Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@HardwareGeek there were. But we have an excess common.
After clicking the picture and zooming in, I see another black wire with a (red) wire cap nestled in there (in the middle of the red wires)
So it looks like there are
- 3 black
- 3 white
- 2 red
- unknown grounds (I see the one screwed in, that appears to have another wrapped around it. And there are various others making appearances next to white wires but I can't tell where they go.
It also looks like a possibility of a 4th white wire that's just going through.
In short (hopefully they don't!), Yikes!
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@JBert said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
The unequal number of splices and cables seems oddd, but could there be a wire coming in from a switch that you haven't spotted yet?
I'd be willing to bet that someone borrowed a common. Above my shop are two bedrooms and a storage room. If they did the wrong thing the right way, that common is on the same circuit and shutting off the breaker will make the circuit safe. If they did the wrong thing the wrong way they borrowed a common for a different circuit and you can end up in a situation where a circuit seems to be safe to work on and then something is turned on or off in the other circuit and you get zapped.
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Oh, and the person that laid out the lighting circuits fucking loves three-way switches. Our mudroom is roughly 8'x8' with doors at 90 degrees to each other and the light in there is on a three-way switch. Those switches are 5-6' apart. One of the lighting circuits for my shop has a three-way switch on each side of the door.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
One of the lighting circuits for my shop has a three-way switch on each side of the door.
For how much longer?
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@dcon not much longer. Assuming no further fuckery I will pull it out and use it as a switch space to control another lighting circuit through automations.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Assuming no further fuckery
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The new house has 3
smart garage door openers. I believe that they are Chamberlain brand. The person that installed the wall controls was a moron as there was no reasoning behind how they were placed on the wall by the door to the mud room. They were in a roughly triangular configuration and there was no way to just look at them and logically tell which button would open or close which door. On top of that they did not trim any of the wires so there was a big wad of two conductor wire haphazardly crammed above them.So the other day I pulled them all, mounted a piece of plywood to the wall, cleaned up all the wiring and remounted them so that each one logically operated the door that corresponded to its position. No more of me getting annoyed at my wife as she attempts to open or close a specific garage door and acts out some weird sort of "Who's on first?" adaptation.
So what is so
smart about the garage door openers? Well, the controls look like this:
They have motion sensors on them which conveniently turns the lights on for a little bit when activated. That's pretty handy. They also tell you the time and temperature which is not really handy at all. But they also have a feature where you can set a value for TTC and if you leave the garage door open and there is no motion and the door sensors don't get tripped for that amount of time it will automatically close the garage door for you. That's kinda handy, but can also be annoying. Like, let's say you're doing something in the driveway out of range of the motion sensors and you don't break the beam sensors, ten minutes later you have to use the keypad to open the door back up.
Now, there is a button you can press that will keep the garage door open indefinitely. But you have to remember to do it and it may be all the way across the garage. Which really wouldn't be a big deal in most garages.
But here is where the
comes in: Since moving the controls and cleaning up the wiring, randomly we will go to the garage and the door will have opened all on its own. Like this morning. Fuck only knows how long it had been open. Assuming it was some fuckers on the TTC and perhaps the garage door opener thinks that it is open when it is closed or something I turned the TTC off and it is still happening.So now I guess I need to powercycle my garage door openers and factory reset them and set them up from scratch and this is the fucking world we are building for ourselves. Or I go to Lowe's and buy 4 dumb garage door openers (the 4th bay which is my workshop does not currently have a garage door opener on it) and put these pieces of shit on craigslist and possibly get murdered by the latest craigslist killer.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
possibly get murdered by the latest craigslist killer
Toby Faire, he'll have been maddened by some stupid
smart garage door openers, so it'll be justifiable homicide...
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Or I go to Lowe's and buy 4 dumb garage door openers (the 4th bay which is my workshop does not currently have a garage door opener on it) and put these pieces of shit on craigslist and possibly get murdered by the latest craigslist killer.
My local police station has a couple of parking spots in front of the station with a camera pointed at them specifically to give people a place to make these exchanges without getting murdered by said craigslist killer.
