Less than two weeks after installing our new Okuma CNC lathe at work, our machinist turned out a newly designed contact tip for our printer. The lathe allows us to hold the tolerances needed to refine our printing process and to make subtle adjustments to the geometry with turnaround time measured in minutes rather than weeks. We immediately put the new contact tip into use and it performed perfectly.
Digital Alloys is located in a rather developed part of Burlington. Even so, the Vine Brook Wellfields can be found less than a half-mile from the office. My current morning routine involves arriving at the office at about 6:30 AM and setting off on a 2.5-mile round trip walk to get breakfast. That walk takes me past Vine Brook which I paused this morning to photograph.
We received this photo of Maya in a text with no explanation. She appears to be inside a large toroidal shaped beach ball and to have lost one leg. We suspect this has something to do with her term abroad orientation.
An image of me and my mom that I have never seen before. It was one of many that I discovered after digitizing negatives from my mother’s photography collection.
Maya let us know that she arrived in Amsterdam safely with a message that included this photo and a hypothesis that the Dutch must be very tall people.
Maya left today for Amsterdam where she will spend the next four months studying on a term abroad. Jeanine organized a family send-off which took place at Time Out. There, we were joined by cousin John Quinn and enjoyed delightful food, procured from no less than six of the more than a dozen food establishments housed within. In front of the food court was an ice rink (featuring one foxy skater) and an antique 1960 International Metro Short Van converted into a food truck. Maya requested that special notice be given to her packing efficiency given the 1/3 of a year stay.
Earlier this week I started scanning film negatives that were part of the collection of photographs that I recently retrieved from my mother’s home in advance of its sale. Had I completed the task using my flatbed scanner, it would have taken me weeks to get through the collection. Instead, I purchase a $20 LED light table and placed my camera with a macro lens on my camera stand. I used heavy tools from my shop to hold down the curled edges of the film. I thought about using a glass plate for this but then remembered how a prism works. Using this technique, I was able to plow through several hundred negatives in about 6 hours. Expect to see some newly discovered photos over the coming days.
The printing technique we use at Digital Alloys requires that we maintain an inert atmosphere inside our printers to inhibit oxidation of the metals we print with. We use argon gas pumped into a large hermetically sealed glove box. Maintaining this environment is not easy given that we must pass hundreds of wires into the sealed chamber. Early versions of the printer had difficulty maintaining the environment because outside air made its way into the box traveling between the cable insulation and the wires within. This was solved by employing hermetically sealed pass-through connectors. The price for one such connector for a USB connection is $650. When a purchase request came to me for two of these, I could not believe the price. I denied the request and returned home this evening to build one myself. I cut the end off a USB extender cable, peeled away all the molded plastic and resoldered the connection leaving about a half-inch of bare, tinned wire. I then potted this end of the connector inside an empty pass-through housing with an inch of epoxy. The cross-section of the hermetic boundary is four tinned 24 gauge wires. I can guarantee this will work and the cost for the USB components and epoxy was under $8.
Photos of my parents I have bever seen before. This explains a lot!
Jeanine taught a cooking class this evening at the Concord Carlisle Adult Learning Center. The class was called One Week’s Worth of Meals in an Hour. Apparently the new title attracted a much larger class than last year’s version entitled, Healthy Soups and Stews. As is usually the case, Jeanine fretted about not being prepared for the class only to report that the session went off without a hitch and was a great success.
I have started to scan old photos I recently retrieved from my mother’s home before I forward them to her in Minneapolis. Expect to see a number of them in the coming days. Pictured above is my mother (on the right) and her father and sister-in-law, Juanita. This is one of the few pictures I have of my grandfather (abuelito). From the stories I have heard, I have him to thank for much of my ingenuity and problem-solving instincts.
The finishing touches for our guest bathroom included the mirror frame I built last week and a new light fixture. I can now mark this room as done. In total, I replaced the showerhead, shower control valve, bathtub spout, vanity faucet, toilet paper holder, two towel holders, the shower sliding doors, all the cabinet knobs and the already mentioned items from this morning. Pictured below is what the bathroom looked like when we moved in.
Just down the street from our home resides a former soccer teammate and brother of Christopher Reeves of Superman fame. When I saw the top of a huge crane from our kitchen bay window, I immediately grabbed my drone for a closer look. It appears that they are removing a large tree that is threatening the structures. At first glance, it appears like the crane might be poised to pick up the house.
I am slowly replacing all the brass finished hardware in our master bathroom with brushed nickel. So far that includes the vanity faucet, Jacuzzi faucet, and tub spout, two towel racks, two robe hooks, all the cabinet knobs, and a toilet paper holder. Today I refinished items for which no replacements are available. This included the Jacuzzi tub hardware (two hand grabs, two aerator controls, the drain and drain control knob) and the shower door. Both required full disassembly so I could sand, prime and refinish each item without getting paint on everything else. It was an all-day project which produced a very satisfying outcome.
In addition to his teaching job at CCHS, Nicolai is also the assistant wrestling coach at Concord Academy. He invited Jeanine and I to attend a home match this evening where we got to see his team in action for the first time. They did well against one of the strongest teams in the league and it was fun to observe Nicolai in his coaching capacity.
