"New" garage organization technique

 First, I didn't reorganize the garage because the stocks kept rising. I hope they stop so I can cash in to get brush nickel finish steel cabinets all around the garage walls.

Then I hope the stocks rise again so I have the money to reorganize the garage properly.

Next I am not sure if I still want the house so it was fruitless to revamp the garage.

Finally, I learned to work with what I have, including the wooden shelves and on-wall planks that the previous owner or his tenants built many years ago. I also have many things brought over the years but never put them on, including two pegboards.

I never use the pegboards much. Say if I took five tools out for the weekend, I wouldn't have remembered where and how to put them back in the same place. I know the usual technique is to draw an outline of the tool on the pegboard but that's too inflexible. I fix sprinklers, do oil change and customize curtains. I need to be able to organize as I go along.

My garage is in a mess because without a plan, I am afraid if I put something out of sight, I would not be able to recall where it is.

In the end, I think I nailed it with the help of computers. Computerization is one big possible solution since the 60's, but the difference is, nowadays it's so easy to take pictures. You have the phone all the time and it's linked to the cloud. The cheapest smart phone will give you enough resolution for documents without scanning, just what spies do.

It's not just building a database. It's like unifying the paradigms, virtually and in real life.

So my pegboard isn't just pegboard, but pegboard with icons! I bet nobody posted those pictures yet. Each icon has a pinched hole for hanging on the pegs. No glue and totally flexible.

For power tools, they are on a horizontal "pegboard". I borrowed the idea elsewhere that is like a long box with partitions. Since I have wall shelves, I immediately got the top and bottom of the box without doing anything. I don't need no partition as they are just for the cords.

I was thinking of many ways to fix the tools in position. Metal brackets are too expensive at over $2 a piece. Can use PVC but I need one PVC plug and coupling for each vertical fat peg. I don't do woodwork since I do not have the space to put up with a table saw. Then it dawned on me that I can simply use long nails! In the picture you can see 4 nails for each tool driving into the wooden shelf board at an angle. The icons have punch holes that hangs on the nails.

It is surprisingly flexible. If I want to change position, I can just pull out the nails. Come to think of it, why we need pegboards in the 1st place? Can we use nails instead of pegs?

Crius cross, Crius square

See what I've done? For PVC structures the Tee is the expensive part and the most restrictive part. Now I can get rid of it in many circumstances.

Say if you want to pack a lot of pipes close together to form a raft like structure. It's not possible with Tee's because of the minimum distance between two pipes. Now you can pack two pipes side by side close to about two PVC pipe wall thickness.

Say if you build a pet cage out of pure PVC pipes. Now you just need a outer frame with rigid Tee's. The "walls" of the cage can be lined with pipes secured by Crius crosses.

Unlike Tee's, now it is not limited to PVC. You can use EMT or PEX for environmental friendliness. And since they are designed to be incompatible with different diameters, so for us there's always something to clip it secure.

Sometimes one clip is not secure enough for the pipe diameter, especially using the Crius cross. You can use concentric Crius clips - the Crius square.

By varying the arc length, it can be very hard to take off the clip unless slipping it sideways. On the other hand, using two clips side by side make it harder to slip sideways.

And if you apply some glue, it's not possible to take them out in many cases.

The problem with professionals writing DIY articles

Looking professional

The article looks good, professional, and the article is written by a different professional writers too. As a result, mostly likely it doesn't accept comments. Any comments would make the article seems unworkable, too difficult for DIYers. So here I am writing this to response to all those who don't accept comments.

Instead of taking time to explain to inexperienced DIYers that have a job to do, these articles have to look professional with a fluent flow of words. Who cares? Under the disguise of plain everyday English, these are concise well written instructions suitable for technical journals and trade magazines. Who cares when I just brought a few dollars of screws and want the job done yesterday?

