Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
As always, we knew this wouldn’t end well for the small lump just in front of the car’s rear wheel (clicky for more, albeit fuzzy, dots):
Turtle 0134 – Vassar Rd – 2018-05-20
So I stopped to lend a hand:
Turtle 1280 – Vassar Rd – 2018-05-20
A fumbling hand, as it turned out, on the turtle’s slippery shell:
Turtle 1364 – Vassar Rd – 2018-05-20
A belly-up turtle in the middle of the road knows the solution to the Halting Problem.
I hoped a secluded spot under a pine tree was closer to its destination:
Turtle 1724 – Vassar Rd – 2018-05-20
However, if the turtle is a female in search of an egg-laying site, then she and all her progeny must cross Vassar Road in the other direction to reach the Mighty Wappinger Creek.
This cheerful assortment came from a friend with an assortment of happy chickens:
Multicolored chicken eggs
The lonely Medium white egg, obviously strictly from commercial, serves as a size and color reference. Most of the others weighed in the Large to Extra-Large range.
Even though none of the chickens had the digital upgrade, the morning omelet tasted just fine!
Anybody capable of fogging a mirror knows how this scam works:
TCU 100 – Giveaway teaser
The copious fine print says you can only see the actual fine print by traveling to Arizona:
TCU 100 – Giveaway fine print
I’m nowhere near hungry enough to like the odds, even for a $100 Walmart gift card.
An Auto-V.I.N Gauge (their choice of punctuation) must improve the response rate:
TCU 100 – Auto-VIN Gauge – activated
Is it any surprise the numbers match?
TCU 100 – scratch-off number
No. No, it’s not.
The “Gauge” actually contains parts, although fewer than IMO they want you to believe:
TCU 100 – Auto-VIN Gauge – components
It’ll serve to produce measurable current & voltage for an upcoming Squidwrench Electronics Workshop and, because it need not survive the experience, we will take considerable liberties with it.
Although I knew the Sienna showed signs of a leaky head gasket, the exhaust system needed some attention, and a sporty used car recently put it in the shade, this still came as a surprise:
I’m trying to get a crew … together and live the demolition derby dream
By the time I arrived, the dashboard trim had vanished and the air bags were safely out:
I managed to pry the glass off using a Gasket Scraper and considerable muttering.
With all the exterior trim, lights, and mirrors gone, the Sienna was in fine race trim:
Sienna – Demo derby race trim
But, being no longer street-legal, it required trailering. For the record, not all huge pickup trucks have bulky guys with pot bellies behind the wheel:
The red dial scale has the Guide Numbers (aperture × feet) and the lower black dial scale gives the lens apertures. The manual doesn’t mention the black figures above the red Guide Numbers; they’re metric Guide Number (aperture × meters), which would have been obvious back in the day.
The tidy shell slides off when you release a latch in the back:
Zeiss Ikon Ikoblitz 4 – front – stowed
Then the reflector unfurls:
Zeiss Ikon Ikoblitz 4 – front unfurled
Mirabile dictu, the previous owner removed the 15 V “hearing aid” battery (Eveready 504, 60 mA·h in the 504A alkaline version) before storing the flash, leaving the contacts in pristine condition:
Zeiss Ikon Ikoblitz 4 – CR123A test fit
A 3 V CR123A primary lithium cell snaps perfectly into the battery holder, which I define as a Good Omen: a dab of circuitry could turn this into self-powered and highly attractive Art. This would be one of the very few applications well-suited for the coldest blue-white LEDs.
One could adapt an A23 12 V alkaline battery (33 mA·h) to the holder, at the cost of half the capacity.
The silver shield just to the left of the battery conceals a 250 μF (!) nonpolarized capacitor.
One could build a bayonet-base (GE #5 / Press 25) adapter or poke a doodad with a 9 mm cylindrical base into the M2 bulb adapter (unrelated to my M2 printer):
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 