Entropy

Relax in southern comfort on the east bank of the Mississippi. You're just around the corner from Beale Street and Sun Records. Watch the ducks, throw back a few and tell us what's on your mind.
Gold
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Re: Entropy

Post by Gold »

JR. wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2019 12:34 pm did you search this..? there might be some way to resurrect a sick/dead battery... I found a few but don't know what battery technology you are dealing with.

JR

PS: From watching too many cowboy movies as a kid, bushwhacking, meant to ambush somebody.
It looks like there is no way to resurrect them. They are AGM or glass matt. Apparently if left uncharged for extended periods the plates expand and crack. I just traded them in and got new ones.

Bushwhacking just means hiking off trail.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

Gold wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2019 2:13 pm
JR. wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2019 12:34 pm did you search this..? there might be some way to resurrect a sick/dead battery... I found a few but don't know what battery technology you are dealing with.

JR

PS: From watching too many cowboy movies as a kid, bushwhacking, meant to ambush somebody.
It looks like there is no way to resurrect them. They are AGM or glass matt. Apparently if left uncharged for extended periods the plates expand and crack. I just traded them in and got new ones.
apparently a variant lead/acid cell...
Bushwhacking just means hiking off trail.
I figured from the context (apparently a mountaineering term).... just sharing what it means to old farts like me.

JR
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Gold
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Re: Entropy

Post by Gold »

AGM or glass matt is a sealed battery. Lead acid are unsealed and need maintenance. You have to keep water in the battery. Lead acid also corrode so you have to keep the terminals clean.

There is outgassing with lead acid so they are not suitable for indoor use.

I got the new batteries. They come fully charged. They are 6V 210AH. I’m measuring 13.58V in series. 14.8V is the absolute maximum charge they can hold.

The only problem is that the battery charger may be defective. When batteries are fully charged the battery charger is supposed to go into float charge mode. Float charge mode has a solid green LED indicator from a multi color LED. I’m getting a solid red which is a failure indicator.

I need to talk to tech support. One way to get a solid red is if output drops below 1A. That may be the case since the battery is fully charged. I never tried to charge a fully charged battery.
Gold
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Re: Entropy

Post by Gold »

The new batteries worked. I need to try charging the set I removed to see if the battery charger is working or not. I'm now investigating installing solar panels to charge the batteries. When I was first getting going the batteries needed to work without exception. I couldn't take the chance of arriving and having the batteries not work. We have now discovered propane lamps so I can do some charging experiments without leaving us in the dark.

After almost nine months away from the place it was in remarkably good condition. The road showed no signs of wear despite it being a very wet spring. The only thing that broke was the water filter. I didn't empty it and it cracked. I had to buy a new one. Besides that everything was where we left it.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

New rain ditch drama

Hurricane (cough) tropical storm Barry came and went…

I appreciate the concern down in NOLA because of high water levels in the MS river, and wet ground, but I hadn’t seen an inch of rain total in Hickory the last two weeks.

After three full days of flash flood watch we got a total of 5” of rain. In past storms I’ve seen 5” of rain in three hours.

This is not a bad thing, kind of like leaving the sprinkler on over the entire weekend. We needed the 5” of rain, slow is good.

Since I’ve seen more rain, in less time this should have been a non-event…. but midday yesterday I noticed that my drain box at the top of my 6” buried drain pipe, was floating up on top of the ditch water… (WTF?).

It appears an improvement I made a couple weeks ago to add a filter screen (using a web bag that supermarket fruit comes in) over the inlet to reduce debris. Apparently this worked too well and clogged up. Mostly at the top where sediment floats on the water. The outlet side still drained well so the water inside the drain box became less than the water outside in the ditch and it floated up.

After things stabilize, I will pack some more soil around the drain box. The silt pool by the inlet port may be deeper than I need.

I loaded down the drain box to hold it down with a bucket of water, because it wouldn't stay down even after water flowed in.
===
Because of the dearth of rain, I decided to close off my french drain in my front yard… the pecan trees don’t mind some standing water (they drink lots of water). I put the french drain box top grille in a zip lock bag to close it off… Apparently I miscalculated, the grille in a closed zip lock bag floated up and did not close the french drain, so I will work on a more effective seal for next time it rains.

Yesterday there were minnows in my back ditch (new small ones, not the same old ones). Today the back ditch is already dry. That 6" drain pipe works well, and the ground was dry enough to soak up only 5" of rain.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy :lol:

JR
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

More entropy

Barry blew down my outdoor temperature sensor resulting in an 8' drop to a concrete floor.

I took it apart and didn't see a problem but still no love from the indoor receiver, even after I touched up a few solder connections. I finally had to use the "Bangalore reset" (Please unplug your modem and plug it back in ma'am. :lol:)

Just yanking all the batteries did not work, the base station has an additional button cell to keep its clock running (?). After disasssembling and popping out all the batteries, it reset and started working again.

One of the AA batteries was damaged by the drop and strangely got very hot when put back in place. Not sure exactly why, batteries are cheap. I've seen issues with punctured insulation wrap before with batteries in my tuners.

JR
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mediatechnology
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Re: Entropy

Post by mediatechnology »

Going back to the water-contaminated fuel...

I think a can of Berryman's carb cleaner works at making water-contaminated fuel burnable.
Same principle as Heet which Bill mentioned.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

mediatechnology wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:42 pm Going back to the water-contaminated fuel...

I think a can of Berryman's carb cleaner works at making water-contaminated fuel burnable.
Same principle as Heet which Bill mentioned.
I am still seeing an operating temperature issue... last weeks roll was still sluggish (missing?) even while up on the temp gauge but not up to full normal. The ride home (from walmart) was back to full "cobra" power (nice)... I remain unsure of the fault...

JR
[edit- could still be water... I can pour the rest of the dry gas/injector cleaner into my gas tank..[/edit]
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Gold
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Re: Entropy

Post by Gold »

Unfortunately it looks like the battery charger is kaput. It seems like a software problem to me. It runs through a diagnostic, fails the diagnostic and goes into failure mode. It had a two year warrantee and I'm four years in. I guess the $250 for a new one will be less hassle than trying to get this one going.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

Gold wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2019 11:30 am Unfortunately it looks like the battery charger is kaput. It seems like a software problem to me. It runs through a diagnostic, fails the diagnostic and goes into failure mode. It had a two year warrantee and I'm four years in. I guess the $250 for a new one will be less hassle than trying to get this one going.
Repairing SKUs with embedded controllers is not trivial but the good news is the software doesn't go bad. My one appliance with embedded controller that shows problems from time to time, works fine after it boots up, but sometimes gets stupid and won't boot up. I have experimentally had some success using bangalore reset, plus holding down a few of the control buttons while power is interrupted. I do not know how or why this works but as long as it still does I haven't dug deeper into the problem. (I suspect the typical RC power up reset cap network may be tired, but I haven't dug that deeply into the hardware.)
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$250 is a high enough threshold for me to at least kick the tires. Check for the obvious suspects like perhaps an over heated solder connection that crystallized (I've seen that before on hot running components like regulators), or maybe a burned up resistor. Sometimes the repairs are that obvious, and if not, at least you looked.

JR
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