Category: Science

If you measure something often enough, it becomes science

Makergear M2 Platform Flatness Puzzle

The first layer of a short TPU chain (about which, more later) came out vanishingly thin in the middle and much too thick on the ends:

Makergear M2 – TPU first layer

So: let the platform cool, scrape off the wreckage, set the nozzle for Z=2.0 mm, and measure the actual gap at various spots across the platform.

Those results are the top set of measurements:

Makergear M2 – BuildTak flatness check

The bottom set of measurements came from a similar test a few days later, after pulling the BuildTak plate off, doing nothing other than scrutinizing it, reinstalling it, and successfully printing several TPU chains of varying design, none of which had any first-layer problems. The platform is slightly too high along the +Y and -Y edges (rear and front), with no bow worth mentioning.

My measurements are, perforce, done with a cold platform, for obvious reasons, and the TPU prints at 50 °C. I have the uneasy feeling the heater / BuildTak magnetic base can bow upward in the middle while it heats, then flatten out after a while at a stable temperature. The good news: it’s not permanently bent.

More study is needed, including thinwall boxes after letting the platform soak at 50 °C for varying times.

2026-05-19
House Sparrow vs. House Wren vs. Entrance Reducer

A friend gave Mary a small-bird birdhouse, which immediately attracted the attention of a pair of House Wrens:

Bird House entrance reducer – wren exiting

The vertical black bar is a DIY Birdsaver cord.

The entrance hole was 1-½ inch ⌀, a bit larger than the 1 inch ⌀ preferred by wrens and entirely suitable for the pair of House Sparrrows who also took an interest in the property:

Bird House – sparrow inside

This led to considerable discussion and displays of outright hostility:

Bird House entrance reducer – wren vs sparrow

Sparrows and wrens disagree on nestbuilding materials, with the wrens hauling twigs into the box and sparrows hauling them back out again.

Because wrens have better PR agents than sparrows, I intervened by taking the box apart:

Bird House – nest base sticks

Although I realize that’s a lot of work for a small bird, I dumped the contents off the patio and set about reducing the entrance hole:

Bird House – interior cleared

Because birds aren’t too fussy about looks, I sawed off half an inch of 1 inch (ID) CPVC pipe and glued it in the hole:

Bird House entrance reducer – interior glue

The outside looks marginally better:

Bird House entrance reducer – exterior glue

The sparrows continued to approach the hole at full throttle, deploying landing gear and speed brakes at the last possible moment:

Bird House entrance reducer – sparrow approach

But they no longer fit through the hole and eventually gave up trying. The wrens resumed hauling twigs, although we’re not certain they’ll finish the project, as birds tend to build several partial nests before selecting the final one.

We hope this will end on a happier note than last year’s Wreath Robins.

2026-05-13

PolyDryer Humidity: April-ish

	2026-04-16
Filament	%RH	Weight – g	Wt gain – g	Gain %
PETG White	14	–	–	–
PETG Black	14	–	–	–
PETG Orange	22	52.5	2.5	5.0%
PETG Natural	15	–	–	–
PETG-CF Blue	23	55.4	5.4	10.8%
PETG-CF Gray	18	–	–	–
PETG-CF Black	14	–	–	–
PETG Blue	10	–	–	–
TPU Clear	14	–	–	–
TPU Black	14	–	–	–

Most of the PolyDryer boxes had the same humidity as before, so I didn’t disturb them. When the humidity starts to rise, then we’ll see what’s going on in there.

The PETG Orange meter continues to misbehave and has been glitching from 22% to 30%. The indicator card shows the humidity is around 10% inside and the relatively low weight gain suggests there’s not much water to be adsorbed.

The PETG-CF Blue spool is new and, once again, shows filament does not arrive bone-dry in the factory wrapper.

Those two boxes now have alumina beads.

Dehydrating the jar of wet silica gel on the induction cooktop (set for 405 °F) sweated it down from 532 g to 503 g over the course of four hours, with nearly all of that change in the first two hours.

