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?

  • LED Bulb Life Data Point

    LED Bulb Life Data Point

    A rare trip to the Poughkeepsie Railroad Station provided an opportunity to check out the LED bulbs in the chandeliers:

    • Pok RR Station - Chandelier A
    • Pok RR Station - Chandelier B
    • Pok RR Station - Chandelier C

    The 108 bulbs had only one deader (lower left in chandelier C).

    I have no way of knowing if they’re the same bulbs from six years ago, but the accumulation of bugs / dust / crud inside the (what I would expect to be) sealed envelopes suggests they’ve been hanging there for quite a while:

    Pok RR Station - Chandelier B - detail
    Pok RR Station – Chandelier B – detail

    The dark cruciform patches might come from failed LED chip strings, although the bulbs all had the same eyeballometric brightness. The patches all seem to have a hard lower edge, so we may be seeing shadows from dust accumulating atop the chips on the PCB.

    They’re a definite step up from CFL bulbs, although still not as pleasant as OG incandescent filaments.

  • Nothing Lasts, Chemical Edition

    Nothing Lasts, Chemical Edition

    Cleanup after painting the hairlines involved opening the cap of the rarely used can of methyl ethyl ketone:

    MEK can - fractured cap
    MEK can – fractured cap

    It seems white-tinted polyethylene deteriorates after a dozen years of exposure to concentrated MEK fumes, suggesting I don’t use nearly enough enamel paint.

    The Container Stockpile disgorged a pair of pure polyethylene jars that should last another decade.

  • Memory Is the First Thing to Go

    Memory Is the First Thing to Go

    An email from Amazon arrived a few days ago:

    Purchase Reminder - not found
    Purchase Reminder – not found

    I suppose we’re even, because I have no recollection of setting a Purchase Reminder on anything at any time.

    By default, my email client does not display remote content in messages, which chops out the cute pictures, as well as killing all the cruft and tracking widgetry infesting commercial email these days.

  • Pine Pollen Season

    Pine Pollen Season

    When the driveway runs yellow in the rain, it’s pine pollen season:

    Pine Pollen Season - Driveway Flow
    Pine Pollen Season – Driveway Flow

    Our robot vacuum snuffles up quite a collection of dust:

    Pine Pollen Season - vac filter B
    Pine Pollen Season – vac filter B

    Peeling a layer of the usual fuzz off the filter reveals the pollen:

    Pine Pollen Season - vac filter A
    Pine Pollen Season – vac filter A

    This, too, shall pass and my eyes will rejoice.

  • Paracord Hot Knife

    Paracord Hot Knife

    An upcoming project calls for cutting dozens of lengths from a spool of 550 (pound tensile strength) all-nylon paracord, which means I must also heat-seal the ends. Cold-cutting paracord always produces wildly fraying ends, so I got primal on an old soldering iron tip:

    Paracord cutting - flattened soldering iron tip
    Paracord cutting – flattened soldering iron tip

    Bashed into a flattish blade, it does a Good Enough job of hot-cutting paracord and sealing the end in one operation:

    Paracord cutting - results
    Paracord cutting – results

    Setting the iron to 425 °C = 800 °F quickly produces reasonably clean and thoroughly sealed cut ends.

    Obviously, I need more practice.

    Yes, I tried laser cutting the paracord. Yes, it works great, makes a perfectly flat cut, and heat-seals both ends, but it also makes no sense whatsoever without a fixture holding a dozen or so premeasured lengths in a straight line. No, I’m not doing that.

  • OMTech 60 W Laser: Expanded Clutter Space

    OMTech 60 W Laser: Expanded Clutter Space

    The OMTech laser manual specifically warns against allowing clutter to accumulate atop the cabinet:

    It is highly recommended to have an extra work table nearby in order to avoid placing objects on or directly adjacent to the machine, which could become a fire or laser hazard.

    OMTech USB570c Cabinet Laser Engraver User Manual

    The Basement Shop lacks the floor space for their recommended “extra work table”, so the laser cabinet now sports a pair of wings:

    OMTech Laser - side shelf - end view
    OMTech Laser – side shelf – end view

    They’re a pair of those battered maple shelves, cut to fit the length of the cabinet:

    OMTech Laser - side shelf
    OMTech Laser – side shelf

    They’re a convenient 9 inches wide, just right for general clutter. That stubby screwdriver encroaching on the lid shows I haven’t been entirely successful.

    Each white shelf bracket has three self-tapping machine screws driven into the wood and a single 4 mm SHCS through a hole drilled into the cabinet with a nyloc nut & washer on the inside. If I understand the somewhat abbreviated instruction sticker correctly, I installed them upside-down in order to put the longer end under the wood where it would do the most good; they’re entirely rigid enough for the purpose.

    Some of the same indoor urethane finish I slobbered on the gate signs tidied the sawed ends.

  • 3D Elephant Head

    3D Elephant Head

    Sometimes you gotta make silly things:

    Trotec laser-cut elephant
    Trotec laser-cut elephant

    It’s cut from 3 mm MDF, rather than the fancy Trotec Eco 1 mm cellulose sheet they recommend, which required embiggening the mounting slots in all the pieces.

    It served as good, albeit tedious, practice for my atrophied GUI alignment and editing skilz.