Author Archives: james

Robert Brown Arduino dew controller build, step by step #4

Right then… Components… I’ve given links to the places I purchased parts from where they still exist or if I still have them, but a few things I already had. I have no connection with any of the vendors and … Continue reading

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Robert Brown Arduino dew controller build, step by step #3

I’m going to post details of the components I used, but before that some comments on the circuit board… The documentation provides a plan for building the controller on stripboard, which looks perfectly good (but you’ll need to add a … Continue reading

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Swimming, 14th January 2020

Wasn’t really up for swimming today having had a very bad night’s sleep, but I forced myself to attempt a repeat of yesterday’s session anyhow. Sadly it was awful. I first failed on rep six and it didn’t get any … Continue reading

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Robert Brown Arduino dew controller build, step by step #2

Since it’s relatively easy, I’ll start with the tools required. I think this is pretty much everything I needed for the first build. Covering the easy stuff first, obviously there’s the soldering iron. It would be nice to have a … Continue reading

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Robert Brown Arduino dew controller build, step by step #1

In an earlier post I said I’d write up the build of my second dew controller, so if you’re not sure it’s for you and need to see how someone else did it, this is it. There are a few … Continue reading

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Swimming, 13th Jan 2020

With the problems I’ve had over the last few months I’ve dropped things back a bit and this is now my current set: 400m f/c warm-up 18 x 50m f/c, target time 50s, turnaround 90s five minutes rest 18 x … Continue reading

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Robert Brown’s Arduino-based dew heater controller

Like almost everything in my life, this has taken a lot longer than I was hoping, mostly because I ran out of steam a bit, partly thanks to the weather being so poor, but also because it took some time … Continue reading

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January 1st: Best weather of the decade so far

New Year’s Day was dark. Really dark.

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Once more unto the beech

And only once more… Shortly before Christmas it became clear that an old beech tree at the end of our garden was rather more hollow than we realised and in fact has started to rot off at the bottom, presumably … Continue reading

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A “Crown of Thorns” for my rain gauge

One of the problems with a rain gauge and I think something that had prevented it working properly last time was that it forms a nice little perch for birds who then, err, contrive to block up the holes that … Continue reading

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