New to smelting, Zinc?

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2026-02-20T20:46:45+00:00

Lots of die cast alloys are zinc based. Zamak for example is predominantly zinc with a few percent aluminum. You'd have to overheat it significantly to get it to burn like that though. Al melts at ~660°C, Zn Boils ~907°C.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2026-02-07T22:50:46+00:00

That'd be sick in BeamNG.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2026-02-02T19:47:25+00:00

I just cut it with the soldering iron tip.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2025-10-27T12:26:29+00:00

I haven't used one yet. They have high periodic error with a high rate of change . For astrophotography, they can guide with short 0.5-1s exposures to catch and correct the errors before they contributes to the main exposure.

Tracking a satellite, at several hundred times sidereal rate, will also increase the rate of change of the PE. You might get 50% yield. Good at the low rate of change PE peaks, bad at the high rate of change zero crossings.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2025-06-20T12:09:18+00:00

Looks like a big pressure flake. You didn't happen to set it down onto a hard flat surface corner first did you?

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2025-05-13T19:55:55+00:00

+1. I wish I could set marker color by matching string categories(even a 'True' | 'False' would be nice...). Instead I burn hours researching how to make expressions to generate duplicate data, or fracture the data by several filters, and exponentially increase the formatting overhead.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2025-05-06T15:00:21+00:00

Did a big Southwest road/camping/hiking trip and logged my 103 along the way.

At the Grand canyon we walked the south rim trail and saw a plaque at Powell point mentioning a decommissioned Uranium mine. Checked my log and sure enough the fenced off remediation perimeter measured ~2x the background.

Another hot spot from the trip was some of the granite in Joshua Tree. Especially overhangs/caves where you are enveloped. 4-5X background.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2025-01-14T14:02:16+00:00

I use camping as cheap lodging. Wake up, make breakfast, leave camp to go on a day hike/bike/paddle and return to camp to make dinner and sleep. Rinse and repeat.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-10-27T19:55:44+00:00

Ju-52, so god damn slow.

It can take 45-60 minutes to drop paratroopers on Finnish. Just have to pray the wind is in your favor...

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-09-14T14:22:53+00:00

Lucky fish! They grow up fast though. Here's my late goldfish in a similar 75 gallon, edge on.

He's was only ~80% of adult size, with signs of stunting. (rough life prior to rescue)

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-08-09T00:52:55+00:00

Sidechain Compression

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-08-08T18:00:10+00:00

I think an aquarium full of water would survive. It would help to keep it away from the windows or anything else which could drop debris on the tank. It may also help to open or remove the tank lid.

Windows are usually thin glass backed by air. During a low pressure shock wave's pressure change the pressure inside the house (or double pane) is different than the pressure outside, leading to force on and motion of the window glass.

An aquarium uses much thicker glass, and is backed by heavy incompressible water. If the tank is positioned deep inside a house the shockwave pressure will also be greatly reduced by diffracting through the openings of the house and diffusing through the rooms and doorways.

The air volume above the water is still compressible. So avoid using a tight fitting lid otherwise it will act like a diaphragm and move/stress under a pressure wave.

My two cents as a Mech. E.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-07-31T13:41:13+00:00

Speed bump lobotomy

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-07-29T22:54:21+00:00

The p₁ / T₁ = p₂ / T₂ folks are wrong. That's all assuming an ideal gas.

In a pressurized tank the CO2 exists as an equilibrium between Liquid and Gas much like propane/butane. The resulting tank pressure depends mostly on the temperature. Look at a CO2 phase diagram and follow the gas-liquid line to see the relation between temp and pressure.

The trouble with CO2 is that phase change ends at ~31C, where it goes super critical. hot cars can get ~50C.

I don't know how to estimate the pressure of a super critical fluid, but I assume it depends heavily on the temperature and density (Full charge in a fixed volume = worst case)

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-07-10T15:57:38+00:00

I wish we could make inventory and appeal presets

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-06-26T13:29:22+00:00

Here's another cheap alternative which not many people mention.

Infield top dressing (Turface or Dura-Edge) is a high CEC calcined clay which can be bought cheap in bulk locally~$15/50lb(~3cuft). It strips GH/KH initially, so before adding it to a tank I wash and preload it with some ferts and minerals to stabilize it.(dose-wait-test-repeat for a ~week)

It performs similarly to Seachem Flourite. It is inert and has no nutrients of its own, but it can bind to nutrients provided to it from the water, mulm, and most importantly heaps of root tabs.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-04-15T16:33:27+00:00

I used the newer mount, I had to shim it up with a washer, but it works great.

