Category Archives: probably boring

How long do 3D printed parts last?

One data point to add to the world: in a dishwasher that’s used every day, about three years, maybe more. Back in 2020, I fixed the bottom rack of our dishwasher by printing some pegs and new wheels out of … Continue reading

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I’m going to hell

Pretty much ever since I upgraded to Ubuntu 22.04 (yeah, long term support), the software updater has been crashing. At first I worried, then a search mentioned that it was a known problem and in line for fixing, so I … Continue reading

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This is why there are PCB fab services

So the kid decided to teach a soldering workshop at geek camp. Of course that means a custom PCB (and custom firmware, but that’s not my department). Which meant that I finally got to test all those tutorials about etching … Continue reading

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The Pin Dance

Don’t get me wrong, I love Circuit Python. Sure, I could get stuff done in the ugly stepchild language that is Arduino, but the niggling details, the mediocre IDE, none of it was my friend. And truth to tell, it’s … Continue reading

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In praise of cattle

The 16-year-old, who wants a career somewhere in IT, introduced me a while back to the distinction between pets and cattle. When something goes wrong with your pet, you nurse it back to health. When something goes wrong with one … Continue reading

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Osmotic Bubbles

Who knew? Our fancy toilet has been leaking for a while, and at long last I decided to do something about it. Which involved disassembling a bunch of toilet-body parts (remember, fancy), turning off the water and extracting the flush … Continue reading

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Thank you, Electronics Goldmine

I admit it, I have an addiction to things that call themselves bargains. Down in the basement are multiple cubic feet of random electronic and mechanical components that looked like a good idea or might be useful someday or just … Continue reading

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Failing to fail

I’ve been working on and off with Blinkinlabs’ BlinkyTape and pixels, which means also with their nice little app PatternPaint, which lets you create little light shows to download to their LED strands without all the annoying number-fiddling that is … Continue reading

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In praise of useless information

About a year ago, back when we were still doing laser night at Local64, C did a nice backlit laser-cut sign for me to put in the door downstairs, using a font that wasn’t properly speaking a stencil but still … Continue reading

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Vindicated

About two years ago, for no really good reason, I designed a 3D-printable setup for coupling those standard gearmotors to Lego bricks and axles, and posted it at Youmagine. Hardly anyone liked it or downloaded it. Then, last week, Adafruit, … Continue reading

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