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?

Disaster Tourism

Riding around the block after a nasty storm showed far more than the usual number of leaves on the Dutchess Rail Trail:

Wappinger Tornado – Rail Trail near Titusville Rd – 2017-06-01

I spotted several trees down on both sides of the trail approaching Maloney Road, with another large branch across that access ramp:

Wappinger Tornado – Maloney Rd Rail Trail ramp – 2017-06-01

You might be able to see the large tree down across the trail on the far side of the road, up the slope.

Maloney Rd had many downed trees:

Wappinger Tornado – Maloney Rd 1 – 2017-06-01

With chainsaw chips and flare ash piles everywhere:

Wappinger Tornado – Maloney Rd 2 – 2017-06-01

From the National Weather Service:

The National Weather Service in coordination with Dutchess County Emergency Management officials, have confirmed a brief touchdown of a tornado on May 31. The tornado path began near the intersection of Maloney Road and Route 376. The tornado traveled due east along and just north of Maloney Road for approximately 1.25 miles before dissipating. Damage included numerous snapped hardwood and softwood trees and the roof lifted off a shed.

Both of Mary’s gardens suffered beatdowns, with the Vassar Farm plot pretty thoroughly pulverized by marble-size hail; she’s not in a good mood right now.

The DPW crews had plenty on their to-do list, but that branch was gone a day later.

Update: The top of the barely visible tree in the second picture just kissed the trail fence, but a much larger tree smashed both fences on its way across the trail:

Wappinger Tornado – Rail Trail S of Maloney – 2017-06-04

If you need some firewood, maybe you can make a deal …

2017-06-05
Golden Tortoise Beetle

An iridescent ball appeared on the kitchen wall:

Golden Tortoise Beetle – left top – light

Despite the silvery shine under LED lighting, it was a Golden Tortoise Beetle:

Golden Tortoise Beetle – right top

The iridescence shows up better with a bit of underexposure:

Golden Tortoise Beetle – left top – dark

Transparent armor: who’d’a thunk it?

Golden Tortoise Beetle – left front

Mary spotted one in the garden some years ago; I’ve never seen such a thing.

2017-06-04
Beware the Hissing Goose!

Rolling into Vassar Farms, we encountered a ~~Canadian~~ Canada Goose (*) family:

Geese at Vassar Farm Pond 2017-05-21

The gander pulled straight up and hissed as we rolled by at what we thought was a respectful distance:

Geese at Vassar Farm Pond 2017-05-21 – detail

Their little fuzzballs retreated in good order under the fence toward the pond; they don’t need much survival training.

Word has it a goose family (perhaps this one) built their nest near a path around the ponds and defend their turf with sufficient resolve to deter even singletrack bikers.

I occasionally see snakes along the way, but none that hiss:

Black Snake on Rail Trail – 2017-04-28

We approach rail-trail curves with a bit more caution than some folks; I’m at about the spot where that rider began losing control and didn’t quite wipe us out.

Update: They’re “Canada Geese“, with (AFAICT) a legal distinction between Canadian tourists and resident Yanks during the hunting season. Thanks to David for the reminder!

2017-05-27
Mystery Pigeon

Mary spotted this critter atop the roof and, much to my surprise, it waited courteously until I deployed the camera:

Mystery Pigeon – on roof ridge

It looks, walks, and acts just like a pigeon:

Mystery Pigeon – walking on roof ridge

… but we’ve never seen one with those feather patterns & colors. It’s not in any of our books, so it may be an escaped domestic pigeon.

Those feathers require plenty of body maintenance:

Mystery Pigeon – body maintenance

As nearly as we can tell, it’s wearing a green leg band with three digits that might be 904:

Mystery Pigeon – leg band composite

If this was your bird, it flew through Red Oaks Mill NY just after noon on 1 May 2017 …

2017-05-20
Generic AD9850 DDS Modules: Beware Swapped D7 and GND Pins!

Compare this picture:

AD9850 DDS Module – swapped GND D7 pins

… with any of the doc for the generic AD8950/51 DDS modules you’ll find out on the Interwebs. This snippet from the seller’s schematic will suffice:

AD9850 module schematic – cropped

Here’s a closer look at the 2×7 header in the upper left corner:

AD9850 module schematic – J5 detail

Don’t blame me for the blur, the schematic is a JPG.

Compared it with the board in hand:

AD9850 DDS Module – swapped GND D7 pins – detail

Yup, the D7 and GND pins are reversed.

Some careful probing showed the silkscreen is correct: the pins are, in fact, correctly labeled.

Should you be laying out a PCB in the expectation of using any DDS module from the lowest-price supplier, remember this high truth: Hell hath no fury like that of an unjustified assumption.

Fortunately, I’m hand-wiring the circuit and caught it prior to the smoke test.

2017-05-18
Monthly Image: Here’s Looking at You!

A strangely equipped van-like object emerging from Vassar Farms waited entirely too long for me to ride past:

Vassar Farms – 2017-05-04

The signage on the rear quarter panel read “Apple Maps / maps.apple.com” and a search with the obvious keywords produced a much better picture from the good folks at Adafruit in NYC of what might be the very same vehicle:

Adafruit – Apple Maps Vehicle

The Apple Maps schedule says nothing about being in Dutchess County this month. Maybe they’re lost?

Not being an Apple kind of guy, let me know if you see me riding by …

2017-05-15
Zire 71 Protector: Some Things Last

This ABS slab emerged from the Thing-O-Matic in early 2012:

Zire 71 protector in place

The Zire would power on whenever the switches clicked or that little joystick moved, which happened regularly enough to be annoying.

Mary made a small case that matched the other pouches I carry around:

Belt pack – camera case – PDA case

She made the case to fit an HP48 calculator, but it was close enough for the Zire.

Time passed, the Zire died, I started carrying a Kindle Fire in another pocket, but the ABS slab provided a convenient stiffener between some Geek Scratch Paper and the various pencils / pens / markers / screwdrivers / flashlight filling the available space.

Unfortunately, minus the backup of an electronic slab, the protector finally failed along an obvious stress riser:

Zire 71 protector – cracked

I cut a similar rectangle from a sheet of unknown flexy plastic, rounded the corners, clipped the pencils & whatnot to it, and maybe it’ll survive for a while.

2017-05-13