Pro Audio Design Forum

JR. wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2018 10:24 am
This will work...

I'll angle it so it traps rain water. It should take me a lifetime to fill this one up.

JR

I realize this may come as a shock to some, but my kit composter did not completely resemble the picture... The two back posts with custom cut notches were fine but the side slats were kind of hanging in the breeze. I drafted my next door neighbor who has a table saw to cut some crude square dato(? dado thx) notches in an old piece of 2x2 I had laying around. Everything was tight enough that it required percussive persuasion to assemble and will not fall apart in a gentle MS breeze (aka hurricanes).

The colorful vegetable matter is some orange peels just added today.

I realize this may not be up to our resident woodworkers standards, but good enough for my yard. (I'm easy).

JR

Its a dado joint.

I used to have an open compost pile and just about everything I put out that was fresh would get eaten.
Except Velvetta cheese. No animal will touch it.
I don't eat Velvetta either but was conscripted to make a casserole with it and bought some.
Threw out the rest of the block and ended up having to throw it away after it set on the compost pile for weeks.
If an animal won't touch it we shouldn't either.

I'm pretty sure your new compost pile will have a stream of nocturnal visitors.
Racoons, possums and feral cats visit ours.

mediatechnology wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 5:33 am Its a dado joint.

thanx... dato looked wrong, I'm not the cabinet maker here but remember my older brothers building some crude plywood furniture back in the 50s, using dado joints.

I used to have an open compost pile and just about everything I put out that was fresh would get eaten.

When I was a kid we had an open compost pile and our dog got sick one time, presumably from eating something rotten. IIRC my mother would throw all food scraps into it, while I follow the rules a little better, I only discard fruit and vegetable scraps.

Except Velvetta cheese. No animal will touch it.

not sure what velveeta is made from, but probably shouldn't be in there anyhow.

I don't eat Velvetta either but was conscripted to make a casserole with it and bought some.
Threw out the rest of the block and ended up having to throw it away after it set on the compost pile for weeks.
If an animal won't touch it we shouldn't either.

I'm pretty sure your new compost pile will have a stream of nocturnal visitors.
Racoons, possums and feral cats visit ours.

I already mentioned this to my neighbor who has at least a half dozen cats running loose and he wasn't concerned. The rotting fruit looks untouched since I dumped it out of the plastic bin a week ago or so. If the random animal gets sick and dies, they can't go back on the pile (no protein). Hopefully my squirrels will eat something bad for them.

JR

Yeah I never put any kind of fat or animal protein in the compost pile.
The Velvetta was an experiment.
Mostly just vegetables, leaves and grass clippings.
Sometimes I threw in a little sugar to get it really cooking.

I don't compost anything now except leaves and grass clippings and I do that between the second and third terraces to reduce erosion.
That was until my neighbors free-range chickens took care of it.
I'll have plenty more leaves and grass soon enough for them. Maybe today LOL.
The chickens really provide a valuable service.

I'm still finding crap I threw into the woods as a kid and the chickens are digging up even more.

I just noticed two squirrels on a tree by my compost pile, so I engaged with my new air rifle. They escaped up tall trees before I got very close, but I landed one BB hit close enough to get him to change trees.

After hiding on the backside of one tree, I lost him.

Shooting at the squirrel that high up in a tree, it wasn't even clear that a direct hit would bother him much, but it would bother me. I just need them to stay away from my pecans and fruit trees.

JR

We have a composting toilet at the cabin. When you enter the property the road curves left almost 90º. Straight ahead is an old fire road leading up the hill. We want to fill in the fire road for a few reasons. It looks better filled in, it hides the neighbors structures and will help with erosion. Last summer after filling the toilet and waiting a month we dumped it next to a an Eastern White Pine that was strategically placed. When we cam back the next month the tree had grown almost five feet. Nothing else near it had grown anywhere near as much. Powerful stuff.

For those of you with modern cars having soy-based wiring you have another reason to chase off squirrels.

One of my neighbors less-frequently-driven cars recently had the wiring harness chewed through.

mediatechnology wrote: ↑Tue Mar 06, 2018 5:10 am For those of you with modern cars having soy-based wiring you have another reason to chase off squirrels.

One of my neighbors less-frequently-driven cars recently had the wiring harness chewed through.

Yup they are surprisingly good chewers... (like rats with bushy tails). The rat (i mean squirrel) who tried to take up residence in my attic, chewed an opening in my soffit(?). So chewed through 1/2" thick wood.

Didn't see any in my backyard this morning.

JR

[edit just saw a tidbit they are starting to use vegetable matter to make Lego blocks... now kids can swallow them. /edit]

I finally got the spring scale and did the measurement on my Telefunken M15. I'm not getting enough pressure at the pinch roller according to the scale. In one way that's good because it's showing it's broken. I believe i have tightened the armature on the solenoid that applies the pressure about as much as I can.

Can you make generalities about solenoids? Are they generally work/no work or can they sort of kind of work and give results like I'm getting. At this point I think I've given up. I'd rather not call in my guy just to have to find at the solenoid needs to be replaced.

I used to see occasionally Otari MX-5050 brake solenoids become magnetized and not drop out.
I suppose they can become weak.
I've also seen them get gummy.
The usual failure mode in my landscaping solenoids are shorted turns which cause overheating and eventual shorting.

One thing you might look at is the solenoid driver.
It may have a high pull in current and then reduce drive current.
Is the coil being driven at full voltage?
Is a spring involved?

If the driver circuit has some tricks in it you might post it.