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@boomzilla said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Or I go to Lowe's and buy 4 dumb garage door openers (the 4th bay which is my workshop does not currently have a garage door opener on it) and put these pieces of shit on craigslist and possibly get murdered by the latest craigslist killer.
My local police station has a couple of parking spots in front of the station with a camera pointed at them specifically to give people a place to make these exchanges without getting murdered by said craigslist killer.
Or do what I did one time (2007 or so) when I sold some moderately expensive film camera gear on eBay. We arranged to meet at the M4 services (equivalent to an Interstate rest area, but nicer) near Reading, me with the gear, them with the cash. Very public, no chance of random robbery or murder, but it did feel a bit like two groups of people doing a drug deal or something.
EDIT: Reading, Berkshire, in the UK, that is.
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@Steve_The_Cynic finally! you is pinched, chum.
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@Gribnit said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Steve_The_Cynic finally! you is pinched, chum.
Nah, everything went according to plan. Including selling them a tripod to go with it that they were originally sceptical about. (Unfolding it and putting it with two legs at waist-height against a pillar, one on the floor, and the head looking at something on the floor sufficed to get their attention...)
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@boomzilla said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Or I go to Lowe's and buy 4 dumb garage door openers (the 4th bay which is my workshop does not currently have a garage door opener on it) and put these pieces of shit on craigslist and possibly get murdered by the latest craigslist killer.
My local police station has a couple of parking spots in front of the station with a camera pointed at them specifically to give people a place to make these exchanges without getting murdered by said craigslist killer.
That's a really cool idea. I don't think my local police have such a facility, so I would probably arrange to meet the
killercraigslist buyer inside the police station.If that's unacceptable to them, just means I need to remove the strikethrough above.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Oh, and the person that laid out the lighting circuits fucking loves three-way switches. Our mudroom is roughly 8'x8' with doors at 90 degrees to each other and the light in there is on a three-way switch. Those switches are 5-6' apart. One of the lighting circuits for my shop has a three-way switch on each side of the door.
My house is full of the things. From the dining room, I can toggle the light for the kitchen, stairs to the basement, and front entryway (each of which has its own switch for the same light) as well as the upstairs hallway that has two switches of its own. For the dining room's own ceiling lamp, there are two switches on opposite walls
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I believe that I found the issue. When I remounted the wall control I guess I tightened it down too much. Mind you, no reasonable person would think that it was too tight but while messing around with the programming of the controller I noticed odd things happening when I was pressing buttons. I loosened the mounting screw by ~1/4 turn and it has been fine since.
I also think that all of the
smart parts of the garage door opener is in the wall control. I think the rest of the garage door opener is pretty dumb. Well, the whole thing is pretty dumb but you know what I mean.
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In keeping with this thread and the whole ethos of the forum (inb4: do we have one?), here's something that's so "mostly not internet" that it's not internet at all, but still mostly shit. And also that's halfway to being a help-thread. Also it's a sort-of continuation of the latest rants by @Polygeekery which allows me to @mention him which is handy as I'm pretty sure he'll have something to say (note that I didn't say "something smart" or "useful"...).
So I've got a motion detector in my basement, that turns on a couple of lights (two, exactly). One bulb died, and now I tried about everything and there is not a single bulb, or combination of bulbs, in the house that works with this detector. Whatever I do the detector seems to trip by itself and the lights turn back on about 5 s after they turn off.
I initially assumed that it was something to do with the minimum load on the detectors. I read somewhere that those detectors don't work if the load on the circuit is too small and sure enough, the packaging (I checked last time I went to the hardware store) does mention various minimum loads (depending on the type of bulb, not sure why either). Or at least I assume it's a "minimum" load but the packaging actually only says e.g. "LED, 2W" which is a very crappy way to design your packaging.
Anyway, putting on bulbs that are waaaaay above that load doesn't make it work either, so that's probably not it.
So now I assume that the detector itself died when the bulb died, which makes it even more crappier. I have no idea how I can test that, apart from what I just did (put new bulbs, thing doesn't work, it's broken). Or just put in a new one, but at 30-50 europoundbuck piece, it's not the cheapest gizmo either. If I do I'll probably fork out towards the top of that range for a brand-name, hoping that it'll be less crappy than the current one but... who knows?
