auxym

I had a very similar washer I think, from the 90s, and it eventually started exhibiting the exact same symptom (sometime in 2020 during the COVID crisis). I followed the same process and the blog author, but when I opened the transmission, the problem was immediately apparent: the large "spin gear" was plastic and was completely worn down, the teeth did not engage at all anymore with its driving gear.

Unfortunately, I found Maytag did not sell any separate parts for the transmission, only the whole transmission, for somewhere around 300$, which was more than the 25-ish years old washer was worth to me. People frequently bash manufacturers for using plastic parts like, as a mechanical engineer, I think there may be valid reasons for the design choice, but knowing the part is subject to wear, it should absolutely be made available as a spare.

I ended buying a new washer, from a very limited selection of models that were available in the summer of 2020 shortage of just about everything. I gave away the old one for free, the guy who picked it up needed the motor to repair another machine, I hope he was able to use the parts to keep it running for a long time.

Quebec, Canada mandates winter tires between December 1st and March 15th.

(But the winters are cold).

I get the feeling that labview was very big in the 00s but has been losing a lot of steam in the last 10 years or so, maybe because of failure to modernize. Labview today feels and looks like a 90s app, contrary to eg. modern Simulink.

FWIW I work in Simulink quite a bit, and "code blocks" (matlab function / matlab system) tend be used quite liberally in my models. Having the visual presentation of data flow is quite nice though for the kinds of things Simulink is used for, mostly physical modeling of electrical or mechanical systems.

There are ocasionally Nim talks at FOSDEM.

They had stopped for a while because they were transitioning away from using Paypal as a processor. A few weeks, maybe a month or so tops? I had to switch to JLC PCB for an order back in January, because they didn't support any viable payment method for me in Canada (tried to make a payoneer account, they don't do business in Canada).

But I just checked and it seems that they now accept CCs again.

In case anyone is interested, I enjoyed the book "Turn the Ship Around!" by L. David Marquet, about management lessons applied by the author who was a US Navy submarine captain. It does very much emphasize giving trust, responsibility and accountability to workers (or enlisted personnel, in this case).

uv has mostly solved the python issue. IME it's dependency resolution is fast and just works. Packages are hard linked from a global cache, which also greatly reduces storage requirements when you work with multiple projects.

I mean, he absolutely knew it was going to burn up. But I have no trouble believing that such a circuit was designed by AI.

It's because aluminium has a higher coefficient of thermal expansion. It expands and shrinks more as it heats, and as those cycles add up it tends to loosen electrical connections. Loose connections have higher resistance, heat up and can cause fires.

That said, there is no reason we can't design better connectors that can withstand the expansion and shrinkage cycles, like spring loaded or spring cage connectors.

Just an idea but Nim seems to have the features you mentioned. Nim "transpiles" to C, and can even be compiled via `zig cc` (which is an interace to clang). If you really want to, maybe you could make a zig backend for Nim?

As long as you keep the module and pressure angle the same, the gears should be compatible.

This is great! Any chance you could add STEP export also? It would facilitate importing into CAD software to customize the gear, eg to add a custom hub.

Typically, company would pay for a week or so of training if you don't have previous experience with the software.

Once again, this isn't a huge expense compared to the license cost + the engineer's salary.

Then for ongoing support/questions you get the support I mentioned including the onsite support engineer.

uv uses a global cache but hardlinks the dependencies for your script into a temp venv that is only for your script, so its still pretty fast.