Congrats!

Meanwhile, I have become an acetone believer...
It seems like it worked.
Yay!

Catprop.

Anyone ever do anything with 80/20?
https://www.8020.net/

We've got some robots coming in and they want to make an entire room, out of this stuff. Floor, walls, ceiling, lighting, shelving, it needs to have electrical and power inside of it.
I've done small material and parts handlers before. But never an entire room.

Running wire in 80/20 sounds like a bad time.

8020 is great. Generic stuff is "Extruded Aluminum T-slot". Same stuff, just cheaper. But don't mix and match.
The cheaper t-slot hardware from places like McMaster-Carr are not a 1:1 swap for the true 80/20. If you only use the cheap stuff it works fine.
Be careful with your grounding if you run the electrical through it. You have to put grounding straps everywhere, the brackets are not enough to make a safe ground from one piece to another.
An alternative, depending on your application, is to use a plastic conduit to run your electrical. That will minimize your risk of short circuiting through your frame work.

I'm thinking we will just run plastic conduit with maybe some liquid tight directly from the breaker panel located externally to the machines. As far as lighting, I may just do some type of recessed LED lighting in the ceiling.
Power requirements alone for these robots are no joke. Clean power is expensive.

We're trying to drink top shelf on a beer budget though, so I'm not sure they're going to like these quotes.

I built a box for our 3D printer out of McMaster T-slot stuff. It's fine.

Speaking of Robots... does anyone want a Roomba 535 with near-shot battery? You can have it for the cost of shipping and some monetary incentive to not dump it. It has the sealed bearing cartridge mod and works fine except for not charging. batteries are $25 from amazon.

Make offers?

I'll take it for the cost of shipping and some sexy pictures that I only show my boyfriend.

PM me

false alarm. My wife agreed to keep using it for $25 so that we can run it every couple days to keep the 8 month old baby from eating all the crap that we track in on the floor.

However!

If we fail at this it's yours.

8 fun years with a SC so far.
Should I start thinking about a turbo for a change?
I would need a turbo, dp, bov and a manifold.
Just thinkin out loud...

How is that even a question?

The issue is cost more than anything.
It's already boosted as it is.

Sell SC for money, use said money to build / buy turbo parts.

Random observation made by an attractive 30-something woman with no ring (but unloading a stroller from her SUV) in the parking garage last night: "Is that the new Mazda?"

Well, yes, it's "the" Mazda, but it's pretty clearly not new.

I didn't even realize they were running TV adverts or otherwise promoting the car. Haven't seen any on my station.

Speaking of which, when are we doing your timing belt? If i'm in town I will help and bring the Flyin' Miata tools.

Well, now that I've actually made the 12 hour drive and arrived in Chicago I'm a little less freaked out about it. The next two weekends are probably out, and I've not even ordered the parts yet- gotta do that.

Welcome to Chicago! Please prepare all your monies for tax extraction.

Is Chicago a permanent thing?

Chicago has a higher tax rate than NYC?

It appears so, at least for goods and services. 10.25% vs 8.75%. Joe is renting I believe and I want to say he said his rent is quite a bit cheaper for the quality of the apartment so there is that. State income tax isn't terrible in my opinion, but then I am poor. (and looking at the numbers, New York has a higher ceiling).

EDIT: New York has their own income tax. So a person making a household income of $79k will pay 5% in Chicago and over 10% in New York. Wow.