Author Archives: james

Building an observatory. Construction #11

Tough day at the coal face, and I felt a bit “glow in the dark” as a result. The forecast was predicting 28C and I’d not be surprised if it didn’t go a bit higher than that. However, using a … Continue reading

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Building an observatory. Construction #10

After validating my choice of wall height there wasn’t much time left, but I was determined to make some visible change no matter how small. I had a few bits of scrap 18mm ply that used to be part of … Continue reading

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Geeetech Aluminium Prusa i3 clone: 3DBenchy

I should perhaps have taken some time to do some printer “tuning”, but look, it works! So clearly I want to print stuff out, not play with the innards even more! 3DBenchy (or BenchyMcBenchFace as it is now known in … Continue reading

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Building an observatory. Construction #9

Evidence-based design always being best, between showers I managed to get the tripod and NEQ6 set up, with a bit of malformed roofing batten as a pointer that I could set at the level of the top of the 1500mm … Continue reading

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Building an observatory. Construction #8

Catching up with progress, another late evening saw all of the timbers in to support the floor. Everything that rests on the concrete blocks is wrapped in DPC material to try to prevent it drawing up any damp from the … Continue reading

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Geeetech Aluminium Prusa i3 clone, first “upgrades”

A couple of things niggled me during testing that were simple to fix so I thought I’d make a note of them here… First, the USB connector (where the controller board connects to a PC) means that the supplied USB … Continue reading

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Geeetech Aluminium Prusa i3 clone build review

I posted a while back that I’d bought one of these to build with the children as a summer holiday project. As it turned out my son didn’t seem that interested, but my daughter has got involved with the build … Continue reading

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Logitech Marble Mouse on Ubuntu 18.04 and Mint 19

I love my Logitech Marble Mouse. So much in fact that I have several spares in case my current one dies. It’s always been a little niggly to get to work with Linux though. Every few releases something changes and … Continue reading

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Swimming, 20th August 2018

So, first time back to my USRPT set since before I went on holiday over a month ago… 400m front crawl warm-up 25 x 50m front crawl, target time 51s, rest interval 24s 200m front crawl swim down I’d already … Continue reading

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Lunar eclipse from Southern Spain

The lunar eclipse at the end of July found me on holiday in Spain in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains with a view to the coast and beyond (as far as Africa, in fact). I had used my … Continue reading

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