An 11½ hour flight from the UK to Hong Kong departing at 11.30AM arriving at 10:30PM UK time. Sleep is unlikely as the body rhythms are on UK time. A nine hour layover in Hong Kong waiting for the flight to Perth. Whilst tired I can’t afford to allow myself to go to sleep as I might sleep through my connection. By the time I board my last flight it’s 7.30AM UK time and my circadian rhythms are confused. I’m very tired but part of me is saying it’s time for a new day. By the time I reach Perth it’s 3PM UK time and 10:30PM local time. I manage to force myself to get one hour of heavy sleep during the flight. The good part of both flights is the adjacent seat is vacant allowing me more room.
The next morning I’m up at 7AM and make a start on all the outstanding home maintenance issues. Three of them are with the swimming pool.
Jacques Cousteau died before I left on my trip. I had done an autopsy before leaving. Jacques had suffered cardiac arrest. A leaking valve had resulted in water egress that had fried both motors
Red arrow points to the motors.
Prior to his demise Jacques had three deficiencies. He was expensive to purchase. He wouldn’t climb the walls of the pool and he had a power cable connecting him to the house power box that always seemed to tangle.
He has been replaced by Nemo.
Nemo is much smaller and cordless being powered by a rechargeable lithium battery. He will also climb and clean the walls of the pool. Nemo also cost a third of the price compared to Jacques. He is small, but it’s a small pool.
Off he went scrubbing the pool floor and walls. Did he do a good job?
I think he has done a better job than Jacques.
Izzy hasn’t been started for five weeks. Her battery has been slowly failing but I continue to use it in an effort to obtain as much longevity as possible. There was enough power in the battery for lights and a slow crank but insufficient voltage to start the engine. I then used the lithium jump pack on the battery to give just enough voltage to get her going. It was going to be a short drive so I took the jump pack with me just in case she wouldn’t restart. When I returned home I put the battery on trickle charge overnight.
Whilst I have the charger out I might as well top up the new battery which has been sitting in the garage for the last 6 months.
Back to the pool. Whilst I was away the UV sanitizer developed a fault. Jan was alerted to the audible alarm by he neighbour. I was able to explain in an email how to disconnect the sanitizer power supply.
The sanitizer operates by projecting ultra violet light through the pool water after it has gone through the filter and before the chlorinator.
The power brick (Ballast) and lamp have both failed and will need to be replaced.
The third task was to replace the pH probe which controls the amount of acid dispensed into the pool. The original probe wasn’t working.
Last year our son gave me his old GoPro Hero 5 action camera. I decided to mount it on the rear of the bike and wanted to record video whilst cycling. That meant I needed a remote control for the camera. Not an easy task given the age of the camera. Eventually I was able to purchase one and took it with me this year only to discover the remote control battery had a very short life. I deduced the battery would be the original and had likely degraded in storage.
Today I dismantled the remote eventually reaching the printed circuit board.
Small circuit board with the arrow pointing to the battery terminals. The battery was glued on the reverse side of the board with no visible markings.
I very carefully pried the battery off the board and was then able to read some of the battery specifications.
Jan has ordered a replacement battery from Aliexpress. About $7.
Last task for the day was to reassemble the bike. There are two reasons why it needs to be disassembled for the flight. It has to fit into the cardboard box and I need to reduce the weight. The complete bike (less battery) weighs more than the checked luggage allowance of 23kg. By disassembling the bike I can spread the weight across both check luggage bags and my cabin bag.
Whilst reassembling the bike I discovered one of the motor controller display mounting brackets had been broken in transit
It’s not possible to purchase a replacement bracket and I want to avoid the cost of buying an new display and control set. I’m going to attempt to repair the bracket by gluing a length of plastic strip cut from an old ice cream container across the break.
I enjoyed the holiday. Europe has some great cycling infrastructure. However Europe is expensive compared to Asia. Which also happens to be much closer.
2 comments :
You've been hard at work since you returned home. Now you can look forward to some delicious home cooked meals from your beloved Jan. Or does she tell you to cook them yourself?
PS. I did enjoy your cycling blogs, no doubt a bit of a chore for you after your long days in the saddle. Thanks for posting them so we could come along with you.
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