These treasure chests and barrels are from Dutch Mogul’s Loot Markers pack, Thingiverse number 2010492.
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Barrel & Treasure Chest tabletop miniatures – 3D printing & Painting
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VECYS IC1209 Countertop Ice Maker Review
I tested the VECYS IC1209 countertop ice maker.
It takes 1h 20min to make a pound of ice, and draws 100 watts per hour average (max draw is close to 250 watts when heating the evaporators to drop the ice, and may surge to 350-800 watts for a second when the compressor kicks on).
I was surprised to find that my fridge/freezer door mounted ice maker only made 0.19 pounds of ice in the same time, justifying having a separate appliance if you need to make a lot of ice in a quick amount of time. [You will have to add more water and remove the ice every 1-2 hours, so it’s not for completely unattended operation…]
Amazon Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3FtQIVO
Nissan Leaf (2015 S) Charger power draw profile
When I charge my (2015 S) Leaf up to 100%, you can see the input AC current/power draw slowly decay as the car finishes charging, and then a little while later 3 little spikes of current draw as it finishes balancing.
Maker Faire Orlando 2021
Maker Faire Orlando (2021) had a lot of interesting exhibits.
Here are a few that drew my attention:
It’s November 2021, how is Orange County Florida doing with COVID-19?
We have reached the end of the Delta Surge. The October 29th 2021 weekly DOH report shows that Orange County only had 834 infections in the last week, and the case positivity rate has dropped to 2.9%. The OC Mayor has dropped the state of emergency, and the OC Public School District has removed the mask mandate in schools. (Faculty, Staff & adult Volunteers are still required to wear masks, as are students, but now a parent note is enough to excuse students from the mask requirement.)
In the last month the OCPS dashboard has reported only 690 new cases.
We have had nine weeks of decreasing case numbers and are now back to a level similar to that of the June/July timeframe before the Delta variant surged. Orange County currently has 75% of the 12+ population vaccinated, and the Pfizer vaccine has just been approved for use by children aged 5-11 years old.
Deaths
In the last month, Orange County has only had 140 deaths from COVID-19. Overall, Orange County FL had 2,185 COVID-19 deaths out of a population of 1,457,445 (149 deaths per 100,000 residents). This is better than the state of Florida average of 285 deaths per 100,000 residents. However, 149 deaths per 100,000 residents is a per-capita death rate higher than the countries of South Korea (5), Australia (6), Iceland (9), Japan (14), Norway (16), Egypt (17), India (33) and the Philippines (36) combined.
1977 AMF Alcort Sunfish Sailboat Restoration
I purchased an old (1977 manufacture date) AMF Alcort Sunfish 14 foot sailing dinghy. It was mostly complete and almost “ready-to-sail”, except for the broken auto-bailer, and cracked rudder, but the price was right.
Since I had to repair the crack in the rudder, I decided to go overboard and completely restore the entire rudder and tiller assembly. And once the rudder looked nice, I had left-over varnish and decided to go ahead and re-surface the daggerboard as well.
I also added a ratcheting mainsheet block, replaced all of the lines and purchased some necessary accessories (deck cover, beach dolly).
After the first sail I drained all of the water out of the hull (which MIGHT have already been in there…..maybe….) and purchased a better drain plug and rigged up a solar powered fan to dry things out. If I find water inside after the second sail, I’ll probably be doing some fiberglass hull repair.
You can see all of the details by watching the (multiple!) videos in this YouTube playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmHP4lUqxKmv13lkNpPqG2FbnV9L4aaL0
I’ve found that the Better Boat Mini-Paddle fits perfectly into the rear cubbyhole on my 1977 boat.
Android 12 notifications & Internet Tile are a downgrade
Android version 12 has a lot of under the hood improvements, and I especially appreciate the privacy preserving features (green dot visual notifications when the camera or mic turn on, and finer grained permissions controls).
However, the new notifications system has traded visual appeal for utility. Specifically, the total screen area (width) used to display notifications is significantly narrower than in Android 11. The notifications are displayed with a white space frame around them, and even within that area, each notification is inside a rounded corner “bubble”, so that the actual content is only using 70% of the phone screen width. This is especially noticeable to me on notifications from the Ring app, which show a photo preview of what caused the motion alert to fire.
KODAK Digital Still Camera
Also, they combined the “wifi” and “cellular data” quick action tiles into a single “Internet” one. So instead of two actions to enable or disable wifi (swipe down / click) I now must make four. (swipe down, click internet, click wifi, click ‘Done’). Also, I don’t appreciate the design of the two line clock on the lock screen, but whatever (no am/pm indicator, really?).
VECYS CR18 Car Refrigerator review
I reviewed the VECYS CR18 Car refrigerator.
This is an 18L fridge/freezer (it can get down to -14C / 6.8F) that runs on 12-24 volts DC (although it ships with an AC adapter that allows you to use it off of mains power).
At refrigeration temperatures (0c/32f) it takes 190 watt hours to maintain temperature for 24 hours.
At freezing temperatures(-20c on the control panel, -14c inside), it takes 520 watt hours to maintain temperature for 24 hours.
It takes almost 24 hours to fully freeze a 1L / 1kg / 2lb water gel pack.
You may also be interested in the (much larger, 60 Liter) VECY’s CR60.
Amazon Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3mfW5zc
It’s October 2021, how is Orange County doing with COVID-19?
We are nearing the tail end of the Delta surge. The October 1st 2021 DOH report shows that orange county had “only” 2,365 cases in the last week, and our 7 day test positivity rate has dropped down to 5% (for the first time in 3 months…).
The number of cases per day are still as bad as in January/Feb, April/May, so COVID is definitely spreading in the community, but “74% of those 12 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine” according to Mayor Jerry Demings. Although breakthrough infections are possible, being vaccinated gives strong protection against infection, and extremely strong protection against getting sick enough to need hospitalization or dying.
Orange county schools have reported 5909 student cases (and 1,114 employee cases) since August 2nd, and are still enforcing a mask mandate through the end of October.
Deaths
So far, Orange County FL has had 2,045 COVID-19 deaths out of a population of 1,457,445, or (140 deaths per 100,000 residents), which is a per-capita death rate higher than the countries of South Korea (5), Australia (6), Iceland (9), Japan (14), Norway (16), Egypt (17), India (33) and the Philippines (36) combined.
Ring Mailbox Sensor Review
Ring sells a “Mailbox Sensor” ($29) which tells you when somebody opens your mailbox. (i.e. it notifies you when the mail is delivered, or picked up.)
Really, it’s just one of their ring outdoor light motion sensor modules with an extra external antenna jack. (The small round object near the white square in the photo below.) It is powered by 3 AAA batteries, and lasts about 2.5 months under “normal” usage (e.g. opening the mailbox twice a day six days a week) using generic AAA batteries. Continue reading