▲ 0 r/DIY

Easiest way to paint/dye play sand for a sandbox?

I work at a place that has an indoor 10ft x 10ft sand box filled with (washed) fine play sand. It's about 1 ft deep. We would like to colour the sand to a light gray colour (a bit like cement gray). Is there a non-toxic paint/dye you recommend we use for such a large quantity of sand? Everything we find online are small quantities for arts & craft projects.

I'm having a hard time finding gray-coloured washed fine sand (we're in Eastern Canada), so the next best option would be to paint/dye the sand we already have.

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u/tango_delta_nominal — 2 days ago
▲ 7 r/AskEngineers+1 crossposts

Suggestions for resistive polyimide/flexible heater for cubesat

Hi! My cubesat student design team is considering incorporating a small, 2W resistive flexible heater in our design. The input voltage will be around 8-8.4V. We're open to using more expensive space-grade ones if we absolutely have to, but we're happy to try cheaper alternatives at first.

Are there suppliers you would recommend we look into? We saw that Omega and Minco sell high-quality & expensive ones, while JLCPCB manufactures custom polyimide resistive heaters for cheap, although those ones do not come with an outgassing certificate. We do have access to a TVAC chamber to test/certify hobby-grade COTS heaters. Thanks!

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u/tango_delta_nominal — 6 days ago
▲ 8 r/Machinists+1 crossposts

Small aluminum blind rivets break off high on stem/mandrel

I need to use aluminum blind rivets (with aluminum mandrels) to fasten two aluminum sheets together. The rivets are pretty small (3/32 inch) and the total material thickness to clamp is within the spec for those rivets (~0.08 inch, or 2mm). I use a pretty standard/cheap blind rivet tool. Almost all aluminum mandrels break off way higher than they should (see attached picture of dummy/test part). Any suggestion?

My tool works great with zinc-plated steel rivets of the same size. So I wonder if I should get a different tool for aluminum rivets (perahps the jaws are too strong and weaken the mandrel?)

Alternatively, any tip on cutting off those mandrels that stick out and sharp edges would be welcome. Thanks

u/tango_delta_nominal — 1 month ago