Too often, the final writer doesn't understand a word what the professional is saying, and sacrifice the content to give the article a professional look - that's how they make money. This is true about all the instruction manuals in the world. The Europeans got rid of words in manuals. The Chinese use their kids to write something that no one will understand anyway, since you ask for it.

Jargons

How many knows what is a door jamb? Do I have to look at the dictionary or Wikipedia or Google every time I came across a term? I know you have a term for everything. But that comes with experience. Since I don't have the money to hire you, can I skip the experience? Is the word jamb necessary? Do I have to learn every part of the door to fix it?

Unnecessary jargons should be avoided. Also a standalone diagram will be great. Some articles seem to be written on the dawn of the internet. They try to save bandwidth by not having diagrams to explain simple things. A pic worth a thousand words. And they may point you to some encyclopedia for the diagrams that's good if you want to get into the trade. I don't.

Two-dimensional thinking

Come on, it's a three-dimensional world. You may have a preferred plane of reference in your trade. But to us mere mortals the world is 3D. What is the center? Of what?

Thinking inside a box

All articles of fixing a sagging door seems to come from the same source. It recommends replacing short screws with 3" ones. It's impossible to screw it in without a pilot hole, I tried. But then you can't find a 3" drill for screws that size. Not in the chain hardware stores. What a waste of time!

That's all for now ...

Tapioca starch miracle: deodorizer , shampoo and body wash

Two to four teaspoons of tapioca starch per cup of water. Pour on dry hair and this alone is a deodorizing shampoo. Massage evenly into hair. Rinse thoroughly after a minute.

I have oily hair. Even if I wash with pure Castile soap and leather twice daily I still smell. If I'm not careful, it's not smell, but horrible smell soon after shampoo. The kind that people accidentally came close within a feet will bounce back and cover their noses. But after I got the smell, a tapioca starch shampoo alone can remove the smell immediately. It's not a cover up. The hair 'smell' better into the day when the very mild starch odour disappears.

I have tried baking soda. A lot of it in a paste enough to pour on hair and massage into it. To my surprise it doesn't work.

My theory is that the root/scalp has oil that repulse water. If you apply soap/detergent, it's like washing a grease filter with soap/detergent. It won't work as detergent works on the surface and cannot handle bulk grease. Baking soda can deal with grease but it doesn't work on scalp. Maybe dry or wet, the coarse particles cannot reach the scalp. All shampoos have the formula to reach the scalp but then they are too strong and strip away oil on the shaft.

Of course tapioca starch (and similar starch) used in cooking is an oil emulsifier. It doesn't dissolve in water nor thicken cold water so water is a good carrier of it. Shake well so the starch is evenly in the water bottle. Just pour and the starch will reach the scalp.

You can use dry tapioca starch but I doubt it will reach the scalp as efficiently as a water mixture.

Now I'm using dilute castile soap and tapioca starch mixture. They don't seem to cancel each other. With soap it's easier to tell if the mixture reached your scalp. It seems the mixture stays on the scalp longer and it is easier to massage into it. The soap also smell nice, with moisturizer and acidic balance.

My hair can take straight liquid Castile soap (or solid bar), which is already mild. Diluted is enough as long as I don't smell. With tapioca I think I don't. I have little helpers to check it. It seems that I can use less tapioca with soap in it.

Wet shampoo isn't a bad thing because that's how to rehydrate skin and scalp. But you need moisturizer to go with it. Castile soap have lots of it. If you don't want soap with tapioca starch, you can add your own ingredient.  But be careful, I tried to thicken the starch water mixture with Guar gum but it's a disaster.

If you search for tapioca, you can find the better home made articles for personal care. It is used in many commercial things like dry shampoo, deodorizer. 

For my soap tapioca mixture, it's a deodorizing shampoo and body wash all in one, how convenient. It's also a 'conditioner' too as you don't need one. It's almost as easy to use as a bottle of concentrated shampoo, but preparing a bottle for each kid is a bit of work. I'm trying to figure that out.

