Silicon Valley Redneck

Back to looking at a bigger 3D printer

In among all the other stuff I'm juggling.

The CR-10 v3 is still looking eminently plausible, though I'm still a bit unclear on the extruder temperature range and the availability of a tent that'll fit the v3.

In another tab... I was also looking at the Ender-6 (only 250x250x400mm, but super-zippy fast and comes with its own enclosure), and then there's the CR-6 Max (400mm cube!) - but, as always, full specs are not out there in the open.

Ah, well.  Probably make a decision in the next week or thereabouts, depending what other chaos comes my way.

And it seems that slicer software has been rapidly improving of late, with features for breaking up large parts, support for structural fill, and so on.

Come to think of it - on the materials front, I was looking at overhauling the old FlashForge to support high temperatures on one side.  Now if only I could upgrade the other extruder to handle squishy materials, I'd be all set for making small parts in fancy materials, and there wouldn't be much need for a high-temp hotend on the new machine.  (Once upon a time, someone published STL files for the parts to upgrade the extruder, then he took the product commercial and pulled the files, and nobody seems to be selling the parts anymore.  Oh, wait: looks like I have the February 2014 edition of the files, which didn't print satisfactorily on the FlashForge, but I guess I can try printing them on the photoresin printer and see if I get usable parts, and if that makes the extruder play nice with NinjaFlex.)

Update grocery list...

Gotta stock up on Sugar Frosted Flakes, Extract of Malt, and Tuna Sandwiches.

'Cause we're coming up on the Year of the Tiger, and it does not do to leave a hungry tiger out of your calculations.

Snowy and blowy out there.

Not all that much snow, and it's not expected to last long, but it's nigh-horizontal.

Forecast for tomorrow: cold.  The FedEx guy said the last forecast he heard involved single-digit temperatures, but the lows I'm seeing are more twentyish, unless he meant single-digit negative centipedes or something.  (It'll almost certainly be in triple digits... Kelvin or Rankine, take your choice.)

I think I'll wait for a break in the weather before fetching the mail.

Regarding the Boots Theory of Poverty

Yeah, Sir Pterry (by way of Sam Vimes) did pretty much nail it, and the point that poor people can (as a rule) only afford crappy products that'll have to be bought again frequently, while the rich can afford goods that will last for generations, is worthy of consideration.

Though... sometimes poor people can get rich people's castoffs, cheap or even free.  In prosperous times, a cruise through rich-people neighborhoods during remodeling season may turn up some quality furnishings, barely used.  Though... that's more the nouveau riche, buying a new round of flashy luxury goods of dubious durability every year or three and throwing out the old stuff; it's not like the culturally-rich, who know the value of a dollar and spend carefully on durable goods.

Thing is, it's not an original observation.  I recall seeing the same principle elaborated on in an unrelated novel (by P. D. James?) some years before Vimes first appeared on the printed page.  I think anyone who's been both poor and somewhat prosperous has noted the same thing.  Or anyone who's run a small business using his own money and had to make decisions on furniture, capital equipment, and the like: do I get something cheap that barely meets the immediate need, or bust the budget getting something that'll meet projected needs for the next decade or so?

Some things just can't be corrected.

I mentioned that not-quite-placed Digi-Key order?

This morning, I noted that the "Pending change" note for my shipping address had disappeared, so I went ahead and placed the order (plus some RF stuff from the rack by the checkout line).

Aaaaand... the trailing digits of the ZIP+4 for my shipping address are still/again wrong, and don't match the (correct) ZIP+4 of my billing address.

Because, as we see time and again, Computers Don't Argue™.  The Algorithm says I must wear these Plus Fours, whether they fit or not.  I guess FedEx can deliver the package anyway.

Amazon has quite a variety of products that turn up on a search for Plus Fours, and nothing on the first page comes close to the customary meaning, though a very few could be said to be in the same ZIP code, and some of those have zippers.

Unpacking the reserve mouse

Well, after several years of use, the mouse on my desk was getting to the point where a major overhaul was called for.  Either that, or replacement.

