...forty centuries look down on us

Phrase in the title  is the quotation  from Napoleon Bonaparte. That way he inspired french soldiers  before battle against Mameluke cavalry. (At that time Mameluke army considered to be invincible). It is hard to tell how important  that inspirational speech was  but result is well known: Napoleon army won. 

Sculpture on the image above maybe not so heroic: it is "Seated Scribe" from Paris Louvre museum. But he belongs to  the same place: Egypt and  his age is pretty close to  forty centuries (at least thirty five). I first saw him in the history text book while I was in the middle school . Picture of him stood out  because, unlike all other illustrations in that book, subject of it was neither warrior nor king. Not even hard working slave. He was (as we call such a people nowadays) office worker . And that why I remembered him. 

Many years later during visit to Paris I met the guy again  and I was glad to see him.  The same way I would be glad to meet old buddy after many years of separation.

Louvre rules allow making photos under conditions that no flash will be fired and there will be no commercial use. I had a DSLR camera with me: Pentax K200D with basic kit lens (18-55 mm). The camera (10 MB sensor) was modest  even at that time  (2010). But lighting in the museum was excellent so even hand held I could make a decent photo.

Since I have to work from home now (lucky me to keep the job these days) I wanted to decorate my place with some artifact to keep me focused. And this picture of seated scribe suites me the best. I printed that photo at local Costco and hanged it right in front of my desk. If this guy can keep his focus for > 3500 years I can keep mine for several month. 

If somebody wants to know photo EXIF details, here they are:

• Camera Model: Pentax K200D
• Lens: SMC Pentax-DA 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL II
• Focal length: 28.1mm (35mm equivalent: 42mm)
• Exposure Time: 1/50s (0.020)
• Aperture: F/4.0
• ISO Equivalent: 200

(I still have the lens but do not have the camera anymore: I gave it as a gift and often miss it.)

Pump it Up

My stand air pump got broken. Actually just one part of it got broken: handle. But how one can use  hand pump without the handle? Bike pump is not expensive to replace, but at time of corona-virus pandemic nothing is easy. A lot of stores are closed, hardware places (like Home Depot) are opened but you have to stay in the line to get in (and that face mask you need to wear). On-line orders takes weeks to be delivered unless you willing to pay premium price. These are strong reasons not to buy the new pump but  to fix the old one. Fix did not require anything to purchase: all components I found in my shed. And I was lucky that pump rod ends with thread, so nuts could be screwed on it.

On the photo above you see the pump without the handle and elements needed for the fix: two metal strips which I bought once on OHS closeout sale for pennies, piece of wooden stick, couple of screws, some nuts and  washers.

I drilled holes in the middle of strips and secured strips on the pump rod with two nuts and Grover washer :

Than, I prepared wooden handle and attached it to metal strips with screws:

And to make it look nice I painted handle in a grey color. How does it look?

And one last photo. Stand pump is OK for the bike but for car wheels it is too weak. I do have an electric 12V  car pump. It works OK but here is the problem, while working it may break fuse on the car electric system. (It is  not just the theory, it happened for me twice: both times I first attached pump end to the wheel and then turn the pump on).  The solution would be to power pump by home electricity. Indeed I do have 120V  power supply producing 12V/30A output and that can handle the electric pump load easy. So I attached to that supply cigarette lighter socket. Now pump can be powered up by the the regular AC source.

Willys Truck

I shot this picture last March at the shore of Lake Tahoe. My family and myself spent couple days there to get some skying at Heavenly. Normally in March there should be a lot of snow but not this year.  Once I took our cooker spaniel for walking. Next to the beach I found this nice truck  parked. It looked antique but well maintained.   A baby boomers couple  together with their dog (probably Irish Setter ) were sitting  in the car cabin. I could not recognize the car brand, so I  asked. The owner told me that it is 1955 Willys Truck. I am not very familiar with old American cars but Willys, of course, associated with famous army Jeep. The fact that Willys made trucks was unknown for me.   Was this truck really authentic? Alas, not. Owner explained that he actually built it out of three old trucks, one of them was Ford Bronco (car made at least 10 years later). And the small wheel on the side was not the part of original design:  just for fun.
I asked permission to picture  the trunk and owners kindly allowed. I did not have camera on me, but I did have a phone and made couple of shots. After that we started walking back to the motel. On our way back the truck passed alone. The engine worked loudly (as any motor of the car made more then sixty years ago), but  steady. While not authentic that restoration still was a really good job.
Next day we drove back to Bay Area. I checked my work e-mail box and read the  news: because of corona-virus outbreak  our office is closed and we ordered to work remotely. Several days later governor of California issued   shelter-in-place order across the whole state. This Tahoe trip  will be memorized as the last trip before the big change.

