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 it used to work, it can work again
Although the oven igniter I just installed worked, its 3.0 A current fell below the gas valve’s minimum 3.3 A, which, based on past experience, suggested it would fail in short order. Just to see what happened, I sent a note to the seller, who offered a warranty swap and, after a bit of fiddling, the replacement arrived:
This one draws exactly 3.3 A, so it just barely meets both its product description and the gas valve’s minimum current.
We’ll see how long this lasts …
I put the camera in the front yard to monitor a new groundhog hole, then mowed the lawn. Although smoke drifting in from the Canadian fires has posed a problem, the air quality wasn’t this bad:
It turns out the camera’s case seal isn’t quite up to the task:
The lip around the front half of the case presses against a rubber gasket around the rear half, which means the water on the electronics chassis is inside the camera case:
Fortunately, the water condensed on the inside of the glass lens protector, rather than on the camera itself:
I let the whole thing dry out on the bench for a few days and all seems right again.
The leak does make me think leaving it out in the rain is a Bad Idea™, which isn’t the sort of thought one should have about a trail camera.
Diurnal pumping can explain many electronic failures. For the record, the monitoring station on the Walkway Over the Hudson vanished a while ago, probably due to rampant electronic corrosion.
For just under twenty bucks, Mary has a new clothes iron and I harvested the heating element from the longsuffering Sunbeam iron:
Per the notations:
The heater measures 12.6 Ω cold, so 9.5 A → 1.1 kW.
The iron had an insulating sleeve on the thermostat shaft capped with a plastic dial, which makes perfect sense for something in contact with the hot side of the AC power cord.
The IC date codes suggest it’s been around since 2002, so it’s about two decades old. In that time, one of the two electrolytic capacitors succumbed to the plague:
I think the relay and electronics implemented the iron’s timed shutoff function, but it does seem rather complex for that.
Confronted with a nice metal eyeglass case that had lost its original liner, I traced the outline on paper and scanned it:
Unlike the plastic Zenni cases, this one has nice straight edges, so:
Then:
1 so it cuts lastWhich looks like this:
Then Fire The Laser into a sheet of EVA foam:
Stuff it into the case, do another one in brown, and the result looks kinda like it should:
That was easy …
So the oven igniter I installed in January failed to ignite the oven when its current draw fell far enough below the valve’s 3.3 A minimum:
Of course, the seller no longer offers that particular igniter.
I described the problem:
The igniter just failed. The oven gas valve requires 3.3 to 3.6 amps to open, but this igniter now draws only 2.3 amps, as shown by the clamp-on current meter.
Because of the low current, the valve does not open and the oven does not heat.
The igniter should last more than five months!
How do I go about getting a replacement or a refund?
Thanks …
Which generated pretty much the reply you’d expect:
We are very sorry, because your product is 5 months from the date of purchase, we cannot offer you a refund.
Please purchase another replacement.
Which made me a bit salty:
” the best quality for greater power connection, higher load and longer service life “
” We stand by our products, and our customers are our focus as a business. If you have any quality problem, please contact Funmit customer service team in time, and we will try our best to solve your problems “
So five months is “longer service life” with “the best quality”.
Bonus: now I understand what “try our best” means, too.
But to no avail:
Have a nice day! We are glad to serve you.
We are very sorry that you are not satisfied with our products.
Amazon.com Return Policy:Amazon.com Voluntary 30-Day Return Guarantee: You can return many items you have purchased within 30 days following delivery of the item to you. Our Voluntary 30-Day Return Guarantee does not affect your legal right of withdrawal in any way.
However, the product has passed the return and exchange period, so it cannot provide you with a warranty.
If you have other questions, please contact us in time, we will serve you wholeheartedly. Thank you.
Sincere wishes,
–By Funmit
So I bought a slightly more expensive igniter from a different randomly named seller that draws a slightly under-spec but entirely typical 3 A:
This one, however, allegedly comes with a one year warranty:
Quality you can Trust – All Snap Products are made with premium materials and are tested so they last
Buy with Confidence – Snap Supply Parts always come with a 1 Year Warranty
Which surely requires the seller remaining in business until then.
