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.
Who’d’a thunk it?
We celebrate the start of Spring by cleaning the previous season’s nest(s) from our bird boxes, so this “improved” design caught our eye on a walk around the neighborhood:
Birds being the way they are, the most recent occupants surely piled more twigs & grass atop their foundation to make the level come out right. An industrious mouse might find a convenient route inside.
Well, a picture of plastic on my M2’s platform, anyhow:
I swiped that image from Digital Machinist‘s writeup of the Winter 2015 issue. They run 3D printing articles that are vastly more technical and detail-oriented than the usual glowing PR fluff pieces found elsewhere; I’ve been writing about G-Code and 3D printing for quite a few years now.
They could have used an action shot taken earlier in that sequence, but it doesn’t fit the cover’s vertical layout:
You’ll not hear me kvetching!
Two covers in a month: must be something in the water…
A cold snap in early January caught plenty of humidity inside the house and, in fact, the attic temperature dropped so abruptly that the nails protruding through the roof iced over:
You’d think they were coated with plastic:
The incandescent bulb lighting the attic highlights the crystal planes:
As nearly as I can tell, the ice sublimes or melts-and-evaporates, because the plywood floor under the nails doesn’t have the drip marks you’d expect.
Just like all those EULAs we click through without reading, nobody pays any attention to the Customs declarations on packages:
The pick-and-place strip across the top contains ten U.FL connectors, a few of which might make their way onto the Ham It Up board. They cost a grand total of $2.09 (not the $12.00 shown on the label) delivered halfway around the planet in a bit over two weeks.
I confess: I just couldn’t pass up some new fashion accessories…
Having turned on my old Kindle Fire’s “security warnings” just to see what happens, I’m confronted by pop-ups like this on a regular basis:
People who know what they’re talking about tell me there’s no way for ordinary civilians, such as I, to evaluate the validity of the “credentials” described by that pop-up. In this case, the credential apparently comes from DigiCert, which ought to be trust-able, and was issued to cmcore.com, an actual IBM subsidiary that apparently does Web analytics.
It works fine through my desktop browsers. The Kindle, however, can’t even find digicert.com, so the problem must be an Amazon thing.
The only response that makes sense is to continue loading: gizmodo.com might have cat pictures!
I should just turn off the warnings and be done with it…
Henceforth, let it never be said I have neglected my duty with respect to cat pictures:
I left the garage door open while working outside and that critter walked calmly in, examined the offerings, walked out, and made itself comfortable on the patio. We may have a co-owner…
Take the rest of the day off, OK?
Vacuum cleaner dust brushes, separated by millimeters and decades:
The bulky one on the left came with our new Kenmore Progressive vacuum cleaner. It’s fine for dust on a flat horizontal or vertical surface and totally useless for dust on actual objects. It’s supposed to snap around the handle at the end of the cleaner’s flexy hose, where it helps make the entire assembly too large and too clumsy, or on the end of the “wand”, where it’s at the wrong angle. The bonus outer shell slides around the stubby bristles in the unlikely event they’re too long for the flat surface at hand.
The brush on the right emerged from the Box o’ Electrolux Parts that Came With The House™, must be half a century old, and consists of a cast aluminum lump with various holes milled into it, adorned with luxuriously long and flexible horsehair. Suffice it to say they don’t make ’em like that any more. Heck, they probably don’t make horses with hair like that any more, either.
The blue plastic adapter atop the aluminum ball looks like you’d expect by now:
The short snout fits neatly into the space available inside the ball. The abrupt ledge at the top of the snout, of course, didn’t work well; I rushed the design for a show-n-tell.
The OpenSCAD source code (as a Github gist) bevels that ledge and tweaks the interior air channel a bit:
| // Kenmore vacuum cleaner nozzle adapters | |
| // Ed Nisley KE4ZNU December 2015 | |
| // Layout options | |
| Layout = "LuxBrush"; // MaleFitting CoilWand FloorBrush CreviceTool ScrubbyTool LuxBrush | |
| //- Extrusion parameters must match reality! | |
| // Print with +1 shells and 3 solid layers | |
| ThreadThick = 0.25; | |
| ThreadWidth = 0.40; | |
| HoleWindage = 0.2; | |
| function IntegerMultiple(Size,Unit) = Unit * ceil(Size / Unit); | |
| Protrusion = 0.1; // make holes end cleanly | |
| //———————- | |
| // Dimensions | |
| ID1 = 0; // for tapered tubes | |
| ID2 = 1; | |
| OD1 = 2; | |
| OD2 = 3; | |
| LENGTH = 4; | |
| OEMTube = [35.0,35.0,41.7,40.5,30.0]; // main fitting tube | |
| EndStop = [OEMTube[ID1],OEMTube[ID2],47.5,47.5,6.5]; // flange at end of main tube | |