Here We Go

For a long time, I wanted to have an application to keep my personal data in place. My requirements were next:

• It should be lightweight and minimalistic.
• It must present protected (hidden) and open (visible) data in the single set.
• It should make the process of data input/edition easy, but still protects this data from an accidental unintentional change.

And here let me show you the one which I eventually built.

This application is written in Go. It is not a real Windows GUI but rather TUI and it uses an excellent Go package "rivo/tview" as the foundation. It looks and feels less like modern Windows commercial programs, but more like old fashioned PC Dos application.  Still, it does whatever expected in an efficient and straightforward way.

The terminal screen consists of two areas:

• Top menu

• Table with User Records

The application starts with a single argument: the path to the file with data storage. Storage is encoded and password protected. If such storage does not exist, the application will ask you to enter the new password and will create new storage.

At the start, the application puts focus on the top menu. Hitting "Enter", while button "Select" is in focus, move the focus to the table. To put the focus back on the top menu use "Esc".To navigate through the menu or the table user must use arrow keys.

Numbers of table rows and columns are unlimited but it is unlikely somebody will use more than a hundred rows or more than 3..5 columns. Each rows contains one cell (Record Name), which is always visible, and several values. Values on each row may be either all visible or all hidden.

The application supports four modes:

• Clipboard-on-Enter. If the user hits "Enter" on the selected cell its content is copied into the clipboard.
• Clipboard-on-Select. During navigation content of the selected cell is copied into the clipboard.
• Visible-on-Enter. If the user hits "Enter" on the selected cell with hidden content it becomes visible. When the cell becomes unselected its content becomes hidden again.
• Visible-on-Select. If the user selects the cell with hidden content it becomes visible. When the cell becomes unselected its content becomes hidden again.

The user may add new records (button "Add") or edit existing (button "Edit"). To edit existing record select record on the table, then by "Esc" go to the top menu and hit button "Edit". The record may be extended with one extra value. If there is a need to add several extra values repeat the process several times. The short clip below illustrates how the program works.

Source code is available  https://github.com/jumbleview/tspur . The project "readme" contains some additional details regarding its dependencies, platform support, how to build it and run the demo. If you will find the approach useful feel free to take this application as is or use it as a starting point for your own project.

Update 4/29/20. Optional and limited support of Git added to the project.

It would be not wise to keep a file with data only locally. Keeping it somewhere on remote storage provides data reliability and the ability to access it from different computers. Git repository looks like the obvious choice. It is assumed that a user will create a private repository with some Git provider and clone it locally. If "tspur" sees that data storage is located on the directory with working git tree it adds button "Git" to the top menu. That button may trigger a chain of git operations, namely: stages file with data, commits it, and pushes it to the remote. 

June 2024 update.  I published post about  current application state https://www.jumbleview.info/2024/06/four-years-in-usage.html

Home Improvement at Time of Coronavirus Outbreak

It is time to look for help from a screwdriver. No, I do not have in mind a mix of orange juice and vodka. There is no evidence it can serve as coronavirus remedy or prevention, alas. I am speaking about regular #2 Philips screwdriver which anybody can find in his toolbox.

Here is the story. What is the first step in fighting the coronavirus spreading? If you can't answer it at once, look for  Google "DO the FIVE" reminder. The first item on the list is "1. HANDS wash them often".  It seems easy to implement. But don't jump into conclusion. To wash my hands I have to reach the faucet in our bathroom. And here is the problem: doorknob.

You see: to open the door I have to grip the doorknob with my hand. And what if my hands already contaminated? Do you know how long that coronavirus can live on a metal?  Nobody can tell for sure but time can vary from several hours to several days. The solution? Change the doorknob with a levered door handle. I did not even need to buy one. One of our closets doors has the handle, so I only needed to switch places between the knob and the handle. And the only tool needed was a screwdriver. Here is the result: 

I hope such a  solution will serve me well even when the pandemic is over. I still may enjoy this improvement when I'll come home from the garage or backyard with my hands dirty.

Be safe! Keep calm and carry on.

Less than Six Miles Apart

South San Francisco and Daly City are two neighboring cities in the San Francisco Peninsula. They are really close. Driving form one to another should take less than fifteen minutes.  

But that not how FedEx delivery service sees it. Here is my post about the small observational project which I would like to share with you, my friends.

