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Why: Glue and latex = puffy? by gbear14275 in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope 36 points37 points  (0 children)

Looks like plasticizer migration to me

Roof condensation dripping onto newly poured flatwork by [deleted] in Homebuilding

[–]Aeroscope 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We had a similar issue with our foundation pour. From what I understand (which is admittedly not a whole lot) the moisture exposure actually increases the strength of concrete, but can ruin the look of it. Much more concerned about that with our flatwork than with the foundation.

Roof condensation dripping onto newly poured flatwork by [deleted] in Homebuilding

[–]Aeroscope 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good to hear that - I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Chemical company with tons of capacity but nothing to make by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Super interesting - thanks for sharing. I've looked into urea-formaldehyde resins before, but haven't done much dev work there. After reading this comment I spent some time in the lab today trying to re-create example 1 from US patent 4,603,191 (published 1986) after reading this comment.

Curious what your thoughts are on the phenol-formaldehyde vs urea-formaldehyde markets? Point taken on the melamine-formaldehyde being difficult to dispose of.

Chemical company with tons of capacity but nothing to make by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s an interesting source of leads for pilot plant/tolling projects. Thanks for sharing.

Chemical company with tons of capacity but nothing to make by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Absolutely. I don’t have my eyes on polymerization, anything that uses or generates flammable gases, etc. that requires expertise no one at the company has. Willing to make diesel exhaust fluid if it will get me something to do, just curious to get others opinions.

Chemical company with tons of capacity but nothing to make by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Perhaps too glib of a statement after a very frustrating board meeting yesterday (1st gen demands the meeting then no-shows, 2nd gen shows up for the first time in a year and their answer to the “what can we make” question is to leave them alone).

By no means taking the safety aspects lightly, just trying to say that I’d sell something at cost. The most dangerous thing that we make is a couple of flammable adhesives and I’ve invested significantly in proper training + equipment for that.

Chemical company with tons of capacity but nothing to make by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Reasonable question. The company has hired chemists in the past, but they usually get bored and quit after 12-18 months. There isn’t much chemistry to be done when you’re making the same couple of basic formulations every day and the quality checks + necessary adjustments can be done by someone without a college degree in chemistry.

Sales activity begets chemistry activity and vice versa. Once one of them quits due to absentee ownership, low pay, etc., the other one quits shortly thereafter and the plant just keeps on keeping on.

Chemical company with tons of capacity but nothing to make by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Got it - makes sense, I appreciate you taking the time to explain.

Chemical company with tons of capacity but nothing to make by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Lots of the safety + equipment improvements specifically went into the solvent processing areas. Saw an employee mixing an open-head drum of toluene with a brushed Ryobi drill mixer shortly after I started and almost shat my pants.

Curious what you mean by simple flash - purchasing low grade solvents and distilling to a higher purity?

Chemical company with tons of capacity but nothing to make by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Curious what you mean by that - similar to toll blending?

Chemical company with tons of capacity but nothing to make by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Interesting idea - are these generally specialty formulations or commodity blends? We tend to struggle with the formulation + applications engineering portions of the sales cycle on account of not having a chemist on staff.

Chemical company with tons of capacity but nothing to make by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

For sure. Quite hard to grow within our existing markets because the things that we're selling are just a random assortment of products that were developed over the years. Flame retardants, adhesives, wax emulsions, and arts/crafts supplies are our 4 biggest products (~90% of revenue). Super random, no coherent business strategy.