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@remi did anything else change around this time? And how long have you had this motion detector/lighting?
I ask because those motion detectors basically sense moving masses of heat/temperature differential. Given that we are at the end of September here in the northern hemisphere, did this behavior start around the time that you turned your heat on for the season?
Are the bulbs themselves in the "sight" of the PIR sensor? Basically, is it possible that the bulbs cooling off after they shut off might be tripping the PIR?
Are there any adjustments on the PIR? Security lighting here in the USA that uses PIR sensors usually have two adjustments on them. One to set the threshold for the PIR sensor to trip, and another that sets the duration of the timer for how long the light should stay on after it stops being tripped. Maybe try upping the threshold?
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Hey, I did not ask for help!
... 
wait, I actually did 
Though it still mostly was a rant about how crappy a crappy not-at-all-internet piece of shit is.
@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@remi did anything else change around this time? And how long have you had this motion detector/lighting?
No, and a couple of years. Tl,dr: none of your guesses seem likely explanations to me.
I ask because those motion detectors basically sense moving masses of heat/temperature differential. Given that we are at the end of September here in the northern hemisphere, did this behavior start around the time that you turned your heat on for the season?
No, I still haven't turned on the heating, partly because until last week it wasn't needed and partly because my furnace is currently broken (something in the fuel line/pump) and the plumber will only come in a couple of days (long story, whatever). But mostly the basement isn't heated so it wouldn't be affected by that. Plus it didn't have any issues last fall/spring and probably at least 1 or 2 more years before that (can't remember when I installed it exactly). And in any case it broke a few weeks ago when the weather was still good.
Are the bulbs themselves in the "sight" of the PIR sensor? Basically, is it possible that the bulbs cooling off after they shut off might be tripping the PIR?
They are, and I thought about that, but there are 2 lights on this circuit and when 1 died it was enough to break the detector. If anything, one less light should mean less heat for the detector to see, not more. Besides, the original bulbs were, uh, not identical for no reason that I can remember (probably "what I had in my bulb box when I fitted the lights") and one was LED, the other not (fluorescent IIRC?) and it's the second one (that gave off the most heat) that died.
Are there any adjustments on the PIR? Security lighting here in the USA that uses PIR sensors usually have two adjustments on them. One to set the threshold for the PIR sensor to trip, and another that sets the duration of the timer for how long the light should stay on after it stops being tripped. Maybe try upping the threshold?
Same here, there are those two adjustment. I remember that that when I set it up it was a royal pain because on the cheap model those are just two tiny potentiometers with no scale and that didn't even seem to behave linearly, on purpose (the timer one goes from 15 s at min to something like 10 min at max, so it actually makes sense to not be linear, but it's still a total guess -- and trying to tune those things with having to wait close to 10 min between adjustments is... bleh... boooooring!).
So yeah, that's something I could try.
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@remi are both bulbs in it LED? Your 5s timeline for it kicking back on would roughly coincide with how long it would take the bleed down resistors to discharge the capacitors in the bulb's power supply. Maybe a cheap fixture that was engineered before LED bulbs were widespread and that is causing your issues?
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@remi said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
I have no idea how I can test that, apart from what I just did
Put in a resistor for a load (say 10kOhm / 10W), and then measure voltage over that with a multimeter.
This way you'll also get to know if the motion detector actually allows a small current while the light should be "off". Some semiconductor switchers do that, and it causes LED bulbs to do unexpected things sometimes.
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@Polygeekery I think I tried with various combinations of bulbs, some LEDs and some fluorescent (basically, all the bulbs that I had available...) and got the problem with all. Still, since there are 2 bulbs, it is possible that I never tried a combination that had no LED at all. I didn't do any rigorous testing, just putting in whatever I had at hand. I'll try that again, just in case.
The detector isn't that old, so definitely post-LEDs (and when I checked the packaging in the hardware store the other day it definitely mentioned LEDs) but then again we all know how shitty stuff sometimes can be, so... maybe.
Right now the "problem" is that I replaced the detector by a regular switch (because light flicking on and off randomly, but mostly on, gets old very quickly) so any test requires first putting it back, and we all know how strong the
can be.
