Early Risers.

[TheQ]

The fire.

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/fire-crews-attend-hoveton-blaze-9165062

 

[iL Dottore]

Words From The Workshop

 

I spent a rather interesting and not unproductive afternoon in the cellar workshop. Joined, for part of the afternoon, by Lucy who had decided that maybe it was too hot to sunbathe.

 

I dismantled, successfully, the solar powered Japanese pagoda style garden lantern. Although a moderate amount of hot glue was used to glue the battery and circuit box to the bottom of the lantern, a few minutes work with a chisel blade scalpel managed to dislodge the battery and circuit box together with a rather surprised garden spider.

 

I was gratified to find that the the small solar panel on the top of the pagoda lantern was connected to the battery & circuit box Buy a connector – so I wouldn’t have to and solder the incredibly thin wires between solar panel and terminals. Definitely a win in my view and, as I expected, the rechargeable battery is a very inexpensive rechargeable 1.2 V 200mAh Battery. Also gratifying was that the LED – which I expected to be quite dim – it’s actually quite bright and the only reason it is dim is because it is glued to the top of the battery box and thus situated right at the very bottom of the lantern.

 

Upgrades, I think will be fairly easy: A straight forward rechargeable battery change is definitely on the cards (I’ll probably go for a 400 or a 500 mAh battery). I won’t upgrade the LED as it’s more than adequately bright, what I will do – which will be a bit tricky – is to carefully remove it from the top of the battery and circuit box, snip the two wires connecting it to the power and then solder on some wire extensions, finally placing the LED onto a raised dias, plinth or column to raise the height of the LED. I might even put a reflector around the LED (as in a torch) to maximise light. The upgrade will be completed by the resin lantern getting a coat of stone effect paint.

 

Like practically anything nowadays, the lantern was made in China and it is clear it was made down to a price: there is absolutely no “surplus fat“ whatsoever. The wires are as thin as they could possibly be and still function, The circuit board is minimalistic and quite an ingenious bit of electronics as well. 
 

In all, I am well chuffed as I didn’t expect dissembling and assessing the lantern to be quite so effective and easy.

[Coombe Barton]

... I thought I’d chosen a break in the weather. I was wrong. ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/postcards-from-the-periphery-2022-03/

[Ozexpatriate]

5 hours ago, DaveF said:

... the plough must have hit a piece of flint, sparked and that was enough to set the vegetation alight. 

A very common ignition source of grass fires here is mowers striking rocks.  They warn about it on the news. We are under burn bans now - everything except enclosed backyard grills.

 

Our weeklong stretch of hot weather (above 32°C) starts today. 

[polybear]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

(there’s a very good reason why physicians still examine the prostate manually – but as it’s teatime, I will spare you the medical details! 

 

Spoilsport....

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Science Fiction?

Comedy?

Erotica?

I was drawing planes and submarines and helicopters and stuff when I was around 5 years old - how old were the blokes when they invented them? If I'd been born in 1800 or something Id have been a childhood prodigy.  

 

 

 

 

[simontaylor484]

Well Leonardo DaVinci bet them to it 

[simontaylor484]

I have just been writing the jobs list for me and the apprentice for the summer holidays. I have filled his large whiteboard with jobs. 

  It helps with his autism that he knows what we have to do 

Trouble is one job gets rubbed out to be replaced by another. 

Then there are things like appointments,shopping and other things competing for time looks like we are going to have to work 24/7

[The White Rabbit]

4 hours ago, polybear said:

.... There are machines which keep you alive when your brain and heart have stopped. There's even a machine that can tell you who your parents are with a single drop of spit.
However, when I need my prostate checking, a man sticks his finger up my ar5e and wriggles it about a bit.

 

[New Haven Neil]

We spent the morning devastating a couple of the garden bushes, the 'New Zealand Furry tea Tree' was indeed becoming a tree due to pruning neglect, so it got halved in size - it may survive, it may not.  It always seems very vigorous.  Another spiky thing ( Latin name....!!) was cut well back too, I know that will survive as it is indestructible.  

 

This has enabled me to actually see the garden railway, water may get boiled.

 

it was scorchio so we went out to our favourite railway-side cafe for a wad with friends from around the corner,  It persisted down.  Came back home - sunny.  Pah.

