Radar – Page 55 – Mark's Blog

25 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Still sleeping in several 2 hour stretches and waking with a sore shoulder. Family sends it’s greetings and we’ll likely be on the road Monday. Coffee was excellent this morning even though it was a little strong. It’s a cloudy day, so I won’t be cutting power to the refrigerator UPS as I have all week. The results have been positive, two 100W solar panels are able to keep a standard refrigerator running during a sunny day. (The two panels are pushing about 160W which is slightly less than the 170W drawn from the refrigerator. However when the refrigerator is coasting. The solar panels are pumping a significant charge into the batteries.) The trick is to balance the four banks of batteries and the one source of power that cannot supply enough power to run all of them. One bank of batteries runs the critical infrastructure of the house, network, Internet and cameras. The second bank runs the refrigerator itself. The third bank is on heavy duty 2500VA modified square wave inverter charger which Trip Lite calls a “Powerverter”, although this is a large bank of batteries it is intended to last less than two hours. The items plugged into this inverter are chosen to reduce the rate of depletion on the critical infrastructure battery. There is one last bank of batteries that power the DC buss which supplies 12/24VDC power to the alarm system, emergency lights and the 10W ice maker waterline heater. I could use a Raspberry Pi to make the decisions, but it draws 5W all by itself. 120WH is a significant chunk of winter time power of maybe 500WH. The original Raspberry Pi draws less power, but it is difficult remote into because of the small memory size. (I love a challenge though.) I mowed the front lawn today before it started raining. I also built a adapter cable for my solar panels so I can use a standard extension cord if I need more length.

Establish a VPN between Ricky’s Fortigate and home.
Talk to the neighbor about his offer.
Card for the drama department.
Lighting support for the Christmas play.
Eyedrops
process recordings
Build two long run UPS units that have external connections for a solar panel charge.
Get two teeth pulled and one post put in.
Plan a trip to Florida week of the 29th.
replace two of my outside cameras.
Mow the rest of the lawn.
Need referral for surgery on Jan 3rd at 8:30.
Call the doctor about the anti inflammatory that I seem to be allergic to.
Call Fl Blue, Lisa Rhodes 352-854-2100 about part D.
Call Mutual of Omaha (Ricky’s Insurance)
Find out about Dental coverage for Mom, Medicare “G”?
Find out about Eye coverage for mom.

Tomorrow:
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Engineering:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT set clear goals for the day? No
Did I DMBT make progress to those goals? No
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT fix something today? Yes
Did I DMBT improve something today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
Did I DMBT be fully engaged? Yes
*Did My Best ToTDL,

24 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Didn’t sleep worth a hoot, but that’s becoming the new norm these days. I did get a chance to construct the wiring needed to combine 8 SLA batteries onto the UPS terminals last night. I also performed a run test using two 60W incandescent bulbs and the UPS worked flawlessly. Each battery was only pushing a little over an amp for the two light bulbs. The UPS is rated for 1300VA and the wiring is fused at 10 amps. I could lower the fuses to 5 amps and still support 500VA. Had a bowl of shredded mini wheats for breakfast and a couple cups of Dominican coffee before taking a morning nap. My right shoulder is bothering me a little this morning. Walked with the wife down the block and back to get some exercise this morning. It’s a little cool, but the bright sun easily overcomes the chill in the air. Kathy walked ahead of me this morning, that’s unusual. She’s normally straggling behind me and I have to slow down occasionally to allow her to catch up. Today she was ahead of me the whole way. I have about 5 hours before church tonight to get something on my list accomplished.

Spent the last hour or so looking at Medicare, there are so many options it’s mind boggling. I cannot unravel what my mom has without going down there and sorting it out. It almost looks like we should just look into 2019 because that’s going to be hard enough. I need to do that too since I’ll also be on Medicare in July 2019.