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@acrow thanks. I thought about something like that but I don't have any electronics stuff available. I'm more a conventional DIY guy, not so much electrics/electronics. So while I have a multimeter and bits of wires available, I don't have any resistors...
I thought about using some kitchen appliance as the load (my first thought was a kettle, which should be a pure resistor) but for reasons that I hope are obvious I'm not too keen on opening them or doing any sort of too-weird plugs to get measuring points!
Still, the next time I decide to look at that detector I'll probably mount it as some sort of switch on an extension cord so I can try various things easily (and also try putting it in different light levels easily, otherwise it's sometimes hard to know if it's triggering or not!).
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@remi said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
we all know how shitty stuff sometimes can be
Sometimes?
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I thought of my standard advice for electronics repair: "99% of the time the failed component is a capacitor."
Which made me consider something, is its default state on or off? As in, if you have a power outage and the power comes back on, are those lights off or are they on and then go off after a period of time without motion?
If it is using capacitor charge or discharge as a "timer" and that capacitor is wearing to the point of being very marginal it could exhibit the symptoms that you are seeing. "Value engineered" electronics are also more susceptible to this in Europe if BigClive is to be believed as 250V rated capacitors are pretty marginal for 220V electrics.
This all came to mind when I woke up and remembered that we used to have a motion activated light that because
also had a switch on it and I thought about how when we would turn it on the lights were on and then would go off after a period of time. I thought about how and why that might work and if a capacitor were charged through the timer potentiometer which then shut off the normally-closed leg of a switching device that would do it. If the PIR were wired to dump that voltage to ground when tripped it would then turn on the lights until it stopped being tripped then it would also start the timing circuit.But this is all speculation and inference without ever even looking at the circuit so
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@Polygeekery that's an interesting idea. I need to re-read your post a couple of times (rather than just skimming it as I just did before replying -- what, do you think posting without reading is somehow limited to external links?!?).
To the basic point: yes, the default state when the thing gets some power is "on". Which could fit with your idea.
Also worth noting (maybe?), the thing has 3 switches to make it always on/always off/use detector. It's actually quite convenient e.g. put it on always on when I'm cleaning the staircase (which are out of sight of the detector) to keep the lights on... After the failure, I initially thought that the "always on/off" buttons still worked (and thus that I could use the detector as a dumb switch, avoiding having to remove it, a net win for the
). But, and this may be because I switched the bulbs I don't know how many times, but at the time I replaced it, both buttons had stopped working. Whatever position I put the thing in, it always stayed in this weird on-and-then-fractionally-off-and-back-on.
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I only skimmed the posts so I might have missed it but have you checked for foreign objects in/around the detector? In particular spider webs can really mess with motion detectors IME.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
250V rated capacitors are
pretty marginalbadly underrated for 220V electrics.220V is the nominal RMS voltage of the AC sine wave. There's a tolerance of ± a few percent above and below that nominal voltage. I'm not sure what that tolerance is, and
to look it up, but let's assume it's 5%. (It wouldn't surprise me if it's as much as 10%.) The actual RMS voltage could be as much as 231V. The peak voltage at the crest of the sine wave is 1.414 x that, 327V.A 250V capacitor should withstand at least 250V. Will it withstand 327V? "You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?"
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@Dragoon said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
I only skimmed the posts
I can see that from your post.
so I might have missed it but have you checked for foreign objects in/around the detector? In particular spider webs can really mess with motion detectors IME.
Nope, none of that. The detector stopped working the day a bulb died, which combined with the overall usual shittiness of the detectors (I did not describe how long it took me to get the thing working when I installed it because I still have PTSD flashes (no, not because the light turns itself on...) when thinking about it) makes me suspect that it took the very first opportunity it could to die in the most stupidest way possible.
As I said, this story is at least 50% (mostly) on-topic rant (and 50% help request, yes).
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@remi said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
I initially assumed that it was something to do with the minimum load on the detectors. I read somewhere that those detectors don't work if the load on the circuit is too small and sure enough, the packaging (I checked last time I went to the hardware store) does mention various minimum loads (depending on the type of bulb, not sure why either). Or at least I assume it's a "minimum" load but the packaging actually only says e.g. "LED, 2W" which is a very crappy way to design your packaging.
