And on the back of a SUV covered in atheist stickers. One that caught my eye
“Struggling with science…. Try religion”
Meanwhile, I noticed a strange smell in the house this morning. Smelt like something was smouldering! Then I realised it was the air conditioner which was operating after the filters were cleaned yesterday. Some of the fine particles must have been blown out. Jan commented that the air from the air-con was much cooler today. hopefully it means we are now using less electricity.
Jan mentioned this morning “Darling we haven’t cleaned the air conditioning filters for two years!” Using the small stepladder I removed the six filters from the three air-conditioners before taking them outside to clean. Something must have happened with my brain this morning as I remembered not to clean them under the pergola where Jan had the clean laundry drying.
Moses, they were choked with dust!
One on the left has been cleaned
If this is what the filters look like after two years of intermitted summer use I dread to think what my 70 year old lungs look like!
Back to the pool water heater project. I’ve solved the plumbing problem and the noisy pump. The latter was fixed by replacing the cheap eBay pump with the spare from the boat. I also fitted a tap into the cold inlet on the panels which will enable me to drain them. The boat pump has been temporarily plumbed into the system enabling me to do some testing.
Next I removed the jumper lead from the Thermocouple and wired it (the Thermocouple back into the system before covering the terminals.
The water in the panels wasn’t sufficiently hot to make the electrical connection in the Thermocouple. You may recall I wired the Thermocouple into the photovoltaic solar panel to act as a switch. A combination of hot water and sunlight would activate the switch and power the pump.
In the above photo you can see only the12V battery icon with a voltage of 13.2V.
When the water reached the required temperature the Thermocouple made the connection for the solar panel which then activated the pump.
Might be hard to see but to the bottom left of the screen is the solar panel icon. In the middle is the battery icon and to the right the icon showing the load (pump) is connected. Everything worked fine and the pump pushed cold water up into the panels displacing the hot water (very hot water). When the water temperature dropped the Thermocouple cut out stopping the solar power. Thais is when I realised I had a second problem. The pump kept running drawing power from the tiny battery. If I allowed this to happen then the battery would quickly be flattened and eventually destroyed.
After some thinking I’ve decided to re-wire the Thermocouple. Instead of it switching the photovoltaic panel I’ll have it control the pump. But not today as it’s back to being very hot.
There is yet another issue. The spare pump from the boat was being used as my camper trailer shower pump. Can the cheap eBay water pump be used instead?
I don’t want to spend money on this and rummaged in my “might come in useful box” looking for bits.
Now need to do some testing!
Today Jan told me she was going to roast my nuts before salting them as that made them tastier! I think something was also mentioned about a Brazilian. I’m not sure about this latter comment as I didn’t have my hearing aids in. Anyway, I told her I was quite happy with the roasted almonds and walnuts. (ladies, minds above the waist please!)
The pool solar water heater has been finished. I discovered the solar controller wouldn’t work without a 12V lead acid battery being attached. That was a nuisance as I originally planned the controller would run the water pump without the need for a battery. In the end I solved the problem by buying a cheap tiny 1Ah battery. It won’t run the pump but it does trick the controller into working.
The second issue was filling the system with water. I wasn’t sure the little aquarium water pump could do it and hadn’t installed a filler point at the top of the panels. In the end I used the garden hose to force water up the outlet. Once primed the 12V pump started discharging hot water. Very HOT water! There was steam rising off it. This water gets added to the water being returned to the pool from the filter which means the temperature of the returning water is raised slightly. The pump is rather noisy so something will need to be done about that.
Then I realised I’d strayed from my original concept. You can see the problem in the following rough drawing.
The large blue box are the solar panels and the smaller box is the pump. Green lines are the cold from the pool filter to the bottom of the panels. Red is the hot line back from the panels to the pool. When the pump turns off the water will drain from the panels back through the pump. This means there is no hot water at the top of the panels to be detected by the Thermocouple switch which activates the pump.
I had originally anticipated this and intended to install the pipes as shown below
If I had done the installation as planned then the water in the panels couldn’t drain back through the pipe. Unfortunately there was a brain fade moment when I thought I could save the cost of one elbow without realising I was creating a problem.
