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?

  • Snow Flow

    Snow Flow

    The recent snowfall arrived on a stiff north wind layering it atop the garage roof and sculpting the corner:

    Snow - roof wave
    Snow – roof wave

    The retaining wall along the driveway accumulated a thick coat that gradually peeled off as the weather warmed:

    Snow - wall wave A
    Snow – wall wave A

    The wave crashed to the driveway in slow motion:

    Snow - wall wave B
    Snow – wall wave B

    It seems to rebound from the wall, even though we know it’s been there all along:

    Snow - wall wave C
    Snow – wall wave C

    This winter has more snow in store for us, but so far it’s been more decorative than disastrous.

    One difference between deep snow and strong hurricanes: not much looting after the snow stops falling…

  • Off To A Good Start

    Off To A Good Start

    This could happen:

    Flying Pig
    Flying Pig

    It vanished a few hours after appearing at the end of a neighbor’s driveway: a pig must be flying somewhere!

  • Aerosol Can Corrosion

    Aerosol Can Corrosion

    An odd smell in the Basement Laboratory Chemical Warehouse led to this discovery:

    Leaking aerosol can
    Leaking aerosol can

    It’s a can of spray-on topical anesthetic That Came With The House™, so it’s almost certainly four decades old and, other than being moved to that shelf, hasn’t been touched in the last quarter century.

    Surprisingly, the orange-brown goo wiped off the shelf almost completely. The similarly old box of stain remover on the left was a dead loss.

  • MOSFET Astable: NP-BX1 Rundown

    MOSFET Astable: NP-BX1 Rundown

    After eight months from a full charge, an old NP-BX1 lithium battery has come to this:

    Astable green - NP-BX1 - 2.31 V
    Astable green – NP-BX1 – 2.31 V

    The astable still ticks along at 1.4 seconds per blink, but the green LED barely lights up from a 2.1 V battery:

    Astable green - NP-BX1 - 12 mV 100 ohm
    Astable green – NP-BX1 – 12 mV 100 ohm

    A pulse of 12 mV across the 100 Ω resistor puts the LED current at a mere 120 µA: no wonder the poor thing wasn’t visible in ordinary room light.

    Another full charge restored its vigor for another couple of seasons.

  • Privacy Preferences: Broken As Intended

    Privacy Preferences: Broken As Intended

    The Chase website seems to be fine, except:

    Chase Privacy Settings - not working
    Chase Privacy Settings – not working

    Huh.

    Follow the money: being a bank / credit card / fintech company, it’s safe to assume they sell your sensitive bits and have zero incentive to let you limit their actions in any way.

    A week later, that part of their site remains broken, presumably as intended.

  • Huion H610Pro (V2) Tablet vs. USB 3.0

    Huion H610Pro (V2) Tablet vs. USB 3.0

    For reasons that surely made sense at the time, the Huion H610Pro (V2) tablet can recognize when it’s connected to an Android device’s USB port and enter a special mode where the stylus only responds in a phone-shaped portrait rectangle over on the left side:

    Huion H610Pro (V2) Tablet - Android layout
    Huion H610Pro (V2) Tablet – Android layout

    There’s a Vulcan Nerve Pinch button push to force the tablet into Android mode if it doesn’t automagically get there on its own, but AFAICT there’s no way to force it out of Android mode.

    It’s a USB 2.0 device, but I had plugged it into a USB 3.0 port on my desktop box, whereupon it would enter Android mode on pretty nearly every boot. The only way to coerce it back into normal mode was to unplug it, replug it, then manually run the xsetwacom incantation to restrict the coordinates to the portrait monitor.

    I just discovered it works perfectly when plugged into one of the few USB 2.0 ports on the box.

    Apparently, USB 3.0 ports keep the thing powered all the time, whereupon it doesn’t see the proper sequence of events (or, perhaps, sees the Android sequence) during the next boot. USB 2.0 ports don’t do that and it works fine all the time.

    Much better!

  • Monthly Science: Chestnut Weevil Damage

    Monthly Science: Chestnut Weevil Damage

    The dried chestnuts looked undamaged in their husk, but three groups of weevil grubs surely left some damage behind:

    Chestnut husk - dried
    Chestnut husk – dried

    Gingerly prying the seeds out revealed holes in all three:

    Chestnut weevil damage - exterior
    Chestnut weevil damage – exterior

    The weevils converted the nut meat into what looks like solid frass:

    Chestnut weevil damage - interior
    Chestnut weevil damage – interior

    Having eaten themselves out of house and home, they moved on to the next plane of existence.

    For most of them, that would be bird food.