Bear in mind two things about incandescent bulbs (might not be relevant to the discussion, but worth remembering anyway):
- When first starting up at room temperature, an incandescent draws about 19 times as much current as when it is at operating temperature. Just briefly, but it does. (The resistance of tungsten, like that of most metals, increases as the temperature increases, and from room temperature to 3000+ Kelvin, its resistance multiplies by about 19.)
- If the bulb blows when it is starting, that high-current state lasts a much longer-than-normal time.(1)
(1) This part is why you need either a very slow-blowing fuse or a circuit breaker or a massively over-rated fuse in a dimmer switch that allows you to turn on directly at maximum power(2), otherwise you have to replace the fuse every time the bulb blows.
(2) Yes, that's a thing. It has the dimmer control and an actual switch. If you leave it at max, but switch the switch off, when you switch it back on, the bulb has to start at 1900% of normal current/power... (A few years back, I had an uplighter on a pole in my living room with an arrangement like that. Since it housed a 200W halogen R7s format bulb, the startup surge current would be north of 15 amps, and that eventually fried the fuse-less dimmer. It was, however, entertaining one night watching a yellowjacket wasp flying repeatedly over the uplighter and eventually dipping down and coming back as a wisp of smoke and a chunk of carbon left in the housing.)
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Value engineered" electronics are also more susceptible to this in Europe if BigClive is to be believed as 250V rated capacitors are pretty marginal for 220V electrics.
It's pretty unlikely that the timing capacitor (assuming it uses one) would be in the high-voltage side. It's normally found in the low-voltage circuitry.
On the other hand, it could be a bad capacitor in the power supply causing erratic behavior.
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@remi said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Also worth noting (maybe?), the thing has 3 switches to make it always on/always off/use detector. It's actually quite convenient e.g. put it on always on when I'm cleaning the staircase (which are out of sight of the detector) to keep the lights on... After the failure, I initially thought that the "always on/off" buttons still worked (and thus that I could use the detector as a dumb switch, avoiding having to remove it, a net win for the ). But, and this may be because I switched the bulbs I don't know how many times, but at the time I replaced it, both buttons had stopped working. Whatever position I put the thing in, it always stayed in this weird on-and-then-fractionally-off-and-back-on.
Given all of that I would almost bet money that you have a dead or dying capacitor in a RCD timing circuit. If it depends on a charged capacitor to keep the circuit switched off but the capacitor is extremely marginal then it could be unable to keep the light turned off no matter where the switch is at.
Or it is run by an epoxy blob and the bulb blowing did something to make it go EOL/BER.
If you want to try fixing it you could try taking it apart and looking for a bulging capacitor or something that is puking its guts out and replace that.
You can diagnose most things by looking for bulging or vomiting capacitors, anything that looks crispy and if that fails there is a really good chance that the hottest component is the one that failed. I would recommend not feeling around on anything hooked directly to mains.
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@Zerosquare said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Value engineered" electronics are also more susceptible to this in Europe if BigClive is to be believed as 250V rated capacitors are pretty marginal for 220V electrics.
It's pretty unlikely that the timing capacitor (assuming it uses one) would be in the high-voltage side. It's normally found in the low-voltage circuitry.
On the other hand, it could be a bad capacitor in the power supply causing erratic behavior.
True. But it likely has an AC-DC power supply in it and if that is putting out bad power it could be switching the DC side off and on and with the light defaulting to on, that could be the issue? Maybe? Hard for me to diagnose something that is in the land of surrender monkeys.
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@Zerosquare said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
On the other hand, it could be a bad capacitor in the power supply causing erratic behavior.
Man, my reading comprehension is rubbish lately. I completely missed this on the first go around. I'm beginning to think that buying that much booze in one go was a bad idea.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Hard for me to diagnose something that is in the land of surrender monkeys.
@remi could send it to me and I'd try fixing it, but I'm not sure it would be worth it when you include the shipping costs.
