JacobCoffinWrites
@JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net
I write science fiction, draw, paint, photobash, do woodworking, and dabble in 2d videogames design. Big fan of reducing waste, and of building community
https://jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com
@jacobcoffin@writing.exchange
- Comment on Looking for some (re-)use cases for older Android smartphones 7 hours ago:
If the device doesn’t need to be portable removing the battery could improve safety a bit (and bypass some issues from the damaged USB port).
It looks like it’s possible to connect an external power source where the battery normally links up www.reddit.com/r/…/run_pixel_3_without_battery/
Not sure if that’s helpful but it might make turning the phone into a reliable embedded device easier?
- Comment on Turning automotive engines into modular chemical plants to make green fuels (discussion: is this a useful tech?) 5 weeks ago:
Thanks for bringing me in! Both these articles are great, and both are good additions to resource lists I’ve put together for solarpunk writers/artists - I’ve added the auto engine one to my list of alternative uses for car parts, and the battery ship info to my nautical solarpunk piece. Thanks again!
- Comment on Breezeway Greenhouse Help? 1 month ago:
This is a really good point! Thanks for the dates that’s quite useful
- Comment on Breezeway Greenhouse Help? 1 month ago:
Sounds like a great location! I’m in a very different climate zone so most of my advice would have been around keeping the temperature warm enough through winter, while it sounds like you won’t have to deal with a lot of that.
I’ve seen some cool designs that made glass houses out of secondhand windows or slider doors - if that appeals I can share some links but it’s a certain kind of look, and Povoq’s suggestion of clear corrugated sheets is probably easier and more uniform. Rain collection from the house roof and greenhouse roof would be very useful.
I’ll see if I have any good links for you
- Comment on Breezeway Greenhouse Help? 1 month ago:
Very cool project! I have a couple questions:
Do you get snow in your area? If it sheds from the house roof that could be an issue.
What is the siding on the house? Greenhouses can get pretty humid/damp so you’ll probably want to ensure it doesn’t/can’t rot the house. It can still be done but it’s good to plan for. If your house is concrete that would be much less of an issue.
- Comment on Lithium-ion batteries have ruled for decades. Now they have a challenger. | Sodium-ion batteries are emerging as a possible alternative. 1 month ago:
I mean, you can’t have everything
- Comment on Mechanical engineering uni project 2 months ago:
Just to add, the way I pictured this working was to set up a basic smithee, probably a three sided shed so I’d have a dark place to work (helps to gauge the temp of the metal by color). I’d get some of those gas welder’s goggles with the flip up flip down lens (or use my electronic welder’s hood) so I could safely look at the work in the firepot (solarpot?) then take it inside to quickly work on it. I’d stow the forge inside the smithee (or in an attached lean-to) when not using it. One feature that might be good would be a way to cover the lens and unclip it from the forge so it can be stored in a box or wrapped up, to reduce the risks of it starting a fire.
- Comment on Mechanical engineering uni project 2 months ago:
Sure! Generally they’re just an old coffee can with a thick layer of plaster of Paris and sand or firebox cement on the inside. They cement in some torch parts so they can attach a can from a burnzomatic torch and blow fire into the small, contained space from the side while having a hole on the front (usually with some loose firebrick for a door) to insert the work.
Image makezine.com/…/making-your-own-tin-can-forge/
m.youtube.com/watch?v=xv9nnEhgfuY
I don’t know that the design itself is actually applicable here, just that they’re a good demonstration that even with a small forge, you can do some pretty cool blacksmithing.
In practice I think a solar forge would have to be open from the top, and couldn’t really benefit from the tight space confining the heat, so it’d probably be closer to using a portable ferrier’s anvil like you might see reenactors use at the fair, or something like this:
Though it’d look more like that artist’s smelting rig with the big lens and all.
Thanks! I’m really excited to see what you come up with
- Comment on Mechanical engineering uni project 2 months ago:
That’s great! I don’t have specific dimensions in mind (only because I haven’t sourced a lens yet). I’m not sure about the beam width. I think no matter what, it’ll be a narrower heat than you normally get with a coal fire or propane forge, so the blacksmith would probably have to adjust beam and shift the position of the piece to distribute the heat. But people make all kinds of things using little coffee can forges so if it allows for even that scale of project it’d be very useful.
It might not be a drop-in replacement for a traditional forge, but it could be a really cool way to preserve a lot of the practice without burning coal or gas. Let me know if I can help at all!