| FittingOAL = OEMTube[LENGTH] + EndStop[LENGTH]; | |
| $fn = 12*4; | |
| //———————- | |
| // Useful routines | |
| module PolyCyl(Dia,Height,ForceSides=0) { // based on nophead's polyholes | |
| Sides = (ForceSides != 0) ? ForceSides : (ceil(Dia) + 2); | |
| FixDia = Dia / cos(180/Sides); | |
| cylinder(r=(FixDia + HoleWindage)/2, | |
| h=Height, | |
| $fn=Sides); | |
| } | |
| //——————- | |
| // Male fitting on end of Kenmore tools | |
| // This slides into the end of the handle or wand and latches firmly in place | |
| module MaleFitting() { | |
| Latch = [40,11.5,5.0]; // rectangle latch opening | |
| EntryAngle = 45; // latch entry ramp | |
| EntrySides = 16; | |
| EntryHeight = 15.0; // lower edge on *inside* of fitting | |
| KeyRadius = 1.0; | |
| translate([0,0,6.5]) | |
| difference() { | |
| union() { | |
| cylinder(d1=OEMTube[OD1],d2=OEMTube[OD2],h=OEMTube[LENGTH]); // main tube | |
| hull() // insertion guide | |
| for (i=[-(6.0/2 – KeyRadius),(6.0/2 – KeyRadius)], | |
| j=[-(28.0/2 – KeyRadius),(28.0/2 – KeyRadius)], | |
| k=[-(26.0/2 – KeyRadius),(26.0/2 – KeyRadius)]) | |
| translate([(i – (OEMTube[ID1]/2 + OEMTube[OD1]/2)/2 + 6.0/2),j,(k + 26.0/2 – 1.0)]) | |
| sphere(r=KeyRadius,$fn=8); | |
| translate([0,0,-EndStop[LENGTH]]) // wand tube butts against this | |
| cylinder(d=EndStop[OD1],h=EndStop[LENGTH] + Protrusion); | |
| } | |
| translate([0,0,-OEMTube[LENGTH]]) // main bore | |
| cylinder(d=OEMTube[ID1],h=2*OEMTube[LENGTH] + 2*Protrusion); | |
| translate([0,-11.5/2,23.0 – 5.0]) // latch opening | |
| cube(Latch); | |
| translate([OEMTube[ID1]/2 + EntryHeight/tan(90-EntryAngle),0,0]) // latch ramp | |
| translate([(Latch[1]/cos(180/EntrySides))*cos(EntryAngle)/2,0,(Latch[1]/cos(180/EntrySides))*sin(EntryAngle)/2]) | |
| rotate([0,-EntryAngle,0]) | |
| intersection() { | |
| rotate(180/EntrySides) | |
| PolyCyl(Latch[1],Latch[0],EntrySides); | |
| translate([-(2*Latch[0])/2,0,-Protrusion]) | |
| cube(2*Latch[0],center=true); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| } | |
| //——————- | |
| // Refrigerator evaporator coil wand | |
| module CoilWand() { | |
| union() { | |
| translate([0,0,50.0]) | |
| rotate([180,0,0]) | |
| difference() { | |
| cylinder(d1=EndStop[OD1],d2=42.0,h=50.0); | |
| translate([0,0,-Protrusion]) | |
| cylinder(d1=35.0,d2=35.8,h=100); | |
| } | |
| translate([0,0,50.0 – Protrusion]) | |
| MaleFitting(); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| //——————- | |
| // Refrigerator evaporator coil wand | |
| module FloorBrush() { | |
| union() { | |
| translate([0,0,60.0]) | |
| rotate([180,0,0]) | |
| difference() { | |
| union() { | |
| cylinder(d1=EndStop[OD1],d2=32.4,h=10.0); | |
| translate([0,0,10.0 – Protrusion]) | |
| cylinder(d1=32.4,d2=30.7,h=50.0 + Protrusion); | |
| } | |
| translate([0,0,-Protrusion]) | |
| cylinder(d1=28.0,d2=24.0,h=100); | |
| } | |
| translate([0,0,60.0 – Protrusion]) | |
| MaleFitting(); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| //——————- | |
| // Crevice tool | |
| module CreviceTool() { | |
| union() { | |
| translate([0,0,60.0]) | |
| rotate([180,0,0]) | |
| difference() { | |
| union() { | |
| cylinder(d1=EndStop[OD1],d2=32.0,h=10.0); | |
| translate([0,0,10.0 – Protrusion]) | |
| cylinder(d1=32.0,d2=30.4,h=50.0 + Protrusion); | |
| } | |
| translate([0,0,-Protrusion]) | |
| cylinder(d1=28.0,d2=24.0,h=100); | |
| } | |
| translate([0,0,60.0 – Protrusion]) | |
| MaleFitting(); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| //——————- | |
| // Mystery brush | |
| module ScrubbyTool() { | |
| union() { | |
| translate([0,0,60.0]) | |
| rotate([180,0,0]) | |
| difference() { | |
| union() { | |
| cylinder(d1=EndStop[OD1],d2=31.8,h=10.0); | |
| translate([0,0,10.0 – Protrusion]) | |
| cylinder(d1=31.8,d2=31.0,h=50.0 + Protrusion); | |
| } | |
| translate([0,0,-Protrusion]) | |
| cylinder(d1=26.0,d2=24.0,h=100); | |
| } | |
| translate([0,0,60.0 – Protrusion]) | |
| MaleFitting(); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| //——————- | |
| // Electrolux brush ball | |
| module LuxBrush() { | |
| union() { | |
| translate([0,0,30.0]) | |
| rotate([180,0,0]) | |
| difference() { | |
| union() { | |
| cylinder(d1=EndStop[OD1],d2=30.8,h=10.0); | |
| translate([0,0,10.0 – Protrusion]) | |
| cylinder(d1=30.8,d2=30.0,h=20.0 + Protrusion); | |
| } | |
| translate([0,0,-Protrusion]) | |
| cylinder(d1=25.0,d2=23.0,h=30 + 2*Protrusion); | |
| } | |
| translate([0,0,30.0 – Protrusion]) | |
| MaleFitting(); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| //———————- | |
| // Build it! | |
| if (Layout == "MaleFitting") | |
| MaleFitting(); | |
| if (Layout == "CoilWand") | |
| CoilWand(); | |
| if (Layout == "FloorBrush") | |
| FloorBrush(); | |
| if (Layout == "CreviceTool") | |
| CreviceTool(); | |
| if (Layout == "ScrubbyTool") | |
| ScrubbyTool(); | |
| if (Layout == "LuxBrush") | |
| LuxBrush(); |
That’s supposed to prevent the WordPress post editors from destroying the formatting…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 