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Monday, January 28, 2013

Cheap fridges

We have a cheap little bar fridge, Chinese made ofcourse and from previous experience I'm pretty sure it has something stuck in the compressor... In an attempt to free it up, I swapped the start and run windings and got it to kick over, after which it ran normally. Weird part was that when it cycled on the thermostat, it can't restart.

I'm at a loss to figure out what is happening, thinking about tipping it on its side to maybe force the item out the discharge and hope it doesn't block the capillary tube. Problem with that is I'll be giving the compressor a drink of oil which it is very unlikely to enjoy. That and getting oil into the evaporator and stuff will probably make it sad. Hmm, only real choice I have though. Think I'll give it a shot.

EDIT: I tilted the fridge over after I got it running again, compressor stalled as it got a sip of oil. Bit of persuasion seems to have got it to push the oil out the discharge and it's running again. Now I just hope that whatever was in there stalling it doesn't end up blocking the capillary tube.

EDIT: Well damn, seems this compressor is more annoying than I expected. May have to just leave it on it's side and try to start it a few times. I can't imagine the oil is going to do much to the rest of the system but it's the last chance it has. Really need to flush whatever it is in there out into the filter(?)/dryer.

EDIT: Yup, don't try that at home kiddies. Blew the gasket on the compressor trying to do that and embedded the broken off piece of valve well and truly into the piston.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Queensland floods

The internets came back today, after going out yesterday, and first thing I see on Facebook is people bitching and carrying on about how their phones are out or the internet is finally back. Or about how they didn't get any warning.

The way I see it is that: floods are made of water. Water and technology generally don't mix. If our society was smart enough, anyone with half a brain would be able to realise that the floods are likely to cause damage. The fact that Telstra managed to restore connectivity to the backbone(s) that were damaged in such a small timeframe is amazing.

Really, what is so bad about being without these services for a day or more anyway? A few decades ago these technologies were barely known. Take a moment to consider the amount of work and people who have spent their lives getting us to where we are today.

Thumbs up Telstra, and thumbs down general population of people who can't think for themselves.

Stop bitching and find something else to do.

/rant

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

End o' holidays

Meep. I've got about 6 days left of the school holidays, before starting Grade 12. What a fun time this is...

On the topic of all my projects, I seem to be looking at them all the wrong way, and seemingly ending them without any real results. The only actual project I'm working on at the moment is the biodigester, and it feels like that's not going to get very far anyway, without a great use or anything it'll end up just sitting and fading to nothing like all my other projects. Ah well, if you're reading this because it mentioned biodigester, good luck, hope you have a good use for it in mind.

What a fun post this was, ah well. I'm in that kind of mood.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Holiday update 2

Well, as talking to other people about wind power, it seems that's just not the best thing if it can't be above the house. That's one project down...

The next thing to spark my imagination, which is reachable are biodigesters. Thought being that I have a reasonable amount of grass, which when digested produces a reasonable amount of methane. Cheap solar power, in a way. That's my next project, so far I've almost completed a small digester based upon a 20L bucket, not sure how long it will last, or if the bacteria will grow without cow or horse poop to start it... Will be an interesting few weeks seeing what is produced, if successful I will probably put together another post on it. Future ideas are to scrub it of H2S and CO2, and possibly compress/store it to run a generator. Those are pipe dreams at the moment though.

Cheers for the read, if you have any suggestions or questions or want to remind me of this, please post a comment below. They are now able to be posted anonymously, which hopefully doesn't bring in much spam.