- Comment on Mechanical engineering uni project 2 months ago:
So I’m not sure this would qualify, it may be too simple. I’d been thinking about trying to build a solar forge (I got to learn forging from a really good blacksmith who worked with coal for a couple years, though I am very much an amateur). I’ve seen videos of people using old fresnel lenses from rear projection TVs to burn through skillsaw blades and if you can melt steel, you can certainly forge it. It might just be slow, or too focused on one spot, requiring some movement to distribute the heat, something I’d have to mess with. It’d also be a bit of a safety hazard overall, but at least it’d be outside on a paved driveway instead of of inside a shed like my old coal forge.
I was picturing something similar to this smelter but with a reused TV lens, and a fire pot where his crucible is. The mechanical parts would be for rotating it to keep the sun shining through the lens, and possibly for adjusting the focus. Stability and safety would be a big consideration, don’t want the wind blowing it around too much.
Again, not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, but I’d like you to get some usable answers here. Best of luck with your project, thank you for reaching out to involve the community!
- Comment on Learning to love monsters | Windmills were once just machines on the land but now seem delightfully bucolic. Could wind turbines win us over too? 3 months ago:
This is really cool! I really appreciate the history and the way they changed things around them, along with changes in the way they’re perceived. I also think the distinction between the sort of black box device and the focal thing, directly used and serviced by people, is worth considering.
I’m optimistic that solarpunk as a genre might be able to help with the aesthetic appreciation of modern windmills at least. They show up frequently in solarpunk art (though almost more often in the form of altaeros temporary windmill blimps):
I even included one in a scene of a ship at sea:
Its cool to think that the aesthetics of an optimistic genre/movement could help sway the culture in a way that helps support windmills. I also really like the author’s suggestions for education possibilities, helping people engage with them, feel a sense of ownership or pride in them, if they are so hard to ignore.
- Comment on Elements of Renewable Energy 3 months ago:
So this is a question that’s been in the back of my mind for awhile while seeing celebrations of dams being removed, no worries if you don’t want to be the one to answer it.
I think I understand the extent of the damage caused by the implementation of dams, but I guess my impression had been that that damage was done, and there wasn’t much of a timeline on fixing it. Like, after eighty years or so, are there fish still trying to get past it?
At the same time, we’re struggling (failing?) globally to get away from fossil fuels quickly enough to avoid the worst of climate collapse. It seems like hydro is one of the more reliable green power sources, and is compatible with old grid infrastructure that counts on fairly consistent power so there’s less than has to be overhauled in order to just keep using hydro for awhile longer.
So at first glance, it seems like new solar and wind etc production would be better prioritized in replacing oil, coal, natural gas. Prioritizing replacing hydro feels like letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I haven’t seen that discussion anywhere, so I genuinely expect I’m wrong about that, but I’m wondering why.
- Comment on Hardcover Bookbinding and Laser Etching the Bookcloth 4 months ago:
I’m definitely a beginner too, especially with using actual cloth - I think I just got lucky with which fabric I happened to have on hand.
This simple beginning definitely got us thinking about more elaborate stuff to try in the future. Part of why I did a basic cloth hardcover was that the author never made any cover art for it, and partly that I just thought it would be a good fit for the feel of the story. But for some of our own I think we can do some really cool versions of their cover art in this format. Part of that would be inverting the colors and dialing in the contrast for clarity.
I’ve seen some really cool looking illustrations etched on online demonstrating the potential:
- Comment on Hardcover Bookbinding and Laser Etching the Bookcloth 4 months ago:
That’s right! I’d seen images like these online:
So I knew it could be done and that for some reason the fabric turned lighter where it was zapped, but I didn’t know why, or if that would happen when I tried it. I thought it might darken like paper and wood do when etched, or that it might burn all the way through, or just not look very good. My backup plan was to use the etching as a guide and to paint the letters on with gold paint (I’ve got a pretty steady hand with a paintbrush from painting warhammer in my youth so it felt like okay odds of success) but it turned out much like the other images I saw!
I’m attaching a close up photo to hopefully give you a better idea of how it looks:
I think you can see that the cloth is a little diminished, and the etched section is maybe a thousandth of an inch (or two) lower (though I don’t think the white color is coming from the glue on the back or anything because it’s so consistent). I’m not sure why it reacted like this.
Image Looking at this test I don’t think I can feel a difference in depth with fingertips until I get to 30%.