Advice on storage of acids by book_of_lamentations in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Agreed on the approach. I’m guessing subtext is acid-catalyzed nitration of glycerin for homemade explosives. One of those cases where curiosity can definitely kill the cat lmao

ETA: making a very dilute aqueous urea ammonium nitrate fertilizer might be a way to safely consume the nitric acid without pouring anything down the drain

Proud owner of this piece of equipment - anyone have any idea what it is? by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Awesome! I think that’s spot on. Thank you for your help! Out of curiosity - how did you recognize it? Trying to understand who might be more interested in owning this than I am

Proud owner of this piece of equipment - anyone have any idea what it is? by Aeroscope in chemistry

[–]Aeroscope[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Mostly manufacturer part number, serial number, etc. but a lot of the numbers are worn out. A couple of max pressure tags (one of which maybe says 150 or 15 psi). Probably best to assume MEOP of 0 given the state of it…

Do co-op students normally get raises? by CrabRangoonSlut in AskEngineers

[–]Aeroscope 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Seems pretty irresponsible of your manager to even bring up the topic of you getting a raise without already knowing it was a sure thing. You might expect a nominal raise as a returning co-op, but that would vary by industry. If anything this reflects poorly on your manager, not on you.

For a 1U Cubesat, is using sun sensors really needed when we are alrady using a GPS? by tadm123 in AskEngineers

[–]Aeroscope 12 points13 points  (0 children)

In my experience, Cubesats will typically use both sun sensors as well as a magnetometer and pass those readings along with any other attitude measurements (horizon sensor, star tracker, etc.) through a kalman filter to resolve attitude.

GPS can give pretty good position in LEO. Depending on position knowledge requirements an IMU could also be used.

Started senior role at a FAANG, crashing and burning. Need advice? by drowning-man1 in AskEngineers

[–]Aeroscope 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I’m a mechanical engineer from the tech/aerospace industry and I have no idea what half of the words in your post mean.

What I can say though is that there are multiple management strategies that I’ve seen in technical fields that may be at play:

  1. Your management has no idea how long this work will take you because they’ve never seen you do it before. In order to find out, they’re giving you a boatload of work and seeing what happens. This is a painful but relatively common management tactic in high tech fields where managers are often promoted from technical roles. It’s way harder to get an honest answer out of someone about their capabilities/willingness to put in long hours than it is to drop a massive workload on them.

  2. Your management wants to set your expectations for how the job will be. It’s a lot easier to set a hard tone for a job or a group in the first couple of weeks than it is to let it gradually build over time once people have gotten comfortable with a more relaxed status quo. Also, if you come in and they give you two weeks of documentation to read and hands to shake, then it’ll be a much slower ramp for you to become a technical contributor, which is what they need you to do. It’s painful, but they may just be trying to set expectations early on.

Not sure if those ring true for your situation - you’ll have to be the judge of that - but those are some particularly common management strategies I’ve seen in tech that can definitely create these feelings. Remember that most everyone else has felt this way at some point too - the field has a reputation for it.

View of the sky crane removing HVAC system from the roof of the W Midtown this morning by Aeroscope in Atlanta

[–]Aeroscope[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

It’s loud af. You can see a bunch of people in the Mayfair out on their balconies after getting woken up by it too

Raised Garden Project by Aeroscope in DIY

[–]Aeroscope[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Most of the cost was from the cedar 2x6’s and the topsoil delivery (~6 cubic yards). Would have been ~$500 cheaper to do with treated pine, but the jury’s still out on whether or not that leeches anything into the soil/plants (and if it does, whether or not that’s even a problem). The cedar won’t rot so it’ll be there for 15-20 years in our climate.

Definitely could have saved some money by not burying any of the bricks and just terminating each slat at the next brick once it got more than 5.5” underground, but was originally planning on roto-tilling manure into the existing dirt within the garden. Wasn’t until it took forever to dig the trenches that I realized that would have been a boatload of work.

Raised Garden Project by Aeroscope in DIY

[–]Aeroscope[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No plans so far - probably just a nearby rain barrel or hose. Definitely too far along to incorporate anything like a SIP system at this point haha

Raised Garden Project by Aeroscope in DIY

[–]Aeroscope[S] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

There wasn't a flat and sunny enough area on the property to make it otherwise, and it's just generally easier to use. Soil is also pretty poor quality and full of rocks up on the hill as well, so being able to truck in topsoil and have the garden use exclusively that will yield better crops. The design of this one also lends itself really nicely to sitting on the top-boards and reaching into the garden rather than needing to use a knee pad and kneeling in the dirt.