The essential laptop repair tool

What takes it so long to design a desoldering tool that works?

The weakest link on my laptop broke - the power connector. After getting a set of precision screw driver from Lowes, I dissembled my laptop for the first time. I hope it's a simple job to replace the DC connector. But I was hopelessly wrong. The DC connector contacts needed resoldering. To get to the system board, I needed to take some components apart first. I kept unscrewing things, hoping the next screw would be the last. But I ended up taking everything apart, with little hope of putting them together correctly again. There are so many bit and pieces here and there, connectors all over, and miniature screws of different sizes that I couldn't even see properly with my naked eyes.

I took everything apart, just to find out that I could not clear the DC power connector's soldering holes. The tiny holes are filled with old solder. I could not insert the connector into position to resolder.

My classic solder sucker, in the form of a syringe, never really worked. The recoil action will pull the tip away from compact electronics, nowhere near the holes to be desoldered. I saw this new type of sucker on the Radioshack website, and something else. It's promising so I went to have a look.

I saw some standalone rubber like squeezing pumps, which make a lot of sense compared to plungers. But I don't know if there is enough suction. Then I checkout this monster combing a pump and a high wattage soldering iron. It just make so much sense. My only reservations are that if a lot of heat is needed to apply to the board, and if the board is more likely to be damaged. The other question is if this is any good, why take it so long to see something like this?

I think a lot of designers don't like to be seen holding a soldering iron. Many hobbyist don't want to be associated with repair technicians. Repair technicians are proud of their skills. So nobody needs a desoldering tool that actually works.

Perhaps it's the cost. The classic plunger last a long time, suitable for the salary and budget of repair technicians. Rubber squeezers would have to be replaced frequently. Now this monster cost more than a standard soldering iron. In the past this wouldn't be popular. But now, material and things are so cheap that a soldering iron cost next to nothing, and the two in one desoldering cost next to next to nothing.

I can vouch for it. Nothing can be more compact than a laptop. I just heat that thing up, apply solder, release the pump, and the soldering tags on the board are clean as new. What took it so long to appear on the market? Though it can be dangerous. If you squeeze the bulb by accident, steam and molten solder will blow out.

Now laptop repair or upgrade is so simple after all! I was so surprised to find out that Dell published excellent repair guides on their website. I wasted so much time searching for repair guides on the web, and taking things apart myself.

Without the guide it's hopeless to put things together again. Dell listed all the screws sizes, their numbers, and where they should be used. Dell also listed the sequences to do things, for example, if you want to get to the system board, what else you have to disassemble first. I did managed to put everything together easily. But since I didn't follow procedure to take it apart, I made some mistakes. The score:

1 screw missing
2 screws unused
blue tooth module damaged

The laptop is working fine without the screws. I never used the bluetooth module anyway. A working laptop again - priceless.

I think my time are wisely invested. The laptop was never used as anything other than a browser, and a video player. I did some work on it but I prefer to work on the desk and a desktop is much more economical to upgrade frequently. A desktop is always more powerful than a laptop too.

When my laptop can't keep up with windows and fat software, I can always load linux, which would turn it into a faster browser and video player. Beats the $300 laptops at the moment.

Book review: The 4-hour work week

Tim has a blog to promote his book. I was reluctant to write a review on his book or his blog, because a book once I trashed, kept rising fast on the Amazon rank. His did get a lot of publicity everywhere, including TV. His book did get to the top of the New York Times best sellers' list. I was really disappointed by the non-fiction buying public. Don't they watch enough infomercial already?

I do agree with him on a few things. His favorite cities were San Francisco, Tokyo, Frankfurt and Buenos Aires, in descending order of living expenses. I would add London on top though. I also share his taste of Trade Joe's wine, well received by wine experts, but at only a few dollars a bottle.

First, let's look at his qualification. He called himself a serial entrepreneur, but never reviewed what his past or current business were. Understandably, his wasn't proud of his businesses, otherwise he wouldn't use the term serial. If you get something big going, you want to build it up to rival Bill Gates, Google or many other smaller flies that the big guys will acquire.