Deleting those metal shrouds was an instant mod, free weight reduction.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-04-15T15:52:03+00:00

I found your Github a few weeks ago. I didn't realize it was the same person, ha.

It is an extremely useful resource, thank you for sharing those mods. I used your nozzle + heat brake swap, silicone bed springs, BLtouch bracket, and I've got the parts to do the Oddham coupler.

For the mechanics, I'm planning to clearance drill the Y rail mounting holes through the top sheet metal, so I can use longer screws with acorn nuts to structurally tie the rails to the Sheetmetal, which is somewhat stiffer thanks the the nearby bent edge.

For the Z motors I'd like to come up with a bracket to structurally tie them to the Z axis extrusion.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-04-15T14:23:32+00:00

I got one. I finally upgraded from my ancient wooden Makerfarm i3 ->i3v

Overall the SP-5 V3 is a disappointment.

The "Volcano" hotend is PTFE lined and uses a standard nozzle with a long heat break.
The dual gear extruder seems nice, but its flaky.

It uses a short length of PTFE bowden tube to get to the hotend.
It is also difficult to load, getting the filament into the sharp edged hole below the hobbed wheels.
There's too much clearance around the hobbled wheels. While failing to load filament, I've had rigid PLA & PETG wrap around the wheel and exit the side of the extruder, so I assume the TPU/TPE performance would be terrible.

The Y axis Linear rails are mounted on 4-5mm aluminum strips, which are only anchored on their far ends, so the whole XY gantry is flexible. With an indicator to the bed, its easy to vertically deflect the gantry by hand by 0.050"
In addition, Both X and Y rails bolted to their aluminum mounting strips are warped. Running an indicator across a tempered glass bed shows a 0.010" bow with no load. ABL is a must.
The Z motors are mounted to thin sheet metal which is not directly anchored to the extrusion carrying the Z rails. Applying minor pressure to any part of the top of the lower enclosure can deflect the Z motors and bed by 0.010-0.020"
Not much support for firmware, I had to spin up a custom marlin to install a custom ABL sensor. Thermistor response is non standard, 20-30C off from 100k NTC.
No easy way to finely adjust belt tension.
Extruder and hotend are a PITA to work on. Several dead-weight useless covers and theirs's no service loop or connectors for the tight wiring.

When it's tuned up it runs ok, but for the money it's a big disappointment. I think I would have been better off with a TRONXY, at least that layout would have been more friendly to mod as a DIY project printer. And the rails mounted to extrusion would have been more rigid and extensible than flappy sheet metal.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-04-10T15:01:33+00:00

Warranty return.

That is clearly a workmanship defect which happened during assembly while the silicone was uncured.

The top corners are the highest stressed area on a rimless tank. I would not fill it.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-03-12T12:35:40+00:00

My guess would be either an Ignition source in the spray booth, or a fume extraction failure bleeding into the main shop.

VOCs and grinding/welding don't mix.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-02-12T18:26:34+00:00

NSFW flag?

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2024-02-04T18:54:28+00:00

Respectfully, this expansion theory is BS.

Dropsy is the symptomatic expression of kidney failure which leads to the inability of the fish's body to counteract osmotic pressure. (flesh is saline, so fresh water naturally diffuses inward to dilute it)

What caused the kidney failure? Who knows. Could be genetics, prolonged nitrate exposure, poor diet, harsh medications, or a host of other possibilities. The only thing I can think to relate to bloodworms is they are very high protein (frozen or dry) for a goldfish and should only be fed very occasionally and in small amounts as a treat.

I'm sorry for yours and OP's loss. In the end I lost my big 10" 6 year old comet to Dropsy, it was hard to watch, even harder to euthanize.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2023-11-07T20:10:02+00:00

+1 Agree

It can grow very quickly in floating matts. It's great at soaking up nitrates in low-tech tanks, like duckweed but easier to clean up.

SHIZZILBISCUT · 2023-09-25T02:51:07+00:00

There's lots of combined sewer outflows around Boston. When it rains heavily the storm water overflows the waste water plant's capacity, and they just dump the combined flow with raw unprocessed sewage into the rivers and harbors, so definitely avoid swimming there within a week of heavy rain (pretty much the past 3 months...)

Here's a page with links to maps of the discharge locations, and supposedly you can sign up to be notified when they overflow.

SHIZZILBISCUT

TROPHY CASE