2016 Party

(19-12-2018)This was a party.
I am not sure exactly what and when.  My calendar shows we had Calston St Drinks 6-9pm on 23-DEC-2016 but it does not show an new years eve party so I assume this was the Calston St drinks

Ethan.  :)  Luckily small and light.

2016 Oxley Community Carols

Oxley community carols. 
Good to see a little storm did not scare them inside.

Jemma playing uke in the middle (white tee) Megan Thomson at the right (green & red)

Queenstown 1 - Rafting

Thursday
Flew BNE->SYD.  Shuttle from domestic to international.
Met John, Alex &   Trevors wife Janelle + Son Jackson & Daughter.
Flew SYD - Queenstown.
At Queenstown we all piled into a maxi taxi and were dropped at our hotels.  Chris and I are at the Novatel and the rest are at the Sofitel.  Opposite ends of the down town area.  Thats about 500m.  We walk it a lot.

2016 HOTY

I'd described our 2016 HOTY as the race we deserved.  When a crew only manages three rows together before an event then the result will be ordinary.  That coupled with less than optimal fitness (including me).   We came second last in our division. 

2016 started well enough.  We had the usual get together to talk about commitment and then all managed to organise business meetings, holidays and illness.

At the start of the year I was regularly doing weights in the RQ gym and after the Urban Rowing Regatta, I switched to having an Exercise Physiologist (personal trainer) at Urban Rowing.

Agh looking at myself in 5 seat.
Straight inside arm.
Hand grip too wide.
This will mean outside (stroke side) shoulder down.
Contributing to the unbalance that is a characteristic of our boat.

4 boats head into Big Bend.  We were the first but slowest.  Two crews outside us pushed us into BBC on the inside. 

Here is the BBC oar about to decapitate my camera.

Chris Valedictory Dinner

Windows 10 stop wake on mouse

My Toshiba windows 10 laptop wakes from sleep and gets hot and wastes the battery.  I think it is because of the mouse moving in the bag.

Based on this
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-power/windows-10-cannot-disable-the-mouse-from-waking/706340c2-1fcc-4cd0-b747-c736d8a31b34?auth=1

But changed.
Note
a) Use a forward slash as the switch "/"
b) Discover the name of the mouse

1. Press Windows key + X. 
2. Click on Command Prompt (Admin). 
3. Type powercfg /devicequery wake_armed and press Enter
4. The computer responded:
        HID-compliant mouse
     HID Keyboard Device
     HID Keyboard Device (001)
5. Type powercfg –devicedisablewake "HID-compliant mouse" and press Enter. 
6. Restart the computer and check if issue persists. 

Oxley School Marimba Record

Playmaster 40/40 amp

Way way back in 197x (Not sure of the exact year), I built a amp from (I assume) a Dick Smith kit.  This was a 40W RMS class AB amp as I recall.  It had turn table preamps.  Many years later, I re purposed the turn table pre amps to mic amps and wired them in so that the microphones could be used to talk or sing in the case of karaoke over then music selected by the input selection switch.  The mic volume controls are the two pots at the back of the amp (Top left of the photo).  At a later time the whole amp was as the fold back amp for the bush band.  Then it sat unused for a year or so in the church shed before someone found it and suggested it be used to drive the speakers in the meeting room at church.

Inside, some of the wires had been cut off the selector switch.  I assume I did that for some illogical reason.  There also seemed to be no wires providing an input to the power amplifier part of the board.

I soldered the wires back onto the selector switch and through to the volume pot and then to the circuit board. 

Powered it up.  No smoke -> for my non technical friends, that is good because once the smoke leaks out it stops working. Measured the output voltage with no speakers attached and that was only a few millivolts.  Connected a couple of speakers that I could afford to loose.  The risk being that the amp if faulty could send out a high and or DC voltage and burn out the speaker coil.  Youtube via a PC provided some a musical source. 

One channel was fine but the other is noticeably distorted. I swapped the speakers over and the fault stayed with the channel.  I swapped the input from the PC over and the fault stayed with the channel.  I cut off the connection where the mic amps are mixed in and the  fault remained. 

Conclusion - There is something wrong with one of the channels.  A component level issue.  I'm not really motivated to fix it right now.