Let's see... one of the slidey feet had come unstuck long ago; the remaining ones had become seriously furry.  The innards keep getting filled with cat hair, which of course will also happen to a new one unless it has a window on the bottom to protect it.  And, in a new development, the scroll wheel has gotten erratic (which could be due to cat hair).

Old mouse is a Logitech B100.  Oh, look!  There's a brand new B100 in the mouse closet!  (For the uninitiated, that's the office-supply closet, and the name has nothing to do with computer peripherals.  I have to leave the door open, because if it's closed Southmoon will insist on having it opened for her so she can check for mice of the furry variety.)  So, unpack that and hook it up.

Time to get a couple more.  Check Amazon.  The B100 isn't quite the highest-rated wired USB mouse there, but it's darn near the top, and at $7 for a mouse that'll hold up for a few years on my desk?  Yeah, I'll stick with that model.  No need to look for a $700 stainless-steel IndestructiMouse with a Gorilla Glass bottom window and fully-gusseted buttons to exclude dust.

Trying to do little projects...

... in little bits of time, doesn't always turn out well.

I set out to fasten together three parts: call them A, B, and C.  I settled on using epoxy.

The epoxy in the garage mini-fridge turned out to be considerably past its best-by date, but was still usable, I guess.  Use a dab of this now, and get a fresh supply on order.

With reference to Part A: there are four possible orientations of Part B, only one of them correct.  I got that right, at least.  But there's slop in the Y-axis, and I glued it at the wrong end of that slop.  Not a huge deal, but it doesn't look so good.

Then there's Part C.  Again, four possible orientations: one correct, one wrong-handed, and two completely wrong.  I avoided the wrong-handedness, but ended up with a right-handed, completely wrong configuration.  Which, in hindsight, might just be why I was having to apply an unexpected (but not unreasonable) amount of force during assembly (the parts were hand-fitted in an earlier session).

Oh, well... not having spotted the problems until after the epoxy had set up, I'm now left with the rather lengthy project of getting the parts separated again and cleaning them up for another try.  I think this must await acquisition of a propane torch - probably a next-week thing, as we now have several non-shippable items on the home-improvement-center shopping list.

Of headlines and real life

I keep seeing ever-more-alarming headlines warning of some new strain of the Pestilence.

The latest variant is super-duper-extra alarming!  Not only does it evade the Holy Vaccine, but it doesn't show up on any of the current tests, and it has no symptoms!  Oh, noes!  Anyone around you could be infected!  You could be infected, and you'd never know it!  PANIC!!!!!!

This is seriously getting into N-Ray territory, only with a claim that N-Rays are dangerous.

Meanwhile in the actual world, the Elder Strains are still around, still infectious, and sometimes causing the classic symptoms: I recently learned that a college classmate is in the hospital (in SoCal), slowly recovering from two weeks of Coofmonia.  Apparently he was vaxxed, and had been following the California rules, but he ended up in the hospital anyway.  At least he is recovering.

Also: regular old flu is still a thing, and can still be deadly.  Losing sight of that by focusing narrowly on one particular virus, however novel, is counterproductive.

The mainstream press has long been very bad indeed at presenting the public with the information needed for threat assessment, and the past couple of years have been really over-the-top bad in regard to information about threats, risk factors, mitigation measures, etc.

Got one phone call made...

The situation with the business credit card should be sorted out, though it took me a while to get through the automated system and reach a (helpful) human.

And another call-I-should-make has crept into the list, and for this one I'm not even sure I have the right number.

Meanwhile, I just got an e-mail reminding me that it's time to pay $288 for the annual domain listing renewal for jcmcontech.com, which is kinda odd, 'cause JCM has been out of business for nigh unto a decade now, I have no idea who might currently own the domain, and I was never listed as a contact in the first place.  Also, that's an awfully high price for a domain listing.  File as obvious spam.

Ah, well.  Time to attend to some other stuff, and make at least one more of the phone calls, this one once again in search of the missing (?) property tax bills.

A challenge

Spell "Sevierville" over the phone without singing.

Always fiddly complications

Started out the day with a to-do list and a sinus headache, which is never a good combination.

