Redneck Engineering

Yes the caulked it as well.

Please tell me if it is feasible to design a catapult that satisfies these requirements:

• must be able to launch a European¹ washing machine with a range of ~2 meters more than the distance from the street to the front window of Beko headquarters
• ideally it would accept an unmodified payload, which is a machine with the heavy stabliser bricks installed (all components working apart from the control board which is trapped in an error state because Beko will not disclose the secret unlock code)
• must be able to move fast after launch because the machine would ideally be re-used for the next set of requirements:

Nice to have:

• ability to launch a Zanussi refrigerator through the window of AEG headquarters with all components installed (the only thing broken is a cheap proprietary relay switch that is no longer produced)

I actually have two washing machines to return to Beko in this manner of projectile delivery system, both of which have an artificially shortened life due to designed obsolescence. They could perhaps both be launched together or in quick succession. I wonder if it might make more sense to use a crane-like design for a wrecking ball, which could perhaps be delivered multiple times. The complicated task would be releasing it at the righ moment on the final delivery.

¹ The signficance of European washing machines is they are much heavier due to stabilizer bricks. By contrast, American machines tend not to have them, although I’ve never lifted a front-load machine in the US so it may be more related to front-load vs. top load.

… then I dropped the screw.

~This is my life now.~

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/43625530

I remembered the blades but left the handle behind, so I improvised with what I could find on my desk.

Decided to share an older "project" of mine - ms sculpt wireless to wired conversion (also, it runs qmk, so we get all its features). A sensible person would order a custom pcb (such projects exist on the web, take a look if you're interested), but I went with removing all the components except from the ribbon cable connector, sending the PCB smooth, gluing a piece of discount card to isolate the traces, gluing a Chinese rp2040 on top, and wiring all the necessary traces to it. No, it wasn't fun. Yes, it works.

Bonus: when I disassembled it now I found out the type-c wasn't soldered well and decided to separate from the board:

So, here we go: using phone as a poor man's microscope (note: also, still works)

The end result kinda doesn't give it out, so whatever (insert your frontend -- backend jokes here)

x-post from tg: https://t.me/theaftertimes/15396

So, a while ago I bought a cheapest oneplus 6 available in my area to subject it to a few experiments with running Linux. Among the other issues that came for that price, the power button was almost flush to the frame, hard to press, and had almost no feedback.

Today I finally got tired of it and decided to check what's wrong. The button itself turned out to be just fine, but the thingy that presses it looked weird:

After a few tries of gluing smth to extend the middle pin, I found out that I can just cut off a piece of plastic from the blister of my favorite headache pills and place it between the button and said thingy. Works wonders 🤣

Btw, the actual problem is that it was missing a few rubber spacers, as far as I understand, but whatever

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1035775

Adam Conover interview

I bust out a drill with a 7 mm nut setter.

Works like a charm. I give the trigger the lightest squeeze and I can grind my coffee in ½ the time with ⅒ the effort.