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.
If you measure something often enough, it becomes science
While at another Vassar concert, I noticed a manufacturing date stamp on one of the LED exit signs in Skinner Hall:
I like the “Replacement lamp not applicable” line. I wonder how recently they’ve tested the battery for the projected 90 minutes of backup time…
These old LEDs show the expected brightness variations:
So, now you know what your discrete LEDs will look like after two decades of continuous use. That’s if anybody (else) still uses discrete LEDs, of course.
A long long time ago, we bought a kitchen spatula that’s served us well ever since:
To give you an idea of how old that poor thing is, the back of the handle bears a Japan stamp. I’ve re-set the rivets several times, the blade has rusted as badly as you think, and we recently, very reluctantly, decided it has passed its best-used-by date.
The 3 x 4.5 inch blade is 19 mil = 0.45 mm plated carbon steel, stiff enough to remain flat and springy enough to bend a little, with a 9 inch = 230 mm steel handle ending in a plastic overmold.
These days, it’s essential to the cutting, flipping, and serving of the morning’s omelet-like substance, made of eggs, bacon, veggies, green leafy things, plus this-and-that, in the cast-iron pan. Mary chops the disk into quarters with the reasonably sharp edge, maneuvers the reasonably bendy blade under each quarter, flips them over, tops with bacon & cheese, pauses for consolidation & melting, then pops them onto plates. Yum!
So we set out to buy a replacement.
Here’s what we’ve tried and rejected so far:
I’ve used this one for many years to flip pancakes on a succession of non-stick griddles, a service at which it excels. The edge isn’t sharp enough to cut the green-and-leafy and the completely inflexible blade cannot be maneuvered under the omelet quarters:
This one gets deployed for burgers and their ilk, also in the cast-iron pan. The blade, although sharp enough, is completely rigid:
On the other paw, a slightly concave 7 mil = 0.18 mm spring steel blade is much too thin and, well, springy. Although very sharp, you cannot apply enough cutting force without suddenly bending the blade and, if the omelet quarter isn’t positioned exactly right, the blade will bend underneath it and dump breakfast on the stovetop. The alert reader will notice a missing weld between the blade and the bottom wire handle:
This very thin plastic blade has similar problems with poor cut-ability and excessive flexibility:
This one looked really promising and worked almost perfectly. Regrettably, its nylon blade bears a 400 °F rating and the bottom of the omelet reaches nearly 450 °F. You can see what happens to the reasonably sharp edge as it scrapes across the pan:
The omelet cooks at the temperature it cooks at, which part of the specifications is not subject to further discussion.
So, we’re stumped. Having trawled the usual online and big-box stores, we’ve been unable to find a replacement. Simple steel blades aren’t available. Trendy silicone-bonded stainless steel blades combine the worst of all worlds: won’t cut and won’t flip. Pretty nearly anything you don’t see above seems obviously unsuitable for our simple needs: too big, too small, or too melty.
We’ll consider all recommendations and suggestions! Thanks …
One of the Hobo dataloggers asked for a new battery during its most recent data dump. The old battery dates back to January 2015:
That was when a batch of Energizer cells failed in quick succession: it wasn’t the datalogger’s fault. I’ve been handling the cells a bit more carefully, too, although that certainly doesn’t account for the much longer life.
With batteries, particularly from eBay, you definitely can’t tell what you’re going to get or how long it’ll last; that’s true of many things in life.
Both of us began sniffling and sneezing in early October, long after the outdoor flowers faded away, and finally remembered to check the Mother In Law’s Tongue:
It’s that time of the year again: we’re both wildly allergic to a houseplant with weird flowers. Even after cutting the stalk off and deporting it outdoors, we’re still sniffly.
The blossoms produce so much nectar that the droplets near the base of each flower eventually fall off, making a mess on the floor if the stalk tilts over far enough.
We kept it when we helped Mom move out of the Ancestral House, long ago, and it’s still going strong.
A friend asked why Norwegians point their satellite dishes at the ground. After maneuvering Google Streetview around Vadsø for a while, I found a dish in profile:
Turns out geostationary orbit is way low, as seen from the top of the world. A bit of doodling shows it’s only 11° above the horizon at 70° N:
TV satellite antennas have an offset-fed reflector, with the receiver in the lump at the end of the spine sticking out from the bottom of the dish, so as to not obstruct the signal entering the dish. Even though the plane of the reflector points downward, the signal reflected to the receiver comes in from above.
Ain’t science trigonometry grand?
I left a time-release melatonin pill in water for a day:
Perhaps an acidic environment would be more to its taste?
Here’s another pill after a day in vinegar:
In both cases, poking the somewhat dissolved pill separated it into gummy chunks, so it’s probably working as designed. I suppose the usual stomach churning would help.
This being a quack nostrum, there’s no way to tell what’s inside or how much you’re getting, but I didn’t expect to get way more B6 than you’d expect from the large print on the label. Lesson: always read the fine print, no matter how well it’s concealed.
0/10 – would not buy again.
As before, the results do not differ significantly from placebo, so this is a triumph of hope over experience.
A pleasant Friday morning ride with several stops:
KE4ZNU-10 handled the spots near Red Oaks Mill, along parts of Vassar Rd that aren’t hidden by that bluff, and along Rt 376 north of the airport.
The KB2ZE-4 iGate in the upper left corner caught most of the spots; it has a much better antenna in a much better location than the piddly mobile antenna in our attic.
Several of the spots along the southern edge of the trip went through the K2PUT-15 digipeater high atop Mt. Ninham near Carmel, with coverage of the entire NY-NJ-CT area.
The APRS-IS database filters out packets received by multiple iGates, so there’s only one entry per spot.
All in all, KE4ZNU-10 covers the southern part of our usual biking range pretty much the way I wanted.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 