Swimming, 10th September 2018

Posted on September 25, 2018 by james

Back to the USRPT sessions then. And sadly not good news. Keeping hitting the 51s target was very hard and by rep 18 I’d had three failures 🙁

Another attempt tomorrow…

USRPT distance this year: 53,450m
Total distance this year: 135,600m

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Swimming, 7th September 2018

Posted on September 7, 2018 by james

A novel experience for me today. I had to visit the dentist this morning and the pool is on the way home, so it seemed silly not to take advantage of the opportunity. The anaesthetic used by the dentist was still very much in effect when I got into the water which made both breathing and having my head under water quite strange. It doesn’t feel entirely sensible to go completely under water without being able to tell if one’s mouth is closed 😀

Anyhow, I didn’t drown so I clearly did an ok job. I did nearly skewer someone during the underwater phase off a push though. It was fairly quiet at that time of day so there were no lanes, but the four of us in the pool were each swimming lengths down separate lane lines. Then someone else got in and decided to walk to halfway, after which he repeatedly crossed the pool at right angles to the lanes regardless of what anyone else was doing. During my underwaters I’m face down, arms out front, one hand on top of the other with the upper thumb hooked over the lower hand. And that was how I hit him. He did apologise for getting in the way, but didn’t stop crossing the lanes 🙁

Anyhow, more tumble turns. If I feel good on Monday then I’ll try to get back to the USRPT.

USRPT distance this year: 52,700m
Total distance this year: 134,450m

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Swimming, 6th September 2018

Posted on September 7, 2018 by james

Another day of tumble turn practice. Not really feeling up to USRPT yet.

USRPT distance this year: 52,700m
Total distance this year: 132,950m

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Swimming, 5th September 2018

Posted on September 5, 2018 by james

Back to the pool for my first session in a week 🙁 Work has interfered with my swimming somewhat, but so have Better. They don’t do paper pool timetables any more; we’re told to use the website for the centre. But recently the website has been a total disaster with either no sessions showing or multiple incompatible sessions showing for the same time. I phoned last Friday to check, was told the pool was open when I wanted to swim, only to be told it was closed for life guard training when I arrived. Not happy.

Anyhow, I wasn’t feeling too bright today so I just carried on working at the tumble turns.

USRPT distance this year: 52,700m
Total distance this year: 131,450m

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Very little helps

Posted on September 4, 2018 by james

Recently we have received a number of 10p/litre off fuel discount vouchers with our Tesco shopping delivery. My wife attempted to use one when she was in Taunton today, only to be told that the petrol stations at Tesco in Taunton don’t accept them. Apparently if we want to use them we have to go to either Minehead or Tiverton, both round trips of about 35 miles.

I’d be better off selling them on ebay…

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Seven years of solar PV

Posted on September 3, 2018 by james

Seven years ago I blogged about us having a 3.64kW solar PV system installed on our roof. I thought it was about time I went through the figures to see how it has performed from the figures I submit each quarter for our FITS payment. This is how it works out:

I’m surprised by the huge difference between the winter quarters and the summer quarters, all except for the last few quarters which are fairly odd-looking, the last quarter of 2017 being far better than any in previous years and the second quarter of 2018 being quite poor. I’ll have to submit the next quarter figure shortly and I expect those to be back over 1,400kWh.

Average generation per year is somewhere around 3,500kWh, well above the estimated figure of 2,900kWh we were given when the survey was done before we decided to go ahead and higher than the national average household annual consumption figure, I believe. The total generated over the seven years will probably come in at somewhere just over 24,600kWh.

With hindsight I think I’d probably consider having more panels installed, but as Western Power don’t appear to be keen to allow domestic installations to feed more than 4kW back onto the grid I’d probably have to find some way to store the power purely for use on-site.

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3d printing project for this weekend

Posted on September 2, 2018 by james

My 3D printer kit came with a PSU, power connector socket and power switch, but there’s nowhere on the frame to attach them even if I wanted to and nothing else is provided to stop you getting a “tingly finger surprise” when switching it on and off. I made this to fit the switch and socket with the end of the PSU that has all the connectors on resting on a ledge along one wall above them. Estimated print time was eleven hours but it worked out nearer thirteen for some reason.

I’m pleased with how this has worked out. The supports for the holes came out very easily and the holes themselves were a near perfect size for the switch and socket. All the cabling tucks inside neatly and I no longer need to worry about electrocuting myself when I’m switching the printer on and off.

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DeWalt D28710 first impressions

Posted on September 2, 2018 by james

Having just posted that I cut up a pile of steel tube today I realised that I’ve not said anything about the saw itself. It’s a DeWalt D28710 that I purchased specifically for my observatory project though it will see use in the future for other things. I probably wouldn’t buy DeWalt tools normally, but this was in a sale and only a small amount more than what I’d probably have bought otherwise, so I went for it (though in fact the other saw came with a blade and the DeWalt didn’t).

I’ve fitted the saw to a stand I picked up from Lidl for just under £40 (see an earlier post). It won’t bold directly to the stand, but that was easily sorted with a few angle brackets and self-tapping screws into the base of the saw, which hold it plenty steady enough for the work I was doing.

First impressions are that the horizontal handle makes it very easy and comfortable to use, the adjustable spark guard does indeed shift the majority of the sparks away from the user and the quick release clamp makes life very easy. The saw has plenty of power for the job I’m trying to do, too. It’s also nice that there’s a place to keep the allen key for adjusting the clamp so hopefully I won’t ever need to go looking for one. Putting a cutting wheel in was a doddle.

Things I wasn’t so happy with are that the angle markings for the clamp aren’t particularly accurate. I cut a test piece and measured it rather than trust the markings. The plastic section of the blade cover is also a bit naff and already wearing a bit where it rubs on the base as the blade descends.

Overall though, I’m pretty happy with it, though I need to work out how I’m going to make some 30 degree cuts which are outside the range of the clamp.

Sadly I don’t have the same opinion of the cutting discs. I bought two Clarke abrasive metal cutting discs from the same vendor and I’m quite unimpressed with them. The one I have in the saw makes quite hard work of cutting and clearly doesn’t run perfectly true. Initially it also seems to have a tendency to try to “bounce off” the workpiece. I will not be buying these again.

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Building an observatory. Construction #14

Posted on September 2, 2018 by james

The steel for my rolling roof finally arrived this week: sixteen three metre lengths of 25mm square section tube with a 2.5mm wall. The wait has allowed me to change the roof design several times 😀

This morning I wrote a cutting list and this afternoon set to with the cut-off saw, reducing all but four of the sixteen lengths to correctly-sized pieces ready for welding.

I do still have a few cuts to make, mostly where I’d like to get the main structure assembled to allow me to cut the extra pieces to fit. The remainder are the horizontal braces for the “rafters” which need a 30 degree cut on the end. My cut-off saw won’t do that without some modification. I’ll work that out this week or decide that it’s just easier to put a metal-cutting blade in the angle grinder and cut them that way.

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A new mount clutch lever

Posted on September 2, 2018 by james

On my EQ3-2 mount I wanted to mess around with the shape of the DEC clutch lever a little to give more clearance for hardware on the mount. I don’t want to damage the supplied (metal) lever however, so I removed it and redesigned something as close as I could get in OpenSCAD. It’s not a perfect copy, but this should allow me to experiment to see if what I want is even possible.

The hole in the centre didn’t come out quite as neatly as I’d have liked because the taper was unsupported underneath, but that will all be covered up by a screw so I shan’t fuss about it too much.

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