The Serviceman
cataract surgery
This time the servicemen were serviced! Kali and James faced cataract surgery with different results. For such a common operation it seems to be very unreliable. Several people in the Flowtrack orbit have had bad outcomes.
James is suffering bruising and pain and bad focus, but it is rapidly improving. Kali had instantly perfect vision after eye #1 and no pain or bruising. (She might have been a bit biassed after four months legally blind) But it all went south when it got dark. The reason is obviously that light is getting under the lens. Big pupil, small lens, placement too high are all good explanations, and all denied by the medicos. Apparently the brain is supposed to adapt. By not opening the pupil in the dark apparently. But Pilocarpine is a good kludge, even with the headache, the jerky vision and the unreliable cutin and wear off times.
P.S. Kali went to another eye doctor complaining about the night vision issue and he said the Johnson & Johnson lens in eye #1 has a silly lens rim that reduces the functional optic diameter. He put a SN60WF in the second eye and took care to get it placed accurately. Voilla! No night vision problem. Eye #1 night vision was fixed with a contact lens that shades part of the pupil.
valve timing ...
No good deed will go unpunished! James replaced the engine in a friends car and it subsequently overheated and the oil filter fell off (#??). She claimed it was dead and blamed the mechanic. To finalise nastiness Kali bought the car, thinking it would be a good site vehicle for Flowtrack - 4WD Subaru.
A quick overhaul of the original engine showed that it had probably died of corroded out welsh plugs which let water into the oil and thus oil into the air cleaner which hopefully had stopped the engine without damage.
But the reassembled and installed engine would not run and much time was wasted with all sorts of theories checked. Eventually a U tube video confirmed that the cam shafts had to be timed with the flywheel set to the insignificant mark that had no relation to TDC. Why would you do that!
disk images ...
There are of course many utilities that purport to make an image of a boot
floppy. But when you try to put them on a bootable CD they dont work because
they have inserted headers and wrappers.
One particularly irritating utility was found to put a sprurious 13 byte
header on the image that spoilt the size constraint and completely upset K3B
for example.
This utility apparently expected to be the program that got to recreate the image
somewhere.
So James had to write a program to trim the image, suitably called "del13"
Video Formats!!!
Our indirect benefactor Keith McLaughlin recently died.
He was a technical enthusiast, starting life in 1916 in the days of
kerosene and horses, and sending his last emails as keith@flowtrack.com.au
only days before he died. As he would have expected we compiled a lot of
data about his life and ran a good funeral. The problems of file formats
became extreme. Even showing a simple slideshow of his life required a
creditable "red-eye" from Taree camera shop proprietor Alan Small.
After the event it became worse as the house recording from the
crematorium was damaged and difficult to edit.
Trying to produce an archive of Keith's life became a nightmare of
formats.
There were docx files, corrupt VOBs, mpg wrappers, mov videos, etc.
Doing a google found a surprisingly emotional WIKI entry with suppurating
angst about the state of proprietory video formats and attempts to
monetise them.
Clock chip tomography
After a month where lots of devices stopped working the archival SCU1
computer stopped booting with CMOS flat warnings. This was not new, and we
had replaced the clock chip (DALLAS ds12b887) previously after importing
some from China, but now all the spare chips appeared to also be flat!
James did a web search on this problem and was pleased to find some hero
had posted photos of the dissection of this chip. The spirit of the
internet lives!
With this guidance it proved easy to grind off layer by layer the top of
the chip until the ends of the battery emerged and could have wires
soldered onto them. A couple of AAA batteries completed the job and the
computer started booting perfectly.
Tail Light Warranty?
Doing the right thing Kali bought an electric fence energiser from an
Australian company,
Thunderbird.
After working well for a year or two it was somehow tipped crooked in the
paddock and it filled with water. Disassembly revealed parts of the
surface mount board corroded away and the flexible PCB connecting the
switches etched back to mylar.
Bad memories :-(
Egg pileup!
An old friend has built a wonderful free range chook farm,
Open source inverters?
After the great success of open source and open format software, surely it
is time for open source inverters?
Power Electronics Revisited
After 17 years a Francis turbine controller built by Rainbow Power Company
was hit by lightning. After a difficult repair the customer wanted a spare
so they did not have another weekend of fifty people trying to enjoy a
country retreat near a 5kW generator!
False Alarm
Last week the venerable 38 Y.O. Flowtrack Toyota broke down on the way to
a conference. It seemed to be a dragging rear brake when lots of smoke
escaped. But in the way car faults conspire to prevent diagnosis it was
only the effect and not the cause of the problem. So by the time we got to
Grafton the wheel bearing was obviously not going to go around much
longer. Things always seem to stop when their smoke escapes ...
Thanks to the admirable capabilities of South Grafton garages ( plug,
plug), and our running around the place with the offending axle we made
the conference. The locals were amused. Not much was happening so we got
comments like "Lost the rest of the car?"..."You look safe!".
Then just yesterday while towing a trailer of bricks over the "road"
from Wingham to Landsdown a similar sort of noise started in the right
front of the car. Investigation however revealed it was only the horn
being rattled on and off by vibration from the road after the potholes had
shaken the switch out!
P.S. The new Japanese bearing later failed to hold oil in the diff
which got all over the brakes. After much searching a solution was found;
not only a bearing for a Borg Warner diff, but one from 1968.
IDENTITY
Roger was playing with a customers XP laptop that locked up when you
tried to log on as admin.
He found that you could log on as one of the lesser users (who had
not configured a password) and from there become admin using the correct
password.
James then conceived the completely illogical plan of changing the admin
password to itself.
Success!
Presumeably what was broken was not the password setting but its
authentication process.
Kali used the same trick with DFAT to solve a bureaucratic snafu of 8
months duration preventing passport renewal. She changed her name to the
same name, using the new processes of Birth Deaths and Marriages. Success
at last!
the PLOTTER
We used to use a hp7475A plotter to draw circuit schematics. It was
fun and multicolour etc.
Then it died :-(
Kali replaced serial driver chip and tried running it at 300 baud and
eventually it became unuseable.
So when our eBay expert Kevin Masterson found one for sale we bought
another and after it sat for weeks in the flooded TNT depot we eventually
got the thing.
The documentation on the internet was deemed inconsistent by James who did
a full breakout box analysis of the interface. He determined that the
thing was a DTE with some weird strapping and came up with a correct cable
construction. It worked! The old one is likely repairable now that we know
that the "clear to send" was strapped to ground with likely damage to the
comms chip or its 12 v supply.
the MG 4512
This is an insanely cheap Chinese 200W wind turbine that everybody we
know has tried to redesign. We bought one out of curiosity and a customer
is actually operating it.
We put it up on a 10 metre guyed tower of 75mm square tube with
Barret truss in the middle. Then we threw away the controller and replaced
it with a three phase bridge.
More to get the controller off the desk than anything else Kali
dismantled it. There was a littany of construction errors well
demonstrated.
* Weak case had allowed several board connections to fatigue off
* Several nuts, eg dump load location, were rattled loose
* the soldering of the LM358 and several of its resistors was poor to
the extent of non existent.
* Little protection from dirt, animals, corrosion.
In spite of this Kali thought it had some merit and assuming nobody
would bother with copyrite of such a circuit we reproduce it here!
the MAZATROL stops
again
This time the spindle motor stopped after drawing vast current for no
apparent reason. There was a phase reversal issue in the factory and
other misdirections which made us tear the SCR section apart and find
nothing wrong. So eventually we tore off the motor cowling and removed the
brush inspection cover and ran up
the speed. Suddenly, crackle-fizz and we had a burning ring of fire around
the commutator, no doubt consuming the vast buildup of brush debris not
removed by the supposedly impeccable Ford maintenaince guys who last owned
the lathe.
Portable Mobile Broadband
After weeks with no net connection during repair missions we have been
studying mobile broadband options. They seemed to be very expensive and
dependant on the evil monolpoly.
After some false starts with Vodafone we came back to the old bird
Dodo. They offered a 1 Gb plan at a good price and the hardware we got
worked, in spite of their advice to the contrary.
The HUAWEI E220 HSDPA USB MODEM proved completely satisfactory, and
talked to the eeePc running Xandros once we put in the right silly
conection point fields; connect, blank, blank. It is even possible to
update this web page if the -p switch is used after the ftp command.
Thunderbird refuses to send email still.
So now we have a backpackable internet facility - less than 1Kg!
And TV too....
Backpack TV is also there on the eeePc with the "My Cinema-U3000 Mini
USB receiver". It does not say so on the box, but it works in Linux.
See how in kalitv.txt in the kalihow.zip download on this page.
The MAZATROL
This 6 tonne Mitsubishi NC lathe had stopped working shortly after
being purchased after the Ford factory shutdown. Its 27 year old computer
arrived here with desperate entreaties to fix it. The 17 big chips with
taped over windows looked really suspicious and the assumption was that
they had lost their program.
After changing IO boards and poking around James demanded to see the
thing malfunctioning and after checking wires back through the relay panel
and reading the instruction book, an extra wire was discovered going over
to the other tool turret that indicated lock.
Our suspected MOS problem turned out to be a hydraulic problem caused
by some grot getting under a solenoid and leaving a bit of torque on a
hydraulic motor so the turret could not settle.
Fake Batteries :-(
There in the scrap lead pile was a pallet of demonstration batteries
from
Battery Energy. Rainbow Power Company were always throwing out good
things and I assumed these were old dry charged units they could not risk
selling. So I bought vast quantities of acid and rinsed dust out of them
with distilled water and attempted a charge. Nothing but gassing! After
more failure someone pulled one apart and found the problem - no paste.
I thought they felt a bit light ...
woodwinds
Well it is a type of windpower ..... after making a new barrel
for a "Rampone" clarinet (Milan ~ 1880) we got more ambitious. James has
designs on a Serpent, and Kali has actually landed a Rackett - aka Wurst
Faggott. It is a ridiculous instrument that proceeds to impossibly low
notes in a series of woody farts. The main problem from an engineering
point of view was that some of the 12 holes were unreachable and needed
levers and pads. Some also needed elevating from the surface of the
instrument on litle tubes.
As this computer (Slackware 10) at last is running ALSA you might get a
multimedia experience next edition with both a picture and a recording of
this "Sausage Bassoon".
iPOD :-(
For ages this iPOD hung around. First it was the wrong cable, then
the wrong operating system, and then at last a net connected XP
machine appeared and we tried to put some music on the iPod. After
much irritation that worked, but the earphone was so microsopic and
overpacked we did not see it. Grabbing one of the myriad of computer
speakers around we connected the iPod but instead of music we got
that brown smell ....
The computer speaker had the wrong plugpack with the wrong label in
the wrong hole, and there was a nasty little direct bypass switch on
the speaker to conduct the 12vac into the poor SOT output. Expensive.
And the only thing you can do is rant about the idiocy of the audio
plug "standards". What bright spark started using 3 mm signal plugs
for modem ac supply ??
CARBON FILM RESISTORS!
This week has seen the failure of two computers and an oscilloscope
due to resistor failure. Carbon film resistors after a certain
lifespan simply stop conducting with no external signs. It seems
unrelated to temperature, but does seem to be a matter of voltage and
possibly humidity.
Finding the culprit requires perseverance and reasoning, and often
the failure has been slow and erratic, damaging other related
components. It is infuriating seeing a $1000 bit of gear brought down
by a component worth 1/10 cent.
The remedy is to use metal film resistors, but this is probably
precluded by the "race to the bottom" situation in globalised
electronics manufacturing. Also Flowtrack boycotts metal film
resistors because the blue body makes the colour stripes unreadable.
(why would anybody...!). The only solution seems to be to use the
expensive metal oxide film resistors which are magnificent. They
still work red hot ...but yes, the colour stripes become unreadable!
DRIVER TROUBLE
A recent wind repair was caused by a lift vehicle driver who did a
great job of getting the turbine up but then sort of wanted to get it
more than up and kept driving!
The back stay gave under the strain and the machine followed the pull
vehicle at rapidly increasing speed until a final resting place in
the paddock :-(
PETROL TROUBLE
An essential part of remote area electronics is of course getting
there, and the old workhorse I drive has over half a million Km on
it. It is a petrol/LPG 1600cc Toyota: cheap to run and easy to
repair. It had been working perfectly on gas but randomly going badly
on petrol - nothing below half throttle. Everybody said "put a new
carbie kit in it!" MISDIRECTION 1: The petrol pump had failed last
year and an attempt to get home by gluing it had resulted in muck
clogging up the final filter in the carburettor. MISDIRECTION 2: The
vacuum line to the distributor was clogged with dirt. After
disassembling the carburettor and cleaning it (twice) I at last
worked out that it could be an air leak, not a fuel blockage - no
vacuum means no petrol. The car could still run well on gas because
the idle fuel is delivered by the gas system with regard to nothing
except continued ignition. A loose manifold flange, and a dodgy pipe
from the crank case ventilation looked the culprit. But it was not
:-( Finally the car stopped idling on gas and I drew the right
conclusion: .....valve seat recession. The inlet valves were not
closing perfectly. The engine was not missing on a cylinder or two as
you would expect, but there was the manifold leak - back from the
combustion chamber! We all tell stories of how ignition faults can
mimick fuel problems, but here was a valve problem mimicking a fuel
problem.
TURKEY TROUBLE
There was an open circuit on the Malapiki Microgrid. Nice solid 50
sqmm PVC coated twin set off up the hill with 100 volts DC on it, but
the other side of the sea of lantana there was no voltage :-(
After crashing down the hill through the lantana it became apparent
that the crossing of Tuntable Creek had been pulled down near the
ground by the clambering bastard weed. That should not have caused an
open, so the scratchy exploration continued. there was the fault: -
it was about four metres across and a metre tall - a Bush Turkey
nest!
The day was about 40 degrees, and the Turkeys nest was made from damp
hoop pine needles and was so hot as to be a danger to walk on. Yes,
the voltage was disappearing under the nest and after some excavation
it was obvious that the cable insulation had melted and the metal
disappeared into the compost.
So, Turkeys are not only able to crap, scratch, knock bottles off
shelves , honk, "fly" around inside houses, upturn garbage bins
....... they can melt cables!
Another remarkable shot from left field
..... the serviceman
Thinking it was ruined and as usual being refused a schematic we sent the
box back to the manufacturer who replaced it under warranty!!!
After removing a lot of old papers from the office there lay on the floor
a delivery docket from 26/10/2004 for a 4Kw induction motor from C J
Pearce. The delivery was from 490 Geelong Rd Footscray to the pier kiosk
at Stony Point, to go on the ferry to French Island. Kali had burned out
a wind turbine generator by motoring it to find out why the new wind
turbine would not start. Blade angle had to be increased.
The Pearce business plan was to supply motors fast to minimise machinery
down time. And they moved very efficiently when rung. But later that day
Kali received one of the most abusive phone calls in our
business history. The manager had apparently got back from lunch and did
not believe anybody on French Island would be using a big three phase
motor and decided the whole order was a shakedown. Eventually the owner of
the French Island Lodge was able to settle him.
When the motor arrived it was not good. Different flange hole pattern and
other details, but worse, it did not work well. Its nameplate said WE, but
whether it came from the Perth plant of Western Electric is arguable. Its
remnant magnetism was a lot different from the ones we normally used and
self excitation was poor.
Organigrow.
But the machine that sorts the 1000 dozen eggs into the different weights
for the different boxes stopped working; eggs on their cute little
conveyor belt sailed right on past the "kickers" that were meant to
categorise them and ended up in egg jams at the end of the grading
table!
The kickers were going off prematurely and ineffectually. Inspection led
to the conclusion that the problem was the conveyor belt link sensor that
was shooting off spurious sinals. Testing the sensor proved nothing.
Then the distributor of the machine, Lesco, came through for us sending a
circuit schematic from the U.S. which amazingly turned out to have been
drawn in SCHEDIT back in 1997. The path of the sensor data was complex,
but a bit of wire wriggling and power supply bypassing got the machine
back into service.
We have piles of inverters rotting in the scrap heap for want of a circuit
diagram. Is this a form of compulsory consumption, or just the effect of
lawyers and accountants who want to "own" IP?
PYE valve TV sets came with a circuit diagram stuck on the masonite back.
Perhaps some inverter manufacturer will realise they could get an instant
market advantage by supplying the schematic. They could even keep their
secrets in the microprocessor rather than grinding off chip names the way
some paranoid manufacturers did!
As the controller has been out of manufacture for some time we had to
source parts and do a bit of redesign. For example the wafer multipole
switch that changes excitation capacitors is now rated far lower than
previously. They did often fail!
So Kali resorted to one of her pet concepts - a binary weighted row of
toggle switches. More speed settings with fewer capacitors!
Except that bigger transitions happen than in the original successive
addition arrangement - and this made voltage shocks that took out the
oscillator board. Another rally drive for nothing.
The guy in the spare parts shop was incredulous that AMI had assembled a
Toyota in Australia with a five year old imperial diff!
Moral: dont trust vehicle parts lookup programs. Take a trusty vernier
calliper to the parts shop. (and remember that seizing bearings sound very
different to worn bearings)
ABN 68 079 207 168
0266 891431 (a/h)
0266 890408 (b/h)
OFFICE:The Brown House,roads end, Upper Tuntable
Falls Road, NIMBIN