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@Zerosquare that is a nice offer, and thank you for making it, but it's indeed unlikely to be worth it. Following @Polygeekery's comments I'm more and more convinced that there is indeed something fried inside the thing (as opposed to... I don't know, but something that could be fixed without taking it apart...?). The overall value isn't that large (the cheap models are about 30 bucks, brand-names ones more like 50), and the thing is flimsy enough that on the long run I might not really benefit much by fixing it.
I've still learnt a bit about those things, in particular I had no idea about the whole capacitor-to-turn-it-off thing. Intuitively I would have expected the thing to be off by default, with some system to turn it on, not the other way round, but I know nothing about electronics (so my intuitions are based on "magic happens"). And this explains why it behaves this way, which did puzzle me a lot.
Anyway, when I get bored of turning that switch on and off manually, I'll give it another try making sure I don't use LED bulbs and tweak the potentiometers, just in case. Then I'll stop bothering with it and go spend some more moneyz in the hardware store.
Part of the kitchen extension building work that are currently on-going (and late, but that's no big surprise...) include electricity (duh), and I know I'll have to spend time with the electrician to explain him what I know about the circuits (the house wiring is partly as fucked as @Polygeekery's home, but I'm starting to be familiar with it, so there's no need for another person to loose days figuring it out!). So I will probably take the opportunity to check with him that I haven't done something daft with those detectors.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
I'm beginning to think that buying that much booze in one go was a bad idea.
Sounds like we need to set up a support group to help take some of it off your hands.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
You can diagnose most things by looking for bulging or vomiting capacitors, anything that looks crispy and if that fails there is a really good chance that the hottest component is the one that failed. I would recommend not feeling around on anything hooked directly to mains.
On that note, I have a Fluke 45 multimeter with an exploded capacitor. Any hints on cleaning up the vomit and how likely erosion is?
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@Circuitsoft said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
On that note, I have a Fluke 45 multimeter with an exploded capacitor. Any hints on cleaning up the vomit and how likely erosion is?
Cleanup should be pretty straightforward. Start with water and a toothbrush and if you have anything left after that you can use 90% isopropyl alcohol or acetone, pretty much whatever you want to use really. Just make sure that is is dry before you reinstall it and power it on. When I use water on a PCB I usually follow up with a rinse of isopropyl alcohol just to make sure that all of the water is good and gone and so that it dries much more quickly.
How long have the capacitor guts been on the PCB? If it is a relatively recent event, damage beyond the capacitor is unlikely. If it has been on there a while, and especially if it has been powered on with capacitor juice on the board then it becomes more likely but still not a huge concern. Those boards are pretty tough and made of a high quality FR-4 material.
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@izzion said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
I'm beginning to think that buying that much booze in one go was a bad idea.
Sounds like we need to set up a support group to help take some of it off your hands.
It sounds like you're calling me a quitter.
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@remi said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Anyway, when I get bored of turning that switch on and off manually, I'll give it another try making sure I don't use LED bulbs and tweak the potentiometers, just in case. Then I'll stop bothering with it and go spend some more moneyz in the hardware store.
Here in the land of freedom we have motion activated lights with a feature where if you turn the light ON-OFF-ON they will then stay on until you turn them off again. Judging by how you seem to use this light it might be something worth looking for.
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@Polygeekery: good advice, except the acetone part. While it works for cleaning, it can also cause some plastics parts to melt. Using isopropyl alcohol is safer ; even if it goes where it shouldn't, it generally doesn't cause any damage.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
in a RCD timing circuit.
Good thing you put the abbr in there, because otherwise I would have been left wondering why a Residual Current Device (aka a Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor) needs a timing circuit.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Here in the land of freedom we have motion activated lights with a feature where if you turn the light ON-OFF-ON they will then stay on until you turn them off again. Judging by how you seem to use this light it might be something worth looking for.
The one I have has the two "always on" / "always off" buttons, so I'm not sure how much different the feature you describe is?
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@remi said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
The one I have has the two "always on" / "always off" buttons, so I'm not sure how much different the feature you describe is?
You can turn it always on via a light switch.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
BER.
TIL that that means "Beyond Economic Repair".
Previously I thought that it was just the abbreviation for Berlin's airport.