- Comment on Hardcover Bookbinding and Laser Etching the Bookcloth 4 months ago:
To be honest, until reading this comment I didn’t even know that was a thing! This is very cool and something I’m going to have to experiment with in the future!
Every time before this book I used a heavy duty canvas suitable for printing on with a plotter printer. It was very sturdy and seemed pretty impermeable, so it was very easy and low-risk to glue to the bookboard. Dust didn’t really seem to stick to it either.
With this one, I just just glued the fabric to the bookboard with acid-free PVA but I was much more careful with the amount of glue I used for fear it’d soak through. I think I went a little light on my first copy, but I’m working on another and took a few more risks and they worked out - it seems to be better bonded without marring the outside. I have noticed that dust really sticks to it, I don’t know how well this one would hold up to thumping around in a backpack for a few weeks or anything like that. So there’s definitely room to improve on the materials.
- Submitted 4 months ago to diy@slrpnk.net | 6 comments
- Comment on First of its kind 'energy dome' storage project takes another step forward in Wisconsin 4 months ago:
You’d have to take that up with them - they might be interested in alternatives that improve efficiency. I wonder if they like that it’s very visibly a deliberate choice to modify the images for size, or if they feel they’d be answering constant ‘why do your images look bad?’ questions with a reduced color pallet.
For anyone else who wants more info, I think these are cool discussions:
solar.lowtechmagazine.com/…/the-solar-website/#wh… lobste.rs/s/9v0ioj/how_build_low_tech_website
- Comment on First of its kind 'energy dome' storage project takes another step forward in Wisconsin 4 months ago:
Yeah pumped hydro needs lakes, not pools, as far as I know. They flood entire mountain valleys, using the surrounding mountains themselves as the storage structure, because they need so much space.
- Comment on First of its kind 'energy dome' storage project takes another step forward in Wisconsin 4 months ago:
It’s an efficiency thing, the images are tiny compared to full color - the whole site is made to use as few resources as possible.They operate it off solar power (hence the battery meter) and around an ethos of reversing a lot of modern web design bloat practices.
- Submitted 5 months ago to fixing@slrpnk.net | 0 comments
- Submitted 5 months ago to diy@slrpnk.net | 0 comments
- Comment on Replacing axle-mounted front wheels on electric box bike 5 months ago:
This may be a dumb question but are these wheel hubs like car hubs where you can open them up to get at the brakes? If the hubs themselves are hard to replace maybe the brake pads themselves would be easier? Something you could replace with a generic pad cut to size or something?
- Comment on My first bookbinding project - a hardcopy of the Fully Automated! TTRPG Rulebook 5 months ago:
Thanks! That reminds me: one thing I did on the second and third book blocks was clamp them further in, so they were more or less flush with the boards. (I think the bookbinding book said to let it stick out a bit). That let me compress the spine an extra millimeter or two, so it wasn’t as flaired as on the first one. I think it’s always going to be a little thicker on the spine side because of all the folds and thread, but I think this looks better.
- Comment on My first bookbinding project - a hardcopy of the Fully Automated! TTRPG Rulebook 5 months ago:
Thank you so much! I’m very grateful for the sheer amount of high quality guides and resources available for free - the bookbinding community seems to be very generous with their knowledge. I basically just read and followed them carefully. I’m also lucky to have access to some great workspaces/tools.
- Submitted 5 months ago to diy@slrpnk.net | 4 comments
- Comment on Good DIY projects with limited space/for apartment living? 6 months ago:
I’m just getting into bookbinding. It requires surprisingly few tools and not a ton of space (though like all hobbies it can always grow to consume whatever space is available). Its a good option if you have access to a printer with free or cheap prints.
Balcony gardening can be satisfying but might not be what you’re looking for.
If you already have a project (or lots of them) in mind, a 3d printer can be great to have around. Depending on your fillaments of choice (determined by what you want the print to be able to do) you might need good ventilation or an enclosure. If you have a spare bedroom that’s a good start.
- Comment on Ideation - What to Run? 8 months ago:
Just wanted to say I really like this idea, especially as mixed with local mesh networks. I agree with the point about storage, and mostly I’m just really looking forward to reading about some of these services, and seeing what this could look like in the future.
Good luck!
- Comment on Quick Shed Door Repair 8 months ago:
Thanks!
- Comment on Quick Shed Door Repair 8 months ago:
I look forward to seeing it!
- Submitted 8 months ago to fixing@slrpnk.net | 4 comments
