January 2019 – Mark's Blog

A Week in Progress

Status: Start back to work this week and give a urine sample on Monday.

Plans: Get up and be at work 07:00, other than that. We’ll see.

Narrative: Got up a little on the early side, took a shower and most everything went as planned. I left 10 minutes early at 6:15 but all that time was used up in the traffic at GA400 intersection on I-285. Still, I got to work 2 minutes early so all is good.

Went to lunch with the team, lamb kabob. Good eats! Left for home a little on the late side but got home at the expected time of 16:30.

Tuesday we worked from home so I was in my pajamas all morning sipping Dominican coffee while working on the computer. It turned out to be a nice day considering they were predicting an inch of snow.

My first week back at work in almost 18 months went ok. It was good to rejoin the team at work after so long apart. We did a little training and I did a lot of looking around to see what happened over the last 18 months. Projects we talked about back then were already gathering dust waiting on the next tasking. Weather is getting better, it was in the 60’s this afternoon, bright sun and little if any wind. It’s Friday and I am a tired puppy after getting up at 04:30 this morning to make a 06:00 arrival time. I had forgotten just how difficult getting up on Friday was! We had our first of three Home Chef meals today, it was pretty good. We over cooked the veggies just a little, but it was a tasty meal. The shrimp package was open so we threw that one in the trash. 🙁

Pi News: My 1090 4MHz filter arrived, so I removed the Flight Aware filter and put that one in it’s place. Which is inside the box that is getting very crowded in there. I increased my gain to the next step of 29dB to compensate for the losses. What surprised me was that I can decode aircraft below -50 RSSI, that is different. Max decode thus far is about like -33.5 RSSI. It will take several days to figure out the results, especially considering the bad weather flowing across the USA.

Engineering: The 35AH batteries are doing very well on the refrigerator UPS so I will expand that as I can to 100AH. I will also replace the house secondary UPS batteries that is currently on the depleted 100AH WERKER batteries. I do have to figure out the warning light on the refrigerator UPS battery, I have not idea why that is flagged. It doesn’t have anything in the log suggesting what is wrong.

Next Week: No idea.

https://www.verywellfamily.com/feelings-words-from-a-to-z-2086647
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 To
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

During the week of 12 Jan 2019

Blog Change: I’ve applied for and acknowledged my acceptance of a job so I am combining all the entries into a weekly post to save time. (Mostly because I haven’t made a post all week.)

Status: Performing run tests on the refrigerator UPS with new batteries. (New batteries have to be cycled a few times and these batteries have not been strapped together before.) It’s less than 21 degrees outside, PiAware is at 78 degrees so the cold should not affect the discrimination clocks in the dongle.

Plans: Need to get organized, it has been tough with the long waiting times in the onboarding process. (I know there is a lot that has to be done.) Need to start my passport application. I need to get a picture for my replacement passport, I think CVS does them.

Narrative: I make a pot of coffee for the wife every morning sometimes she gets the second cup, sometimes I get the third cup. Dominican coffee is always delicious.

I’ve checked the wall insulation while it’s bitter cold this week, the back wall by the sliding glass door is not performing as well as I would have liked. But that outside wall needs to be replaced anyway.

I’ve been adding batteries to the refrigerator UPS all week because every run test to 25% battery has only lasted about 2-3 hours all week. Which is amazing when there are now SIX pairs of 18AH batteries that only have to provide 1.8A of current each. (They should run for almost 24 hours, but absolutely be no less than 8 hours even if they are a little old.) Long range plan is to replace the twelve $75 18AH batteries with six $100 35AH batteries. The six blue batteries in this picture don’t have any life left in them so I went and got two 35AH batteries earlier than I wanted to. I need to let them acclimate before running a long load test again.

Twelve 18AH batteries in a series/parallel configuration for 24V@105AH

I also put a “Smart Plug” on the refrigerator so that I could better monitor the power consumption over time. The fridge draws about 170-200W when running and consumed 1.4KWH in 16 hours. (87.5W Avg)

The airbag light came on in the Ford Focus on Monday, but hasn’t returned all week. Google Foo has a number of suggestions, but the most likely is a faulty switch in the seat belt buckle. Also, it was unseasonably cold Monday morning at 20 degrees may have something temporary to do with it. I should be able to read the code with my code reader. (Light went out next time she drove it.)

