old-timers; we’ve been tracking her for at least 10 years now.”

    Go, turtle, go!

  • End of an Era: Knights in Shining Armor

    Armor suit with bullet hole
    Armor suit with bullet hole

    This suit of armor at Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester MA pretty much sums up why armor suits went out of style in a hurry. Click the pic for a bigger view.

    That hole is much bigger than your (well, my) thumb and the dent above it isn’t much smaller. I don’t know if the gun fired two slugs (balls?) at once, but, given the accuracy of gunfire in that era, achieving two hits so close together seems unlikely.

    A gut shot was inevitably fatal: peritonitis was not your friend.

    Makes you appreciate the armor our guys wear a whole lot more…

  • Gas Pump Instructions: Help For Help?

    Mismatched gas pump instructions
    Mismatched gas pump instructions

    Challenge: given the conspicuous and obviously added-after-the-fact instruction sticker, find the HELP key on the stylin’ gray-on-black keypad.

    You may want to click on the picture for a bigger version. I had to remove my sunglasses and peer at the keypad; I’m glad I didn’t need any actual help.

    OK, maybe this is dynamiting fish in a barrel, but you’d sort of expect somebody would have noticed the problem along the way, what with the yellow background that required two-color sticker printing.

    My guess: they have more than one version of the pump…

  • Safety Principles: How Not to Guy a Tent

    Tent Guy Strap
    Tent Guy Strap

    We were at a college graduation at a Prestigious University and this was one strap among many holding up the Big Tent over the assembled students & parents.

    Pop quiz: how many safety problems can you count?

    Let’s see…

    1. Frayed strap sewn to loop
    2. Strap passed around hook without thimble
    3. Knotted strap
    4. Broken hook safety latch spring
    5. General corrosion

    To their credit, each perimeter pole had two straps and each strap had its own three-stake ground plate. I didn’t inspect the whole tent, but this looked like the only dodgy strap along the side I was standing at.

    Note: the graduate wasn’t our daughter, so we didn’t stay for the ceremony. We gabbed it up with all the assembled relations, then split before the speechifying started. Everybody survived.

  • Halogen Spotlights: FAIL

    Exposed Halogen Spotlight Bulbs
    Exposed Halogen Spotlight Bulbs

    This pair of halogen outdoor spotlights has been in place for at least a decade; they don’t see much use, so the filaments haven’t burned out in all that time.

    A lens fell off a few days ago, at which point I realized that it was the second lens to fall off; where the first one got to, I cannot say. I suspect they’ve never been turned on in the rain, as a single drop of water on a halogen capsule would shatter it like, uh, glass.

    The right-hand bulb was evidently the first to fail, as it’s full of toasted spider silk, seed husks, and bug carapaces. The reflector aluminization doesn’t like exposure to the Great Outdoors, although it’s in surprisingly good shape for the mistreatment it’s seen.

    I installed a pair of ordinary fused-glass spotlights from Ol’ Gene’s stash that Came With The House; they’ve been in the basement at least as long as those halogens have been on the side of the house. I suppose he put the good spots up there and kept the plain ones in reserve.

    Maybe the “new” spots will last for another decade?

    [Update: frienze reports another bulb failure…

    Submitted on 2014/05/30 at 10:44
    I searched for a more on topic post to stick this, but — alas! — it seems to be closed for commenting.

    Before tossing out the bulb, I decided to take a few pictures.

    Overview
    Overview different angle
    Detail of failure
    Less useful detail turned the other way around

    I half suspect the bulb might not actually be broken in the strict sense of the word, but I decided against actually testing that theory.

    Trying to show the broken socket part is a lot harder. It doesn’t photograph well.
    The broken socket
    What the connector is supposed to look like (in a socket part that arrived broken just like that straight from China… and it’s not like it broke in transit; the protective top simply wasn’t there at all)
    Here you can maybe see it a bit better
    And here it is next to some dried garlic
    ]

  • There’s a Safety Flag on the Play

    How not to refuel your truck
    How not to refuel your truck

    Or, perhaps, What’s Wrong With This Picture?

    Maybe that stogie wasn’t lit, but I’m exceedingly glad I wasn’t close enough to be sure!

    You may need to click on the picture to get the joke; I was high up on a gravel bank, but probably still within the blast zone.

    My pocket camera was set to mandatory flash from whatever I’d been doing the last time I used it. The piddly little xenon tube even lit up the retroreflective tape on the semitrailer about 200 feet away across the highway.

  • How to Plumb a Hot-water Heating System

    My buddy Eks just replaced his host-water furnce with a high-efficiency unit.

    Can you tell that Eks is an engineer?

    The plumber used one of those fancy pipe-compression tools that mashes the mating parts together with an O-ring for sealing. Faster and safer than sweating the joints together, but I want to fast-forward two or three decades to check out the durability.

    As he put it, “You may be able to get a better furnace installation, but you probably can’t pay any more for it…”