I bought the book on Amazon. The book was used and I bought it from the SFGoodwill Amazon store. I work at Daly City and ordered delivery there. My assumption was that as far as SFGoodwill for sure means Goodwill of San Francisco even the cheapest delivery should not take long. Indeed pretty soon I got a delivery notification.  Item arrived at South San Francisco FedEx location. Based on that I expected delivery the next day. But,  alas, that not how it worked. The book was shipped to Sacramento, one hundred miles to the northeast either form South San Francisco or Daly City. After a couple of reroutes through the Sacramento FedEx locations, it was eventually moved to USPS and arrived at the destination. How that happened? The most probable explanation would be human error, right? One operator made a mistake and put the parcel into the wrong bin. It is good that eventually that was fixed.

Still, the human error idea needs to be verified. I looked into SFGoodwill Amazon store, found one more used book which had some value for me and ordered it, then tracked the package. Guess what?  The route was exactly the same: South San Francisco->Sacramento->Daly City.

Why it works that way?  Mystery. Sure SFGoodwill tries to find the cheapest service and probably FedEx Smartpost (which means the last leg of delivery is made by USPS) meets that expectation. But why FedEx ships it to Sacramento? Hard to tell. One thing I am sure Chuck Noland  (if you watched "Cast Away" you know what I am talking about) would make that delivery in a more efficient way.

Update 10/10/2020.
Recently I have bought used film SLR camera on e-Bay. Seller (on the East Coast) asked me is it OK to send it via FedEx. Of course I agreed and asked about tracking number. That gives me one more observation data point. The package traveled several days through the USA (looks like in the efficient way).  It arrived into Needles: small town in South California. From there it was moved to Stockton (almost San Francisco Bay Area). Guess what happened next? It moved to the north: Sacramento. And from there back to the south through the Fairfield straight to our house. Chuck Noland! Can you hear me!? You can do better!

Power-Up

I paid $3 for this drill at the local garage sale. The battery was dead (as you can expect from several years old NiCd battery) but the motor was OK.  I decided to fix it with an external power supply. The battery output was 14.4 V. It is hard to find any supply with such a voltage, but 12 V sources are ubiquitous.   Inside e-waste bin at my job I found one with 6 A current output. That should be enough to power the drill, right? So I removed the battery from the unit, dissembled terminals from it, attached barrel jack to terminals, and assembled unit back. Now time to test. Alas, the result of the test was not exactly   I expected.  Indeed drill worked, but only if I pull the trigger slowly. Make it fast and behavior of drill becomes strange. Its chack starts to rotate and then immediately stops. On the clip below you can see it with the voltmeter showing voltage applied to the drill.

This clip shows that voltage drops to zero unless I squeeze the trigger slow enough. Is there an explanation for such an effect? Could it be fixed?
I believe I have answers to both these questions. Two things influence the drill start. First, there is an inrush current, which is the maximal instantaneous input current drawn by an electric motor when it first turned on. While under normal load this drill needs 3-4 A of electrical current, at the moment of start it may draw twice or even thrice more. So for some time (till motor reaches stable rotation), current may exceed  6A for which supply is rated. And now the second thing comes into the picture:  power supply is sophisticated enough to protect itself from the overload. As a result of that protection, it shuts itself down. As soon trigger is released, voltage is restored. 
But why does it work if the trigger is pulled slowly? Modern drill trigger is a variable speed device. It not just switch but power regulator. If it is engaged partially only partial voltage is applied to the motor, so inrush current is not that big. While rotor speed increases created by the rotation back EMF (electromagnetic force) limits the current through the motor winding.
Here is the remedy to the fast start problem: limit electrical current at the initial stage. To test this statement I tried resistor with 0.3 Ohm resistance and 10 Watt power rate. Indeed fast start effect is gone but  I did not like how it worked. Under the normal load, when current reaches 3 A, more than one volt dropped on the resistor and less than eleven volts applied to the drill.  And the resistor becomes hot.
So It tried another approach: inductor.  Inductor possesses big resistance to variable current but small resistance to direct current. Means, during start when current jumps from zero, the inductance will limit current but it will have no effect during stable rotation. Here is Toroid Inductor I bought on Amazon (several pieces for $2 all).  You can see it next to a penny  (for size comparison).

This inductor is rated for 100 micro Henry of inductance and 6 A of current. Current is OK, sure,  but what about inductance? The test shows it works as needed: drill could be turned on fast enough and no voltage drops when the drill is up to the speed.

Some more details regarding this project and how I build it you can find on Instructables site .

