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: Rants

And kvetching, too

  • Provincetown Pilgrim Memorial: Lighting Ticky-tacky

    This imposing memorial plaque stands in a small park in Provincetown MA, at the foot of the hill from which the Pilgrim Monument emerges:

    Provincetown Pilgrim Memorial
    Provincetown Pilgrim Memorial

    It’s one of those 1920-ish things with the impeccable stonework and bronze casting that you couldn’t possibly duplicate nowadays. But, at least twice between then and now, somebody thought it’d be a Good Idea to decorate it with what look to be Genuine Christmas Tree Lights:

    Provincetown Pilgrim Memorial - detail
    Provincetown Pilgrim Memorial – detail

    The most recent lamps and wires seem to be restrained by plastic clips glued onto the face of the stone:

    Provincetown Pilgrim Memorial - lamp detail
    Provincetown Pilgrim Memorial – lamp detail

    A previous generation drilled small holes and inserted metal pins that didn’t survive in a salt-spray environment, so I guess plastic seemed like the right answer.

    Words fail me…

  • 3D Printer Nozzle-to-Platform Gap Visualization

    Here’s what the 0.35 mm diameter nozzle of my Makergear M2 looks like when printing a 0.40×0.25 mm thread on borosilicate glass with a coating of hairspray:

    M2 V4 nozzle - thinwall box first layer
    M2 V4 nozzle – thinwall box first layer

    The dimensions:

    Extrusion Dimensions
    Extrusion Dimensions

    Some common household objects at the same scale:

    Objects vs Thread Comparison
    Objects vs Thread Comparison

    The accuracy required is literally hair-fine: being off by the diameter of the hair on your head can wreck the first layer of the printed object.

    One turn of the M3 screws supporting the M2 platform move the mounting point by twice the thread thickness. Their positions on the platform amplify the motion by about a factor of two, so if you’re tweaking the screws by more than 1/6 turn at a time, you’re overdoing it.

    For first-layer nozzle-to-platform distance adjustment:

    • If it increases by 0.25 mm, the plastic won’t touch the platform
    • If it decreases by 0.25 mm, the plastic won’t come out of the nozzle

    For platform alignment:

    • If your printer can’t maintain the proper gap to within ±0.10 mm across the entire platform, it won’t produce accurate results
    • Platform alignment that looks good probably isn’t

    After you do a coarse alignment and set the Extrusion Multiplier to get accurate thread width, print thinwall hollow boxes and use your trusty digital calipers to make the platform settings & adjustments perfect.

    Works for me, anyhow. All I do is slice whatever object I’ve just designed, turn the M2 on, and print it. No muss, no fuss, no wasted motion: It Just Works.

    The sketches come from my Digital Machinist column (DM 10.4). They’ve been covering a bunch of 3D printing topics, so if you’re interested in that kind of stuff…

  • Disabling Windows 10 Upgrade Nagware

    If you’re running Windows, then you have more experience than I do, but it seems Microsoft, for reasons best known to it, really really really wants you to upgrade to Windows 10, has been forcing nagware onto every Windows box in existence, and actively working to defeat efforts to remove said nagware.

    Our Token Windows Box, an off-lease Dell Optiplex 780 that arrived bearing Windows 7 Professional, will never, ever get upgraded, because it’s running a bunch of ancient Windows programs that interface with specific bits of hardware, none of which (most likely) will work with Windows 10. In any event, I see no reason to go through the hassle of “upgrading” an old machine, (maybe) resolving all the inevitable compatibility problems, and (maybe) having no way to roll back the upgrade, all for a few programs run, at most, monthly.

    Continually declining Windows 10 upgrade prompts isn’t my idea of a Good User Experience, but I’m also tired of manually inspecting and killing updates that re-re-re-install the nagware.

    The GWX Control Panel (“GWX” = “Get Windows 10” in MS-speak) seems to be the least awful way of dealing with this mess. It’s not offered by Microsoft, for obvious reasons, but is offered free-of-charge.

    Just do it…

  • Why I Run Ad Blockers on All My Browsers

    The latest new-to-me off-lease Dell PC arrived with Windows 7, which means that I must install UltraVNC (that’s uvnc.com, not the obvious URL, alas) to enable remote desktop access. Here’s what the download page looks like through a fresh copy of Firefox, without ad blocking:

    UltraVNC Download - with ads
    UltraVNC Download – with ads

    Notice that the prominent “Start Download” label-and-button in the middle of the page isn’t the one you want, nor are any of the other things that say “Download”. If you’re not a techie and don’t quite know what you’re looking for, there’s no hope for you.

    Here’s what it looks like with all the ads suppressed:

    UltraVNC Download - minus ads
    UltraVNC Download – minus ads

    Granted, that’s not the most user-friendly download site I’ve ever seen and, most likely, non-techies won’t venture there, but … suppressing the ads certainly eliminates a tremendous amount of noise.

    WordPress places ads on my blog and I get a cut of the revenue, so I am not without a certain conflict of interest. I could forego the ad revenue (currently about 60 ¢/day), which wouldn’t eliminate the ads; WordPress simply pockets my cut in addition to theirs. I could also pay WordPress 30 ¢/day to completely suppress the ads (and get other features I don’t care about), for a net cost of a dollar a day to not show ads.