Food grade instant fly killer

This is a cost effective, more convenient improvement of my previous fly killers.

Two squirt of food grade liquid soap, such as Dr Bronners, or just any soap/detergent. Mix with 40% or less alcohol. Vodka is 40%. You can find rice wine approaching that at a lower cost. Or you can just dilute with water cheap first-aid rubbing alcohol at 70% or 90% to 40%. 

Ideally you need a spray bottle that can deliver a strong narrow conic stream at one to two feet. But most bottles will do.

Previously, a little soapy solution can stop flies flying, or they have to stop nearby. Diluted alcohol can do the same. So combining them is a good thing.

Previously, I find that only 70% alcohol can kill flies almost instantly. They are struggling a bit but cannot move far and will die soon. Diluted alcohol can also kill but seems to be slower. Adding soapy solution seems to increase the kill speed. I tried 40% but I think lower concentration will be sure kill too.

I woke up in a heat wave and killed 4 flies at the patio door.

Putting science in home made shampoo to avoid disaster

There are just too much info on the net that good articles are well hidden. Firstly, people avoid off the shelf shampoo for various reasons, animal testing, environmental, harmful substances, customization, money saving.

I read a few disasters all because many 'recipe' are worse than cooking receipts, no quantity, no how, and no steps.

Reasons for no 'poo

The strongest reason was to avoid SLS, which is almost universal in cleaning products. The reason was that a toxic trace substance was detected in SLS, not SLS itself is proven harmful. FDA didn't set a limit on that toxic thing, relying on manufacturers to self regulate.  I think the reason is that the toxic substance shouldn't be there at all. It's either the chemical process generates the substance unknowingly, or the plants are contaminated.

I think the problem is eliminated now as this is under so many watchful eyes. But obviously all the contaminated SLS bottles were sold because the FDA must be thinking that short term exposure to the toxic substance is not critical. And that how do you recall all cleaning products?

The funny thing is that some people when they sport the word L on a shampoo bottle, they call the manufacturer and ask why it is still there. In the chemical world, if the compound is slightly differently named, the process to produce it is different, and that the batch will not be the same as the contaminated SLS batch.

Know your hair type

The best hair 'conditioner' is natural 'oil' produced at roots in the scalp, with the theory of evolution to back it up. It's is very light and makes your hair shiny. The problem is, with any detergent or soap, every very mild, the oil is stripped off. You may feel dry and lack of conditioning. So you apply artificial conditioner that makes you feel good, if only for a later part of the day. Then you feel dirty and sticky, and have to wash your hair the next day.

I have oily hair but thought I has dry hair because that's what I feel after shampoo. I always use conditioner until when I went no 'poo for a while (to save money) my fingers feel so perfect running through my hair.

If you have oily, the danger is that if you stop using a strong shampoo, you may develop dandruff, the kind caused by high bacteria activity feeding on scalp oil. If you have dry hair, some innocent ingredients could be a very strong oil stripper if you use it incorrectly, eg, baking soda.

Castile Soap

The other definition of oily hair is: if you use pure liquid Castile soap such as Dr Bronner's, no matter how much clean you feel after you shampoo everyday, your hair will smell in no time! I though it was due to something else, but it happened to me again and again, even with twice lathering and rinsing. You can add this to the one of the disasters. This is even worse as you cannot smell your head, everybody knows except you.

Other than the big problem, my hair feels great with daily shampoo.

The other misconception is that soap is bad. Real soap is good as you make moisturizer when making soap - glycerin, which has healing properties as reported on research papers. But manufacturers take out the glycerin, sell the soap and sell the glycerin to make cosmetics or moisturizing shampoo or body wash.

Baking soda

Baking soda emulsifies oil, or may be absorb/dissolve oil. There is no way detergent can deal with the grease under microwave hood filters, no matter how much you pour on it, but baking soda remove all the grease just by gentle rubbing baking soda powder on it. Dissolved in water, baking soda does nothing. And baking soda is highly soluble.

