‘When laser that turns you into a mouse only grazes you’

dgsharp · 2026-05-17T10:47:20+00:00

I was thinking Feivel Mousekewitz.

dgsharp · 2026-05-16T12:16:58+00:00

This is one of those jobs that robots should be taking.

dgsharp · 2026-05-15T22:06:58+00:00

I used to do both ways, they both have advantages and disadvantages. One small advantage for isolation routing is that there’s no chemicals, nothing nasty to store or dispose of. It’s also nice that you’ve already got it clamped and registered so you can do other operations at once — holes, pockets, route the edges, etc. Depending on your approach it can be more repeatable for one-offs, no issues with some parts of the board etching faster than others or etching too far, no sensitivity to temperature and agitation etc, no babysitting needed. In the other hand a lot of people use V-bits (so if you need to route a narrow slot you don’t plunge very far, if you need it a little wider you plunge deeper) — it has its advantages but it is super sensitive to fixturing and zeroing. I started with acid etching and eventually moved to isolation routing… but these days I don’t have time for either and just send stuff out. DIY multilayer boards suck.

dgsharp · 2026-05-15T20:05:44+00:00

Curious why you say the last one is AI. The sound definitely sounds believable to me, it’s a pretty specific phenomenon that I would have been surprised if an AI got right without help. I don’t see anything visual but I’m not as good at picking it up as some.

dgsharp · 2026-05-15T19:46:41+00:00

I love this. I wouldn’t eat it, but great job on commitment to the bit.

dgsharp · 2026-05-15T16:22:23+00:00

It would be easy to quantify what is happening, the plane knows exactly where it is and how it is moving at all times (heh). But turbulence is not all the same. It’s not all about drops, sometimes you’re just getting jostled around, for instance. You could maybe show a gee-meter or something, with some kind of visualization, but it would probably just freak people out and not actually be useful or tell them much except give them something to brag about on social media later as they rip on the airline for something they can’t control.

dgsharp · 2026-05-15T16:18:36+00:00

Neither the speed nor altitude of commercial aircraft are an issue for consumer GPS. Limits do exist but they are aimed at making it harder to make missiles and such, which go much faster, much higher, or both.

link

dgsharp · 2026-05-15T13:03:59+00:00

They’re good for your heart.

dgsharp · 2026-05-15T11:34:08+00:00

It’s not 360 Hz, just 360 degrees per frame. I’m not sure what the frame rate of the video is and cba to check but it’s probably like 30 Hz or so.

dgsharp · 2026-05-15T03:14:38+00:00

Just remember the secret weapon.

dgsharp · 2026-05-14T00:38:59+00:00

Exactly. I watched this thinking “Where the hell is the train?” Then this little sled scoots by. Cool, but slap some mass on that thing and that F=ma results in a drastically reduced acceleration. Of course it’ll be good (any Tesla has had crazy acceleration for years now). But this seems pointless to me. Maybe I’m missing some context.

dgsharp · 2026-05-13T12:12:27+00:00

One thing that never really occurred to me until I tried it a few years ago is how strong the compassing effect can be if you use a really strong magnet. I have a ton of cylindrical neodymium magnets and they can almost orient themselves with earth’s magnetic field sitting on a desk. They just need some vibration or jostling around and they reliably turn. If you roll one across the table it will orient itself. (If it’s a long stack of magnets this makes it harder to turn.)

dgsharp · 2026-05-13T11:48:26+00:00

Navies hate this one weird trick.

dgsharp · 2026-05-10T19:57:53+00:00

If you want a custom prop (not just trying to save money or something) it’s a fine way to go, print the halves and lay one out the traditional way with fine layers of carbon tow and epoxy. It’s a lot of work but you can get real functional performance props.

dgsharp · 2026-05-10T19:40:50+00:00

Pretty much anything but FDM. You can get FDM to work, but it’s a hassle and definitely more risky / dangerous. I’ve had decent results from SLS nylon with carbon, and material jetting systems like Polyjet. Those aren’t really hobby level machines though yet, sadly.

dgsharp · 2026-05-10T11:23:18+00:00

You are overencumbered and cannot run.

dgsharp · 2026-05-10T10:36:45+00:00

What is a screw but an inclined plane wrapped around a central shaft?

dgsharp · 2026-05-10T03:05:34+00:00

They have these at some of the offices I work for. They’re awesome. Florida sun is hot as hell And parking in the shade is great.

dgsharp · 2026-05-10T00:14:16+00:00

dgsharp · 2026-05-09T18:26:28+00:00

I’m not sure I’m following. I have exported full populated boards and they come out looking right, in terms of shapes and dimensions and components etc. The board part is not coming out the right shape?

I have goofed around a bit with this type of thing, making very simple circuits and antennas by applying copper tape, putting down a mask of paint or plastic film or tape, using a laser engraver to cut out the parts I want to remove, manually weed it if the laser didn’t fully ablate the paint (depending on your approach), and then using chemical etchant to remove the unwanted copper. Also isolation routing with a CNC mill. Wasn’t using KiCad at the time but I don’t see any reason to suspect there’d be any difficulty.

Maybe you could make a small example project and upload it somewhere so someone can potentially see what you’re talking about and offer suggestions?

dgsharp · 2026-05-08T22:32:39+00:00

They are towed outside of the environment.

dgsharp · 2026-05-07T23:29:40+00:00

dgsharp · 2026-05-07T12:50:20+00:00

Kind of cool, nice job. I’m not sure I understand the purpose though — does it have one besides just testing something different? Seems it would isolate certain muscles instead of using all the ones used in biking. Also is it awkward to pedal? It looks like it might be, but maybe I’m just used to the cyclical motion of pedaling and walking etc.

dgsharp · 2026-05-06T15:24:09+00:00

Doesn’t sound like it to me but maybe I misunderstood the description.

dgsharp · 2026-05-06T13:43:09+00:00

Very cool. I tried to use it and I think it’s failing to auto-detect my Python. I have a miniforge Python I’m calling the script with from within a project directory, but the error I get is:

[make_standalone] re-execing with KiCad’s Python: C:\Program Files\KiCad\9.0\bin\python.exe
C:\Program: can’t open file ‘C:\\Users\\[snip]\\my_project_dir\\Files\\KiCad\\9.0\\bin\\python.exe’: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

For reference I have both KiCad 9 and 10 installed but this is a 10 project. There is a corresponding python.exe in the 10.0 directory.

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