Repairs: I accidently miss wired the solar charge controller that I got from Canada years ago and it melted the side of the case and stopped working. (It was a great performer too, Boo.) I put the spare onto the house system and this one is a little more aggressive with the temperature compensation. I ordered a new China branded charge controller that the specifications looks pretty good. I’ll have to wire it since there are terminals on the controller. One good thing about the charge controller is I can eliminate the timer on the external lights. The charge controller is designed to turn a light on and off using the solar panel as a reference.

Next Week: This paragraph used to be “Tomorrow”, but with my time cut back I’m making it Next Week… Monday is my first day back at work and that will require an EARLY wake-up call at 5:30. I have to be at work by 07:00 so my plan is to lay out my accessories and take a shower on Sunday night. Then Monday morning it’s grab and go, especially considering it’s my first day. I don’t know how my hair will look having slept on the curls. (I’ll have to work that one on Monday.) I have a Urine test that has to be done on Monday, I’ve been practicing peeing for two days now. (I have a real hard time peeing on demand, especially now that my On/Off valve trickles about half the time I go pee.)

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

20 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Rain should be clearing, but bitter cold air arrives tomorrow.

Plans: Run church services, and seal off the Chimney from the cold.

Narrative: The refrigerator UPS was faulted after replacing the batteries yesterday. There was nothing in the logs or the operational readings that would suggest something really wrong. The battery voltage WAS unusually low like 25.2, unusual for batteries being on charge. (Like the charger in the UPS gave up.) I disconnected the four banks of batteries and put a quick charge on them with an external charger. I connected just one of the four banks and tried restarting the ups OS. That didn’t clear the light so completely shut down the UPS and restarted it. (Which did clear the fault.) I reconnected the banks one at a time until all four banks were connected. I then connected an external charger on them to quickly bring them back up to full charge. I cut off the charger remotely and the batteries dropped to 27.2, which is ok. I’ll watch them for the next couple days, it feels likely that the batteries had not gone through enough cycles to be fully formed.

Wife got up first and made some eggs and toast for me, I got in the shower while the eggs were cooking. Headed out to church about 7:50 and got back about 12:15. Had some crackers and took a good two hour nap.

A friend of mine wanted some advice on his home network, spent about three hours over there before I got back to the homestead.

Tomorrow: Bitter cold, maybe try and find Nancy a phone.

19 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Supposed to be an off / on rainy day, so work outside will be tentative.

Plans: I’m trying to figure that out. Last week was a waiting game with the employment onboarding that seems to be at a snail’s pace.

Narrative: Well, I accidentally made coffee. I mean to set the timer, but forgot to rotate the switch to timer mode. Boo.

There is a squeaking roller on our dryer. What I don’t know is if the dryer is wore out and needs to be replaced which would be a major expense. Some of these financial decisions depend on whether my income will increase. If I do get a job and bring in 2-3K, things are easier to decide.

I’ve repaired the primary UPS for the house by replacing the 5 year old batteries. I’ll have to tend them since they are not AGM anymore. ($700 was just a little over the top for a pair of AGM batteries.) I don’t have a solid plan for providing power for our two CPAPs. At issue is where to locate the batteries so they are not exposed to summer temperatures and then where to put a UPS that makes a lot of noise. Even that I can run a standby UPS in the closet instead of the online UPS for the CPAPs.

I’ve repaired the refrigerator UPS by installing eight smaller batteries on it. I had two 100AH AGM batteries that are $700 to replace. The difficult thing is at what point do I replace them. It was decided a little while ago that using smaller batteries that could be replaced gradually better fit my budget than $700 all at once.

Community Bank and Trust of Fl. changed their online banking system, boo. I actually thought it was one of the better systems I’d ever worked on. It looks as though they bought onto a service that does the online banking for them. (And then relieves them of the liability.) It also looks like they’re using two factor authentication.

Had Chinese takeout for dinner, I had Kung Pow Chicken which was scrumptious by the way. Putts around the rest of the evening. Played a game of scrabble, watched a little TV and called it a day. I checked the Pi-Aware and it didn’t seem to mind the rain tonight. (Hopefully the rain shield will keep the insides dry. (It should with the heat it’s making.)

Tomorrow: Sunday’s are pretty laid out in advance, setup and run services then post the audio after taking a nap.

18 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Wet but a little warmer, 100AH boat batteries are ready for install.

Plans: Install boat batteries on APS2424 and test them.