Which is also beyond economic repair.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Here in the land of freedom we have motion activated lights with a feature where if you turn the light ON-OFF-ON they will then stay on until you turn them off again.
Huh. Turns out mine does this too. TIL.
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@remi said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
Anyway, when I get bored of turning that switch on and off manually, I'll give it another try making sure I don't use LED bulbs and tweak the potentiometers, just in case.
Status: this weekend I
about that.I manipulated the jury to put the detector on a normal plug and bulb socket, so I could try it easily (and also probably frighten to death any electrical engineer who would have seen the thing!). And I started with some old-style incandescent bulb (so no ballast nor anything in the bulb).
Good news, the detector is working!
So based on this discussion, I was left with two hypotheses (or at least that's how I understood all the posts above...): either the detector lets some residual current through that is enough to trigger LED bulbs, or the ballast in LED bulbs discharges a bit later and triggers the detector. I tried with various types of bulbs, all LEDs and CFL bulbs that I had (including some old CFLs that takes a minute or so to reach full light), and they all cause the problem. I think that this mostly goes towards the second hypothesis (something with ballast discharge), though I'm not sure and honestly I don't really care.
I'm still a bit puzzled as I'm pretty sure the original setup (that worked for some time before one bulb blew) did include at least one LED or CFL bulb (I don't remember), but it's been a few months already so maybe not. And I have a second, identical, (working) detector at the top of the stairs and I'm pretty sure that bulb is a CFL. I guess if it's a ballast thing, probably not all bulbs are equal, but it's a shame that I can't identify which ones do or don't (except by testing them). Old or new bulbs can trigger the problem, so it's not just a matter of buying new ones.
Anyway, the key part is that it works fine with incandescent bulbs (which you mostly can't buy anymore, so that's not going to really be a workable solution), and with halogen ones. And it so happens that I had an halogen fixture that I removed from the old kitchen. And that is also nicer than the very basic spots that were in place. So I removed the spots and replaced them by the halogen thing, and put the detector back in place.
Success!
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@BernieTheBernie said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
BER.
TIL that that means "Beyond Economic Repair".
Previously I thought that it was just the abbreviation for Berlin's airport.
Which is also beyond economic repair.Wow, I wasn't aware. We even have a thread for that:
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
This seems to be my general dumping ground for electronics sort of stuff so let me explain how the other night I used my knowledge of electronics and a very expensive lab bench power supply to clear a clogged drain.
The drain from our kitchen sink clogged the other night. I started out with the easy stuff, disassembling the plumbing under the sink, all was good there. I tried using a ShopVac to clear the clog, no luck. I could tell that the clog was somewhere between the trap on the sink drain and somewhere else. On trying to diagnose it further I even disassembled part of the plumbing in the mechanicals area, which is below the sink. No luck.
Eventually I had isolated the clog to somewhere in the ancient piece of vestigial iron pipe that runs down through the wall. No biggie, I break out my drain snake. Fucking hell, it won't bust through. It just sits there and grinds and won't feed through whatever the blockage is.
Well, that tells me exactly what the issue is. Old iron drain pipes are susceptible to "rust bridging". Basically electrolysis or other reactions cause rust to grow inward to the center of the pipe like those weird disc mushrooms you see on decaying trees. Now, normally a drain snake will bust right through them. Or drain cleaner will dissolve them (of which I forgot to mention earlier that was one of the first things that I tried).
Now, I have been meaning to cut out the last of the old iron pipes and replace them....
Side note: You will notice a lot of my stories involve things I have been meaning to do and never got around to. Yes, it is a theme.
But the remaining iron pipes remain because they are going to be real bastards to actually replace. In this case I actually went out to the garage and looked through my stock of plumbing parts and was just going to bite the bullet and get it done. But then I had an epiphany.
"Man, it's a shame I couldn't.....like.....pull that pipe out and use electrolysis to remove the rust blockage."That thought sat in my mind for a moment.
"Hey, I don't need to immerse it in an electrolyte bath......I don't care about the rust on the outside of the pipe. Could I just........use electrolysis in situ?"I ran that thought through my head for a bit and could not see any reason that it wouldn't work or any reason why it should be dangerous to do so......