Lock & Unlock

This post again about Ford Taurus 2006 (as of today ~171000 miles). While officially it is still mine, my son mostly drives it nowadays. On one of his trips (either Berkeley or maybe Oakland), there was an unsuccessful attempt to burglarize the parked car. Nothing was stolen but the car door lock was irreparably broken.  At the photo below you can see it.

So there was the need to replace this lock. On eBay, I have found a lock service package which suites our car. That package allows assembling the lock so existing car key will fit. Assembling the lock and replacing the old lock with the new one was relatively an easy task but as usual with some caveats. On the photo below, you can see the kit and all the tools needed for the job.

Apart from the kit, there was a need in the next set:

• Vernier Caliper (to measure existing key for recreating lock steps codes). Given the fact that steps differences are more than 1 mm, a good ruler may work as well.
• The hook custom made out of inexpensive awl.
• Philipps screwdriver.
• Ratchet with 7mm socket and extender.

Assembling the lock and fitting the key was straightforward. I just need to follow enclosed instruction.

The package is universal: not all packed elements were needed, but instruction gives enough details to understand what to use and what not to for your model. 

Next step was replacing the old lock with the new one. First  I have found this video. As all videos from 1aauto.com it is excellent and all that you need to remove and install back Ford Taurus door panel. 

 

But, alas, that video tells nothing about lock replacement. So I have found another one:

While it is not well polished as the first,  it contains some very valuable tips. Based on that video I may describe next steps to replace the door look (assuming door panel already removed):

1. Unscrew with 7mm sockets two bolts holding the door handle. That will make handle loose but not enough to take out the lock.

2. The door handle has a metal rod attached. The bottom end of this rod is secured with plastic clip to the door wall. On the snapshot below (I made it out of the second video)  you can see that clip (left bottom part of the picture) opened up. To open it up I used the metal hook, which I showed early. 

After that, I moved the handle out far enough to get access to the lock.

3. Then there was the need to remove e-clip from the back of the lock cylinder and take out lock lever.

4. The last step was to move to the left metal clip, which secures lock on the door. The snapshot below ( from the second video: many thanks to its creator) shows exactly where it is.

The new lock installation is straightforward:

1. Putting new lock into the place.
2. Securing it with the metal clip.
3. Putting the lock lever back to the lock cylinder.
4. Securing lever on the cylinder with e-clip (either from the kit or old one).
5.  Screwing back two bolts into the door handle.
6. Putting the bottom end of the rod into the plastic clip and closing the clip.
7. Installing the back door panel.

Job is done! 

Steel and Plywood

I found this HDD rack in an e-waste bin. It supposed to be sent away and eventually destroyed. What was its destination? To be melted in the furnace? Or to end its days in the garbage collector?

I feel sorry for this well-made steel guy and wanted to prolong its life.  Can I find some use in it?

Wide opening (probably served for better air ventilation) on one of the sidewall reminded me of an open human mouth. So here came an idea: make office supply organizer and give it some humanoid like look. Below you can see the result.

This was an easy project.  In addition to the rack, I needed several pieces of plywood, a few screws, some glue: nothing special to buy. Overall it cost me nothing. But it serves its new purpose well.

• It has two compartments to hold pens or pencils.
• It has a panel to accommodate several push-pins.
• Its rim can be used for keeping paper clips. 
• It has a compartment for small items like SD card, thumb drive, or staplers.
• There is even hook to hold penknife.

Given the fact that the project is very simple, I hesitated to publish it. But eventually, I submitted it to "Trash to Treasure" Instructables contest. To my surprise, it was "featured" by one of the site editors. It happened to be my tenth "featured" Instructables project.  Now I am the proud winner of site silver medal (10+ featured projects). Where is the medal? Actually, the medal is virtual and only site visitors can see it. Anyway, Hooray! 

Through the Soratama Glass

There will be not much text in this post (mostly pictures). I recently acquired new toy: Soratama glass lens attachment. While it is relatively inexpensive (~$50), it provides a way to take non-standard pictures. I found it is even more interesting than a fisheye lens.   Here are some samples from the first session, which I  shot in our front yard:

Metal Butterfly 

 

Red Pot

 

The Rooster

The usage of this photo gear is simple.  First I needed to put the "soratama" in front of my digital camera macro lens. The distance between the lens and the glass ball should be big enough to allow the camera to focus on the ball. Soratama arrived with 20mm extension tube, I had attached it (by scotch) to the old Takumar hood which has approximately the same diameter (72 mm). Hood I had put on Pentax DA 35mm limited macro lens with help of 49mm-58mm step-up ring. Below is the picture of the whole setup:

• Pentax K-01 mirrorless digital camera.
• Pentax DA 35mm Limited Macro lens.
• Polaroid 49-58mm step up ring. 
• Old Takumar hood for telelenses (58mm mount size).
• Soratama 72 mm with 72mm x 20 mm extensions tube.