He's in the business to make money. Not that much obviously, because he is arguing that he's the new rich. He has plenty of leisure time, a very high quality of living. That's not surprising if he enjoys wine at a few dollars a bottle, while in a classy restaurant you don't even get a glass.

How does he qualifies to write such a book? He does have an ivy league education, and a short time as a corporate slave, that's about it. Obviously to work 4 hours a week to need to get some business going. But then you don't even need to work 4 hours. I think there's a misunderstanding by the book buyers. He's telling you the methodology to work 4 hours a week, not how to make enough money so that you don't need to work so much hours!

It's so obvious to me that the book is another of his business. He's doing it to finance his working 4 hours a week. But he's not telling you how to find money. Do I need somebody to tell me how to work 4 hours a week when I have enough money?

It look so like infomercial, for example, the bald guy who sell you a stock market analysis and trading software tool that guarantee you to make money. But if you get an edge in the stock market, do you really need to tell others charging $50 each? But who cares, USA is a self help country. If you have something to say that will improve people's life, earnings, or wrinkles, the infomercial will work, books will sell.

But I understand. The infomercial guru, who wrote books about non effective drugs, and effective alternative treatments that the drug company don't want you to know. He was investigated by the FDA, banned from doing many things. He found a way to get back to American satellite TV via a British broadcasting company. He sells new books about weight loss, but bundled with his old alternative medicines books for free, but most of the time he talked about the old books rather than the new one. Obviously he got around some loop holes to continue his ways. Accidentally finding myself watching him when his ad popped-up, he did have some points. But it was like brain washing.

So how many people will treat books and infomercial as brain washing Trojan horses. Your teacher says you always have to have a critical mind. You should be critical before you open yourself to possible brain washing. It's easier to be critical before watching or reading than while you were being brain wash. When you were eating popcorns, you will be much less critical about the movie. But then, if you don't read it for yourself, you may never know, or miss out. That's the whole point. People are afraid to miss out big, but not afraid to to lose a few dollars to buy a book. That's how authors earn big money.

As for the content, he doesn't review much outside of the book, or he doesn't have much to offer. I didn't read it, don't want to buy it as a principle. The big things he used for promotion was - read email only twice a day! Oh my god! I couldn't agree more. People used to do it when they login first thing in the morning, and logout when they go home, before Windows or Dos. But do I need to buy a book for this? Get a paperless life by opting for online statements. Who doesn't? Pay a dollar to get yourself off junk mails. Well, I don't know that. Maybe the book is worth it after all. Wait a minute, what's that to do with working 4 hours a week? Light years apart.

As for the underlining big picture, there's nothing new as opposite to what Tim says. Living simple was already a movement, or a trend, since the last boom and bust economic cycle, maybe a lot earlier than that. Maybe the boom of the late 90's made people forget all about it.

Outsourcing is big, but he promotes it down to personal level. Pay somebody to do your laundry for you for each piece of work. Pay a peanut salary for an well educated Indian as your remote personal assistant. Advertise on Craig's List to find somebody to cook authentic Curry Vandaloo for you for a few dollars a meal. Most of these won't work for the majority of people, or, it wouldn't worth it.

I think he's big because he used the Internet quite well. He has a huge geek following as he called himself the new rich of the digital age. Every webmaster big and small dreams to be him, harding working at all, spent most of his time flash packing all over the world. So he got great exposure on the net, all giving him positive mentions without discussing substance of the contents.

Excuse me, but I have to pick on him about his substance. He made videos and that's suppose not to be easy to forget. One video is about teaching pen flipping, that's what all students in Asia do. Is he real? They are doing it for generations already. If you give a Japanese retired CEO a pen, he will flip it unconsciously. The other video is about how to wear a tie properly - the Windor knot. Oh please! Every British male do that, as do all males the world over except for Americans. It's the same thing that the American turn cricket to baseball, and soccer/ruby into football. You won't find any other men if the world who would wear an unsymmetrical tie. If you do, he is the sort of person who would be proud of the American way, and he will call it the American style.

