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: Photography & Images

Taking & making images.

Sony HDR-AS30V Audio vs. Wind Noise

With the Sony HDR-AS30V in its skeleton frame atop my bike helmet, the audio track for all my rides consists entirely of horrendous wind noise. You can get an idea of the baseline quality from the sound track of a recent Walkway Over The Hudson crossing.

The camera has two mics, although I’m not sure 15 mm of separation really produces meaningful stereo sound:

Sony HDR-AS30V – front view

Note that two of the five pores on each side are closed flat-bottom pits. As with earbud vents , it must be a stylin’ thing.

I added a rounded pad of the same acoustic foam that forms an effective wind noise buffer for the boom mic:

Sony HDR-AS30V – foam mic cover

That reduced the overall noise load by buffering direct wind impact, but non-radio conversations remained unintelligible; there’s just too much low-frequency energy.

Surprisingly, closing the mic pores with ordinary adhesive tape didn’t impair the audio in a quiet room:

Sony HDR-AS30V – closed mic pores

Out on the road that’s even better than foam over open mic pores; I think it reduces the peak volume enough that the internal compression can regain control. Sticking the foam pad over the tape slightly reduced the noise during high-speed (for me, anyhow) parts of the ride, but didn’t make much difference overall.

The wind noise remains too high for comfort, even if I can now hear cleats clicking into pedals, shifters snapping, and even the horrible background music when I’m stopped next to the Mobil gas station on the corner.

Next step: raid the cloth scrap box for a flap of faux fur to make a mic mop. This might be an opportunity to recycle some roadkill…

2014-11-21
Monthly Image: Bannerman’s Island Arsenal

We finally took the trip to Bannerman’s Island Arsenal:

Bannermans Island – Google Satellite View

Back in the day, the only way you could get there was by kayak and that just isn’t my style. Nowadays, the Bannerman Castle Trust runs weekend tour boats and that I can do.

The view from the dock:

Bannermans Island Arsenal – from dock

All the pictures you’ll see of the buildings look the basically the same, because you cannot get off the tour route:

Bannermans Island – Building Collapse Zone sign

Of course, that fine might be irrelevant after they dig you out from under the rubble.

Struts hold the fragile walls in place, but it’s not long for this world:

Bannermans Island Arsenal – SW corner

You can tell that Frank Bannerman got exactly what he wanted in the way of architecture; the buildings bear an uncanny resemblance to his “make it look like this” sketches. In the normal course of a design-and-build project, somebody in the loop will suggest that, mmmm, Boss, you can’t actually build it that way. In this case, the normal course of events went along the lines of “Sir? Yes, Sir!”

Money changes everything.

Their summer house sits dead center in the island with a commanding view of the Hudson to the south. Again, you can tell it looked just exactly like he wanted:

Bannermans Island – House

The natural state of Pollepel Island was barren rock; they hauled in all the soil when Mrs. Bannerman wanted flower gardens around the house.

That crack in the northwest tower can’t possibly be a Good Thing:

Bannermans Island Arsenal – W wall

Back in late 2005, the castle looked marginally better:

Bannermans Island Arsenal – 2005-10-22

That was from a small boat in the middle of the Hudson.

In the unlikely event you’re in the area, take the trip: it’s worthwhile just to see what one man’s obsession looks like. Wear one more layer than you think necessary, put on your lug-soled boots, and realize that nobody’s going to visit the ruins of your summer house a century from now…

2014-11-15
Wasabi NB-5L: Underperformers
Based on the poor performance of the NB-5L batteries I bought from Blue Nook, they sent me three NB-5L batteries from a fresh batch (date code BNI13) and I ran them through the same discharge test:

Canon NB-5L – OEM Wasabi – 2014-10-29

The red line off to the far right is the three year old Canon OEM battery, which remains far and away the best battery at 1 A·h.

The previous cells (BNF27) produced the three scattered traces with the lowest initial voltages, ending around 0.8 A·h.

The new cells (BNI13) produced the three tightly clustered traces. They have a higher initial voltage than the OEM cell, but much lower total capacity (about 0.75 A·h).

These batteries obviously don’t come close to their 1400 mA·h rating. The capacity depends on the load current, but I’m using 500 mA because that’s close to the camera’s drain; the results should correlate reasonably well with actual use.

The higher voltage from the new batteries will produce a longer runtime than the previous duds, but their total capacity is lower and they’re still no match for the old Canon OEM battery.

The new ones start out very similar to each other, but the previous batch hasn’t aged well on their shelf. If the date codes mean what I think, all of these batteries will fail quickly.

All that’s quite disappointing, because their NP-BX1 batteries for the Sony camera turned out quite well. The date codes all have the same format and typography, so I think they come from the same factory.