Narrative: Had my morning cup of coffee and read my E-Mail.

The two boat batteries are ready, but I am missing two nuts for them. They’re attached with a little plastic bag, not on the ground and not in the car either. Drove to Batteries Plus and there they were under the monitor. The manager at Batteries & Bulbs gave me a hard time about virtually everything this morning. (I don’t plan on going back.)

Pulled enough out of the garage to gain access to the APS2424 batteries that were depleted. The Triplite 2400W APS2424 PowerVerter virtually runs the UPS subpanel all by itself. No big issues putting the wet cell batteries in place of the AGM batteries. The great thing about the wet cell batteries is they can support 800Amps! (Boat starting battery.) 2400W is roughly 100A, which is a lot from even an 18AH battery.

We cooked our fourth “Home Chef” meal tonight, Pork tenderloin. Again the vegetables are crisp and the meal was delicious!

I tested the APS2424 running the microwave tonight, it passed with flying colors. The depleted AGM batteries couldn’t supply enough current to run the microwave above 50% power. That opens the door to use the microwave during a power outage and replenish the batteries with solar power.

Tomorrow:
https://www.verywellfamily.com/feelings-words-from-a-to-z-2086647
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 To
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

17 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Cold and rain today.

Plans: Purchase replacement battery for Triplite 2424 UPS at Costco.

Narrative: The Internet died at 2AM this morning for some reason and the firewall didn’t fall over to cellular either? I disconnected the Ethernet cable to the Comcast modem and the firewall picked up the cellular connection like it should have. I put another firewall on the Comcast modem and rebooted it. (The MAC addresses really matter when the modem is bridged.) The laptop launched the Comcast activation routine while the firewall was routing traffic to my cellular hot spot. I went through the process that I had done on Monday when I tried to activate two modems at the homestead. The modem rebooted and a short while later restarted one more time. I let it run for about an hour before connecting it to my firewall to take over for the cellular hot spot. I don’t know why after three days the router decided that it didn’t belong on their network. Boo.

My next project this morning was to revive an old T-Mobile hot spot that I’ve not used in like two years. I couldn’t activate it online so I took it to the store. The number I gave them actually belonged to someone else and I was trying to activate this device on their account. Oops? The very young female put in a new SIM and activated it within a few minutes.

Drove to Wally World to look at batteries, they had a boat battery that was rated at 105AH at a 1A rate. (I have NEVER seen such nonsense.) Boat batteries are normally rated in reserve minutes at 25Amps! Still at $85 it was a good buy even if the capacity was more like 75AH. Costco had an Interstate battery in the same category of price, but listed as 100 reserve minutes.

Spent about a half an hour removing the two 100AH AGM batteries from the refrigerator UPS this afternoon. For now it’ll have to survive on 54AH from three pairs of 18AH batteries. I bought two large 100AH wet cell boat batteries to go on the 2.5KW PowerVerter APS2424 and turned in the two 100AH AGM batteries for exchange. It started raining so I’ll have to move them onto the powerverter some other time. The great thing about the wet celled batteries is they can provide a large amount of current! I might buy one more pair so that there is 200AH@24V like there was when I put all this together.

The wife and I made our Home Chef meal tonight, stuffed chicken. Totally delicious!

I stripped this blog of the daily posts until I can safely post them again. I will continue to write them, but they will not be linked to the opening pages.

I brought in the two batteries I bought yesterday to assess them and to balance them for team use. They are close, but not identical dates. I’m missing one set of nuts. I parallel them and put them on a charger before putting them in service tomorrow.

Tomorrow: Put the two 100AH boat batteries on the APS2424.

16 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Cold clear day with bright sun, I didn’t engage the solar panels until I can replace the $600 worth of batteries on the fridge.

Plans: Church tonight at 19:30

Narrative: Had my morning cup of Jo and caught up on my E-Mail. I am doing research this morning on replacing the batteries on the three UPS units. I called Interstate battery center in Suwanee and they politely told me that I had the wrong part number. Then they suggested that I purchase an SLA battery instead of the DCM (Deep Cycle Mobility) battery I asked for. I said goodbye and had t calm down a little, they should know their product line. All they do is batteries!

