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.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

terkio wrote: Sun Feb 02, 2020 6:16 am Wrong thread diameter.... I would have fallen in that trap.
Pipe threads are tricky.
Not only diameter and pitch matters.
I got aware recently of conical threads.
On 1"1/2 firehoses.
After the fact it seems logical but it was news to me.... This explains some (probably most) of the difficulty I have had sourcing adapters for my pressure washer hoses.

I pride myself in still learning new stuff, but I hoped the new lessons would slow down some after 70+ years. :lol:

I still have a flooded crawl space but I am more optimistic now that the correct part is on order.

JR
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

The correct sized discharge hose adapter arrived this morning and fits perfectly. 8-) (It really helps to order the right size part.) :lol:

Sump pump is back in place under my house and already pulling air... the water level had been dropping by itself, since I unclogged my gutters effectively preventing new rain water inflows.

The sump pump also works better without a leaking discharge hose. The old hose was just rearranging a lot of the water down there.

I can now check this one off my list. The sump pump is 20-30 years old but still happy for now.

====

Talking about gutters, I have tacked my gutter guards/covers in place... The front lip screws were relatively easy, the sheet metal screws cut their own holes in the thin gutter metal. The rear edge screws are not that easy... the sheet metal screws won't punch their own holes when the thin gutter metal has solid wood behind it... If I drill a pilot hole it's all good, but that is more work. I need to secure the back edge of the gutter guards so they don't sag and collect wet leaves. No hurry I have until next fall to get this perfected. 8-)

JR
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

As I crest the hill (of life) and pick up speed on the downhill side I am slowly abandoning my parsimonious ways. :lol:

Within the last year I replaced my washing machine before the old one failed. I now have a new sump pump on order but mainly as a prudent path to upgrade a 25 YO or more sump pump to automatic on/off operation.

I have a almost similar upgrade on order for my fancy slow cooker. My 3 weeks worth of lunch servings has been testing the capacity of the slow cooker cooking vessel so I just ordered one size larger, not hugely larger but the former one was just barely not large enough. As I shared here probably a year ago the existing slow cooker is a little dodgy, some times balking at booting up. Even while cooking today's weekly dinner meals I had to press the increase time button multiple times to get it to register properly, including a double count or two.

When the new improved cooker arrives I will finally take the old balky one apart to see if there is some simple issue with the front panel (tact) switches. This justifies this topic being in the entropy thread.

JR

[update- new improved cooker arrived... no surprises it is scaled up slightly larger,,, holds one more quart. Not expected, it is much heavier and specs faster heat up times despite the larger cooking vessel so mo power. These fancy cookers can deliver 500' to brown meats, but I am not tempted to use that feature.

Old cooker is busy with this week's dinner, but I am out of frozen lunch portions so will get to test this new improved cooker soon enough, cooking another 3 weeks worth of lunches. I need to prep vegetables for that. /update]
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Re: Entropy

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New cooker is already at work cooking 3 weeks worth of my lunch casserole(?).

Time to investigate my old balky slow cooker. It was harder to get apart than expected, but I was able to get it apart.

I didn't see any obvious fault revealing the known problems; (1) balky switching, (2) occasional difficulty booting up.

I tried to probe the tact switches to confirm switch action, and while difficult to probe both leads and push the switch with only two hands the tact switches are clearly not behaving well.... I only see two electrolytic caps on the processor board. 100 uF at 10V seems large for the typical power on reset circuit, I suspect that is what they are... It seems unlikely the cap is so leaky it fails to charge up enough to reset, but for a few cents I can replace them.

I have new tact switches on order, and some new caps,,, $3 worth of parts and $5 for cheapest shipping option.

I will need to scrape adhesive off the screws holding a relay board to the back of the processor board, but not today.

While no definitive smoking gun was found I notice that several bare wire jumpers and switch leads looked tarnished. My new theory to explain the failure is the thermal igloo I keep the slow cooker inside, traps humidity from the cooking food, that resulted in premature degradation of the tact switch contacts.

Now I need to think about how to prevent a similar trajectory for my new cooker. One obvious thought is to lose the thermal igloo, another is perhaps a more moisture tight lid seal.

Now I need to collect all the random screws for future reassembly. :lol:

JR
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Re: Entropy

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before
IMG_20200215_100230346.jpg

new plan
IMG_20200215_141038877.jpg
The igloo made more sense for my earlier rube-goldberg peltier cooking attempts. The commercial slow cooker is actually well insulated on the sides and bottom, while the top not so well... The top lip of the metal cooking vessel that heats up to near full cooking temperature and the glass lid gets pretty hot.. In fact inside the igloo the top metal handle got too hot to touch, you can see my crude makeshift insulating grip on the metal handle.

This is just my first rough pass, but a floppy thermal blanket resting on top of the cooker should reduce heat loss out of the top without trapping moisture inside to degrade the electronics.

Only 16 minutes left until lunch time. :lol:

JR
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mediatechnology
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Re: Entropy

Post by mediatechnology »

I occasionally find bad crimps on FastOn-type terminals that form high resistance connections.
You probably would have seen that though.
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Re: Entropy

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mediatechnology wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 7:01 pm I occasionally find bad crimps on FastOn-type terminals that form high resistance connections.
You probably would have seen that though.
That wiring all looks OK, the old cooker worked fine when it worked. I just cooked my dinner meals with it days ago. Main problem flaky switch action. With the digital readout you could keep pressing until you get the time setting you want, just in need of new tact switches (and less humidity).

It appears that cooking pot cozies have been used by backpackers to keep pots warm after removing from heat, actually a very old concept.

I suspect the cuisinart design team made a marketing decision to use the clear glass lid, instead of something more capable of thermally conserving heat that would surely be opaque and less attractive.

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Re: Entropy

Post by billshurv »

Traditional European slow cooking used a hay box. You got the stew to the boil, then put it in the haybox during the day. A quick search suggests this did make it to the colonies but may have died out.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

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billshurv wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2020 6:44 am Traditional European slow cooking used a hay box. You got the stew to the boil, then put it in the haybox during the day. A quick search suggests this did make it to the colonies but may have died out.
Now they call them "magic" non-electric cookers.... :lol:

Image

Nice but I would be very happy just to get an insulated lid... Appropriate technology for me could be a secondary thermal lid cover, neater and prettier looking than my crude but effective thermal blanket.

===

Another technology I would like to see is insulated cooking pots, that sit on top of stove burners, but hold more of the heat inside. On the right side of my posted pictures you can see my large beer cooking pot (holds several gallons). I cook the wort on low heat for hours, without heating my house. My foam insulation probably wouldn't survive high heat from a gas burner, but it doesn't have to.

I have some smaller thermal igloos that I can sit on top of my small cooking pots, that I rarely use these days. They work like a charm to cook better with lower burner heats. But my big batch slow cooker is a model of efficiency (labor and thermal). Once a week I cook a weeks worth of dinners, once every three weeks I cook lunch.

JR
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Re: Entropy

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I just had a crazy idea... cover the glass lid with a piece of plastic, then use spray insulation foam to craft a thermal lid, or maybe some combination of rigid foam and spray foam.

I need to soak this in beer.... :lol:

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