Category: Blog

Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.

Plans: Help mom get farm mowed and assess work to do on the house.

• 09:00 Be ready for Mom to call.
• 10:00 Grocery shopping and had lunch.
• 11:00 Pulling DC power wire through the attic
• 12:00 roll up the remainder and tie up the ends.
• 13:00 Check on neighbors lawn
• 14:00 Nap
• 15:00 Installing light in Eve
• 16:00 Testing camera and light
• 17:00 Cleaning up the back porch.
• 18:00
• 19:00 Dinner and a movie, Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

Narrative: I still haven’t gotten a handle on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Instructables and one other I’ve forgotten. Twitter is text, Instagram is pictures. Facebook family happenings, Instructables yes, Pinterest maybe.

Pulled the power wire for the crest of the roof over our bedroom. Terminated the wires, added a 3A fuse and connected the IR Illuminator to the 12V buss. This relieves the 12AWG wires to be used for two solar panels on the roof.

Feelings: Finished my first week of retirement. I have been learning to “Let Go” of the things at work and I ended up blocking certain people from reaching me on my phone.

Tomorrow: Sunday, Zoom church.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
*Did My Best To

Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.

Plans: Ship a cable I made yesterday to Florida.

• 08:00 I’m up and sipp’n coffee, it’s FRIDAY and rain is predicted.
• 09:00 Refrigerator is connected to Inverter and startup Watts is 1,335W.
• 10:00 Headed out to ship a cable to Florida.
• 11:00 Checking my refrigerator and inverter, it’s been on the new Inverter all day.
• 12:00 Nap time
• 13:00 Reading how to use Instagram.
• 15:00 I am still haggling about how to use this Blog, Facebook and Instagram.
• 16:00 Digging up technical information on SLA batteries.
• 17:00 Eating Din Din.
• 18:00 Movie Night…?

Narrative: Now that I have more time on my hand I opened this Instagram account to share pictures. It feels like Facebook followers want pictures of family things, not technical things. Some of my projects have gotten some negative results. The guide says to post different pictures about once a day. (And that’s about where I am.)

Instagram is almost impossible on the desktop, I don’t seem to be able to make posts. Posting to Instagram on the phone you have to be pretty picky about the pictures since editing the picture is about impossible. I guess that I am back to detailed things here in my blog, Instagram with one captioned picture per day and Facebook about life. For Instagram i’ll be posting late in the day since I won’t know what the most important picture I took for the day until it is over.

Feelings:

Tomorrow: Saturday

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
*Did My Best To

Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies. (And TP)

• 07:00 I’m up sipp’n coffee and reading E-Mail
• 08:00 Watching our shopper get our groceries.
• 09:00 Doing research on the substitution of Kroger Mini Wheats
• 10:00 Talking to mom about the farm in Florida.
• 11:00 Eating lunch
• 12:00 Looking for High Voltage Fuse Holders and fuses.
• 13:00 Building a cable to run an inverter from a golf cart charging cable.
• 14:00 Nap
• 16:00 Received 48V inverter and mounted cable, took pictures.
• 17:00 Dinner
• 18:00 Tested Inverter on 48V battery bank and two 500W heaters.
• 19:00 playing Scrabble and calling it a day.

Plans: Put away Groceries, take walk and work on mom’s Inverter for her refrigerator.

Narrative: I had fun today playing with the Inverter. One because it was larger than any previous purchases. Two because it ran on 48V (Which is really 56V) which requires special fuses. (Automotive fuses are rated at 32V) Buying fuses rated at 15A at 60VDC was a challenge some years ago when I bought my first 48V UPS. My downfall was that the Eaton 48V 1500VA UPS could not run my refrigerator like a 24V 1000VA Triplite UPS has been doing for about 10 years. This Inverter is Surge rated at 3KW which should easily start the compressor in the refrigerator. I am a little scared to try it with all of our food in the fridge and this Pandemic situation.

Engineering: Fridge part 3. It took several days to find out that the 18AH batteries were actually 1/2 a standard U1 size battery. A U1 battery is 35AH and almost as common as the 18AH batteries I have so many of, they are also cheaper per amp/hr than the 18ah batteries. 105AH of U1 batteries is half the number of 18AH batteries on my bench.

It still was quite a few wires, but much more manageable. I had to change the stakon ends because the bolts in the batteries were larger. The batteries were roughly $100 each and I have 16 so far.

