A Quick Fix

A problem had arisen with the 3D printer.
The table bed was lifting away from the heater element in one corner.

 

That was actually causing several problems while printing. The nearer the print head was to that corner the larger the chance of the nozzle scraping on the bed. Also without a small gap between the nozzle and the bed no material was being laid down. Lastly it also meant there would be significant changes in temperature across the bed which doesn't help with initial adhesion of the PLA. It wasn't really noticeable until I started printing the front panel for my weather displays. That used nearly the full width of the bed. This problem is not unknown and a 'temporary' fix was easily implemented. Measure the thickness of the bed and heater plate when they were properly touching and design a clamp to hold them in place. That is just what I did in Tinkercad:



Then I printed out four of them in case they were needed on all four corners of the bed.



As it happened I only needed to use two. Fitting one at the front left

 

caused the diagonally opposite corner to lift slightly so I put one there as well.



Job done and the next print session showed the problem was cured, for now anyway.
You may be thinking that the heat from the bed would cause the clamps to melt, or at least warp. Not so as the temperature used to melt the PLA in the nozzle is over 100 degrees hotter than the bed temperature.

Snow?

No, not yet, though the keen wind blowing today makes it feel like snowy weather.
Locally there are several gardens with Snowberry plants.  On one hedge the branches were hanging right over the footpath so I brought a bit home to photograph with the iPhone 6s:

Symphoricarpos albus  -  Common Snowberry

Though various mammals and birds eat the berries they can be poisonous to humans.

The Wannabe Tiger

Having finally got round to mowing all the long grass at the bottom of the garden I thought it a good idea to fix the trail camera on a low post looking at that area.



The trail camera. IR night lighting at the top. Three passive infra red sensors at the bottom. (one pointing forwards and the others angled at 45 degrees). Camera in the middle.

Left it for a couple of days and discovered, though it worked, it worked too well.
The only stranger captured was this wannabe tiger strolling through:







Camera set up to take three shots in fairly quick succession every time it is triggered.

Of course you can guess who always features at some time or other:



But, there was a big problem. The branches, top left and right, waft about in the slightest breeze and keep triggering the camera during sunny daylight hours. That resulted in hundreds, and I mean hundreds, of photos with not a life form in sight and a lot of extra drain on the batteries. There is a lower setting for sensitivity but that risks missing anything of interest. For the moment it has been moved back to its original position.

I did consider a few other solutions.
1) set limits on the times it is operational.
2) use a higher pole and point the camera down more.
3) cut down the tree branches in its view.

With the first I would miss any daytime visitors.
The second wouldn't give me the profile view of visitors that I want.
I've done enough tree pruning for now. I want to keep some greenery.

Recently I made a start clearing the overgrown fruit cage.
There are more weeds and grass than anything else.
Then I can get rid of the blackcurrant bushes (not allowed to eat those any more).
Maybe plant more raspberry canes.
I stick to working outdoors before 9.30 a.m. to avoid the heat.

The 'Guess What' was ....

A few days ago I posted this close up



which was part of



a piece of cork tree bark.

Night Visitor

Every so often I put out the Floureon trail camera to see what night life there may be about.

 

Until the latest session there was little of note to be seen. This time, on just one night over the couple of weeks it was operating, it captured something different. I know there are foxes about and felt sure they must visit my garden occasionally. Here at last is the proof.





and half an hour later







Since then I have cut down much of the long grass.
Pure coincidence I did that on the same day the fox visited.






I don't put the camera out very often as it uses eight AA batteries.
Batteries work in two banks of four.
I must rig up a permanent 6V supply for it.
Then I can set it to take short video clips as well as stills.
Also I will fix it lower down to have a better view of smaller creatures.
This old camera has only 5M pixels and responds in 1 second.
I see many of the latest ones have a 12 - 16M pixel camera and a response time of less than 0.5 second. Tempting - if I get more night visitors.

Looking Waspish

Hoverfly on Thistle flower




Taken with Nikon Coolpix S9050

Harvest Time

The last local field of grain being harvested on a glorious sunny afternoon.

 




Shot at 1920 x 1080 and 50 fps on the M5. Mainly at 150mm zoom.
Hand held in blustery conditions.
No extra processing in iMovie apart from shortening the video clips and adding a soundtrack.