Somewhere along the morning, I decided I needed to order a few things from Digi-Key.  Pick the items, add them to the cart, proceed to checkout....

Hm.  The billing address on file for the credit card on file (my business credit card) is three years out of date: it's the Sunnyvale address.  Can't update the card data; have to delete the card and re-enter.  But... that card expires next month, so add instead another card, and I can put the business card back in when the new one arrives.  Meanwhile, set the physical card in the middle of my desk as a reminder that I need to check on its status, and also that I need to call the bank and ask why the billing address on that card, and not on any of my other accounts, is out of sync (if memory serves, the bank has the 2019 address, in Palo Alto).

Then I notice that the trailing digits of the ZIP+4 for my shipping address are wrong.  Go into the "edit address" form.  Fill in the correct digits.  There's a field for explaining why I'm changing my shipping address.  I fill that in, too, and hit SUBMIT.  My address gains a little green "Pending change" note, which persists into the evening.  Maybe it'll get processed tomorrow?  I don't really want to place the order until the address is corrected.  Meanwhile, I browse the rack by the checkout line, looking at RF modules.

Credit card.  Bank.  Oh, yes.  Check the bank's web site.  There are two addresses on file, one for my name with, and one without, the middle initial.  Both are the current actual address, and, between them, they're the address used for each of the various accounts with that bank, including the business credit card.  But, when I call up a PDF of the most recent statement, the mailing address is indeed the Palo Alto address from 2019 (also from way-back-when to 1988, but I wasn't dealing with that bank back then).  So... guess I do have to call the bank and ask what's up with the address, and also make sure that the new card, which should be coming soon, comes to the actual current address.  This has actually been on my to-do list since I bought the Sherline mill; I couldn't use that card, because Sherline does strict address checking and will only ship to the credit card's billing address.

Then a small piece of disassembled furniture arrived, and I assembled it (which involved straightening a flange that gotten slightly bent in shipping).

And the to-do list?  Got longer, not shorter.  Too many distractions and interruptions.  Including one of those annoying MediBot reminder calls that's sort of a hybrid: it's trying to leave important information on my voicemail, but it also wants me to push a button to confirm or cancel an appointment.  Said appointment was for my father, and it was for this week, but Joy had already rescheduled it, so she had to call the medical center again to ask why we'd gotten the reminder and to make sure the appointment really was rescheduled.

The smartness problem

Smart people play chess, right?

And only the very smartest can play chess well?

Let's try changing the rules a bit.

First, the number of players is variable.  Players can come and go as the game progresses, and in a particularly lively game there can be hundreds of players active.

Second, each player starts with between one hundred and one billion pieces, depending.  Pieces can be lost during the game, but they can also be won over from other players, and (given time) they can make new pieces among themselves.

Third, each piece has its own ideas of how the game is played, and may choose to ignore or defy its player, or even to ally itself, secretly, with another player.

Fourth, conditions on the board vary in dramatic and unpredictable ways, depending largely on forces beyond the players' control or knowledge.

Fifth, the full rules of the game are not known to anyone, and may be fundamentally unknowable.

Now we have a game that's more challenging than chess by many orders of magnitude.  And yet, somehow, the world is full of people who are convinced that they'd be awesome at it if only they could be the players.  Even more worryingly, there are people already in the position of players who are firmly convinced that they are good at it.

Hubris: it's very much a thing.

Being reminded of an old decision

Comes time to drill a few 3/32" holes through a steel sandwich on aluminum.

Open the drill index, all filled with nice shiny twist drills, and extract the one that's in the 3/32" position.  Check with a caliper: it's a hair undersize, but whatever; I'd been pondering drilling the holes a size smaller and then finishing them up as a second step.

Start drilling.  Right through the top layer of aluminum.  The steel, though... after way too much time, it had just made a shallow divot.

Oh, right.

I bought the nice shiny 118 115-piece drill set with steel index back in the 90s, choosing a bargain set with the intention of replacing individual drills, as they wore out, with high-quality ones.  That way, I'd have all the funny sizes on hand, and I'd end up buying pricey replacements just for the ones that wore out, those presumably being the ones that got the most use.