So, when people copy baking soda rinse, it can be anything and disaster can happen.

Some clever girl use BS for deep cleansing after oil treatment. She got a mess on her head of course. Like when I wash oil filter with BS. You have a paste of BS and oil on your head. It's worse with coconut oil as it is solid or semi-solid in room temperature.

If you have oily hair, it's rather difficult to get the BS onto your scalp. Also, any powder can be bad for the lung system. I tried to saturate water with BS so there is a lot of white powder left in the water. Then I shake the bottle and pour and massage onto my scalp. I would think this is a case of not enough cleaning on the scalp and too much on the shaft.

But I think other than it is slightly alkaline, my skin doesn't seem to like it. I always rinse thoroughly. That bring out another potential disaster. If you don't rinse enough, or you think it will be more effective by leaving in your hair for a while, it could be dangerous. pH I think is log scale. So you have to dilute with a lot of water to move down the scale to neutral. The same is true if you think leaving your hair acidic will help to maintain the natural pH of hair. Did you measure the pH?

Acidic rinse

I think a vinegar rinse (dilute) after baking soda make sense. BS do not decompose so you have to neutralize it. But vinegar is organic (from living things) so excess of it may decompose to harmless materials.

Also, after acidic rinse, my hair feel fluffy immediately. I have to say it works. But it just too much work and that I can't explain to kids why my hair stinks after shampoo.

I was trying to be clever to use lemon juice, the crystal version of it is cheap and convenient. I knew it would lighten hair under the sun so I use little, 1/8 teaspoon per cup. But still the hair lightens. I have dark hair so it's a disaster if I didn't notice it until later.

Another author claimed that her hair is damaged after 3 years and have pictures to show for it. I think a likely cause is she neutralize the BS on her head without enough rinsing and with neat vinegar. I wash my carpet that way - sprinkle on carpet BS and replace carpet shampoo on a steamer (carpet washer) with vinegar. It's very effective that way but I can't explain it chemically.

I think just the dissolving of BS in water is a non-insignificant reaction. The neutralizing of BS is not just releasing carbon dioxide but something else in the transient state. Anyhow, the lesson is, it should take 3 days or 3 weeks to discover any disaster, and watch carefully.

I might try other fruit juice that do not belong to the citric family. Aloe or guava. Some of them contain the other organic acid that is used for treating dandruff. The cost isn't much higher than citric crystals but it is inconvenient if you do that day in day out. And that part of my body skin don't seem to like baking soda.

Flour and starch

Then I discovered somebody using flour to wash hair. That make a lot of sense as cooks have been emulsifying oil since the dawn of time, making sauces. Immediately I thought of one of my fav ingredients - tapioca starch, which is commonly used in several continents.

It's a teen movie star recipe to treat acne and pores. Let it dry on the skin and absorbs all the grease around the pores. It's dry and bacteria can't survive on it.

But then I'm not original. Many uses corn starch. Flour is sticky, starch is less and tapioca starch is least. It is also finer than corn starch I think. It is also used in dry shampoo!

I don't want to breath powder. And to deliver starch powder to the scalp, I use a bottle to shake water with a lot of starch in it. Before it settle I pour it onto dry scalp, so I know where the starch went. After leaving it for a while on the scalp, I rinse and then finish with some castile soap. In contrast to using soap alone daily, my scalp doesn't smell (so far) and my dandruff seems to be almost invisible.

Next time will be my experiments on conditioner.

From IP Security camers to security video archives

IP cams are really cheap now, as low as $30 if you do not need HD. For indoors, can they can replace window door sensors, PIR motion sensors with much easier installation, operation and maintenance. If the window moves, the motion will trigger the cam to send images to any device connected to the internet, trigger an warning alarm to any smart phone connected to the internet, and or trigger an alarm connected to the cam.