We shall see how this works out.
Some years ago we acquired a free quartet of aluminum-frame patio chairs in need of new straps and feet. Eventually enough straps broke to force me to re-strap the things and I finally got around to replacing the badly worn OEM feet:
The small drilled holes let me yoink most them out with sheet-metal screw attached to a slide hammer, then apply the Designated Prydriver to the most recalcitrant / broken ones.
Some feet had worn enough to expose the aluminum tubes, but most had at least a thin layer of plastic:
Obviously, I should have stripped and repainted the frames (if that’s possible, as they’re probably powder-coated), but a man’s gotta know his limitations and this job needed to get done.
One might think patio furniture replacement feet are cheap & readily available, but no amount of keyword engineering produced search results with any degree of assured fit, so I conjured adapters for screw-in feet from the vasty digital deep:
This was a long-awaited opportunity to explore the BOSL2 library and it worked wonderfully well. Each adapter is whittled from a huge hex nut with threads that perfectly fit the M8×1.25 stud, which stands vertically through the middle of the (slightly oval) bottom surface parallel to the floor.
The front tubes have a 5° angle with respect to the vertical:
And the rear tubes are 15° off:
Each adapter has an orientation notch pointing toward the front of the front leg and the rear of the rear leg:
I expected to apply adhesive on the inside and outside of the adapters, but they tapped firmly into place inside the legs and the studs screwed firmly into them, so we’ll see how they survive in actual use. I expect the studs to rust after a while, but that might not be the most awful thing ever to happen.
The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:
| // Patio chair foot adapter | |
| // Ed Nisley – KE4ZNU – 2023-06 | |
| include <BOSL2/std.scad> | |
| include <BOSL2/threading.scad> | |
| LegAngles = [5,15]; | |
| /* [Hidden] */ | |
| ThreadThick = 0.25; | |
| ThreadWidth = 0.40; | |
| HoleWindage = 0.2; | |
| Protrusion = 0.1; // make holes end cleanly | |
| function IntegerMultiple(Size,Unit) = Unit * ceil(Size / Unit); | |
| ID = 0; | |
| OD = 1; | |
| LENGTH = 2; | |
| inch = 25.4; | |
| //———————- | |
| // Dimensions | |
| LegTube = [18.8 – HoleWindage,22.5,0]; | |
| Stud = [8.0,1.25,10.0]; // M8x1.25 foot stud | |
| FlangeBase = 3.0; | |
| //———————– | |
| for (i=[0:len(LegAngles)-1]) { | |
| ang = LegAngles[i]; | |
| FlangeIncr = LegTube[OD]*tan(ang); | |
| Flange = [Stud[0],LegTube[OD],FlangeBase + FlangeIncr]; | |
| translate([i*1.5*Flange[OD],0,0]) | |
| difference() { | |
| translate([0,0,0*-FlangeIncr/2]) | |
| threaded_nut(2*Flange[OD],Stud[0],1.5*Stud[2],Stud[1], | |
| anchor=BOTTOM,bevel=false,$slop=0.2); | |
| rotate([0,ang,0]) { | |
| translate([0,0,FlangeBase + FlangeIncr/2]) | |
| tube(4*Stud[2],2*Flange[OD],LegTube[ID]/2, | |
| anchor=BOTTOM); | |
| tube(4*Stud[2],2*Flange[OD],Flange[OD]/2, | |
| anchor=CENTER); | |
| } | |
| cube([Flange[OD],ThreadWidth,2*ThreadThick],anchor=BOTTOM+RIGHT); | |
| } | |
| } |
An unfortunate confluence of weather, schedule, and enthusiasm led to mowing all the yard in one session:
I managed to remember to pause the tracker during a break in the middle, so it’s really just shy of three wall-clock hours from start to finish. It’s amazing how much work you (well, I) can get out of 100 mg of caffeine.
Despite what you see here, the path on what’s euphemistically called “our lawn” show a much more organized solution to the problem of covering our property with non-overlapping foot-and-a-half stripes. As with my leaf-shredding track, I neither venture into the road nor mow the neighboring yards.
Bonus: slept like a stone that night …
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 