Apparently I hadn't tried using the 3/32" drill on steel before, and also the steel in question is on the hard side.  This is just not gonna work.

Oh, well.  Order a replacement and some spares, and resume work on the project once they arrive.  There's plenty else to do in the meantime.

Revisiting vendors

While I'm fiddling with KiCad, I take a detour to OSH Park, a prototype board fab house that handily takes EAGLE files as well as Gerbers.

Oh, ho!  They also take KiCad files now!  But... version 5, not yet 6, and I guess v6 doesn't have "save in old format" capability.  Oh, well; perhaps by the time I'm trying to get a few boards made, they'll support KiCad v6.

And, they now do 6-layer boards, for a price rather less than an arm and a leg.  Copper trace&space on 4- and 6-layer boards only goes down to 5/5 mils, though; that's OK for many purposes, but not keeping up with crazy tiny package geometry.

Well, for demanding fabs, there's Sierra Circuits (not cheap, but they can do finer feature sizes, and they're domestic), and the various offshore services (cheap, fine feature sizes available, but you have to worry about shipping, furrin holidays, and in some cases ITAR).  And, for small batches of small boards that fit the parameters, OSH Park is still there and still making incremental upgrades to its services - and still domestic, which counts for something even for non-ITAR projects.

Mite chillsome out there.

Well, it is above freezing, and all bright and sunny.

Around 44°F; wind variable and gusty, maybe 7 to 15 MPH.

Supposed to be warmer tomorrow afternoon, but this afternoon was my opportunity to get outdoors and do some stuff, which mainly didn't involve actual exercise but just driving the tractor around smoothing out some driveway damage and then driving back and forth to try to compact the gravel.

There were a couple of soft spots in the new gravel.  One I knew about: I've been parking the Venerable Prius in it, and the redistribution of gravel was getting rather alarming.  The other turned out to be in the steep part of the driveway, near the top, just before the parking area; this was turned up by a delivery driver a few days ago, who carefully backed the (2WD, of course) van up that part and kept slipping and having to try again.  Methinks he was trying too hard not to drive the way he surely must have learned in the military.

Anyway: some scraping with the box blade, some back-dragging with the loader bucket, and much driving around, and the surface is back to looking reasonably level.  Returning the Prius to its spot was uneventful; I'll see how well the gravel holds up now.

Back indoors, getting warmed back up, and pondering what next.  Maybe I'll get a seed order organized; it's almost time to start sprouting things in the basement.

And speaking of small fiddly bits

Still looking at options for Bluetooth Low Energy, for sundry subprojects.

There's a chip called the BL602 that comes packaged in cheap little easy-to-use modules.  I even turn out to have some eval boards on hand, and the software development kit (command-line based) is available on Github.

But...

Finding a module with a U.FL/IPEX* connector for an external antenna is somewhat of a challenge - many of the applications I have in mind will do fine with a PCB antenna, but for outdoors I really want a proper antenna for serious range.  (Or I could use something other than BLE for long range, but the cheap'n'popular radio chip I first contemplated has some weird characteristics that make sprawling outdoors networks overly complicated, and BLE-type chips show a fair amount of promise in that regard.)

And, the electrical (and RF) characteristics are only specified for WiFi operation, not for BLE.  When I'm trying to guesstimate range and how much battery will be needed, having these things characterized by the vendor would be Real Helpful™.

Maybe I go with a TI part; those are well characterized, but I'm not too sure about module-level availability.  Or perchance something from Nordic Semiconductor?

 

* Is IPEX a bird or a goat?  I always get those mixed up.  And what do they have to do with the University of Florida?

Parcels go in and out of hyperspace...

Ordered a couple of things from a few states over, about a week back, the orders being separated by a day or two because I wasn't all that organized.

First parcel shipped UPS ground.  For a few days, the seller showed it as "shipped" while UPS showed it as "label printed"; eventually, UPS showed it in transit, and it ended up arriving a day later than originally predicted: turned out OK, but I was kinda worried for a while, as it included something moderately expensive and currently hard to come by (no, it wasn't flour tortillas).