"Fucking hell, let's do electrolysis in situ."So I go grab my BK Precision 1901 power supply from the basement. I grab the heavy leads I use to charge lead acid batteries with lab power supplies. I go to the garage and find a piece of rebar and use my vice to bend it into a sort of spiral shape to fit into the sink. I take all my stuff to the kitchen. My wife sees all of this and gives me the raised eyebrow.
"What are you gearing up to do?"
"Uhmmmmmm, I am going to try to remove the rust the is blocking the pipe via electrolysis."
"Electrolysis?"
"Yeah, see...." (Insert brief explanation of how electrolysis works)
"Is this safe to do in our kitchen?"
"I do it down in my lab sometimes."
"Is this safe to do in our kitchen?"
"Should be?"
"Should be? This doesn't sound convincing. Will it even work?"
"It should. I guess there's only one way to find out."
"Where's the fire extinguisher?"
"Right outside the door in the garage."So I wrap a stainless steel scrubbing pad around the iron pipe and secure it in place with the negative clamp from the power supply leads. Thankfully the pipe long ago lost its epoxy coating or is old enough that it did not ever have any so that should give me a good connection. I place the spiral of rebar in the sink and hook up the positive lead to that. I then fill the sink and clogged area with enough water to cover my rebar spiral. I need an electrolyte and thought about using salt or washing soda or something and then remembered the drain cleaner. I pour in a cup or so of the sodium hydroxide drain cleaner, wince just a little and turn on my power supply.
Now, I'm not going to lie to you, I was a bit nervous when I did that. Previously I had set the power supply to zero volts and zero amps. I really started to wince when I started turning up the wick on the power supply. The only bad thing I could think of that might happen would be the production of hydrogen and oxygen and even though that should not accumulate to a point where it would be an explosive risk I went ahead and opened the window.
Eventually I decided that 2 amps should in theory do the job and the voltage kept jumping around. I checked my connections and everything looked fine. There was some bubbling as expected and all seemed to be working. The water was also starting to become appropriately scummy and rust colored.
About a half hour later the water suddenly drained out of the sink. My wife was impressed at my ingenuity. I was probably more impressed than she was that it worked at all. I was kind of afraid that it would not work as I had always read that you need "line of sight" from rust cathode to sacrificial anodes.
Today I went and picked up the last of the PVC parts I will need to replace the iron pipe under the sink. Anyone want to wager on whether I get around to that before it clogs up again? Or before it starts leaking because my electrolysis ate most of the ancient iron pipe away?
This was an example of ingenuity that I was particularly proud of. As a counterpoint to that and an example of dumbass ideas that did not turn out so well, last night I thought it would be a good idea to clean some wire shelving in my shower. It was here when we moved in and previously held pool chemicals that came with the house. At some point, for some fucking reason, I decided that spraying the rust spots with hydrochloric acid would be a good idea.
It was in fact a fucking horrible idea. In a turn of events that Ray Charles could have seen coming I gassed myself and made my bathroom smell like a chemistry lab after a "workplace incident". I had to shoo the dogs out of the area because they kept sneezing and I had to run to my shop and grab a respirator so I could stand to go back in and rinse everything off and down the drain as best I could with burning eyes that were obscured by tears. The exhaust fan in the bathroom was not exactly in prime shape before this galaxy brain plan and I would wager this did not do it any favors.
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@Polygeekery said in Mostly not internet, and mostly just as shit as you make it:
At some point, for some fucking reason, I decided that spraying the rust spots with hydrochloric acid would be a good idea.
It was in fact a fucking horrible idea. In a turn of events that Ray Charles could have seen coming I gassed myself ... I had to ... go back in and rinse everything off and down the drain as best I could with burning eyes that were obscured by tears. The exhaust fan in the bathroom was not exactly in prime shape before this galaxy brain plan and I would wager this did not do it any favors.If you fill a a 30-gallon drum with molar sodium hydroxide, and mount it from the ceiling on a tipping hinge with a rope pull, it can act as an emergency neutralizing rinse.
Neway...Someone did pretty much that, but with nitric acid, in our one goddamn lab day of the week, outside of any of the fume hoods, and I am still mad at them for it a couple decades later.
