Buzzword LLC

DIY Fume Sucker

andrew — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 20:28:16 +0000

I don’t usually publish the stupid things I hack together (code or otherwise), but I’m especially proud of this one, mostly because it’s my first really useful one.

I sometimes work for an engineering company designing electronics, firmware, and user interfaces for medical device prototypes. When I’m prototyping, I do a good amount of soldering. I was sick of having a small box fan in my work area to suck the solder fumes away, so I decided to try making my own that worked better with my workflow.

Yeah, pretty budget.

Parts list:

(1) 12″ lamp goose neck, nuts, washers (http://www.grandbrass.com/SearchShowItem.cfm?ItemNumber=PIGN12BP) – $19.05
(2) 2″ square brackets (hardware store) – $4.79
(1) 6″ mending plate (hardware store) – $3.29
various nuts and bolts
(1) computer case fan (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835706006&nm_mc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-) – $23.99
(1) wingnut clamp thing (had this from an old desk lamp) – just a 90 degree bent rod with thread on one end
(1) aluminum base plate (scrap from a 44rn chainring prototype!)
(1) 12VDC adapter (parts bin)

Drilled a hole in the center of the mending plate for the gooseneck thread to pass through, then secured with a nut and lock washer. Same for the base plate. The desk clamp kind of sucks. I’d much prefer a heavy base plate so it could be used on any surface, not just the edge. Works pretty well, though I could have definitely gone with a smaller gooseneck and fan. No, it doesn’t scrub the fumes. Yes, I’m an asshole to my coworkers.

I’m pretty bad at writing build steps, so I’ll just let the pictures explain.

this is a joke, right?

andrew — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:07:38 +0000

that i have to create a nokia developer account to download the qt sdk? i can’t help but think this is going in the wrong direction.

the best part is that even after i registered using 10minutemail, the download link was broken. solid gold.

qt + boost + mingw + windows

andrew — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 20:38:25 +0000

not even once.

i moved again.

andrew — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 22:32:47 +0000

pretty stoked to see natural light while i’m working and to be hanging out with my buds at fringe union.

toys

andrew — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 03:44:29 +0000

i just ordered a bus pirate. pretty stoked. could have used it instead of an arduino mega while playing with this new adc chip.

look, i have an office.

andrew — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:04:29 +0000

it’s really nice to get out of the house.

now i just need a cat.

gnome 3 rant expansion

andrew — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:09:56 +0000

just set up my netbook (acer aspire one) with arch + xmonad + gnome-session. tell me if this sounds as ridiculous to you as it does to me: i tried to disable the gnome panels, but there doesn’t seem to be a user-facing configuration option to do this. i’ll accept that, because your average gnome user isn’t going to want to and probably shouldn’t disable all the panels anyway as that’s the primary navigation method. i found the dconf entry for the panels and turned them both off by setting the value to an empty array. neat, it works! kinda. i restarted gnome and it had re-enabled both panels i’d explicitly disabled, PLUS added a new top panel which was overlaid on the existing top panel. look, if someone’s messing with dconf and disables the panels, they probably know what they’re doing. leave it alone.

and the solution?

chmod -x /usr/bin/gnome-panel

i wish i was joking.

moar excellence

andrew — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 06:58:33 +0000

EDIT: more like urxvt + screen + solarized. as far as i can tell, the only thing byobu really has going is the neat status indicators. not that they are bad, i just don’t need them.

urxvt + byobu + solarized (emacs, urxvt palette) = YES

gnome 3 is annoying.

can someone tell me why cucumber for rails 2.x is impossible to set up?

andrew — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 17:47:24 +0000

andrew/octagon/www spork cuc Using Cucumber Preloading Rails environment Loading Spork.prefork block... can't activate , already activated rspec-1.3.2 (Gem::Exception)

sorry, what can’t you activate, exactly? i somehow broke my barely-working cucumber setup by attempting to use capybara-envjs.

there’s a 90% chance i’ll figure this out in the next hour and also forget to update this with the sure-to-be-roundabout solution.

i love emacs.

andrew — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:57:19 +0000

i don’t think i show my appreciation enough for the world’s greatest text editor.

love you, buddy.