Second parcel shipped UPS Mail Innovations, which lacks end-to-end tracking or predictions of delivery date.  UPS tracking shows it having arrived in Sevierville, presumably the post office, on Thursday.  USPS tracking... well, sometimes it's hard to identify the shipper, but their tracking system doesn't seem to show it at all.  I hope it hasn't gotten lost.  This one's not super high value, but includes a couple of small fiddly bits that I kind of want soon.

Local UPS and FedEx deliveries seem to be back to non-Christmas normal.  Postal parcel deliveries are almost normal-for-here, though I think operation of the actual post office may be rather disrupted.  (I don't venture into the Sevierville post office unless Amazon has tried to ship me something that didn't fit in the delivery car; for the occasional other postal errand, the Seymour office is much closer, but that's not our ZIP code, so picking up packages requires a trip into Sevierville.)

Update:  The post office found the UPS MI package:

Search was partially successful

Off to the barn!

Item #1: the lefse griddle.  Found!  With flour tortillas having somehow gotten scarce the past month, I may end up making my own, and what's a flour tortilla but little potato-free lefse?

Item #2: a multi-station charger for NiMH AA and AAA cells.  Yeah, these can be had for cheap on Amazon, but those mostly run off of USB power, which limits how much total charging current they can apply.  Mine's a relic of the days when such things came with their own power supplies.

Maybe it's over in the same general area as the lefse griddle, where I though I'd most recently seen the reason for the charger, a set of highly-esteemed walkie-talkies* of 1990s vintage?  It's not there, and neither is the case with the walkie-talkies in it.  Did it migrate to the basement?  I can't find it there, either (nor the charger, for that matter).

Hmph.  At the rate we're consuming AA and AAA cells around here, it'd be nice to use rechargeables for everyday purposes and save a stash of alkalines for After The Apocalypse.  Maybe I'll go ahead and order one of the modern chargers (inferior to the old kind) and a supply of NiMH cells of the modern type (much superior to the mid-1990s sort), and if the old charger does eventually turn up the new one can become a spare.

 

* They're FRS, you know.

Wintry out there.

It's cold, as was foretold in the forecast.  Like, 24°F cold.  Not exactly North Dakota cold, but way colder than Silicon Valley cold.

What was not foretold, even a few hours ago, is that it's now snowing.  Not very much, but snowing... and it's not likely to melt before this afternoon, if then.

Well, I don't have to go out in it, aside from a trudge down to the mailbox (because yesterday's mail arrived accompanied by snow and glom of nit, if not dogs with orange eyebrows nor yet Mrs. Cake).  But... we're expecting deliveries today.  Walmart stuff, via FedEx.  Two kinds of HAZMAT, via UPS (energetic materials and chocolate truffles, if you must know).  And some largish home health care stuff, presumably via some local delivery service.

Hm.  I don't think the gravel driveway will get covered enough to be a problem.  Maybe.  It almost certainly won't get enough snow on it to be shovel-able, with the front loader nor any other way neither.  And gravel is good for traction, right?  But the actual roads, well, those might get a little interesting.  Cars seem to be passing by uneventfully so far, but this does seem like just the weather for things to get mighty slickery on the pavement.

Update:  A little snow on the driveway isn't a problem, but some day when it's not so cold I'll need to take the tractor out and smooth up a couple of soft spots, then drive back and forth over those areas repeatedly.

New year, new plates.

When I renewed the registrations for the Venerable Prius and the Tundra, I was surprised to learn that I'd be receiving a new metal plate for each.

Turns out Tennessee changes its license plate design every (mumble) years, and for some reason everybody gets the new design.

I just unpacked the plates (in plenty of time for next month), and not only are they a different design, but the numbers have changed.  The format of the number has changed.

Oh, well.  It's not like I'd gotten familiar with the old numbers.  And the new ones are adjacent to each other, in a same-side-of-the-street way (as in, they differ by 2).  Maybe if I'd filled out the form faster, I would have gotten consecutive numbers?