Digital Alloys held its annual holiday party in the event room at Cafe Escadrille this evening. Jeanine and I had a wonderful evening getting to know my colleagues better and meeting two new ones who will start next week. I am not at all happy with the group photo I took. There was not much to be done about the extremely dim lighting, but there is no excuse for cropping one of our employees out of the photo. My camera was on a tripod on top of a table so I composed on the rear screen rather than through the viewfinder as is my preference. I need to brush up on my photoshop skills so I can attempt to rectify my mistake.
I attended my first Board of Directors meeting at Digital Alloys today. I was well prepared and in a position to share positive news on the development front which made for a very warm welcome. Although I worked directly for the CEO at my last three jobs, I was never invited to attend board meetings, something I enjoyed doing earlier in my career.
Having almost fully recovered from her wisdom teeth extraction, Maya is off to Boca Raton, FL to enjoy a week with her boyfriend and college classmates. Jeanine dropped her off at the Alewife station where she is seen above modeling the purse I gave her for Christmas. I also gave her a digital multi-meter, but I doubt that is among the things she is bringing with her. She arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare only to find her flight delayed and eventually canceled. Kyle offered to put her up for the night at his place in the Seaport District while she waited for the first flight out the next morning.
Digital Alloys is distinguished among other startups I have worked for by the fact that it invests in quality tools needed to support the work being done at the company. Today, we accepted delivery of a very nice Okuma CNC Lathe which was moved into our machine shop by the very beefy forklift pictured on the right. On the left, you can see one of our prototype printers. It is contained inside a glovebox which allows us to print in an inert atmosphere, needed to prevent oxidation during printing. Once the lathe is fully installed, I will share a photo of it as well.
I worked on a number of projects around the house today. Pictured above is a large frame that will be installed around the mirror in our guest bathroom. I made a similar frame for the mirror in our master bathroom several years ago which improved its appearance significantly.
The boys both came home today to help care for Maya as she recovers from the surgery to extract her wisdom teeth. They are seen here providing lateral support to ensure that she does not tip over while sitting on the couch.
I was Jeanine’s plus one at the Open Table Holiday Staff Party this evening. The event was held in the event room at the Azucar Tapas Bar, just a few steps from Open Table’s Maynard site. Jeanine presented each member of her staff with a small candy gift, picked to highlight a particular strength of that individual (licorice for flexibility, dots for structured an orderly, etc.) It was an extremely nice way to talk about the superpowers of the team and was much appreciated by everyone. Between tapas courses, we played several games including a Yankee Gift Swap. At the end of the evening, a member of the team spoke on behalf of the group, showering Jeanine with admiration for her work as the leader of the organization.
It has taken more than a year to find a buyer for this desk/cabinet but I finally sold it this evening. Even though my new job has taken the pressure off moving, we are still committed to downsizing in the next few years. Patience is the best strategy for selling items on Craig’s List. Eventually, you will find someone looking for exactly what you are selling. What I did not bargain on was how heavy this piece was. I was not present when it was initially delivered and have not had occasion to move it since. Fortunately, the buyer was a strong young guy and I had an appliance dolly with a strap long enough to go all the way around. Even so, I found myself bearing the entire weight of this monstrosity when the buyer slipped on some ice while we were descending the stairs from our front door. Thankfully, neither of us were injured. Much as when I finally sold our grand piano, I was happy to see this desk out of the house.
Maya had all four of her wisdom teeth extracted today. I left work early (7 PM) to check in on her. In the self-made video below she has some choice things to say about her dentist.
As predicted in an earlier post, I was able to break the 20-minute mark with a new record for my morning commute of 16 minutes. I do not believe I will be able to better this mark without running a significant risk of arrest. I am still working 14 to 16 hours a day but feel I can start getting back to normal now that I am largely up to speed with my new job.
I am not at liberty to say much about this photo I took at work today other than the fact that it represents a major milestone for the company. My time at Formlabs was largely devoted to the people side of the engineering organization which I enjoyed immensely. It must be said, however, that I have been really having fun being in the technical trenches again. This is the kind of work that has me up at 4 AM with new ideas in my head and ready to race to the office.
For the last several weeks I have been slowly replacing all of the polished brass faucets, drains, towel bars, toilet paper holders, and knobs with updated brushed nickel replacements in all four of our bathrooms. Today I removed the sliding glass doors from one of the showers and replaced it with a set of shower curtains on a brushed nickel curved rod. I posted the shower doors on Craig’s List and they were out of the house by late afternoon.
While out doing errands this afternoon, I decided to photograph Warners Pond from the air. I have done this in the past but never from the backside. Had I arrived a few minutes earlier the sun would have been illuminating the foreground as well as the island; a project for a future date. I used the earlier part of the day to replace all the towel racks, robe hooks, and toilet paper holders in the house with ones matching the new faucets I installed a few weeks ago. This transition from brass to brushed nickel finishes certainly makes the house feel more up to date.