For outdoors, uniformed personal are at their best behaviour when they pass by.  Never have any cold door to door calls since, nor spam materials left at my door. And those persistence vandals went to great lengths to test the system and piss me off when they don't dare to challenge the cams directly.

My advice is to get some cams with local storage, from buffering for a few hours of images to a cyclic long term storage. With cyclic storage, the cam can store the most current X GB of images or the latest 7 days or images. Otherwise the cheaper the cam the more work you need.

Also, do you need HD? As a security deterrent, DVD quality is way better than analog tapes used for decades. HD may capture more faces and license plates at longer distances, but there's no guarantee. The disadvantages is that the complexity increases multiple folds down the line. You need a good wifi signal to sustain the higher bit rate. You need a lot more storage. File transfers and processing are also longer.

Power outage

Interestingly, after a total power outage, everything went up by itself! The cable modem and wifi router is expected. Others include, an old router converted to a wireless ethernet bridge, a pair of powerline ethernet, both to extend the wifi range to outdoors. The cheapest cams themselves are solid, though a bit tricky to setup without manual and support.

Image recording

There is no problem of viewing video from the cams over the internet at 30 fps, but recording them is a total different story. If you record the video or image sequence directly, you need a MS Windows computer and an big external USB drive. MS seems to be open source in China so they will not think of supporting or developing anything else. That is bloody inconvenient with all the power consumption and the sole use of a computer for 24/7.

You can use the cloud but say Amazon charge by operating hours and data going out.

Motion detection

Motion detection is a good way to reduce storage, but ... The record speed is totally different.  The cams can push out a normal video at 30 fps but for motion detection, it can only send out via emails or ftp at about 1 frames per second.

I don't think it's the processing power of the cams but the limitation of the network pipes. Remember that for ftp, the client have to download several files concurrently to be efficient?

I brought the Tinycam Android app hopefully to store faster on a spare phone. I don't know if it's only me, but for motion detection with Tinycam I can get only about 1 fps, and in addition, longer delay than straight from the IP cams. Without motion detection, you can record the normal video or image sequence straight without problems.

In conclusion, if you can afford storage for a few days continuously at 1 fps, you don't need motion detection. For outdoors with moving plants and car pass by, you don't save that much.

Night vision

Also, on-board night vision is pretty good unless you need facial recognition at high priority. But night vision is not enough for motion detection. You can spend $10 for a inferred security light, which surely triggers the on-board motion detector when the lights turn on.

Image transfer

Practically, I have 1 image per second recorded on my device, when motion is detected. Cloud storage is out of the question as you have to pay 24/7. Paying for an ftp service is about the same for a few dollars per month. But you pay forever.

An Android device is good for storing the images, a spare phone, a TV box or a stick computer attached to your TV. If you have a spare phone you can use it as a cam too. It's low power, out of the way, and can be left on 24/7.

I have a stick computer and in theory if I plug a 64 GB flash drive or SDCARD into it, all my problems are solved.

The problem is, processing and retrieving on Android is very limiting. I tried a few FTP server on Android. All are good and reliable. But I think Android changed the security mode since 4+ so unless your phone is rooted, you cannot receive files in a sub folder, and you can't even delete files remotely.

All the FTP servers I tried do not support cyclic deletion. So you have to delete old files manually or via a scheduler. Again I see no good scheduler or just no scheduler if you phone is not rooted. Also because flash drive and SDcard usually use FAT, the number of files in a folder is limited. Anyway, I got errors when the number of files that the server received become huge, while I still a couple of GB spare storage on the phone.

Apps such as Tinycam seems to solve the problems. But instead of multiple cams working in parallel hardware, now the phone has to process all the image detection of all cams. It's not too bad, but I find it lagging.

So, an Android device is only good for buffering the images. You need a computer to retrieve the images for "permanently" storage, processing, organizing and retrieval.