Let me share with you a practical proverb. Doing most things is like paddling against the river flow, if you don't go forward, you will be carried backwards. By all means look for a balanced life, but trying to keep still on a flowing river is not wise.

Exploiting the ant algorithms

You can make use of the ants behavior to help get rid of them, or even use them to help you in productive ways.

As the insect terminators would say, we live in an ant hill. The entire neighborhood sits on hills, with large amount of steep, unbuildable spaces around houses that you don't have access. Even if you get rid of all ants around your property, if your yard is in any way still inhabitable for the ants after the chemicals subside, they will certainly come back. There's an unlimited supply of them.

At first I used to spray all around the house and yard with chemical spray that is attached to the hose, suitable for lawns and plants. It's effective but it doesn't last. Also it's also difficult to isolate yourself from the insecticides. You breath the water vapors with chemicals in it, the vapor blow back by the wind all over you. Then we call in the terminators. It's not any better, because they recommend to spray for you every three month standard. It's not termination. In out area, the standard won't work. Some recommend to spray every other month, using expensive but safer chemicals.

Basically it's a waster of money. When I don't see the ants eye to eye, they don't bother me. Not that they destroy anything significant. When there are two many of them coming to attack everything, I can just spray around. Just 10 min's of work, using a whole bottle of lawn insecticide. And then I went for a decontamination shower.

But I didn't do it anymore. I observed that the ant algorithms are very simple:
* ants only live in hidden dry areas
* ants need water and food
* ants travel in the shortest paths

My new strategy is draw them out, find the colony and kill them all. You don't really need to draw them out. After intense heat wave, they will go out in search of water. After heavy rain, they will move their flooded colony to a new dryer place. When I want to draw them out when I want, I would flood the boundary of the yard or any possible dry spots around the house. Also, dog food pellets are the best bait, never fails, while the ant baits with poisons in hardware stores never work.

Once the ants need to go out, they are very much exposed. They like to travel on flat surfaces without obstacles, even if they are exposed out in the open, under intense heat and sunlight. They don't like to travel across plants or soil, which are obstacle courses compared to flat stones or concrete. So if you fill any gaps in your stone or concrete pathway with paving sand for example, the ants will certainly march along the surface of the pathway.

Other favorite places where ants like to travel are fences, the outdoor damp prove course several inches above base level of the house.

Ants are easy to find in these areas in plain sight. They just don't like to hide under grass or ground cover. Follow the line and you know where their colonies are.

To kill them I use a hand operated spray, with chemicals that can be used on fruits. It doesn't take much spray to flood their colony with insecticides. And if you like, you can spray on the whole line of ants sometimes a 100 feet long, often made up of most of the colony.

The ants come because there's some food. It's time to harvest the fruits before the ants. Or your sprinklers do not cover all the lawn, with some dry spots. Or you have some cracks outside the house, allowing the ants to get in for a cool dry shelter. Without ants, these spots are hard to find. Ants are just so useful!

Mexican Drip Irrigation

My house has a standard 1/2 irrigation system. However, the previous owner must had designed the layout and laid the pipes himself. Nothing is right. Grass is supposed to grow right up to the edge of the house and the fences. It is extremely difficult to cover all the areas to be watered.

But that doesn't bother my gardener. He adjusted all the sprinklers so that all green things are covered. He doesn't care how much water is wasted. He doesn't care about water damage to the stucco. Those are not his problems. I changed new quality spray heads and adjust the spraying distance without success.

Out of frustration I changed to drip irrigation gradually. Initially it looked good. Though the 1/2 underground pipes are fixed, I can now place 1/4 tubes over the ground wherever I wanted, so the tiny, precise spray heads are right next to the plants. Can't do anything about the standard pop-up sprinklers, but with the help of fixed drip irrigation spray heads, I can cover grass that the pop-ups cannot.

The problem is, the 1/4 adapters got blown off by the water pressure, or the spray heads got blown off. But I cannot install a pressure reducer that is usual for drip irrigation. My system is mixed. Though this could be done if I change over completely. Luckily I didn't. Silly me. Recently, when I replaced the shut-off valve to the yard, I discovered that my pressure regulator deals with water to my house only. All other water are not regulated.

