Entropy

[JR.]

Slowly getting caught up after a week of making sawdust and CO2 out in the yard.

-Finished resetting my sump pump and hopefully preventing future tip over...besides being top heavy when the pump starts up it generates some torque in the outlet discharge hose that tests stability. I wonder how we'll perform red neck repairs in the future after metal coat hangers disappear. It may never rain again.

- Finally zero'd in my (air) rifle sight... I discovered months ago that the allen head cap screws were loose. Then the laser bore sight was not stable. I printed out a paper target last week and finally yesterday taped it to a board out in the yard and put some metal into it. The laser got me on the paper and few tweaks got me into the second ring... I'm old and have trouble even holding the rifle steady so not making a very tight shot group, but now I should hit in the same time zone as the squirrels. A couple months of not even hitting close may give the young squirrels a false sense of security.

-I took advantage of the dry ditch to clean out my silt trap... not much silt in the bucket, but the drain pipe steering ditch water into the bucket was packed full of silt. Better there than in my buried drain pipe.

Garden is kicking butt. I predict a good crop this summer. I am already getting ripe blueberries

JR

[JR.]

Scratching another one off my to do list, I used my new "Y" driver bits and took apart my previous sump pump. I was looking for a blocked air vent and found a ball bearing check valve. The ball was stuck up, sealing the vent hole, but it dropped easily when I touched it with a nail point. Shaking it the ball bearing appeared to move freely.

I reassembled it and in a test pull, it starts from pretty low, only a couple, inches from the impeller level. This seems better than before, while the ball bearing check valve air vent did not appear stuck very hard.

Looks like I have a like good spare sump pump.

I may need to repair the lightning damaged float level controller. It is a low tech design using a 555 and a few discrete components.

No hurry

JR

[terkio]

it starts from pretty low, only a couple, inches from the impeller level.

Looks like I have a like good spare sump pump.

It is a low tech design using a 555 and a few discrete components.
JR

I am curious about sum pumps priming.

Impeller....inches from under or above water level ?

What is the 555 timer doing ?

[mediatechnology]

It is a low tech design using a 555 and a few discrete components.

Still a very useful part. I recall you saying that you'd never used one. You're in a small club.

I think the only commercial design I used on in was an output turn-on mute relay but I've used it in a lot of one-off DIY projects.

[terkio]

I used a 555 on a weird project.
That was for a crack pot guy who was curing all sorts of diseases with pulsed magnetic fields.
He was making coils of all sizes, for arms, legs heads, bellies even XXL for obese people.
I visited his place, saw his winding machine and the equipment to pulse the coils based on lead batteries and relays.
A room with a wooden Christ on the cross at a wall, six feet tall.
He needed an engineer to design a modern version.
Here, I came using a 555.

[mediatechnology]

I used a 555 on a weird project.
That was for a crack pot guy who was curing all sorts of diseases with pulsed magnetic fields.
He was making coils of all sizes, for arms, legs heads, bellies even XXL for obese people.
I visited his place, saw his winding machine and the equipment to pulse the coils based on lead batteries and relays.
A room with a wooden Christ on the cross at a wall, six feet tall.
He needed an engineer to design a modern version.
Here, I came using a 555.

I did the same thing for a friend using a 555 tuned to the 7.83 Hz Schumann resonance frequency.

[JR.]

It is a low tech design using a 555 and a few discrete components.

Still a very useful part. I recall you saying that you'd never used one. You're in a small club.

I met the guy who designed it back in the 70s (Hans Camenzind RIP).

I never used one in a commercial design. Back when it was the new shiny toy I used one in a personal project DIY yogurt maker. I used the 555 as a timebase, then divided that clock down with a 14 stage ripple counter or something like that. The yogurt needed to be heated for something like 12 hours.

I think the only commercial design I used on in was an output turn-on mute relay but I've used it in a lot of one-off DIY projects.

I am curious about sum pumps priming.

Impeller....inches from under or above water level ?

These are both submersible pumps so the ASSumption is that water level is higher than impeller. When the 1/2HP was locking up it had 10 inches or more of water head above the impeller. After freeing up the ball bearing air vent check valve it started from only a couple inches above the impeller.

What is the 555 timer doing ?

it is part of the aftermarket float controller. It keeps the pump energized for something like 10 seconds after the float switch registers below level. This is useful since sump pumps can pull down lower than they can start from.

Still no serious rain in the forecast.

JR

[mediatechnology]

it is part of the aftermarket float controller. It keeps the pump energized for something like 10 seconds after the float switch registers below level. This is useful since sump pumps can pull down lower than they can start from.

Would this also prevent it from turning off due to waves/ripples?

Still no serious rain in the forecast.

You can have some of ours: It's rained almost every day in May.
Keeping up with mowing has been tough.

[JR.]

Yes it would prevent responding to waves.

I'll take one decent 3-4" rain... not that uncommon around here

I am absolutely in no hurry to repair the controller that lightning trashed even though it is probably something simple. I would be more tempted to drop a microprocessor in there but even that does not interest me right now.

====
The new 1" strap arrived and I loaded it properly onto the come along. I looped it through the axel/pin and used my soldering iron to melt it all together. Still only holds about 15' on the reel. I gave it a test pull and the strap stretched some but will work adequately.

I couldn't find a good source of hook ends that weren't silly expensive (if rated for lifting they cost twice as much or more)... I found some 10,000# 13' tow straps being blown out for $4 The shipping was $6 so I bought two of them which will give me 4 good ends I can cut off (did I mention I'm cheap?) .

JR

[JR.]

I just did another power reset.... My direct TV DVR/receiver got stupid and was not recording shows it was programmed to.

I removed the power plug... it took a few minutes to download a clean operating system from the satellite and reset. It appears to be behaving now.

===

I am still dealing with squirrelly remote temp sensor. Once or twice before going to bed I noticed the outdoor temp was not displaying, so I removed and replaced the battery in the base station. It reacquired remote temp, and overnight updated time and date.

The other morning while it was working I tried temporarily lifting the battery in the remote to see if it would lose sync... oddly it did not, but I didn't remove the battery for very long.

JR

I am still seeing occasional drop outs of remote temp sensor. I have stopped over reacting to troubleshoot. Momentarily removing a battery from the base station resets it and it will self correct date/time overnight.

Recently I noticed that if I just ignore it when the remote temp sensor drops out, it will restore itself within a couple hours....

Now that was really easy.

JR