Still angry I drove out to the battery center where I just happened to meet the person that told me the batteries in the garage had a bad part number. I showed her the page from the Interstate website showing the part number I had asked for, she responded that she passed on what she was told. I responded that an SLA battery is quite different from a DCM battery as she headed into the office to talk with the manager. The manager came out and asked if he could help me, I told him about the conversation I had with his employee and he responded with questions about what I was going to use it for. I told him a UPS and he told me that I was asking for the wrong battery that the SLA is for UPS systems. (In fact that’s wrong, UPS batteries are yet a third category of High Rate.) I mentioned that we were talking in circles and that I came there to get a price on a DCM battery pointing to the part number on the sheet! He finally relented and looked up the price all the while telling me he’d have to special order it. (Which didn’t concern me.)

When I got home I called the Interstate battery center in Marietta, they gave me a price and availability on everything I asked for. (So guess who I am buying the batteries from next week.!)

I was absolutely shocked at the prices from both battery centers, they were almost double what I paid about 5 years ago! I need to reassess the service I require on the three UPS units and purchase an appropriately priced battery for that service. The Primary UPS only runs for about an hour, but it needs 100Amps of current for the rated output. The two subordinate UPS units draw much less current, but are expected to run for several hours.

Tomorrow: Have to think on that for a minute.

15 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: It’s cold winter day.

Plans: We have a date with our daughter at Chili’s for dinner.

Narrative: I’m up with a very sore shoulder so I thought i’d catch up on my blog. I’ve been wearing socks around the house for months, but I am having an issue with my boots having a foul odor. I’ve tried dusting them with foot powder and airing them out under a fan to no avail. I’ve even resorted to dipping my feet in bleach every day. It could very well be I just need more than one pair of shoes.

Spent a good part of the day applying for a job. I don’t need the money per se’, but it can’t hurt to have a little extra. I am still going through my work clothes to make sure they’re still suitable for the workplace.

Went to Chili’s for dinner, had a Caribbean salad with grilled chicken. Delish! We were going to meet up with the daughter, but there was a misunderstanding on which Chili’s we were going to. Boo!

Tomorrow: Church at 19:30.

14 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Cold and Damp.

Plans: Eat breakfast, have a cup of coffee and get a new Comcast modem. Going to be a very busy day, my wife has to register for her class today and I’ll likely be filling out forms for a job.

Narrative: Put some Baileys Irish cream in a cup of coffee and i’m going through my E-Mail systems this morning.

Drove to Comcast service center and picked up a second Comcast Internet modem. When I got home, my wife told me that the Internet was down. Sure enough, my existing modem had gone offline and the firewall did not engage the Cellular backup. I installed the new modem and was greeted with an self install routine. I put that modem online and started work on the Arris that I own by calling Comcast. After two hours it was determined that the concept was not doable, one account per address, one modem per account. Boo! I took the modem back after dinner and the guy who greeted me said one modem per account.

We got our three meals from Home Chef today. We decided to cook the salmon as our first meal. It took roughly an hour for the two of us to prepare it and the dinner was very tasty.

Tomorrow: Have lunch with the daughter at Chili’s.

13 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: It’s COLD and wet outside. PiAware receiver is running ok at 50 degrees warmer than the outside temp, but has low counts. Homestead UPS batteries are depleted limiting their run time to a couple hours. Right shoulder is sore from bursitis and I cannot reach behind my back with my right arm. I have five broken teeth in my jawbone. My passport expired on Friday.

Project: Prepare for going back to work.
Assess work clothes and acquire a pair of protective toed boots.
Try and locate a pay scale for the new job.

Plans: Get organized.

Narrative: Got up at 07:00 and had eggs/toast for breakfast. Left about 7:30 for church services and got home around 12:30. Gobbled up turkey sandwich and took a good two hour nap before catching up on my blog.

Found the job description of a position with the Constellis I should be occupying in a couple weeks, it did not have a pay scale attached to it. Boo…

Had a good dinner with the wife and we enjoyed a fire in the fireplace burning up the orange crates I demolished on Friday.

Researched adding a second modem to my Comcast account, it turns out it’s pretty cheap! I’ll drive to the Comcast place tomorrow since that is by far the easiest way to accomplish this. I’ll also be able to solve a problem I’ve been having where the Internet drops off for about 2 minutes every once in a while. I’ve had this problem for about three months where all my cameras report no internet connectivity.

Worked on a jigsaw puzzle with the wife for a while before heading to bed.

Tomorrow: Drive to Comcast customer service and get a modem.