So my irrigation system was at over 100 psi. No matter the electric valves cannot be adjusted and so short lived. No matter something burst all the time. No matter all the sprinklers and spray heads seem to be out of control with water spraying everything. No matter it was so difficult to adjust the volume of everything. No matter that when something was wrong with my neighbor's swimming pool plumbing, we both burst some sprinklers together.

The major problem was my gardener, his successors, and their whole team members. When they clear weeds they will clear the over ground 1/4 tubes too. Or they will cut the spray heads off without knowing. It's not surprising because often they destroy indestructible pop-up sprinklers with their mowers.

Gradually I moved back to a standard 1/2 system, leaving nothing over ground to be destroyed. My 1/4 system resigned to the garage.

Until recently it dawned on me that I was visiting the wrong department for drip irrigation. I used to get everything from the garden center - the 1/2 to 1/4 adapters, the tubes, the spray heads, the connectors. Either they are too tough to join together, or too easy to connect but will be immediately blown off when water pressure is applied.

I also used the standard plumbing department for 1/2 tubes and connectors. I tried to add something rigid, like splitting one outlet into two, before converting it to 1/4 at the end, which is much less rigid.

It suddenly dawned on me that the ice making, 1/4 tubing department, that I visited many times for my reverse osmosis system, are compatible with the 1/4 drip irrigations. I never realized that the drip irrigation uses standard 1/4 tubes. That made a lot of difference.

Now instead of the T's and couplers from hell, I just use quick connect. It's a few dollars a piece but saving my fingers is priceless. The 1/2 to 1/4 adapters are industrial strength, not plastic toys as from the drip department. Now designing and installing the system is a joy.

Now I have more tricks to fix the system in place. In the past I rely on stakes to hold the tubes and spray heads. Now I can use rigid 1/4 tubes as far as I can. In the past my stakes get bigger and bigger so as to survive the onslaught of my gardeners and their teams. Now I use custom made acrylic pieces to hold the tubes and spray heads, and glue or screw the whole thing to something rigid. As the acrylic is crystal clear. The whole thing can look good or not visible at all.

One final thing. All spray heads are directly pushed or screwed into the end of tube directly. I will now only use the screw ones which is easier. And before screwing them into the tubes, I apply some gorilla glue. In the past you can hardly reuse the spray head this way. Now all the spray heads are mostly attached to half an inch of tube, to be pushed effortlessly into quick connectors.

Now I can add something, change the spray heads, replace damaged materials fast. Don't know why don't sell it that way, instead of in 3 separate areas of the plumbing department.

Scam: reverse osmosis permeate pump and valve

Not exactly scam, but depends on who and how they sell it. The permeate pump is certified, made of harmless material, and won't fall apart, but it is the magic bullet as claimed in the manufacturer's Aquatec website? No. But since they only sell it to distributors, they give you no specification and they are not responsible how you use it. But now these companies know that nothing can stop people selling things to individuals on eBay, they are a bit careful on their website, in order not to develop a scandal.

Many pumps are sold to retrofit existing systems. But notice the 75 psi feed input on the main diagram on their website. If you haven't got that pressure, it very doubtful it will work well. And if you got all that pressure, it's doubtful if you need a pump to get good results.

Standard main water pressure depends on water district, but should be 50 psi, which is the value for sprinkler specification. You may get higher pressure if you live uphills in individual houses, where the water pressure gradually decrease downhills to 50 psi for houses at the bottom. In this case you need a pressure regulator, which is usually factory preset to 50 to 60 psi, with 75 psi as the absolute rating. So basically, now that the permeate pump isn't new anymore, Aquatec is basically saying you need a booster pump without admitting it. A booster pump cost twice as much and gives you a lot of improvement if your feed is just 50 psi. It's crazy if you use a booster pump plus a permeate pump. Since I have 75 psi without the need for a booster pump, I'm OK. It wouldn't work well for 60 psi, and I can prove it.