If you’ve read other sections of this Blog you’ll know that I bought 4 and have 5 of these tiny 25Lb china made generators.

They get bogged down at about 500Watts resistive even though they should be able to handle 688W with a .8 power factor and 860W resistive. 364Watts is 53% of the rated capacity of the generator and about all I can get out of a pair of 28VDC power supplies to charge the batteries at about 13Amps. I’ve tried to run connect the UPS directly to the generator with mixed results. (Depends on the generator) If the refrigerator is in defrost cycle, half of my generators won’t run the UPS directly. Using DC power supplies appears to be the most effective way of running the fridge from these small generators with the high refrigerator compressor startup currents. I have total control of the amount of current and the end charge voltage with them.

Feelings:

Tomorrow:Friday, my last payday with the company.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Repairs: Pi News:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
*Did My Best To

Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies (Even TP)

Plans: Groceries arrive at 9AM.

• 06:00 Still sleeping… LOL
• 08:00 Get up and sip on some coffee, InstaCart in progress
• 09:00 Put away our groceries and checked for our stimulus check.
• 10:00 Walked around the block and called mom
• 11:00 Weed+Feed neighbors lawn, InstaCart is down nationwide.
  • I am glad we got our groceries early
• 12:00 Updating my blog and worked on my Solar Inverter setup.
• 13:00 Nap
• 15:00 Reading about Instacart Crash.
• 16:00 Checking my Solar Inverter, 600WH today from two 100W panels.
  • 765WH into the load and about 600WH from a power supply.
    • 1200WH from 24VDC produced only 765WH of power… Ewe!
      • Need to double check the Go Power specifications…. Something’s wrong.
      • GP300PSW Inverter is 80-90% efficient. Poor Power Factor Loads?
      • Need to try a MSW Inverter to see if the Power Factor is the issue.
• 17:00 Checking my Solar Inverter setup, it is still bewildering.
• 18:00 Dinner, church in an hour.

Narrative: I made a HUGE post on Facebook about my mom’s Golf cart UPS. Then I changed the distribution. (That way people don’t get the notification, but they can see it on my FB page.)

InstaCart website is down and it looks nationwide. There is a pretty good article on the company how they got started and how the shelter in place has bolstered their business.

Engineering: Fridge Part 2. I don’t remember the line of thinking to purchase the 800W Triplite SU1000XLA UPS, but I have three of them. I also bought three Eaton 1500VA UPS units and they refuse to support the startup currents of the refrigerator even though they (On Paper) can support 3000W for a short duration. One of the Triplite UPS units is dedicated to the refrigerator and has been that way for maybe 10 years. The “Effective” connection is simple, plug the UPS into the wall and plug the refrigerator into the UPS. There is an external 24V battery connector that I use for the two large 80Lb batteries. (100AH) for most of that 10 years. When the 100AH batteries were needing replacement I didn’t like the idea of shelling out $600 for a pair of replacement AGM batteries.

My first thought was to use 18AH batteries, they are common and relatively cheap. I could buy them as I was able to afford them. I paralleled them with the existing 100AH batteries until I had made up sufficient storage to run without them. After I had gone through all the trouble to series/parallel twelve 18AH batteries, I really didn’t like all the wires and fuses.

More about the Fridge batteries tomorrow..

Feelings:

Tomorrow: Another Shopping day and walk around the block.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Repairs: Pi News:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
*Did My Best To

Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies (Even TP)

Plans: Work on the homestead, maybe make a budget.

• 06:00 Up and making coffee, checking E-Mail, lights and cameras.
• 07:00 Writing in my blog.
• 08:00 We went for a walk around the block.
• 10:00 Talked to a friend about “Prepp’n”
• 12:00 Down for a nap
• 14:00 Writing in my blog.
• 15:00 Run another generator and do some soldering.
• 16:00 Dinner
• 17:00 Crimp connectors on a bridge rectifier.
• 18:00 Test bridge rectifier running Television on 24V.
• 19:00 Call mom and look for a heat sink
• 20:00 Writing a post in Facebook and my blog

Engineering: My refrigerator seems to draw more power when we get groceries. I know we leave the door open, but it’s surprising to me how much more power it uses on those days.

Narrative: I had a long talk with a friend today and it occurred to me that maybe I could blog about my backup system for my refrigerator.