TDL,
Establish a VPN between Ricky’s Fortigate and home.
Talk to the neighbor about his offer.
Card for the drama department.
Lighting support for the Christmas play.
Eyedrops
process recordings
Build two long run UPS units that have external connections for a solar panel charge.
Get two teeth pulled and one post put in.
Plan a trip to Florida week of the 29th.
replace two of my outside cameras.
Mow the rest of the lawn.
Need referral for surgery on Jan 3rd at 8:30.
Call the doctor about the anti inflammatory that I seem to be allergic to.
Call Fl Blue, Lisa Rhodes 352-854-2100 about part D.
Call Mutual of Omaha (Ricky’s Insurance)
Find out about Dental coverage for Mom, Medicare “G”?
Find out about Eye coverage for mom.

Tomorrow:
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Engineering:

23 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Measured the power consumed by my CPAP with the heated tubing. It was actually lower than I had anticipated, around 45 watts. When we both travel I need to provide for 60 watts each and 8 hours run time. 60 x 2 machines x 1.25 efficiency x 9 hours = 1,350WH / 24V = 56.25 AH / 18AH = 4 banks of two batteries in series depleted to 25% charge. That’s taking EIGHT 12lb batteries, sheesh! One interesting tidbit is that the current for each battery is now 1/4th the total, meaning the wire size can be 2 * 3AWG + 10 or 16AWG wire to each of the batteries. I wanted to start the construction of the wiring to the UPS but didn’t get there today. I spent a good deal of time looking at power cords and extension cords. My wife and I sleep on opposite sides of the bed so she needs to run her power cord to my side (Or vis-versa). She also likes to have a miniature fan running that needs one more connection. What has worked thus far is running a cheap SP-2 extension cord from the UPS to her side of the bed. I connect directly to the UPS. I’ve also been thinking of fail modes. When we are close enough to drive back home during an outage we can bring a much smaller unit with say 1 hour of run time. If that fails it will sound an alarm and we’ll drive home and use the house power sources. (Which are many.) When we are in Florida that’s impractical to return home we have to have a much larger battery/UPS combination in place. To be autonomous we need 1300WH of battery and a way of replenishing that during the 8 hours of daylight. My portable battery bank is 72AH, to charge that in 6 hours I need 12Amps of charger. (Each battery string gets 3 amps.) It’s impractical to charge each battery, charging four 18AH strings is almost as impractical. If the power returns I need a 300W 24V @ 12A charger or four 100W solar panels with good sunlight. Day 2 of a power failure we can turn off the heated tub and hose reducing our power consumption to 70W. 560WH is a little easier to replace than 1,300WH. We could use the car alternator one time depending on the fuel levels. Might be easier though to buy that cheap gasoline generator that runs 7 hours on a gallon of gas. Four 100W panels are more clunky to carry around than the 100lbs of batteries. I did have a bit of luck at midnight tonight, Amazon ran a sale on their smart chargers!

TDL,
Talk to the neighbor about his offer.
Card for the drama department.
Lighting support for the Christmas play.
Eyedrops
process recordings
Build two long run UPS units that have external connections for a solar panel charge.
Get two teeth pulled and one post put in.
Plan a trip to Florida week of the 29th.
replace two of my outside cameras.
Mow the rest of the lawn.
Need referral for surgery on Jan 3rd at 8:30.
Call the doctor about the anti inflammatory that I seem to be allergic to.
Call Fl Blue, Lisa Rhodes 352-854-2100 about part D.
Call Mutual of Omaha (Ricky’s Insurance)
Find out about Dental coverage for Mom, Medicare “G”?
Find out about Eye coverage for mom.

Engineering: Try and reduce the number of batteries we carry for our CPAP machines. (We seem to be sleeping 10-12 hours a day.) 12Hours at 140 Watts is 1680WH which is eight 20Lb batteries and that’s not very portable. The current method is to invert 24VDC to 115VAC and use the power supplies that came with the equipment. (Which is rented, not owned.) I can probably save 30-40% by running the CPAPS on 24VDC directly, but the manufacturer chose a pretty unique connector that’s going to be difficult to find. I can also purchase two $400 power supplies with large Lithium batteries, but that has hazards of it’s own.

