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?

  • Monthly Science: Baking Powder Desiccant

    Being that type of guy, I tucked a bag of silica gel desiccant and a humidity indicator card into a #10 can of baking powder, then recorded the bag weight whenever I refilled the kitchen container:

    Baking Powder Can with Data
    Baking Powder Can with Data

    For reasons not relevant here, we pretty much stopped using baking powder a couple of years ago, so there’s a protracted silence between the last two data points:

    That last point emptied the can and, after a few days in the 60% RH basement, the bag weighed 243 g. The slope of the line suggests it’s been near 240 g for a while, although the humidity card showed the air was reasonably dry in there.

    At our current rate, we’ll open the next can in a year or so …

  • Monthly Image: Electrical Safety FAIL

    Our room in a pretty good motel (pronounced “No Pets Allowed”) had the light on the wall above the beds plugged in thusly:

    Motel outlet 1
    Motel outlet 1

    Next to the other bed was the outlet for the between-the-beds nightstand with lamp and clock radio plugs:

    Motel outlet 2 - side
    Motel outlet 2 – side

    Which looked not-so-bad from the side, but not-so-good from the top:

    Motel outlet 2 - top
    Motel outlet 2 – top

    It’s all fun and games until you grope for your metal-frame glasses in the middle of the night and they fall off the nightstand … hasn’t happened yet, but it’ll be spectacular when it does.

    I think the original beds were narrower, with more clearance around the outlets, but we’ll never know. Those Panera Bread outlets pose similar problems.

  • Squirrel Exploration

    We spotted a motion twitch outside and finally figured out what was going on:

    Squirrel in rotten branch hole - 1
    Squirrel in rotten branch hole – 1

    There must be something yummy down inside that branch scar, but you gotta keep checking your six:

    Squirrel in rotten branch hole - 2
    Squirrel in rotten branch hole – 2

    Where’s a hawk when you need one?

  • Collet Pen Holder vs. Cheap Refills

    The three collet pen holders I got a while ago came with ink cartridges:

    Collet pen holder
    Collet pen holder

    So I bought three bucks worth of a dozen pens to get pretty colors, whereupon I discovered they didn’t fit into the collet. Turns out the locating flanges aren’t in the same place along the cartridges:

    The flanges on the top cartridge have been shaved down perilously close to the ink, but it now fits into the collet.

    Bonus: a dozen fairly stiff springs that are sure to come in handy for something!

  • It’s Flat, Jim

    Aaand this front-end loader will require more than the patch kit and CO2 inflator from my bike pack before it’s back in service:

    Front-end loader with flat tire
    Front-end loader with flat tire

    The local yellow iron inventory spends most of the winter snoozing in shopping mall parking lots, waiting to clear the snowfall. It’s been a light year so far, which is fine with me.

  • Cart Corral Reassembly

    Apparently, cart corrals last about four years and, with this refresh, the assemblers got it right:

    Improved WalMart cart corrals
    Improved WalMart cart corrals

    All the white-on-blue marker signs up on the poles seem to be top-side-up, too.

    Of course, not many people bother returning their carts to the corrals, but the bewilderment factor should be lower now.

    And, yes, the previous mis-assembly remained uncorrected. I can’t take credit for the replacement, even though it happened during my adminstration …

  • The Patience of Trees

    Spotted a slow-motion sculpture while on a walk for errands:

    Tree growing through chain-link fence
    Tree growing through chain-link fence

    The fence encloses a lot next to a long-disused fuel oil (?) storage / distribution facility. The county’s historic aerial photos suggest the trees have grown since the the building inside the fence vanished in the mid-1970s.