When the tank is empty, that is, no back pressure to the membrane, the membrane sees the full pressure of about 70 psi. The pump is supposed to maintain the back pressure to at most a few psi so the full 70 psi pressure is maintained at all times. With the right flow restrictor, there should be enough pressure and flow in the brine/concentrate to do that. But I found out that the recovery rate have to be high at about 25%. Which means that the drinking water to waste water ratio is 1:3. This is far from the usual 1:4, or 20%, and far from the specified Filmtec membrane recovery of 15%.

But all is not lost. At 70 psi, even 25% recovery gives 98% stable rejection, which is the same specified rejection at 50 psi and 15% recovery. So with a virtual booster pump, and a permeate pump, I can't get better rejection but I waste half the water, 1:3 recovery instead of 1:6 recovery.

It won't work if you don't have 75 psi main feed. Say at 60 psi feed, you have about 50 psi across the membrane, and clearly at this pressure, you need 15% recovery to achieve anywhere near 98% rejection. 25% recovery is far off.

It's doubtful if you need any pump when you have 75 psi pressure. A 75 gpd membrane becomes 110 gpd which is a hell lot of water. But since the pressure is constant across the membrane, it's easy to design your system, and the performance is guaranteed under all circumstances. In other words, peace of mind.

In pumpless systems, basically the water is excellent when the tank is empty. Then the water tend to get worse as the tank fills up, or you waste a lot more water without realizing it, that's what Aquatec is trying to market their pumps. With typical usage, the system works most often when only a few cup or a kettle of water is being drawn from the tank. The water is worse or wasting most water when the pressure across the membrane is often 50% to 33% of an empty tank.

Actually I would like to write software to design residential systems. Dow has free software but far too complex and did not give out parameters for the residential membranes. So I couldn't do anything but to use 75 psi main pressure. The pressure is constant and everything is constant so it's easy to design.

And now the cutoff valve. It's not cheap at 1/3 of the pump price. But does it worth it? Nobody claims that it's necessary but say enough that you will buy it. I was surprised to find out that the valve don't cutoff at 90%, but about the same as the old valves about 66%. I talked to the distributors and manufacturer and it seems that they are well prepared. The distributor send me over to the manufacturer, who promise to test it and replace it if it's defective. But I am not to expect 90%, but 85% depending on pressure.

I almost sent it off when I realized that now the cutoff pressure of my tank will be the main pressure of most people, at 50 psi. It will be crazy to increase that to 65 psi. I don't need that and the pump may not work at that pressure. Also, the valve turn back on at 30 psi, giving 20 psi of hysteresis so the system won't turn on and off whenever people drawn a glass of water or a kettle of water. I don't know if my old valve do that. But since the new valve has JG connectors that are easy for me to measure things, and that the tubings are fitted already, I rather not go back to the old one.

Previously I have doubts about measuring pressure when water is flowing. But I find that it's very accurate, the dynamic pressure into the tank equals exactly the static pressure when the tank is isolated. After all, what else can it be? Now I left the pressure gauge dangling in a T piece somewhere in the water path. And since I needed a tank shutoff valve as an adapter for the standard gauge, I can shut off the valve so the gauge isn't in contact with potable water when not in use.

Camping tech

Most CA state camp grounds have free Wi-Fi access. It's a simple thing to do but made me think of an unrelated question: can we be modern nomads? For the rules, state parks usually have 1 or 2 week maximum stay per camp site, 1 month max stay per year within a county. It's not much but there are local sites that do not belong to the states, and there are federal sites. And there are 52 states!

But would you do that? Kids need to go to school, and that's that. Though home schooled kids aren't that rare, so moving every other week may not be too bad.

I love outdoors. Half a lifetime ago, space was so precious that I rather go camping when I could, even in tropically wet weather, walking for hours with all equipment on my shoulders. Tents weren't even draft and water proof.

I touched a tent again a couple of years ago. I saw one small and cheap on sale and picked it up for earthquake preparation. And forgot about it.