One solution is to fit a one way valve into the cold line. However I’ll probably rearrange the pipes as shown in the second drawing.
But not today as it’s again over 40C.
It’s quite apparent I’m not much of a plumber! That stated, 80% of the pool solar heating plumbing is complete. For the past several days he temperature has been in the low 40’s and I’ve therefore confined myself to only working a couple of hours first thing in the morning.
I found an alternative to my original plan of Aralditing the thermocouple into the pipework and have completed the plumbing on the roof of the shed.
Solar panel hot water outlet
The thermocouple is obscured in the above photo as it is lying horizontally. The orange pipe is actually electrical conduit covering the PEX water pipe. PEX isn’t ultra violet stable.and will perish in direct sunlight. I’ve covered all the PEX with electrical conduit which is UV stable.
Behind the shed I cut the swimming pool plumbing pipes to the right of the UV Sanitizer and the left of the Chlorinator. 50mm ‘T’ were inserted before reconnecting the pool plumbing.
My PEX pipe connects into the back of the 50mm T’s with risers to a stop valve
The cold inlet goes through the 12V pump and up onto the roof where it is connected to the panel inlet
The last of the plumbing involves the pipework between the horizontal hot and cold pipes to the stop valves.
I will have to take my time with this part as the pipes require an S bend away from the shed wall.
The last part of the plumbing will be to complete the tiding and securing of the conduit.
The electrical cable I ordered still hasn’t been delivered. No doubt because I ordered it from an Australian supplier rather than purchasing it from China ;-)
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Serious Lock Down Advice
Everyone PLEASE be careful because people are going crazy from being locked down at home!
I was just talking about this with the microwave and the toaster while drinking my Pepsi, and we all agreed that things are getting bad. I didn’t mention any of this to the washing machine because she puts a different spin on EVERYTHING!!
Certainly, couldn’t share with the fridge because he’s been acting cold and distant! In the end, the iron straightened me out! She said the situation isn’t all that pressing, and all the wrinkles will soon get ironed out!
The vacuum, however, was very unsympathetic… told me to just suck it up! But the fan was VERY optimistic and gave me hope that it will all blow over soon!
The toilet looked a bit flushed but didn’t say anything when I asked its opinion, but the front door said I was becoming unhinged, and the doorknob told me to get a grip! You can just about guess what the curtains told me: they told me to “pull myself together!”
You wouldn’t want to assemble the project only to discover something doesn’t works. <OK… Been there – Done that – Have the Tshirt )
First task was to check the continuity and operation of the temperature sensor. There should be no continuity when the sensor is cold.
Good… No continuity!
Next place the sensor in the kitchen kettle and start raising the temperature whilst monitoring with the multimeter.
I didn’t attempt to measure water temperature but the sensor worked and I had continuity.
I’ve made a small box from scrap plywood to house the pump and solar. It’s probably not required as the planned pump and controller location is in a sheltered position on the rear wall off the man cave.
I even found an old piece of Perspex for a window
The next test was to connect the pump solar controller and solar panel.
Before taking it outside and aligning the panel with the sun. The pump burst into life. Having satisfied myself it would work I quickly took it all inside as I didn’t want to run the pump whilst it was dry.
The last test was to see if the temperature sensor would fit the solar hot water panel outlet coupling.
It won’t! The flange on the end of the sensor is slightly larger than the internal diameter of the fitting. Initially I though a solution might be to fit a short length of flexible pipe between the two. However that would move the sensor away from the panel. I’ve decided I will file down the flange on the sensor so it will fit inside the bass fitting. Both ends of the sensor will have to be done.
Meanwhile the project has been delayed. The electrical cable I ordered online for the project has been delayed. Not COVID related! Rather the recent flooding rains in South Australia damaged more than 300km of the single railway track across to Western Australia. The water has now receded but the ground is still very wet with repairs taking weeks. 80% of domestic goods entering Western Australia come by train. Hence the delay!
Three more parcels arrived in the post today. The smallest contained the missing rivet nuts from China; which are now no longer required after I got impatient and purchased some locally a fortnight ago. What was interesting was the information on the envelope.