ADSL Modem hangs

The ADSL modem hangs a lot.  So frustrating.  Trying firmware upgrade.

Firmware Version:0.6.0 1.10 v0021.0 Build 141215 Rel.41342n

Hardware Version:TD-W9980 v1 00000000

New is

Firmware Version:0.6.0 1.13 v0021.0 Build 160125 Rel.52064n

Hardware Version:TD-W9980 v1 00000001

 

Main water pipe break & repair

Walkin along the garden path on a sunny day and whooo.  Wetness.  Sogginess.

Dug a hole and exposed the pipe.  Turned the water back on and a fountain.

Dug back a bit further and decided that digging was really really hard work.  Figured we needed a quick fix to get the water back on while we ponder options.   Connecting to the copper using a standard poly joiner worked.  A couple of threaded adapters to get from 20 to 25m poly.  Connecting to the rusty old mains pipe proved difficult.  

Tried
25mm poly joiner
25mm "Pressure" pipe joiner.
Clear PVC sleeve and 4 hose clamps - blew up like a baloon and still leaked.
Black PVC sleeve and 4 hose clamps
They all leaked on the rusty pipe side.

Mon AM went to super cheap auto and do some radiator hose of the correct diameter.  This seems to do the job but not sure if it can withstand the pressure but it's not leaking and now it's raining.  So good enough to leave for another day or call a plumber.

Blanco Oven Door dismantle Repair

1.  F%$k

2.  Remove the door
It seems that oven doors are designed to be removed.  Easily!.  Amazing.  Thank you youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMBSYzKVHYk

Dismantle.
In my opinion Blanco have done good mechanical design that makes it easy to dismantle & reassemble. 

All screws use a TORX  (5mm I think)

These screws get removed.
Note no need to remove the screws that hold the hinge.

This is the handle and the screw.

Inside the door

There are 3 pieces of glass between the human and the hot inside.  There is the glass fascia and two inner ones.  This is the middle piece of glass.

Another good design feature is little metal pieces that ensure that you cant put it back together the wrong way.

Captain Fantastic Movie Review

Hmm.

Initially one sees this idyllic rustic lifestyle.  Fantastic scenic shots and a family living off the land.  Kids obediently following dad in a cult like fashion.  Nice and fit and well read.  Experts on every subject from quantum physics to political systems.

As the movie progresses we see the family have morals that I for one disagree with. 

• Happy to steal and lie.  
• Somehow the mothers Buddhist faith belief is to be defended to the hilt but Christians are to be made fun of and of course in this day of political correctness the Muslims are not even mentioned.
• Father is at least willing to kill someone else's sheep. 
• Walk around naked in the caravan park.  (Do it at home if you like)
• Disrespecting the lifestyle of a family that they stay the night with.

We also discover that all is not well in the family dynamic.  At the start of the movie we discover that mom is in hospital with bipolar or something and has been there for 3 months.  Then slits her wrists.  3 months and no visits from the family that she so loves?  Later we discover that mom has been going behind the not to be disobeyed dad and helping oldest son to enter university. 

So is he really a fantastic captain or a man with a utopian dream that is perverted by the power of being god of his own little kingdom.




 

Falcon gear shift cable repair

2003 BA Falcon ute column shift cable disconnect & repair

A week ago I went to drive the ute home and the column shift was all floppy.  The ute was in reverse and that was that.  I called a mobile mechanic who said that they were not really set up for fixing this sort of thing.  He said that it was possible that the cable end had popped off the lever.  I jacked up the ute and had a look and indeed that was the case.  I wired the cable on and was able to drive the unte into the shed at work so I could jack it up and work on it in more comfort.

I undid the M8 Nyloc nut from the shaft.
This is the actuator arm lever.  To remove the nipple, I ground the back of the nipple down and the bashed it out with a M6 bolt that was then chucked out.

The hole was a good fit for a M6 bolt.  I held it in place with a spring washer and a M6 Nyloc nut.

I had to drill out the hole in the attachment piece to fit on the M6 bolt.  It would fit on M5 but just not quite on M6.
Then a flat washer and a second Nyloc nut to attach the cable.

Chris BGS Pre Formal