Building an observatory. Construction #34

Posted on January 2, 2019 by james

Construction has slowed somewhat thanks to the weather, but taking advantage of a day when it threatened to rain but turned out to be bluffing, the eastern and northern walls are now covered in cladding, all but for the top two rows on the northern wall which need to be cut around the roof rail supports and rafters. By the time I’d got that far it was too dark to finish those bits off, hence the lack of photos.

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Swimming, 2nd January 2019

Posted on January 2, 2019 by james

First time swimming this year! And sadly because of the way things have worked out with opening times, the first time in ten days 🙁

Still, the plan was to repeat the set I swam last time, on 21st December. It turned out to be a complete disaster. Initially my goggles wouldn’t seal properly to my left eye and then about quarter of an hour in the strap broke, so I had to switch to my spare pair. It all made a bit of a mess of the set. These things happen though, so I’ll attempt the same thing again tomorrow. Now I just have the fun of finding some new goggles…

USRPT distance this year: 1,800m
Total distance this year: 1,800m

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Building an observatory. Construction #33

Posted on December 25, 2018 by james

A bit of a break in the weather (by which I mean “it stopped raining for a while) this afternoon left me an opportunity to get out and do some of the cladding on the observatory.

My plan is to try to clad as much of the sides facing south and west in full lengths of boarding, then do the northern end with as few joints as possible, leaving the side facing east with the majority of the joins as it is longer than a full board length anyhow, and is largely sheltered by the “beer shack” and a stone wall.

Today I cut and fitted all of the full boards to the southern end. I need a cut-down board for the top, but that can wait until I’ve done more of the rest. The lowest board I trimmed down by about 15mm above the concrete pads supporting the outside joists so that it can sit 5mm off the concrete and 10mm below the bottoms of the joists to shade them from any rain running down the face of the board.

Just to check for size I also fitted on full-length board to the eastern side. I’ll leave that until last now.

No photos today though. By the time I’d finished hammering in the last of my lovely stainless ringshank nails the heavily overcast skies had ensured that darkness was not far off.

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Swimming, 21st December 2018

Posted on December 21, 2018 by james

I managed to find time today despite the rush to get stuff done before Christmas, so back to the pool for the same set as I’ve been doing all week, but with another five seconds knocked off the rest interval. It mostly went pretty well, with just a little confusion when another swimmer quite a bit slower than me decided they wanted to swim in the lane I was using. My arms were getting seriously tired towards the end, too.

I’ll try to do the same set on Monday if time allows.

USRPT distance this year: 84,700m
Total distance this year: 189,400m

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Swimming, 20th December 2018

Posted on December 20, 2018 by james

Same session as yesterday for today, though I was definitely feeling a little tired and mostly struggled to get as far off the walls as I would normally. Not by much, but enough to be noticeable. Otherwise than that and the intrusion of a couple of boys who were mucking about into the lane it all went, well, swimmingly 🙂

So, shorter rest time again next time. Hopefully tomorrow if work allows.

USRPT distance this year: 83,500m
Total distance this year: 187,600m

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DIY egg incubator and hatcher

Posted on December 19, 2018 by james

For some time now I’ve been idly contemplating the possibility of making my own incubator and hatcher for (primarily) chicken eggs as I’ve never been completely happy with the performance of my commercially-produced ones.

What I’m thinking of for the incubator is a cabinet-style unit for the incubator with four trays for a dozen eggs each, the trays being rocked back and forth slowly so the eggs don’t need turning. The cabinet should be insulated and perhaps have a “double glazed” door on the front. Heating would be done using nichrome wire, and humidity controlled by allowing water to drip onto a sponge or into some sort of open container.
To keep the temperature even throughout the cabinet a fan would circulate the air from the top to the bottom. Vents would be required to allow circulation of air to the outside in the event that the air inside is too warm or humid.

I have it in my head that the heating could be controlled by an Arduino using 1-wire temperature sensors placed around the cabinet. It could also manage the humidity, again using 1-wire sensors and perhaps drive a peristaltic pump to add water from an external reservoir to increase humidity if necessary. I’m not sure if the vents could be controlled by the Arduino as well, but it may well be possible. There could be an LCD display giving temperature/RH information as well as showing a countdown to when the eggs need moving to the hatcher, an alarm for temperature/RH being out of bounds and any other problems I think of and a menu system for selecting pre-programmed profiles for eggs from different birds.

The cabinet shell may need to be made from wood, but I’d aim to 3D-print as much of the rest as possible including egg trays, dividers, fan ducting, parts for the pump and so on. Perhaps the cabinet could be plastic. I’ll have to see what dimensions of plastic sheet are available.

I’ve not really thought too much about the hatcher yet, but one thing I’d like to incorporate into that is a “hatch cam”, so perhaps one of the newer Raspberry Pi models with wifi might work better for controlling that. I don’t imagine it will be too dissimilar to the incubator though, but with a clear lid this time.

Time for some rough sketches I think…

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Swimming, 19th December 2018

Posted on December 19, 2018 by james

Another session swimming with my daughter today, and we both did pretty well. I reduced my recovery time for today’s set by five seconds and completed it relatively comfortably, though I was getting quite tired for the last two or three.

Same set tomorrow and if that also goes well then I’ll reduce the recovery time further.

USRPT distance this year: 82,300m
Total distance this year: 185,800m

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Swimming, 18th December 2018

Posted on December 18, 2018 by james

Good day, today. For the first time I managed a full set, though far slower than I want — probably somewhere around 14 minutes slower. I can at least start working on improving the times now though, and I shall start on that tomorrow if circumstances allow.

USRPT distance this year: 81,100m
Total distance this year: 184,000m

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Swimming, 17th December 2018

Posted on December 18, 2018 by james

Today I went to the pool with my daughter so she could also do some training. I’m almost back up to the full distance I would normally expect to do now, though still a little on the slow side. Hopefully I can make inroads on that this week.

USRPT distance this year: 79,900m
Total distance this year: 182,200m

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Building an observatory. Construction #32

Posted on December 18, 2018 by james

The weather this weekend was quite wet and windy, but I managed to get out early(-ish 🙂 on Sunday to start fixing the northern gable in place. Everything went quite nicely to plan in terms of rolling the roof over the warm room and fixing everything from a ladder with the exception of the rain that started to fall once I’d done about half the job. I decided to stick with it and finish off, finally getting the roof closed up again about five minutes before very heavy rain started (though I was already soaked at this point anyhow). I also found an old door to temporarily prop in place to keep most of the rain out of the doorway.

The photograph below was taken well before sunset, believe it or not. The sky was just so dark.

Next steps are to get the ducting for the wiring to the piers into place under the floor, get the lower sections of the piers themselves in place and put insulation between the joists in the warm room. Once that is all done I can start putting the floor down.

[Edit: some additional photos taken during the day to show progress]

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