[ndncowboy]

Time I go underground with modern stuff. Also will never happen.

 

[Shiverguy]

One of the arguments against that is that a lot of the Phils is earthquake prone. The other thing is that kind of infrastructure would be hugely expensive, and of course the cost would be passed onto the consumer.

The vast majority of whom live in poverty and couldn't afford power price hikes. Electricity here is more expensive than in OZ.

A few cities are looking at running power underground, and a few are eradicating dead (unused) spaghetti wire from posts. The city I live set up a task force to remove spaghetti wire, and was doing it before Covid. Maybe they will resume again.

Task Force Hapsay Kable starts Removal of Spaghetti Wires

The removal of spaghetti wires in the major streets of Cagayan de Oro was finally started today, April 17 by Task Force Hapsay Kable. The clearing operations were headed by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), various electric, cable TV providers and telephone companies. See...

aboutcagayandeoro.com

 

[ndncowboy]

Sounds like at least one crew if not more will have a lifetime job removing the spaghetti wire. Job security!

 

[Shiverguy]

Sounds like at least one crew if not more will have a lifetime job removing the spaghetti wire. Job security!

That's what we used to say in Sydney, Australia about the Sydney Harbour Bridge painters. By the time they got to the end - they had to start over again.

A little trivia here: Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee) was a Sydney Harbour Bridge painter, and was discovered by a current affairs programme in the early 70's looking for the working class/man in the street opinion.

He became popular and a regular on the show - and thus began his TV/movie career.

 

[Tinsnips]

Hold the phone. What is this 4 wire voodoo you speak of? I have 4 wire to the house and three wire inside. Are you talking 4 wire everywhere?

 

[Shiverguy]

Hold the phone. What is this 4 wire voodoo you speak of? I have 4 wire to the house and three wire inside. Are you talking 4 wire everywhere?

What's the purpose of the 4th wire to your house?

 

[ndncowboy]

Hold the phone. What is this 4 wire voodoo you speak of? I have 4 wire to the house and three wire inside. Are you talking 4 wire everywhere?

Yep. Positive, neutral, ground and traveler or whatever they end up calling it. The 4th is for automated stuff. I’m already there in most of my house but had to get master electrician to understand and rewire things. But everything is computer controlled now. Lights go on and off on a schedule then others to it randomly. You can never tell if we are home or not. So at some point new homes will require it. If we don’t nuke ourselves soon, it will be 2 or 300 years or before 4 wire is everywhere. But who knows. Some smart guy might figure out how to move electricity without wires completely.

 

[Tinsnips]

Huh. I have two 120V, a neutral, and a ground coming to the house in a 4 wire 240V service.

The traveller I need to research. I have a lot of home automation but it is all wireless communication to control - mostly Zigbee. I don’t think I have even seen 4wire compatible devices up here.

 

[Shiverguy]

Lights go on and off on a schedule

When I did a test run of living here for 5 months I set up lights in different rooms on timers in my house in Oz - so that it would appear that someone was home. I also paid someone to cut the grass.

Worked a treat. Came home and no break ins.

 

[ndncowboy]

When I did a test run of living here for 5 months I set up lights in different rooms on timers in my house in Oz - so that it would appear that someone was home. I also paid someone to cut the grass.

Worked a treat. Came home and no break ins.

And you did it much less expensively than the way we did it. Sometimes analog can’t be beat.

 

[Shiverguy]

An update on the printer.

The pick up wheel arrived but it looked impossible to pull the printer apart enough to replace the wheel. So I got it to the stage where I could access the original wheel and cut the rubbers with a Stanley knife (box cutter for the uninitiated).

They were saturated in old ink and the rubber was dissolving, but I managed to pull them out with a pair of needle-nosed pliers.

I then used a kebab stick with cotton wool on the end, dipped in Acetone to clean all the roller sets.

Worked well.

Once the pick up rollers and all the other rollers were clean, I took the rubbers off the new rollers and slipped them over the original roller carriers.

I reassembled the printer and spent a few hours trying to align the print heads.

Frustrating...but, finally - Success!!

Apart from a few hours work - the printer now works perfectly. Without charging myself labour - it was a $5USD repair.

...and the challenge was met!

 

[Shiverguy]

Ok. Just trying to keep this site alive.......

I'm what they call in Australia a 'Bower Bird,' meaning that I collect and keep stuff. If I pull something apart that can't be repaired, I will look at the various pieces and pick a few thinking: "Hhhhhmmmm....this might come in handy one day."

I have repurposed many parts/things over the years and have a lot of what people might consider junk in my little shed.

We are staying at our beach house, and I accidently left the ignition on and flattened the battery of our little car. I have a battery charger but it's at the other house. I'm looking at the logistical nightmare of going there by public transport, getting the charger, and returning. Depressing AND time consuming.

When we bought this place the previous owner had a security light installed. It was completely corroded by the salt air and didn't work. I pulled the unit and replaced it with a new one. After testing the security light, I binned it. Didn't work. I tested the transformer and found, to my surprise, that it still worked. "Hmmmmm," I thought, "This might come in handy one day" and kept it.

Remembering that it was a 12V transformer I checked its output. 1000mA - 1 Amp. So I figured that it would work like a trickle charger without the auto cut-out when the battery is fully charged. Car battery is 35AH, which would mean 35 hours charging, but since most cars will start with a charge above 50% - I decided to leave it on for 24 hours.

This morning (after 24 hours) I disconnected the charger, turned on the ignition and it started immediately. I'm keeping that little 'throw away' for the future.

 

[ndncowboy]

You got me on that. I’ve kept a bunch of them from various cheap stuff that stopped working but that part still did. I don’t think I would have thought to use one as a trickle charger but I’m glad you did and it worked. That’s certainly thinking outside the box. 👍👍👍

 

[Shiverguy]

Yeah. Thanks. It seemed like it was worth a shot since it was 12V and most transformers for electrical stuff is usually 5V. My LED TV at the other house is 12V as is my external HDD, which is one of the reasons why I saved that transformer.