We don’t have to fear our food may spoil during a power outage. For a number of years our fridge is plugged into a special outlet that is powered from a Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) with fairly large battery bank in the garage. It remains running when the power fails for more than seven hours unattended. (No need to run extension cords or flipping switches.) It is about 12 yrs old and has a standard compressor in it.

More Tomorrow…

Feelings:

Tomorrow: Grocery order is in, it should arrive around 9AM tomorrow.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
*Did My Best To

Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies. (Even TP)

Plans: Groceries should be delivered at 9AM.

• 03:00 Tried to get a status of our Stimulus check and got locked out.
• 07:00 Got and sip’n on some coffee, GMAIL IMAP is down worldwide.
  1. How does that happen?
• 08:00 Running generator #1, Assisting our “Shopper” get our groceries
• 09:00 put away our groceries.
• 10:00 Ran generator again.
• 11:00 Walk around the block.
• 12:00 Read E-Mail and the news, no stimulus check today.
  • Running generator#2 so I can change out the gas.
• Enabled the Hue Skill with Alexia
• 13:00 Took a Hue hub and bulbs to the neighbor.
• 14:00 Took banana bread to a neighbor.
• 15:00 Calling mom
• 16:00 NAP
• 17:00 Talking to mom about the Inverter.
• 18:00 Mow the front lawn.

Narrative: I have to come up with an adapter from a #10 eyelet on a cable and a 1/4-20 bolt for Nancy’s Inverter.

Feelings:

Tomorrow:

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
*Did My Best To

Status: Shelter in place, we have plenty of food and supplies

Plans: Church services and work on the house

• Get up around 07:00 and prepare for church services.
• 09:00 Take a shower and get dressed.
• 09:30 I just realized I didn’t have my coffee this morning.
• 11:30 Eating Lunch
• 12:00 call mom, run generators for a while.
• 13:00 Nap time
• 14:00 Look for gun safe combo
• 15:00 Running up gen #3 and changing the gas to non alcohol mix.
• 16:00 Eating dinner that the neighbors brought over yesterday.
• 17:00 Checking the news
• 18:00 E-Mail and Facebook.

Narrative: I have a Mom, a Generator, a well for water and a problem to solve. My mom lives on a farm with a well that is about 50′ from the house. She has more than 15 animals that are dependent on her. She also has a refrigerator that needs power within 8 hours of loosing shore power. I bought her a generator it has an electric start and plenty of power for the well and the fridge.

The Well: It is located far enough from the house that the generator should be connected near there to keep the Carbon Monoxide from entering the home. There is no hookup provided at the current time that they could use to connect the generator.

The Generator: It weighs 120 Lbs and the chassis is so low to the ground it cannot be rolled on it’s only two wheels on gravel or dirt. Really a poor design for such a heavy generator. The only flat cement is in the garage where it is currently stored. I have put it into a steel four wheeled cart that makes it much more transportable, however it does have a tipping hazard if the wheels are turned too sharply. It will run about 5 hours on about 6 gallons of gas depending on the load. (Good alternator.)

The fridge: Like most refrigerators it has a fairly high startup current, but a pretty low run current that could easily be supported by battery.

The Golf Cart: Mom happens to have a 48V Club Car with new batteries. I bought a charging cable and an Inverter. If we can manage to connect the cable to the Inverter without destroying it we’ll try their deep freezer first. If that is successful we’ll connect the golf cart UPS to their fridge next time the power fails. The only Hiccup is that the inverter is not weatherproof. The golf cart has to be close enough to the house to shelter the inverter. What might work is to close the side panels and leave the inverter in the golf cart. Then just run an extension cord into the house to run the refrigerator.

Feelings:

Tomorrow: First retired day, no Stimulus check and four days from my last paycheck.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
*Did My Best To

Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies. (Even TP)

Plans: Start a budget and do something around the house.

• 06:00 up reading the news and writing in my blog.
• Transferred 1K into mom’s savings from her checking.
• 07:00 Paid down our credit card as I am now on a “Retired” budget.
• No stimulus check yet.
• Changed my time management matrix for retirement.
• Had four eggs for breakfast, juice and coffee.
• Mounted ears on 15A 24V power supplies to be mounted in garage.
• 09:00 Waiting on mom, trying to charge the generator battery.
• 13:30 up from my nap, downloaded my pay stubs.
• 14:00 Mowed the back yard.
• 15:30 Replacing the 24V power supplies in the garage.
• 16:15 Eating Dinner
• 18:00 Cleaning up, took out the trash.
• 19:00 Writing in my blog and checking the refrigerator power consumption.