It turns out that Rangers looking after the camp sites have rather dangerous jobs. For popular beaches near urban centers, there's the drunks. Now for remote sites, they often go into heavy gun fights with the pot growers, with millions worth of pots at sake. Other than those, crimes usually aren't premeditated. You don't plan to rob somebody random in remote areas. Without premeditation, it's hard to get away with it, such as the Yosemite killings. For the good part, no where else in the world you get to live in a free gated community, with armed guards until 10 pm, then total lock down until dawn. Here I bet criminals can't run, they can only drive. I doubt if anyone will try to do the hard work when they can't get in or get away with a car.

Tasers are going to be very affordable, may be as popular as pepper sprays. You can also draw up visible and invisible boundaries with infrared, laser and lots of cams. But for the moment, camping is still a very much friendly family affair. The rangers will check you up at least twice a day. When the sites aren't too busy, they will remember you if your clean car looks out of place, thinking that you are newbies and needs extra attention. Sites owned by rich counties are even better.

The bad thing about camping in CA is that you are basically living on dirt. You don't have a lawn if you don't have sprinklers, unless you camp by the river. But most "rivers" dries up in summer, while winter is too cold. So you have to have tents for bed rooms, that you only get in for sleeping, when you are presumably clean. You need separate living spaces, sheltered from the sun, and preferably from insects. You also need changing rooms too. You don't want to walk in and out of bedrooms with feet full of dirt. You also don't want to kick everybody out of the living rooms just to change into some special gear, such as swim suit. And for the beaches, you need to bring a cabana to the water front.

Modern materials are amazing. My cheap made in China tents and canopies has very light flexible support poles, wafer thin fabric. But still I couldn't manage to make a hole in anything. All zippers are still working. The fine insect screen didn't break at all even after attacked all night by raccoons. I can carry all the "rooms" easily in my trunk, and I can erect huge canopies alone.

That's why I don't fancy RV's. It's two cramped in comparison.

As for creature comfort, you are spoiled for choice in chairs and beds, king size down to twin, high tech air bed, or self inflated. Satellite TV dish are portable. If you don't like the free WiFi access, there's the true satellite broadband service. Food is always great, briquettes are always better than gas grill back home. The match lighted ones are as convenient as butane gas.

Now the dreaded loo. Public showers aren't that bad. Typically hot showers are coin operated with a large gas boiler, giving decent pressure and volume. If you are fuzzy you can bring your own shower tent. With solar heating and battery pumps, a private shower room can be barely decent. Of course RV's all got these, and with electricity hookups, RV's can afford decent heaters and powerful pumps.

The public toilets are very clean, but only in the morning right after they cleaned it. At busy seasons it's terrible after an hour or two, even though most campers try to minimize their mess. Imagine McDonald only clean it's toilets once a day! Some more remote places are called environmental sites, where there are only so called chemical toilets. Terrible! terrible! I would rather die of blocking.

RV seems to be a lot better with it's own toilet. You still need to deal with the mess but it's your own toilet and your own mess.

But not anymore. It must be fairly new, because the majority of toilets for sale are till big buckets. You store your mess in it, may be put some fragrance in it after every use, and god knows how you empty that and clean that afterward.

Now there are high absorbency powder to turn liquid waste into jelly, and semi solid waste will become more solid with odor reduced. Instead of a bucket, you empty into a toilet seat with big plastic bags underneath. Whenever you want, you seal the plastic bag with another, throwing the whole thing into trash. I suppose the concept isn't that new. But now all the materials are biodegradable, the water tight plastic bags degenerates within 6 months. It was approved by everybody, endorsed by me. Now a toilet/shower tent is lighter than a typical camping chair. You can have your out house wherever you want, with a view if you want. The worst nightmare becomes a joy. RV's aren't that good. There's totally no mess to deal with. The plastic bags aren't cheap, but I'll still go for it if they sell it like crack.

Maybe someday dry toilets are the way to go back home. The flush toilet has been haled as a great invention, but may be a big mistake. Dry toilets do not waste water. A out house in the yard is no problem at all. You can have one for each in the family if you want. For apartments you can have ventilation rooms, which are easier to build than conventional toilets. Perhaps doing it in a slightly larger closet is good. Houses can be smaller without the toilets, and it's simpler without all the plumbings.

