One year ago today: December 6, 2024, JeePee loves Florida..
Five years ago today: December 6, 2020, $140, but I still said no.
Nine years ago today: December 6, 2016 , it needed a 30-ton.
Random years ago today: December 6, 2002, the West is different.
Most everything is on hold, I’m sure you understand. This would not include activities like research and maybe slapping together the odd box. There is enough coffee to last until the 17th so let’s see what today brings us. My appetite is unaffected, so it was grilled chicken & cheese sandwiches and a moment ago, the workers up the lane started banging around. Are we about to fine out how terrifically little it takes to get into my blog at this age? Me, reduced from chasing women around the continents to scrounging pallets in Mulberry. It’s a good thing I enjoy it.
Not that things went better over here. This bad video clip’s the best I could manage. I’m punching the pallet nails and suddenly my compressor quits. Not good, the compressor is well-maintained and in its own cubicle. Nothing found, the breaker trips instantly. We do this the hard way. I pull the compressor from the wall and remove the cover. The result is this tangled mess. See all these bits of thread? They are tangle around the piston and shaft. Of all the crazy possibilities, this is a shop towel torn to shreds and jamming the rotation. And it was once a shop towel of the brand I use here.
The compressor has become a necessity. I pulled the shreds out singly, this was not easy, taking an hour. There was no way to cut pieces so that was a wasted morning that way. I can’t figure how the towel got in there, the moving parts are all protected by a tight-filling housing that could not have admitting anything as large as a shop towel. Wound on there so tight, I took to cutting the individual fibers, but I got it done. Now oiled up and the tank is now more apt to get that sound-dampening case.
Y’know, this topic, making an air compressor quiet seems to attract goofs on-line who don’t know what they are doing or talking about. I’ll let you verify that on your own, but of all the dodo sites I visited, I’ve concluded I might as well just build a big enough box, line it with old blankets, and see how it works. This is at least as scientific an approach as I’ve seen by youTubers. I think if I can cut down the echos, make the sound go around corners, and direct any necessary openings upward, I can get things below 50 decibels, though I have no instruments to measure this.
From the front bedroom wall, we know that $100 per bale soundproofing insulation hardly works worth a damn. The idea I’ve got is a base plate with sponge pads air intakes with a zig –zag pattern. I notice the compressor is designed so both the intake and exhaust flow flow over cooling fins inside the housing when it is in place. Okay, then I make the box big enough to surround the whole assembly. I have the spare wood to do this already.
The news of my heart episode went out soon as I got home. If this was a pretest of my arrangements for my own demise, I’d say it worked pretty well. Oh, and I received three offers of people saying I should stay at their place until it’s over. But, I prefer solitude. When the final act is over just you watch some bozo saying I lived like a hermit without ever knowing what it is that I wanted.
Wibeaux, Montana, pop. 452.
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This is my day’s output, two generic utility boxes. These are solely to keep stuff on my desks and counters organized. . There is nothing to these boxes. No lids, no hinges, butt joints held with glue and brad nails. If the design looks a little familiar, congrats, you’ve been paying attention. These are the same length and width as the Z-box, but only half as wide. I’m bad for having a cluttered work area and this keeps the clutter organized. Yep, that is the pallet lumber from y’day.
Actually, I meant angle cuts. Both my table saws will make a straight cut. It’s when I feed smaller or narrower pieces, the sides are not quite as right angle as I want. If you looked closely at the bottoms of these two boxes you’d see the imperfections I would not allow on fancier pieces.
Next, I read a theory that I had not considered with transistors. I saw a circuit that did something I had not even imagined. An NPN transistor allows current to flow when the base is saturated. These are DC only, a current flows from positive to negative when the transistor is on, so in that sense it also acts as a diode. Current cannot flow back the other direction. The circuit I watched played on that theory and did something I never could have guessed at.
Imagine this. Suppose instead of a current at the collector there is another ground. When the transistor is off, nothing happens. But when it is on, the two grounds are now connected. Think of it as instead of turning a current off and on, it is turning a ground on and off. I might build the circuit myself just to watch the operation. Remember that PNP circuit I built to show how a ground was needed to light the bulb? Wait I do have another picture for you.
And that was just from storage; they split or broke even faster with any regular use. Some boxes shown here are already several year old and show no signs of wear and tear. These boxes contain everything from LED diodes to “sharp pointy things”. Now ask yourself, when was the last time you saw such well-turned-out old guy flotsam?
Still no news from NASA, $80 million dollars later, on when the next helicopter will head for Mars. Ingenuity is a goner with that damaged prop blade, but it is apparently still working as a weather station. This new Marscopter, called “Chopper” is designed to map huge areas of the planet over 240 days. It has six rotors and does not require any help from the lander.
ADDENDUM
The Reb reports a dislike, but then again, she does not follow my rules for banking. This move was the first for her in many years and she was hit by changes. One was that unless she gave the new landlord direct access to her bank account for the rent, there was a $50 fee for paying any other way. Myself, I keep two accounts that I’ll admit, and one is specifically for this type of situation—where some asshole strangers demand something you would normally never tell them, like even whether you have a bank account or not. But, we have no time to go there. People brought this on themselves and it will get worse.
The bank account I ‘give out’ was opened twenty years ago and the account information has never been updated. Old address, old ID, old everything, because I never go near that branch. It is where I collect my social security and any “traceable” deposits like rebates, stimulus checks, or tax returns. All withdrawals are in even-dollar amounts using the ATM, nobody it the bank has ever seen me in person, no big deal, but still. No bills are paid, no transfers, nothing to link this account to any other account on the planet. The alligator will eat me last.
Which is why I maintain a second account far away. It is a bait account, that is, nobody would make any inquiries about that unless they were the alligator. And that’s the bank where I know everybody. The branch were I sometimes drop in just to visit, they love the tales from my travels, I imagine it would liven up their days. It is a corporate bank so it’s pretty laid back. The point is, if anybody ever started poking around, I would know about it within the hour.
Let’s be clear, I have nothing to fear, but I do not trust the system as much as you do. I am hiding nothing that anyone has a right to know (read the Fourth), rather merely playing the cards that I have in my own favor. I know the J6 people all had nothing to hide until their bank accounts were frozen. I remember what happened with the ATMs in Greece and what Ottawa did to the convoy protesters.
Those’r examples enough to take at least some precautions. If you don’t, your future complaints will fall on deaf ears. These people thought nothing of the kind could happen to them. If you want to be that kind of fool, nobody is stopping your Yes, my system is a bit slower, since I walk deposits over, but like whatever system you use, you get used to it. And the next time you look at your paycheck, remember that the official USA/IRS stance is that paying taxes is “voluntary”.