In the top right of the above photo you can see the stamp is Emirates Airline and on the reverse of the envelope was………
It appears my 10 rivet nuts were sent from China to Germany and transported from there to Perth by Emirates Airline. No wonder they took so long to arrive!
The second package contained the MPPT solar controller I’d ordered from China. It will control the output from the solar photovoltaic 150W panel to the 12V pump.
Pen to give an indication of size.
I’m not quite silly enough (yet) to believe this is a genuine MPPT controller. It’s more likely a cheaper PWM Controller. However it should do the job.
The last package contained the thermal sensor. It’s actually for a motorbike but I plan to fit it into the solar hot water panel outlet.
Some timely deliveries as I was starting to run out of project components.
The router fence is going to have sacrificial facings made of mdf. These will be adjustable. I needed to cut four slots in the aluminium extrusion to allow the mdf facing to move. This was achieved by drilling 7mm holes at either end of the planned slot locations. However the 7mm hole was too small for the jigsaw blade to fit.
Doesn’t fit
I could drill a second hole adjacent to the first but opted for an alternative method. Using the bench grinder I removed 3mm from the back of the jigsaw blade allowing it to fit into the holes.
Once the holes were cut I did another test fit.
The next step will be to fit the dust extractor hood to the fence.
The small 12V water pump for the pool solar water heater was examined and I identified the male inlet and outlet connections were 10mm whilst the water pipe connections are 20mm. I need two 10-20mm female adapters and I can’t find any. My solution has been to buy two 15-20mm female adapters and Araldite the 15mm ends onto the 10mm pump connections.
The connections will eventually look like this
The diameter of the pump inlet and Outlet looks about 5mm. The pump is only rated at 6 litres/minute and I suspect I won’t have to worry about the pump replacing the water in the panels quickly.
Now waiting on another China delivery.
Using the principles of levers, fulcrums, turning moments, a simple lightweight timber frame and brute strength I managed to get the solar hot water panels onto the shed roof.
By the time the relocation was completed it was starting to get hot and I decided to go to the plumbing wholesaler where I intended to purchase the rubber ring washers used as seals when the panels connect.
The storeman said “Rheem Solar Hot Water System!” and I agreed, guessing he was right! He returned with the two washers and I started fingering the 50c coin in my pocket.
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He looked in the computer system and announced $9.66. I was so damned stunned by the price I actually paid!!! What I should have done is gone to the chemist and bought two condoms and then cutting their ends off. This is based on the assumptions condoms are cheaper than $4.83 each.
I’ll have to include the location of these rubber washers in my will. That will enable the children to recover and sell them as part of their inheritance.
A courier van appeared mid morning delivering the small (and cheap) 12V water pump Jan had ordered from eBay.
There were a further two courier delivers today. The first was a long, well wrapped package which I immediately guessed contained the aluminium extrusion for the DIY router fence.
I immediately realised I’d made an error. The ‘T’ profile in the aluminium is far smaller than I had anticipated and will require additional modifications to use the profile.
The second delivery was the adjustable mounting brackets for the router fence. They were al;so ordered from China.
In the afternoon I drove to Timbercon in south Perth and purchased a dust extraction hood for the fence. The price at $8 was cheaper than China.
I have enough components to make a start on the fence.
Testing the layout
There was a problem with the size of the connection between the hood and the flexible hose.
However I hunted through the box of “stuff that might be useful someday” and found two pvc pipe fitting surplus from the swimming pool installation.
It works
The project will continue tomorrow.
“Lt. Colonel Robert Maclaren retired from the British Army in 2001 after a long fulfilling career. On the day that he retired he received a letter from the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Defence setting out details of his pension and, in particular, the tax-free ‘lump sum’ award, (based upon completed years of service), that he would receive in addition to his monthly pension.
The letter read,
“Dear Lt. Colonel Maclaren,
We write to confirm that you retired from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards on 1st March 2001 at the rank of Lt Colonel, having been commissioned into the British Army at Edinburgh Castle as a 2nd Lieutenant on 1st February 1366. Accordingly your lump sum payment, based on years served, has been calculated as £68,500. You will receive a cheque for this amount in due course.