The perfect geek material

I never like wood, but I thought it was the only material that you can custom in your garage. Over the years I have a circular saw to cut 2"x4" beams for play things, now the saw is being recalled. I also have a little power sander to smooth the coarse wood so as for the surface not to be too tough for the touch. I once brought a jigsaw to build a custom corner table. I thought it was good but it got thrown away. An fake antique table replaced it.

I was looking for something to replace the cardbox in the yard, when I come across acrylic. I thought it was perfect. It's look like glass, lighter but tougher. And you can cut it to size with a knife. Perfect, just what I needed. So I designed a rather complicated box with lots of compartments, doors and openings in it, using a free CAD package.

I fit my design into a 2'x4' flat piece of acrylic at 1/8" thick. When the piece comes, it was perfect. It really looks good, crystal clear. It was protected by plastic film so you cannot scratch it while cutting it. The thickness is just right. It's just tough for you to build a strong box. Any thicker cost a lot more, and any thinner it feels plastic instead of glass. But there's one catch. There's no way you can cut it with a knife, at least not a decent long edge.

So I brought out my jigsaw. It's tough work. It's very slow to cut through the acrylic compared to wood that is a lot thicker, which is expected. Also, you cannot make a straight cut with a jigsaw, unless you have a decent work bench, which I don't. I should have ordered custom cutting which is more expensive than the material itself. At least for the long cuts, I should use some help. But I soldiered on.

The good thing is that, at a right saw speed, the blade create just enough heat to melt through the acrylic, but not too much melting, giving a nice smooth edge. The saw dust are basically acrylic melted into tiny beads. It's everywhere but a lot more pleasant than wood dust and it's much easy to clean.

The bad - the unexpected jigsaw instead of a knife leaves me with rectangles big and small, all without straight edges and right angles! I know it would be a challenge to fit the pieces together. Also, the dimensions are more than 1/8" off after cutting. So I have to run through the CAD package to made alterations as I went along.

Luckily I brought some small right angled wedges to help to glue the pieces together at the corner, and some squared tubes to help with the squareness of my box. And I settled for some toxic solvents for a quick welding of the pieces, instead of using slow solvents and requiring clamps that I don't have, and don't know how to apply in small spaces.

You can imagine the final box is comparable to a cardboard box using coarse tapes to stick the pieces together. But acrylic is something. You can see the glue, it's clear but there are bubbles in it. It's hard not to use excessive glue for the uneven pieces. It drys hard and visible, but it's as clear as the acrylic. Basically it's just acrylic melted and reformed. The wedges at the corners are ugly, no sides are straight and barely square. No edges are smooth.

But the whole junk is rather addictive to look at. It's my junk and it's like glass suspending in glass. You got to enjoy the fine details, like uneven application of the glues on the edges and hinges. The curved edges, and the blurred edges just like glass. Best of all, it's tough and highly functional. If I order custom cutting for the large pieces, or invest in a bench saw, it would be perfect the 2nd time round.

I can imagine 1/16" thick sheets will be perfect for delicate things, such as custom electronic enclosures. You should be able to cut it accurately using knifes. Polish the edges and use thin glues that make perfect invisible joints. You can drill small accurate holes, or cut out large portions for a screen mount etc. You can order custom laser cutting for you name to stick on it too.

The major problem I had was needing a lot of motors with gearboxes to mount on my beautiful junk. It's just too expensive compared to the whole box, and looked ugly. You can get bare motors a lot cheaper, compact and powerful. But without gears and crank arms they are useless. So after exhausting the web to find something suitable, I cut a little piece of acrylic as the crank arm and drill a hole in it. I put the bare motor shaft in it and glue them together using gorilla glue. It surprised me that now it's a very tough crank arm! The rest of the problem is mounting the motor onto the box. It just need another small piece and screws to clamp the motor securely in place. Now even the motor mount and the crank arm are transparent and look good, with screw suspending in mid air.

I fell in love.