 

Watched the GP this evening (not the one that puts his finger etc.....) - bit boring but good result for Lewis and George.

[andyram]

Evening all. A quick check in whilst the laptop is on dealing with some online orders for the shop. I hope today finds you well. It has been a warm one here in Hunstanton. A lie in was followed by a walk into the town via the crazy golf course. I rather wish we hadn't bothered. The third hole was a beast and I took an embarrassing 13 shots, a dreadfully embarrassing display that was compounded by Amber's subsequent hole in one on the same obstacle! Our daughter was on fire and was delighted to emerge a clear winner. Somehow I avoided finishing last as Sarah, despite two hole in ones, also found a hole that caused major  issues and managed a 15! Needless to say our ten year old would not let us forget it for the rest of the day.

 

 The rest of the day was spent shopping, on the arcades and visiting the Sealife Centre until the heat had us heading back to the apartment early afternoon before an evening stroll to the same pub for a meal. A refreshing pint of Ghost Ship chosen on this occasion.

 

 The hot weather has resulted in the North Norfolk Railway confirming that they will be running diesels for the rest of the week. As a result the Bure Valley, tomorrow's likely destination, will be my only steam fix of the holiday.

 

Take care

 

Andy

Edited July 24, 2022 by andyram

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Had a great day at the Middy today, and @andyram they are still operating steam so if you can get down there I can highly recommend it https://www.mslr.org.uk/find-us/. Wasn't a bad journey up there despite a fender bender on the A12 causing a slight delay. When we passed it the recovery was under way and we were only held up about fifteen minutes. The journey home was completed without any problems. I had visited there many years ago when they were just starting up with just a few yards of track. A return visit is on the cards for next year. 

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Not a bad day, well  better than the day Baz probably had.

Went for a walk late morning and ended up at mils and didn’t  back until 6.00. We did get wet but Sydney enjoyed himself which was ok as he’s been a bit subdued recently. 
Not much else got done today as Syd and myself didn’t stir until 10.00 and as soon as we got back from mils I watched the F1. Boiler man coming tomorrow at 8.15 and hopefully this will be his third and final attempt at sorting the boiler out. 
It’s been on my mental list of jobs to sort out for some time but I don’t like to write a list as it’s length encourages the dark one out of his kennel. Inevitably as one job is sorted another one comes to take its place. 
goodnight,

Robert

[Barry O]

Went to the cricket.  It rained..pah!

Lunch taken..game back on...then it chuckeditdarn..PAH!

 

Off to a meeting in Edgbaston tomorrow. So I probably  will be a very Early Riser.. but little chance of calling in here.

 

Baz

[simontaylor484]

It's a long time since I had a holiday in Norfolk, it was with my parents in our tin tent (caravan) we have done the Broads, Norwich Cromer Sheringham and then Beccles in Suffolk,Lavenham also Cambridge

[PhilJ W]

For those of you with dogs.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

The weather has been very mixed today, we had some lovely sunshine this morning, with a few dotted showers and I managed to get all my dead heading done. Due to the very hot weather that we all had earlier in the week, there was quite a lot wanted doing as they didn’t like the intense heat. I’d just about finished and had emptied my wheelbarrow, which was full, by dinner time. I really wanted to make a start getting the plants we bought on Wednesday in the ground, but whilst we were having dinner, it really started chuckinitdarn, so no more gardening got done today. So, with a couple of hours to kill, I spent the rest of the afternoon in the workshop, where I built and tested another signal circuit board and got the tracks cut on another 4 boards done. 

 

Below is one that uses an LDR (light dependent resistor, shown on the left above the blue wire) as the sensor, I’ve also built a version that uses reed switch instead of the LDR, but I’ve not taken a photo of that yet. 

[PupCam]

Evening All!

 

A relatively swift  visit tonight, this heat takes it out of an old Puppers since my Great Inconvenience which is rather frustrating I have to admit!  Hence my bed is calling me.

 

I did manager to give the Mondog a spruce-up before it got too hot this morning  (shamed into it by Mrs Puppers washing her little red tin box).    

 

The rest of the day has been spent investigating some tricky maths (well, it was tricky for Puppers).    Tests of the telescope mount position digital readout (another of Puppers Patented Products) revealed some discrepancies between the value of sidereal time (a  technical, astronomy related measurement) calculated by Puppers', Arduino based Hour Angle (another astronomy related concept) calculator and that produced by a number of Online Sidereal time clocks (and no, they don't all agree with each other either!).    It's quite important that I at least  (partially) understand why I need to add ~ 5 minutes to my value  to get agreement somewhere close.  

 

Does it actually matter?     Well yes, an error of a fractions of a second of Sidereal time and hence Hour Angle are equivalent to a very small angle and so instead of seeing a particular star when you peer into the telescope you will see something quite different or possibly nothing at all.   Just to give it a bit of scale;  that big old bright thing called the moon subtends an angle of only ~ 1/2 degree from here on earth!   So a tiny star is a much smaller angle.

 

In the photograph of the display the important bit that I was originally trying out are basically the yellow and double black lines on the scale at the very bottom of the screen.  The latter is the "direction" where the object you are looking for should be, the former is where the telescope is actually pointing.   Line the two up and Bingo!     The eagle-eyed amongst you will also have spotted the scale up the side for "elevation" ......

 

With luck when it's all working and the telescope is tracking, once the yellow and black lines have been lined up with each other the two should remain coincident despite the passage of time (as indicated by their movement across the screen) and with luck that impossible to see with the naked eye star should remain in view in the eye-piece.    Mind you the marks don't move very quickly, the scale is in hours so that's the equivalent of a full day then across the screen!    

 

 

Two rotary encoders are part of the modifications  to the scope which will provide the position data needed for the gadget, here's the one that drives the "direction" display.

 

 

 

Other Observations Today

 

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I’ll probably go for a 400 or a 500 mAh battery).

 

Are you sure that titchy little solar cell can actually provide enough current to charge larger batteries?      You don't get owt for nought as they say up Norf!

 

If not, you could always increase the incident light level falling on the cell by placing a 1kW spotlight just above it to provide more oomph but that might be missing the point .........

 

Anyway, night all!

 

Alan

 

 

 

 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[monkeysarefun]

Great day for Australian sport  - we claimed the Tour De France  Lanterne Rouge. First time for an Aussie since 1931 when it was won by a Richard Lamb.

 

Though  apparently his nickname was Richard "Fatty" Lamb, so it was probably not unexpected.

Edited July 24, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[Ozexpatriate]

4 hours ago, PupCam said:

Arduino based Hour Angle (another astronomy related concept) calculator and that produced by a number of Online Sidereal time clocks (and no, they don't all agree with each other either!). 

I'm assuming you use a 32 bit processor in that Arduino, and that you don't have a floating point co-processor. There is lots of potential for inaccuracies with trigonometry unless you are using some kind of floating point package in the software.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from a warm Charente.  19 outside.  According to orders posted 7 hours ago, We,  are going out for a bike ride before brekkie.  This also means before it gets too warm.  I am poised like a slumped spring ready to spring into action when the boss wakes up.  

 

Jamie

[iL Dottore]

Morning All,

 

Just back from walking the Wolfpack- flamin’ Ada it’s humid. Today was a 7am start, so I reckon it’ll be 06:00 tomorrow morning.

 

7 hours ago, PupCam said:

…Are you sure that titchy little solar cell can actually provide enough current to charge larger batteries?      You don't get owt for nought as they say up Norf!

I’m not sure - although my research on the internet (as unscientific as it may have been) suggests that the solar panel will charge a higher mAh 1.2v rechargeable  battery. I suppose that an approach would be to have the unit “off” for a few days (so no power drainage), fully charge the unit and then turn it on.

 

After I posted last night, I returned to the workshop and I was able to separate the LED from the battery box and re-examination of the wiring revealed a lot more wire than initially assessed and better quality too. So it will be quite easy to provide a longer connection between battery box and LED.

 

TBH it’s quite a good thing - from the perspective of upgrading such things - that the Chinese manufacturers make abundant use of hot glue - so much easier than trying to separate components that have been superglued, solvent welded or two-part epoxied.

 

Well got to run - off to take the electric abacus for repair.

 

Enjoy the week!