Yours sincerely,
Army Paymaster”
Col Maclaren replied;
“Dear Paymaster,
Thank you for your recent letter confirming that I served as an officer in the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards between 1st February 1366 and 1st March 2001 – a total period of 635 years and 1 month. I note however that you have calculated my lump sum to be £68,500, which seems to be considerably less than it should be bearing in mind my length of service since I received my commission from King Edward III.
By my calculation, allowing for interest payments and currency fluctuations, my lump sum should actually be £6,427,586,619.47p.
I look forward to receiving a cheque for this amount in due course.
Yours sincerely,
Maclaren (Lt Col Ret)”
A month passed by and then in early April, a stout manila envelope from the Ministry of Defence in Edinburgh dropped through Col Maclaren’s letter box, it read:
“Dear Lt Colonel Maclaren,
We have reviewed the circumstances of your case as outlined in your recent letter to us dated 8th March inst. We do indeed confirm that you were commissioned into the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards by King Edward III at Edinburgh Castle on 1st February 1366, and that you served continuously for the following 635 years and 1 month. We have re-calculated your pension and have pleasure in confirming that the lump sum payment due to you is indeed £6,427,586,619.47p.
However,
We also note that according to our records you are the only surviving officer who had command responsibility during the following campaigns and battles; The Wars of the Roses 1455 -1485 (Including the battles of Bosworth Field, Barnet and Towton) The Civil War 1642 -1651 (Including the battles Edge Hill, Naseby and the conquest of Ireland) The Napoleonic War 1803 – 1815 (including the battle of Waterloo and the Peninsular War) The Crimean War (1853 – 1856) (including the battle of Sevastopol and the Charge of the Light Brigade) The Boer War (1899 -1902).
We would therefore wish to know what happened to the following, which do not appear to have been returned to Stores by you on completion of operations:
9765 Cannon
26,785 Swords
12,889 Pikes
127,345 Rifles (with bayonets)
28,987 horses (fully kitted)
Plus three complete marching bands with instruments and banners.
WE have calculated the total cost of these items and they amount to £6,427,518.119.47p. WE have therefore subtracted this sum from your lump sum, leaving a residual amount of £68,500, for which you will receive a cheque in due course..
Yours sincerely . . . .”
Looking back I can see I failed to mention how I integrated the Bafang motor with my bike brakes. The bike has hydraulic operated brakes rather than cable, which means I can’t use the same type of cable sensor as the gear shift to detect brake applications. To resolve this I purchased a pair of magnetic brake sensors. You might ask “Why are brake sensors required?” I want the motor to cut out when I apply the brakes.
I made a simple jig from scrap plywood to secure the motor and then connected it to the battery and display before turning on the power.
Hurrah, these is power to the display
Speed zero km/h. Battery full. Motor power set to the lowest at level 1. Zero distance covered.
I turned the brake lever to the vertical position and then used Araldite to secure five small neodymium magnets to the lever handle (A). The sensor was then attached to the body of the brake (B)
A – Magnets
B – Brake sensor
C – Gap under sensor
As you can see in the above photo; I have a problem with the sensor. It can’t sit flat with only three small points of contact. I’m working on a solution.
However I have managed to correctly adjust the distance between the magnets and the sensor. When I apply the brake by pulling the lever the distance between the magnets and the sensor increases. The magnetic field connection is broken and the display records the application cutting power to the motor.
That’s how I did it.
Yesterday I was in the swimming pool. But only because I had that job of filling the gap between the fibreglass top of the pool and the underside of the coping pavers. Yes….. I waited for a hot day when the pool water was warm.
The gap was filled with expanding aerosol foam insulation.
I’m now waiting on another hot day (likely this afternoon) to get back in the pool and cut off the excess foam with a razor knife.
Meanwhile more work has been done on the pool water heating components. The water heating panels have been inspected and I sealed all the cracks and gaps with adhesive.
The panels are large and heavy so I’ve put my field engineering training to use and designed a simple field machine using basic principles to get them onto the shed roof single handed.
Using some of the surplus aluminium extrusion I made and fitted mounting brackets for the photovoltaic panel that will power the pump .
Those of you who live on boats know (or should know) that heat degrades panel output and an air gap under the panel is therefore useful.