Planned Purchases: I need to replace two cameras, the D-Link DCS-2310 must not be made anymore because their price is either really cheap or terribly expensive. My secondary camera the DCS-2330 also looks like it’s on the chopping block. I’d like to stay with D-Link since I have 10 of their cameras already.

Purchases: Received one of two 1300VA APC UPS units that I am taking to moms. Received one Securify Peanut Plug. Two CPAP power supplies have been ordered for our Air Sense 10 machines.
Tomorrow:
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments:

22 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Both my elbows were bothering me and limited my sleep last night. It’s the main tendon on the inside of my elbow? I am beginning to wonder if I have an issue with my blood sugar. I have other symptoms that point in that same direction like tingling feet for example. I have found a unique exercise that almost always clears up the tingling feet LOL. Walked the roof today looking for anything amiss. The two pads been blown from under the two small solar panels mounted to the chimney, so I put them back where they belong. The solar panels were pretty clean from all the rain we got last week. Dinner was pork tenderloin, sweet potatoes and spinach.

Purchases: I received my second Securify Almond Peanut plug. I use one to turn the power off to the refrigerator on a sunny day to let it run off solar power. The second one will be put on the power supplies to the cameras, that way I can do a hard reset from a remote location.
Purchases 2: I’ve ordered 100′ 12AWG extension cord that I will cannibalize into a solar panel power cord. I have one 100W Panel+Cord that I can lay in the front lawn to give one of my UPS units a little more run time. It’s also reasonably portable such that I can give it to my grandkids if they lost power for an unreasonable amount of time. I have a 50W panel in Florida that can recharge my mother’s cell phones. That one is quite a bit easier to store and deploy. I’ve given a lot of thought to provide each of my offspring a 50W panel and a 20AH rechargeable battery for emergencies.

Tomorrow: We’ve made plans to walk around the block in the morning.
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Ricky: Nancy: Kathy:

21 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: It’s only a little past midnight and I am up. I’ve tried going back to sleep several times to no avail. One thing I have to figure out is where to distribute the power from the two solar panels. The number one power item is the 12V@10W refrigerator water line warming wire, that absolutely cannot freeze. (But its only needed when the temperature is well below freezing.) Next on the list is the four 12V 1W ceiling LED lights in critical areas of the house that have no windows. (Both bathrooms, kitchen, pantry, master bedroom closet.) Next item on the list is the 12/24V USB charging station in the den. (Almost all our devices phone, tablet, fans, radio, flashlights charge USB). When I first constructed this low voltage system I had separate power sources for 12V and 24V. Eventually I bought a 24V to 12V converter so that the charging (And Battery banks) are all 24V (Solar controller is 24V). Church setup / teardown was difficult, the sound room was in complete disarray from the walls being painted. Two members of the crew were not there when we started this morning. Had a sandwich and then took a two hour nap before getting up and researching Sound Pressure Levels. I think our services are roughly 95dB, but I’ve cut the amplifiers off and just the house singing is 93dB on my cell phone. (Which prompted me to get a real SPL meter.) I do have a 30Yr professional bass player on the stage, he’d know right away if the SPL was too high.

Tomorrow:
Injuries: Right shoulder sill bothering me, occasionally my elbow and wrist.
Purchases: Bought some AAA batteries for mom’s lanterns and remote controls.
Travel: Citra Florida.
Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Noteworthy: Accomplishments:

20 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Had a hard time getting to sleep before midnight. Woke up from a nightmare where pink insulation was replicating and filling the entire warehouse I was in. (Never had that dream before.) All four of my 5AH EGO batteries are roughly the same capacity using the EGO inverter run time. I will continue to rotate thru all four of them to wear them evenly. It appears that the EGO 2AH battery can fail prematurely in the lawn mower because of the currents drawn. (I got the 5AH battery for that reason, it’s a 2P14S battery and should be able to support 40 amps.) The 3P14S battery is 7.5AH and but is a monster to carry around. The only EGO product that I am looking to purchase is a leaf blower, but I don’t have leaves. Let my refrigerator run off of the two 100W solar panels on the roof again today. The refrigerator UPS batteries ended up at 26.3V yesterday afternoon which is short of a full charge. (But it was cloudy some of the day.) They were 27.3V by 6 in the morning from the UPS charging current. I have a Securify Peanut plug that turns off the UPS power at 8 in the morning forcing the UPS to go on battery until 2 in the afternoon every day. Woke up at 830 and had a delicious cup of coffee. I’ve ordered two more APC 1300VA UPS units from EBAY for less than $50.00 each, I hope they overpack them. The last one I got was severely damaged by the post office carriers. Those two will end up at my Aunt’s house running her network. I’ll extend their run time with 2 banks of 18AH batteries if I can which will give it about 2 hours run time. (Her power fails pretty often.) Called in sick for my grandson’s party, I really don’t know what I have or if it is contagious.

Accomplishments: I am transitioning from reactive to Proactive because the burden of my mother seems to be settling down some now that my Aunt lost her job.
Tomorrow: Church at 08:00
Purchases: Bought two more UPS units for Ricky’s farm. (I don’t have batteries for them yet.) Also bought a boost charge controller.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Ricky: Nancy: Kathy:

19 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Still feel strangely run down and my right side has numerous points that hurt when pressure is applied on the skin. My Lymph nodes on my neck are ok, but it sure feels like the ones on my arm are not happy with something… Auntie successfully changed mom’s address so she can get the new Social Security card. Also my Aunt was successful in purchasing a new mattress for mom’s mechanical bed. Mom managed to get a copy of her new Medicare Number yesterday, not sure how she did that. We had dinner at the crossing in Norcross, I couldn’t finish a Cobb salad for some reason. I started my “Z” pack antibiotic and my cough syrup for what could be a infection. My feet started tingling after having a couple of mini snicker bars late last night. My shoulder didn’t stop hurting until early morning.

Tomorrow: Landon’s birthday party.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Ricky: Nancy: Kathy:

18 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Slept most of the day today, I was a walking zombie. Used the EGO inverter to test all four of my EGO 5AH batteries, they all ran about 3.5 hours supporting a 60W load.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Ricky: Nancy: Kathy:Tomorrow:

17 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Woke up around 3 am and my skin was tingling all over. I couldn’t sleep so I am updating my blog until it settles down some. The floor at my Aunts house is installed and it looks very nice. Mom needs a new mattress and a chair before she’ll move. Spent a good while organizing the paperwork for my mother’s care. Sheesh, it’s a lot of stuff. We’re subdividing mom’s paperwork into a file folder. It looks like “Florida Blue” part F is what mom wants. A part D from the same company is about 44 bucks more a month. Dental is almost $400 which is beyond her budget. Speaking of Dental my 12 month waiting period should have expired and I need to get two teeth pulled.

Tomorrow:
Injuries: My shoulder is still bothering most of the day and now my elbow is preventing me from sleeping. I have been taking the muscle relaxer.

Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Ricky: Nancy: Kathy:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT set clear goals for the day? Well, sort of.
Did I DMBT make progress to those goals? Yes
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT fix something today? Yes
Did I DMBT improve something today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
Did I DMBT be fully engaged? Yes
*Did My Best To

16 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Spent almost all day working with my sister building a budget for my mother and her sister. We did pick up my new glasses, I got the same frame for three years running. My EGO chainsaw is back with the three batteries. I can now test the batteries with the EGO inverter and a IP camera. (Measure how long the battery can support a 60W load.)

Tomorrow: Ricky’s floor should be finished and we can start moving Nancy.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Ricky: Nancy: Kathy: