Tag: General activity

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NYC CNC Open House in Chicago this weekend coming

My travel agent (aka my adorable wife) has got my airline tickets ready so I can attend John Saunders’ Open House bash at MHUB this Sunday coming in Chicago with 3 days afterwards at IMTS 2018.

Hopefully I will meet up with some of the friends I met at the NYC CNC training week and last year’s Open House plus all the new contacts that I have made via this blog.   Also hoping to be blown away with seeing new technology (totally out of my budget) at IMTS.

Looking forward to it ! More to follow !

Woody

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Wireless Tag technology for remote sensing and security

Useful Wireless Tags for Monitoring Assets

Some while ago I happened upon wireless tag net which market a range of simple to use wireless tags for temperature, humidity, movement etc.   These devices use short range wireless comms to a wireless node connected to the house broadband router.   Once activated the tags can be monitored and controlled via the web.   There are a number of extensions to this using other technology devices which all in all make them rather attractive and useful.

I decided our house in France would benefit from the use of these devices and this would allow us to monitor the house from the UK.   I bought a package of 5 temperature/humidity/movement tags and a single moisture tag for the garden.

These are really easy to set up and add to your web portal.   Results are graphed for you to see trends etc.   Really nice simple and useful product.

I could put lots of pictures up but the best thing is to follow the link as above and read all about it.   Deliver to the UK was quick but got hit for import duty and VAT.

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Golf Scoring Aid using Thumbwheel Switches

I seem to have created a small demand at the local golf club for the simple golf scoring aid which I had designed and fitted to our electric trolleys.   The design makes use of old thumbwheel switches which manufacturers don’t seem to use these days with the advent of electronically created equivalents.

Thumbwheels are cheap to buy on EBay and with the addition of a simple Fusion 360 designed and 3D printed block to mount them, they fit nicely on the side of the trolley scorecard holder accessory.   The design uses two thumbwheels so the user can score their own and their partners score.   Simple but very useful especially since I can’t remember what day it is never mind how many shots I have fluffed.

golf, scoring aid, 3D printed mounting, thumbwheels
Simple Golf Scoring Aid using Thumbwheel Switches

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Hot weather and Wall Fixings

This may not be what it seems but …. for over two years I have had two shelf supports fastened to the workshop wall with screws and plastic wall plugs.   The load on the shelf has barely changed over this period.

The other night while relaxing on the terrace we heard a very loud crash and on investigation found the shelf, contents and both brackets in a heap on the workshop floor.   Fortunately no major damage ensued to anything.

On investigating further I noticed that the blocks used for the wall material was warm to the touch.   This is a consequence of the extraordinary long period of very hot weather we have experience in the UK.   The plugs had come out of the holes intact with the screws still in place.

So my thought is that the warmth in the wall has somehow changed the characteristics of the grip in the wall.   This could be the plug plastic degrading in some way i.e. going soft and having less grip, or maybe the hole in the block work has expanded in diameter enough to lose the grip on the plugs.  Either way it suggests my civil engineering was marginal in the first place !

The shelf is now back up with an extra set of fixing holes and some seriously larger screws.

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IT issues in France – Google Backup and Sync + Port 25

As you might have guessed from the above we are in France and the weather is somewhat hot being in the late 30s centigrade.   It is too hot to sit outside so I am inside playing IT.

For the past three visits I have seen an issue with my desktop having long and erratic ping times and download speeds as tested with Okla speedtest.   I have had support visits from the service providers and still no joy.

I brought out my new XPS13 and discovered that if the resident desktop machine is not online everything is normal for all connected devices (25ms ping and 8Mbps download) (That is fast for rural France …).  If I boot the desktop everything goes very pear shaped.

Huge frustration to say the least with all sorts of things on the desktop being checked and services stopped etc to no avail.

I noticed last night that when ever I turned the desktop off, the shut down process was held pending Backup and Sync closing down.   A search today revealed that Google Backup and Sync is a connection killer.   While I wasn’t really aware I had every loaded it in the first place, I certainly know now that I have unloaded it.   Normal service resumed.  Magic.

The other issue that has arisen which I had forgotten about is that in France the use of Port 25 on POP connections is regarded as spam by France Telecom.  The XPS was not sending messages due to being set to  25 and it now is set to 587 outgoing (110 incoming).

So a useful hour (or two) spent inside from the heat has got me two ticks on the problems to be solved list.

Time for a Pimms and lemonade to celebrate.

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