For whatever it’s worth, I think the date coding works like this:
- B – factory? shift? OEM? Blue Nook?
- M – last two digits of year: M=13, N=14
- K – month: F=6, I=9, K=11
- 20 – day
For the four batteries / lots I have on hand:
- BMK20 = 2013 Nov 20 – NP-BX1 bought in early 2014
- BNI18 = 2014 Sep 18 – NP-BX1 bought in October – new lot
- BNF27 = 2014 Jun 27 – NB-5L bought in October – old lot
- BNI13 = 2014 Sep 13 – NB-5L supplied in late October – new lot
So it goes.
2014-11-12
Praying Mantis

A praying mantis appeared along the top of the living room windows:

Praying mantis on window

They’re ferocious hunters and we’re in favor of them… but having them on the outside of the window works better for all of us.

Those old Anderson windows seem to attract big critters…

2014-11-09
Doorbell Switch Corrosion

A friend, anticipating a stream of visitors for their freshly hatched baby, asked for help with a defunct remote doorbell. A bit of probing showed that shorting across the pushbutton switch contacts reliably triggered the bell, so I unsoldered it:

Doorbell switch – intact

A similar switch from the heap had a longer stem that was easy enough to shorten, so the repair didn’t take very long at all: ya gotta have stuff!

An autopsy reveals the expected contact corrosion:

Doorbell switch – parts

Underexposing the image by about two stops retained some texture on the contact dome.

The IC date codes suggest the box is over a decade old, which is as much life as one can expect from cheap consumer electronics, particularly with an unsealed switch placed outdoors.

It’s probably good for another decade…

2014-11-02
Threading the Bicycling Needle on Raymond Avenue

The NYS DOT’s original planning documents said that roundabouts / rotaries weren’t optimal for pedestrians or bicyclists or large trucks, but, because DOT likes rotaries, that’s what they built on Raymond Avenue. However, they didn’t relocate the drainage lines under the road and left some catch boxes in awkward spots.

This Google Street View image from a few years ago shows the College Avenue intersection from northbound Raymond Avenue, with the catch box in the lane:

Google Street View – Raymond northbound at College

Raymond is basically the only bicycle route into Arlington from the south and has “shared roadway” signs, but the design flat-out doesn’t work for bikes and the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

Here’s what it looks like from the bike:

MAH00138-2014-09-28-095

Note the deteriorated asphalt and longitudinal cracks near the white fog line next to the curb. That forces bike traffic another few feet into the deliberately narrowed traffic lane at the entrance to the intersection.

Mary’s about as far to the right as practicable (that’s a legal term):

MAH00138-2014-09-28-155

I’m angling over from the middle of the lane, because, unless I take the lane, motorists will attempt to pass us in the rotary entrances. The asphalt on the far side of the box has subsided several inches into a tooth-rattling drop, you can see the crevice adjacent to the right side of the box, and I know better than to cross steel grates while turning.

Notice that the Google view shows four bollards marking what DOT charmingly calls the “pedestrian refuge” in the median, but only two appear in my pictures. NYS DOT recently removed half the bollards from each refuge and relocated the remainder, apparently to reduce the number of street furniture targets. Early on, they were losing one bollard per intersection per year, but that’s slowed down now that they’ve stopped replacing smashed hardware.

It was never clear to me why putting nonreflective black bollards a foot or two from the traffic lane made any sense, but that’s how it was done. Most of the relocated bollards stand close to the center of the median, so maybe it didn’t make any sense.

Anyhow, bikes can’t stay too far to the right after the box, because the asphalt has crumbled away in furrows around Yet Another Crappy Patch:

MAH00138-2014-09-28-184

That’s pretty much the state of the traffic engineering art around here. A while back, the NYS DOT engineer in charge of the project assured me it’s all built in compliance with the relevant standards.

It’s worth noting that Mary’s on the Dutchess County Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, so we volunteered to count cyclists and pedestrians on Raymond a few months ago. When I say that we’re essentially the only cyclists riding Raymond Avenue, we have the numbers to back it up. Everybody else rides on the sidewalks, despite that being of questionable legality and dubious for pedestrian safety, because, well, you’d be crazy to ride in the shared roadway.

2014-10-26
Canon SX-230HS: Wasabi NB-5L Batteries

Based on my good experience with the Wasabi NP-BX1 batteries, I also bought three Wasabi NB-5L batteries for my Canon SX-230HS pocket camera:

Canon NB-5L – OEM Wasabi Misc – 2014-10-04

Well, that’s not what I expected: the “new” Wasabi batteries perform worse than the three year old Canon OEM battery and no better than the crap batteries from eBay.

Just to be sure, I ran two tests on each of the three new batteries. Unlike the NP-BX1 batteries, these deliver a lower voltage than the Canon OEM battery and have a much lower capacity. The camera cuts off at 3.5 V, so the new batteries deliver 2/3 the run time of the old OEM battery

Sheesh…

Tech support at Blue Nook (I am not making that up) says they’ll send me a couple of batteries from their next shipment to see if something’s wrong with this batch; all the batteries have date code BNF27.

2014-10-24