Shooting itself was confusing at first: the image on the  LCD screen was seen upside down.  But eventually, it was not that hard to get used to.  I shot in raw and processed images (upside-down rotation,  exposure tweaking, some cropping) with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018.

Update 11/28/2019: One more picture: Pentax Q-S1 + Pentax Q-K adapter + Sigma 24 MM Wide II Macro + 72mm Soratama

 

Corrosion

Here is again my 2006 Ford Taurus (~161000 miles) with new problem.  Cabin fan stopped to  work at any speed apart of  maximal. For me it looked like very strange malfunctioning. While it is not that crucial  but still annoying. I shared my frustration with  co-worker, who owns and maintains himself Ford Taurus 1994 and he (without even looking) provided me with diagnostic: there is need to change motor blower resistor.

As you can see online estimate was not really encouraging. Price of repair is comparable with KBB trade-in value of my car. No way I am going to pay it. Some more online, search gave me this video:

Immediately after watching I ordered replacement  part (~$20 with delivery) and made the fix. Works like a charm. After that I decided to look at the broken part (photo of it you can see at the very beginning of this post). Why it stopped working? On the photo you can see how corroded  it is. But was it the actual reason? To answer the question one needs first to understand how device works. The schematic is fairly simple: three resistors and thermal fuse connected sequentially . Control switch selects how many resistors stays in the circuit, limiting the motor electrical current. Thermal fuse has to prevent overheating. It should blow-up when temperature exceeds allowed value (~ 121 degree of Fahrenheit). At the highest speed switch connects motor directly to the ground bypassing the resistors and fuse. That why motor works at maximal speed even if resistor circuit interrupted.

Visual inspection of resistors did not show any damage, so my guess was that indeed blown fuse caused the malfunctioning. I cleaned from rust some spots on contact plates and tested resistance of the circuit. If fuse is blown resistance should be infinite. But to my surprise I have found that it is not infinite, but rather small (several Ohms). That what you expect from the normal working device. The only reasonable conclusion would be: because of corrosion there was no electrical connectivity between device and socket contacts. As a result blower motor stopped working at any speed below maximal.

Keep it Cool!

Last year my 2006 Ford Taurus (~157 000 miles) started to loose some coolant. Mechanic, while performing  regular maintenance service, told me it is due to replace water pump. Should I invest ~ 600$ in repair or save some money and do that myself? After some hesitation I decided to proceed myself. First of all I collected as mush information as possibly of what to do and how. Two YouTube clips came exceptionally useful. This one is about the whole process.

Second one is about changing serpentine belt tensioner. Even if there is no need to change it, one need to remove belt and all related components to get access to the water pump.

Both these clips are probably all what you need to know to replace water pump on the Ford Taurus 1996-2006 year. I myself cannot add much to that apart of telling some additional tips regarding tools used.

•  From my experience set of metric wrenches 8,10,13,15 and the same set of sockets gives enough flexibility to unscrew and screw back all bolts of this project. Just pay an attention that 13 mm socket has to be deep. Regular short socket will be not good for some bolts mounting water pump.
• To unscrew and then put back belt tensioner there is need in torx bit. Unfortunately second video mistakenly states that bit has to be T27 size. This is wrong.  For me size T50 worked well.
• Second video shows nice tip of attaching bigger wrench to the 15 mm, making release of tensioner easy. Like this:
      
•  That worked for me, apart of the fact that due to my inexperience 15 mm wrench slipped out of my hand and fell down. I had a trouble to get it back. To avoid such a mistake again I put some tape on the joint. Because of that the pair of wrenches worked as single tool. After the job done it was easy to remove tape and separate wrenches.
  
   
• One of dis-assembling steps is to detach heater hose from the water pump. That sounds easy, but... I tried to pull hose as hard as I can without any success (later on I found that big buildup at the end of water pump pipe, as seen on first picture, was the cause) . Then I watched first video one more time and at 1:47 found the answer. Mechanic used special hook to separate hose form the water pump pipe. I made myself  similar out of inexpensive awl. That helped.
  

So here is the conclusion. It is doable to replace water pump even if you are inexperienced mechanic. You just need the garage, some inexpensive tools and online access to order parts and find proper info.