Obligatory photo from a while ago, because it looks pretty much the same now:

Silica gel beads - drying — Silica gel beads – drying

2026-04-20

Basement Air Filter Box: Ewww!

Late last year I assembled four air filters and a fan quintet into a box filter:

Basement Air Filter Box – installed

Running continuously for three months made the air filters look like this (with an unused filter on top for comparison):

Basement Air Filter Box – 3 months – A

I have not stretched the image contrast, so the new filter isn’t the pure white in the top picture, but it’s still about the same white as the cardboard frame. The floor is, indeed, painted gray.

Looking at the pleats in the other direction to show I’m not making it up:

Basement Air Filter Box – 3 months – B

The inside surface of the filters has the same gray appearance. The fans are, unsurprisingly, immaculate.

Totally did not expect that!

The filters sport a MERV 13 rating and snag “most smoke” from the passing air, so they’ve been collecting any fumes not sucked out of the laser cutter, along with whatever arises from other Basement Shop™ activities.

So I’ll buy another set of filters, build another box, and see what accumulates during the next three months.

2026-04-08
Prusa MK4 Foam Feet: Embiggened

It turns out the Prusa MK4 weighs enough to squish my add-on foam feet to about half their original thickness:

Prusa MK4 Foam Feet – embiggened

The two in the front are 30×30 mm and the shorter (more squished) foot was under the right rear of the MK4 where the power supply lives.

The larger feet (one installed) are 60×60 mm and, with the same weight supported on four times the area, should squish much less.

Stipulated: I can’t hear the difference either way.

This project was precipitated by finding a large scrap of exercise mat foam in a place where it shouldn’t have been.

2026-03-24
Alumina Desiccant: Regeneration Timeline
Having accumulated a suspiciously precise 700 g of activated alumina desiccant from the PolyDryer filament boxes, I poured it into the same cast-iron pan on the induction cooktop:

Alumina regeneration – induction cooktop

Based on the results from last time, I set the temperature to the cooktop’s maximum 460 °F and, bother fiddling with condensing the moisture on a lid, and let it cook.

Weighing the beads (about) once an hour:
- Start: 700 g
- 1 hr: 678 g
- 2 hr: 666 g
- 3 hr: 661 g
The 39 g water loss is 5.6% of the wet weight and 5.9% of the dry weight, which is roughly the amount absorbed by both silica gel and alumina after a month or so in the filament boxes.

During those hours the surface temperature rose from 73 F to 190 °F, although the exact number depends on exactly where the IR thermometer was staring. Stirring the beads to get an average temperature might be more convincing, but not by much.

Exactly how dry the beads become after three hours remains unknown, but the temperature increase suggests most of the water has gone elsewhere.

Cooling the beads in a covered bowl and pouring them into a jug produced a total weight of 767 g, which settled at 770 g over the course of two days; the jug seems reasonably vapor-tight.

Alumina beads seem much less prone to damage by overheating than silica gel beads and have similar performance in the boxes, which makes them a strong contender for the next round.
2026-03-12
LED Garage Light: Autopsy

The hidden part of all three LED arrays in the dead garage light looked like this:

LED Garage Light – inadequate heatsink compound

Although the compound was still gooey, there wasn’t nearly enough of it. The few tendrils on the heatsink suggest the LED array had bowed upward, pulled away from the cast aluminum, and eliminated any direct conduction.

A bit of probing showed each LED array had 16 series groups of 4 parallel LEDS, with one group in each array failed open. That group was toward the end away from the inadequate heatsink compound: the LEDs died from heatstroke brought on by neglect.

The Drawer o’ LED Arrays disgorged a bag of surplus LEDs labeled “10 W 9-12 V 750 mA”:

LED Garage Light – epoxy replacement

It’s sitting on a generous blob of steel-filled JB Kwik epoxy that should do a great job of conducting heat. A bag of cheap constant-current supplies is on order.

Amazon has similar “10 W 9-12 V 350-450 mA” arrays.

Try as I might, I can’t get 10 W from those numbers, but I’ve never understood advertising math.

2026-03-10