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
A sterling knife followed me home after a Thanksgiving gathering:
The original cement, dating back to the middle of the last century, turned into friable dust around the blade tang:
I cleaned it out as best I could, buttered JB Quik epoxy around the tang and into the socket, joined the two, and let it cure in the natural position:
The rest of the knives in the set may need similar attention, but I’m not looking for trouble.
The rodents around here have great trouble with outdoor bowls, but this trio ended in a deep six gallon bucket next to the garage workbench:
Even though mice don’t seem like cuddly creatures, they ended their days snuggled together; we’ll just ignore the cannibalism thing.
Heck of a way to go, even for rodents. I renewed the steel wool blocking a gap in the garage door.
Come to find out Xubuntu 18.04 ratcheted the ImageMagick security settings up to a dangerous chattering whine:
convert p???.jpg "Machining D-bit Drills.pdf" convert-im6.q16: not authorized `Machining D-bit Drills.pdf' @ error/constitute.c/WriteImage/1037.
Fortunately, someone who understands this stuff encountered the problem before I did and posted a great description of the solution.
To forestall link rot, the process looks like:
cd /etc/ImageMagick-6/ sudo cp policy.xml policy.xml.base sudo nano policy.xml … change one line … policy domain="coder" rights="read|write" pattern="PDF"
It is completely unclear to me whether ImageMagick (as of ImageMagick 6.9.7-4 Q16 x86_64 20170114 ) requires or merely tolerates the vertical bar in place of commas, nor whether it’s in my best interest to replace "coder" with "*".
In any event, I can once again stuff bitmap images into PDF files.
A Makergear forum discussion on PETG hair and the prevention thereof prompted me to take a look at the silicone coating I’d applied to the nozzle:
That was ten months ago. This is now:
The camera sees the nozzle in a mirror laid flat on the platform, making the image less crisp than a direct view.
So the silicone seems a bit worn around the tip, has acquired a few firmly adhered globs, and definitely isn’t as shiny.
Rather than (try to) peel it off and reapply a new coating, I picked off the globs, cleaned around the nozzle, and slobbered a thin layer atop the existing silicone:
Extruding a few millimeters of filament pushed the film off the nozzle opening and it now works as well as it ever did.
The ancient (Came With The House™) Electrolux canister vacuum cleaner long ago lost the plastic bushing around the opening passing its retractable cord, which I’d long sworn to replace. A recent trip around the Basement Laboratory paused near the recently relocated Box o’ Wire Loom & Braid, whereupon I snipped off a few inches of split loom and tucked it in place:
Looks and works better than before, anyhow.
The blue flap dangling off the back should latch over the exhaust port, but failed long ago when the latch tab eroded. I attempted a repair, which never worked quite right, and won’t get around to attempting another for quite a while.
The Michelin ProTek Max tube I installed two years ago developed a slow leak this year, which I eventually ascribed to the valve stem, because the sealant should plug any other leak.
Cutting it open reveals the perfectly good greenish-yellow sealant:
The sealant also carries black rubbery grit / shavings / dust, perhaps intended to jam inside larger gashes while the sealant coagulates and binds it together.
There’s a lot of rubber floating around in there:
Dismantling the Presta valve stem show the rubbery crud on and around the valve seal and seat:
Whenever I pumped up the tires, I finger-tightened the nut to ensure a good seal, as you do with all Presta valves. Obviously, finger-tight can’t handle that much crud between the sealing surfaces.
I’m sorry to say I was right about the leaky valve stem, because I think all the ProTek tubes will fail in exactly the same way.
The valve has small wrench flats making it easy to remove, so I can at least attempt to de-gunk them when they develop slow leaks.
Color me unimpressed.
Over the years, various xsetwacom incantations have confined the tablet stylus to the left-hand landscape monitor on my desk. Updating to Xubuntu 18.04 once again changed the monitors names (from HEAD-0 back to DP-1), but xsetwacom stopped working.
My startup.sh script runs from Xubuntu’s “Application Autostart” list, so X is already running and xsetwacom should do the right thing. Alas, even with $XAUTHORITY and $DISPLAY set correctly (automagically by X), xsetwacom still didn’t corral the cursor.
Some rummaging around the Intertubes suggested a delay would allow X to get up to speed and, indeed, sleeping for two seconds solved the problem:
logger "startup.sh - copying Xauthority values" whoami > /tmp/who cp /home/ed/.Xauthority /tmp/Xauthority.txt echo $XAUTHORITY > /tmp/XAUTHORITY.txt cp $XAUTHORITY /tmp/xauth.cp echo $DISPLAY > /tmp/DISPLAY.txt # xsetwacom needs an additional delay after $XAUTHORITY and $DISPLAY become correct logger "startup.sh - waiting aimlessly" sleep 2s logger "startup.sh - doing wacom setup" xsetwacom --verbose set "Wacom Graphire3 6x8 Pen stylus" MapToOutput "DP-1" xsetwacom --verbose set "Wacom Graphire3 6x8 Pen eraser" MapToOutput "DP-1"
Sheesh & similar remarks.
The complete Bash script as a GitHub Gist:
| logger "startup.sh – starting" | |
| logger "startup.sh – setting configurations" | |
| #setxkbmap -option terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp | |
| #pactl set-default-sink alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.hdmi-stereo | |
| amixer -D pulse sset Master 41% | |
| amixer -D pulse sset Master 1%- | |
| gsettings set org.gnome.Evince page-cache-size 500 | |
| # enable Kinesis volume and calculator keys | |
| #/home/ed/bin/Kinesis/kfreestyle2d /dev/hidraw6 & | |
| logger "startup.sh – starting applications" | |
| /usr/bin/thunar & | |
| /usr/bin/gimp & | |
| /usr/bin/chromium-browser & | |
| /usr/bin/digikam & | |
| /usr/bin/firefox & | |
| /usr/bin/thunderbird & | |
| /usr/bin/xfce4-terminal & | |
| logger "startup.sh – copying Xauthority values" | |
| # similar lines in .xprofile happen before X grabs the display | |
| whoami > /tmp/who | |
| cp /home/ed/.Xauthority /tmp/Xauthority.txt | |
| echo $XAUTHORITY > /tmp/XAUTHORITY.txt | |
| cp $XAUTHORITY /tmp/xauth.cp | |
| echo $DISPLAY > /tmp/DISPLAY.txt | |
| # xsetwacom needs an additional delay after $XAUTHORITY and $DISPLAY become correct | |
| logger "startup.sh – waiting aimlessly" | |
| sleep 2s | |
| logger "startup.sh – doing wacom setup" | |
| xsetwacom –verbose set "Wacom Graphire3 6×8 Pen stylus" MapToOutput "DP-1" | |
| #xsetwacom –verbose set "Wacom Graphire3 6×8 Pen stylus" MapToOutput "HEAD-0" | |
| xsetwacom –verbose set "Wacom Graphire3 6×8 Pen eraser" MapToOutput "DP-1" | |
| #xsetwacom –verbose set "Wacom Graphire3 6×8 Pen eraser" MapToOutput "HEAD-0" | |
| logger "startup.sh — done" |
The cruft in there reminds me of previous fixes / workarounds / haxx, so it’s not entirely wasted space.
