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.

Tag: Improvements

Making the world a better place, one piece at a time

Booklet Printing
Most technical papers intended for publication in Refereed Journals have huge margins. When I print them up as pamphlets for E-Z reading in the Comfy Chair, the text becomes an unreadably small block in the middle of the page.

Having tried various simple hacks that don’t work, the best solution so far involves a bit of PostScript magic…
```
pdfcrop --margins 36 whatever.pdf
pdftops -level3 -origpagesizes whatever-crop.pdf
ps2book.pl -f 1 whatever-crop.ps
ps2pdf whatever-crop_book.ps
```
Which will emit whatever-crop_book.pdf. Print the odd pages, reinsert the stack, print the even pages, then either fold or slice/bind as appropriate.

The --margins 36 puts a little whitespace around the text, which may be needed to get the text block out of the gutter if you’re binding the booklet. For those documents, --margins "36 0 18 0" may be more useful; note the blanks, not commas. This requires tuning for best picture, depending on the incoming PDF layout.

The -origpagesizes prevents the next step from assuming an incorrect page size. This is definitely necessary, at least in my experience so far.

The -f 1 enlarges the source text to fill the output page, which is the key step making the whole thing work for small incoming page sizes. However, there’s a weird interaction between this and the pdfcrop margins that I haven’t figured out yet; a zero-width incoming margin [may | may not] jam some line ends against the right edge of the output sheet.

That’s all derived from some booklet-printing hints in the Scribus wiki. A working link (as of today, anyhow) for the ps2book.pl script:

http://www.capca.ucalgary.ca/wdobler/utils/ps2book.xhtml

The R380 emits pages bassackwards for reading, but in the proper order for duplexing: the blank side of the first sheet is on the bottom of the stack, so it becomes the top of the flipped stack, ready to go back into the printer as the first sheet again.

Conversely, the HPLJ1200 produces output in normal reading order, with the blank side of the last sheet on top of the stack: flip and print the back sides in reverse order.
2014-08-27
Trimming Ironman Sunglasses

These sunglasses fit Mary’s face and do a good job of keeping road grit out of her eyes, but she doesn’t like the extended earpieces. So I cut ’em off:

Ironman sunglasses – trimmed earpieces

The trick is to shape the ends with an ordinary diagonal cutter, then round the edges with sandpaper.

The lower pair has seen a few years of use, during which the bright yellow plastic faded quite a bit.

Nothing profound, other than that you need not put up with nuisances.

2014-08-24
Bike Helmet Boom Mic: Assembly

After building the mic mount, another dab of epoxy mounted the length of AWG 10 wire I said I wouldn’t use:

Bike Helmet Mic Boom – rod epoxy

The whole point of the complex mount is to expose the two noise cancelling holes on the back of the electret element:

Bike Helmet Mic – electret element rear

Add heatstink tubing over the entire length of the boom wire, use more black cable ties, shape another foam ball:

Bike Helmet Mic Boom – installed

And it worked on the first try, not that there’s much to it.

Yeah, that’s the HDR-AS30V camera mount up top: dork mode in full effect.

2014-08-13
Bathroom Sink Drain Pop-Up: The Rot Continues

Once again, the black bathroom sink drain stopper stopped popping up. Having had this happen once before, I knew what I would find:

Corroded bathroom sink drain lever

The lever arm to the left of the ball should be about twice that long, minus the jagged end.

I slid the ball rightward to expose more rod, introduced both ends to Mr. Bench Grinder to round them off, scuffed up the short end with sandpaper to improve its griptivity, then slobbered on enough JB KwikWeld to cover the entire length of rod that will live inside the drain:

Epoxy-coated bathroom sink drain lever

The first failure took 9 years, this one took 4…

Memo to Self: Next time, replace the rod with something that doesn’t corrode.

2014-08-12
Tour Easy Kickstand Adapter Plate

The venerable Greenfield kickstand on my Tour Easy doesn’t quite match the mounting plate under the frame, with the result that it can pivot just enough to make the bike tippy with a moderate load in the rear panniers. I’ve carried a small block to compensate for sloping ground, but I finally got around to fixing the real problem.

The solution turned out to be a spacer plate that fills the gap between the back of the kickstand casting and the transverse block brazed to the mounting plate:

Tour Easy kickstand adapter plate

That little lip is 2 mm wide, so it’s not off by much.

The aluminum came from a Z-shaped post that contributed its legs to a previous project. I flycut the stub of one leg flush with the surface, then flycut a slot 2 mm from the edge:

Tour Easy kickstand adapter – flycutting recess

For no reason whatsoever, the width of that slot turned out exactly right.

Bandsaw along the left edge of the slot, bandsaw the plate to length, square the sides, break the edges, mark the actual location of the mounting plate hole, drill, and it’s done!

An identical Greenfield kickstand on Mary’s identical (albeit smaller) Tour Easy (the bikes have consecutive serial numbers) fits perfectly, so I think this is a classic case of tolerance mismatch.

2014-08-06
Forester Trailer Hitch: Wiring Installation

Unlike the trailer hitch installation instructions, the wiring installation instructions left a bit to be desired. Basically, you can’t get the trim panels off the interior until you know where they hid the snaps and latches, but you can’t find the snaps and latches before you remove the trim panels.