Narrative: A LONG time ago I needed a backup for my CPAP and the Google Foo was against using a Modified Wave inverter. ResMed did sell a DC power supply that ran on 12V and 24V. That power supply coupled with a DC UPS worked very well for years. I found out much later that the modified wave inverters worked just fine, but it added weight and bulk to my airline luggage. In the end, I traveled with an APC 450VA UPS that had no weight and two 8AH batteries. The two DC UPS units were repurposed for use on the homestead for the emergency lights and fire alarm sensors. I’ve since upgraded both of those units so the 4A power supplies were gathering dust. The two 14A Power Supplies are not UPS units, their power will be provided by a battery backup unit. They will share the two solar panels on the roof to power the television. A NodeMCU will coordinate the switching of the DC for the inverter and the output when the solar panels are not providing enough power.

The plan is to use one of these power supplies to backup the power provided by the sun. When the solar power is insufficient to run the TV, the power supply makes up the difference for the AC Inverter. The Node MCU will isolate the inverter at night to improve the system efficiency by supplying utility power directly to the TV.

Feelings:

Tomorrow: Church services in the morning on Zoom

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
*Did My Best To

Status: Still sheltering in place (We’re Seniors) until June, we have plenty of food and supplies.

Plans: Work my last day and deal with that emotional upheaval.

• 06:00 Get up for work for the last time!
• 10:00 Drive to Dobbins
• 11:00 Retired…. Again!
• 13:00 Went for a walk around the block
• 14:00 Nap time.
• 15:00 E-Mail, Facebook and snail mail.
• 17:00 Supper, Salmon
• 18:00 Vacuumed floors
• 19:00 Cleaned refrigerator condenser coils.
• 20:00 Writing in my Blog

Narrative: I heard a noise a while ago from the rear of the refrigerator that sounded like a motor shaft rumbling in the bearing. (Enough of a gap exists where the shaft rolls around the circumference as it turns.) With our refrigerator being our lifeline in this outbreak I did a quick cleaning on the coils. Then put a small fan on the floor and started closely monitoring the power consumed for both fridges. (Figuring the compressor current would rise considerably if something was failing or the air wasn’t moving across the coils.) The results were still not what I had expected so I did a “Deep” cleaning of the coils today and found dog hair still in the coils. (We’ve not had a dog in many years.) The power consumed while running dropped from 170W to 133W today, that’s pretty substantial! It will be interesting to see what the monitor comes up with next month.

Feelings:

Tomorrow: Get organized and start a budget.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
*Did My Best To

Status: Sheltering in place, we’ve got plenty of food and supplies. We’ve not gotten our stimulus check, but I did manage to get our checking Acct added to their website this morning.

Plans: Work, Groceries, Walk.

• 03:46 Added checking acct to the USG website for Stimulus Check.
• 06:00 Check in with the team.
• 09:00 Put away groceries.
• 11:00 Checked out of work and signed my timecard for the day.
• 11:15 We went to deliver a gift to a friend, check our PO box and get some liquor.
• 12:30 We walked around the block, it almost rained. (Just a few sprinkles.)
• 13:30 I went down for a much needed nap.
• 15:30 ordered the TPM sensor for the Ford Focus (Spare Tire)
• 17:00 had dinner, brought in the mail and checked our neighbors back yard.
• 18:00 Writing in my blog.
• 19:00 put my latest Raspberry Pi in a FLIRC case to keep it cool.
• 21:00 writing the SD card for the Raspi.

Narrative: Yesterday I tried to get the status of my Stimulus check and I bombed the street address and got locked out. This morning I entered the correct address after downloading my 2018 return. The Gov said they didn’t have a checking acct for me because I deferred the money until this year, but they did have my correct address. So as of today they hadn’t mailed me a check or made a direct deposit. I did a little hunting yesterday and got a little worried. There are a number of people that their check was redirected (Stolen) by thieves who got the common information from public sources or stolen data. In my case they would not have known all the details. Hopefully we’ll get it soon…

Feelings:

Tomorrow: Last day at work for the foreseeable future, retire at last.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
*Did My Best To