    Hey, who wants to sign up as a Patreon donor? [grin]

  • Road Conditions: October 2015 Summary

    It took a while, but the owners of Janet Drive did a commendable job of resurfacing the giant potholes that were consuming the parking lot entrance:

    Janet Dr at 708 Dutchess Turnpike entrance - 2015-10-05
    Janet Dr at 708 Dutchess Turnpike entrance – 2015-10-05

    That patch covers all the holes, has a smooth surface, and neatly joins the adjacent pavement without huge bumps. It’s entirely possible to do good repairs, if you just hire the right contractor.

    Which doesn’t happen if you’re NYSDOT, unfortunately, as they regards a few random hand-tamped blobs on a section of Rt 44 (and Bike Rt 44, for whatever that’s worth) as entirely adequate:

    Rt 44 - 695 at Quest Diagnostics - 2015-10-05 - no progress
    Rt 44 – 695 at Quest Diagnostics – 2015-10-05 – no progress

    The sinkhole on Rt 376 that we must dodge maybe four times every week continues to grow:

    Rt 376 2015-10-05 - Northbound milepost 1110 - sinkhole
    Rt 376 2015-10-05 – Northbound milepost 1110 – sinkhole

    Somebody who should know better suggested the NYSDOT crew just ran out of asphalt after patching all around the sinkhole that I’d reported back in July, but …

    The NYSDOT Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator (yeah, she exists) assured me the engineers were studying the signal timing and would contact me directly:

    Burnett at Rt 55 2015-08-31 - Yellow 8 s after green with cars
    Burnett at Rt 55 2015-08-31 – Yellow 8 s after green with cars

    That hasn’t happened after four months, so I’d say NYSDOT uses the word “study” to mean “stonewall”.

    There are more examples, but, to make a long gripe short, I’ve (once again) proven to my own satisfaction that there’s no point in reporting bicycle-related maintenance problems to NYSDOT: it only annoys them and they retaliate by making things worse.

    We just keep riding…

  • Invisible Asterisk: Motorized Sidewalk Traffic

    From the NYS DMV:

    You cannot register or operate any of the motorized devices from the list below on any street, highway, parking lot, sidewalk or other area in New York State that allows public motor vehicle traffic. You may be arrested if you do.

    [List of things]

    Golf Cart (also referred to as Golf Car or Neighborhood Electric Vehicle) – a small motorized device with four wheels designed to carry people.  You can’t register a golf cart as an ATV.  Many low speed vehicles are similar in appearance to a golf cart, and can be registered and driven on New York State highways. 1

    [More things]

    1. For a low speed vehicle to be registered in New York

    • it must meet federal motor vehicle safety standard 500 (49 CFR 571.500)
    • its maximum performance speed must be certified by the manufacturer
    • it must appear on the list of approved limited use vehicles

    With that in mind, here’s a fairly common sight along Raymond Avenue…

    Vassar College regards as Raymond as its private driveway, with its fleet of golf-cart-class and tiny-pickup vehicles traveling the web of sidewalks and pedestrian crossings on and off campus. In point of fact, Vassar does own all of the property on both sides of Raymond from Hooker to Collegeview, but Raymond itself unquestionably has “public motor vehicle traffic”.

    Vassar’s Annual Sidewalk Sodding Week occurs shortly before their graduation / alumnae homecoming ceremonies. The sidewalks and paths obviously weren’t designed for shared vehicular & pedestrian use, so the cart tires gouge unsightly ruts along the pavement edges; the sod prevents those muddy strips from marring the festivities.

    The concrete sidewalks along Raymond take a beating from the vehicles, too, but the overall concrete quality (or lack thereof) may have something to do with that.

    This spiffy tiny-pickup golf cart used by the NYS OPRHP sports a Limited Use Auto plate:

    Limited Use Auto 2015-08-21
    Limited Use Auto 2015-08-21

    It’s sucking a socket at the west end of the Walkway Over the Hudson.

  • Sharing The Road on Raymond Avenue: Part 2

    A few days after I didn’t get sideswiped at the Vassar Main Entrance Rotary, we were returning from errands. Traffic is light, but Raymond Avenue doesn’t provide much clearance. This orange car is about as far away as one can expect:

    Raymond Ave 2015-06-30 - door opening - 0
    Raymond Ave 2015-06-30 – door opening – 0

    Two seconds later, however, there’s a door opening ahead of Mary (clicky for more dots):

    Raymond Ave 2015-06-30 - door opening - 1
    Raymond Ave 2015-06-30 – door opening – 1

    I’m shouting “DOOR! DOOR! DOOR!” in the hopes that the driver won’t step directly in front of Mary, but most likely the orange car whooshing by three feet away made more difference:

    Raymond Ave 2015-06-30 - door opening - 2
    Raymond Ave 2015-06-30 – door opening – 2

    Fortunately, there wasn’t any overtaking traffic and, during the four seconds after the orange car passed us, we could move to the left:

    Raymond Ave 2015-06-30 - door opening - 3
    Raymond Ave 2015-06-30 – door opening – 3

    The driver’s body language suggested that, until we passed her, she remained oblivious to the outside world and, in fact, she was probably annoyed that two cyclists came that close to her.

    “Sharing the road” requires two parties. Raymond Avenue’s design doesn’t encourage motorists to share the road and certainly doesn’t provide a fair playing field for the most unprotected party in the transaction.

    Broken by design, I’d call Raymond Avenue, and that’s pretty much what NYSDOT’s original planning documents admit.