N.B.: this applies to a 2015 Forester. Subaru deliberately moves the connector around for each model and year, for reasons that certainly make sense to them.

Remove everything from the back end of the car that isn’t firmly affixed.

Remove the rivets from the left-side foam block by prying their heads with a big screwdriver; maybe you can get a needlenose pliers under there. They’re surprisingly difficult to get out, due to that nasty barb on the end:

Forester cargo compartment foam block rivet and socket

Release the left side of the trim strip across the back of the compartment by pulling the front corner forward to unlock the latch that engages the trim panel on the left edge. Then you can pull the strip upward to locate the green rivet about a foot from the left end, stick a screwdriver under there, and pry it out of the frame. I didn’t do that, with the unhappy result that the rivet stayed in the frame:

Forester hatch trim – snap rivet location

If that happens to you, just pry the rivet out of the frame, slide it into the trim strip, and (when the time comes), ram it back into the frame.

A captive plastic cover over the bolt securing the cargo tiedowns yields to a fingernail, if you know that’s what you must do:

Forester cargo tiedown – screw location

Remove the bolt and tiedown, which greatly simplifies pulling the side trim panel away from the frame:

Forester trailer wiring connector location

The trailer hitch connector lies tucked far up inside the recess, taped to the wiring harness with blue tape. Slit the tape, pull the connector free, worm the aftermarket wires up in there, latch the connectors together, and reinstall everything in reverse order.

Subaru could, if they wanted to, add a foot of wire to that harness, tape it near the bottom edge of the trim panel, and eliminate half an hour of dealer labor charge. I think I understand why they don’t do that, but I don’t have to like it.

It’s faintly possible that someone with very thin arms could reach the connector without dismantling the butt end of the car, but the fingers on the end of that arm might not have enough strength to latch the connectors.

The electrical box fit neatly against the rear of the compartment, behind the foam block. A bit of razor knife artistry carved a notch for the fuseholder and the wiring coils up neatly inside an existing recess:

Forest trailer hitch – wiring in cargo compartment

Until I install lighted hitch nuts (you could look it up), I think deploying the trailer connector through the hatch makes more sense than running the wiring through one of the holes in the spare tire well and exposing the connector to the elements. I don’t intend to do much trailer hauling …

2014-07-30
Forester Trailer Hitch: Installation Notes

Start with loose parts rattling around inside a battered cardboard package:

Trailer hitch receiver – as received

I backed the Forester up to put the rear tires over the edge of the garage apron, which provided enough room to work underneath without jacking the thing; there’s a chock under the left front wheel, never fear.

The instructions from etrailer.com were entirely adequate, so there’s not much point in a detailed writeup. Their time estimate (an hour) seems grossly understated, but I wasn’t in any hurry.

A morning of pleasant wrenching produced a good-looking, albeit nearly invisible, result:

Forester trailer hitch – installed

Both hitches bolt directly to the frame and I have no idea what effect that has on the collision behavior. My guess is that the Subaru hitch would be more bendy, if only because it has a much lower load rating, but that probably doesn’t make much difference.

Some notes:

Remove the muffler, which is trivially easy on a new car, and reuse the crushable gasket, which is probably not recommended. After releasing the muffler, you can ease the mounting pins out of their rubber supports without applying any lube or issuing many curses. The tailpipe remains in place, conveniently away from the proceedings.

As others have noted, remove the heat shield, snip a few square inches from the inside front corner, and reinstall with only three screws. I chopped clearance holes for the hitch bolts using a box cutter, but you could probably just punch them right through the butter-soft aluminum sheet.

The instructions suggest drilling / rasping the center mounting holes to 1-1/8 inch diameter. Being that type of guy, I used a step drill to get a 1 inch hole, filed slots on the front and rear sides to accommodate the reinforcing plates, then filed the corners where the slots meet the hole for the carriage bolt heads. The bolts and plates just barely fit, but that leaves more metal on the frame; I doubt any of that matters.

I felt badly about leaving steel filings inside the frame, but there’s no practical way to extract them. I didn’t prime-and-paint the raw edges, either, as they’re buried deep inside the hitch frame; I may regret that decision.

Wear eye protection: those six fish wires have lethally sharp and very whippy ends.

You can support the hitch on your chest to maneuver it into position, but an assistant must hold it in the proper alignment while you fiddle with fish wires, bolts, and nuts.

I don’t know what happens to the raised bump in the frame under the heat shield, but I suspect it gets crushed flat after torquing the nuts on either side.

When you reinstall the muffler, remember to take the gasket off the mounting pin where you put it for safekeeping before maneuvering the pins back into the hangers …

The Official Subaru OEM Hitch Assembly Instructions commence with loosening the taillight housings and then get complicated. That hitch mounts on a crossbar that completely replaces the bumper beam inside the dress cover, the receiver extends through a small square section of the cover that you cut out as part of the process, the mount occupies the two rearmost holes in the frame members, and it doesn’t require trimming the heat shield. It also costs nigh onto $800 including dealer labor.

2014-07-25