I have a huge number of images in a single folder received by the FTP server. It's highly inconvenient to do anything with it or to organize them and send them to the computer.

So I wrote a script in Android to parse the file names and put them into folders, eg, 2014/09/02/camid. I ended up learning to code my 1st Ruby program and executed in Ruboto, Ruby on Android. Now deleting old files and getting new files to remote places are easy.

I even wrote a Ruby script to get files via ftp so as to automate the whole process. But the problem is, if you remember, ftp request need to be concurrent to be fast. I can write Ruby codes for that but I rather use Filezilla in Ubuntu. It's not too bad. You can download all subfolders. You can set not to download duplicated file names. You can still delete files, which will still be there but with 0 size. These are not features of Filezilla but the limitation of ftp servers on Android.

Image retrieval

My aim is to identify every tiny sneaky trick that my persistent vandals tried on my property. It's not easy if I have only a huge number of jpg files.

On Android you have two decent apps to deal with the huge number of files. Quickpic can display huge numbers of thumb nails and allow you to glide through them with your fingers. It's not difficult to spot changes by your eyes when consecutive images are mostly identical. However there's no page up and down buttons so you will not miss when scrolling. Quickpic also did some dirty tricks like 'cookies', leaving some nasty hidden things on the file system so other apps may crash.

Then I discovered time lapse video. This is exactly when you want when you have a huge number of jpg files. The Lapse it app can handle that number of images fast. But the problem is, you cannot go back in time when you spotted someone just walked across the cam. Sadly, if this works, you don't need a computer and everything could be done in a standalone Android.

Computer processing

I can download directly the folder structure on the Android, ie, 2014/09/02/camid. But still I have the same Ruby script on Android (with slight modifications) that parse each filename and put them in the right folder (strictly speaking, directory). I can sync the files on both devices easily and reliably.

Do you remember that analog security recorders have time stamp? If you can find one IP cam that have the option. The problem is, mass produced chips don't do that. It degrades the image, increase the size, and need extra processing. The time stamp is always on the file anyway.

In addition, my recording is not linear, ie, a burst of images only when motion is detected. This made any manual attempt to get an idea of time difficult.

If you watch a video, you spot something and pause, but how do you find out what that time is?

So I add write a script to add a time stamp to every image, according to the info on the file name. It's a pain to use the time info such as modified time of the file. When you copy, most likely the time stamp is not copied. Android doesn't allow you to move a file across different media, such as internal storage, SDcard and USB drive. The program is 'convert', standard in Linux.

There's no usable time lapse programs on Linux to view the sequences. Many time lapse apps cannot set the duration to below 1 sec. Also there's too much overhead to go to the the correct directly and specify the files. It's extremely difficult to go back and forth to find something in a frame.

Creating a security video

I ended up creating a video from the sequences. That's the last thing I tried because many video editors cam import sequences, but it's way too much overhead. And then you have you record each image into video format, which is slow for an old spare computer.

I tried Openshot, Avidemux, which is pretty much like the old Dub, all of which I made a lot of different types of video. Then it dawned on me that the standard linux command avconv can import sequences as easy as video files.

My luck changed when I remembered mpeg, which is just jpg's stacking together into a video. It's fast to put the images into a video with .mpeg as the video file extension. But actually, jpg is also really the video codec for mpeg so the right convert option is '-codec copy'. The conversion rate is over 100 fps for an old computer, while it is slower than real time (<30 conversion="" format="" fps="" if="" is="" p="" real="" required.="">
One more thing. The importing needs the file be named imageXXX.jpg, where XXX stand for consecutive numbers. That forced me to write more Ruby codes. But at the end, you just need on script to store and sort the files, and another to create a video.

Ebay / Amazon LED bulbs tubes safety and quality

It's a pleasure to plan for your house for the next 20 years. I put it off again and again using the cheapest replacement stuff and hope that they will rot soon so I can do a proper job when come round to it.

I hate CFL, and much more when I notice that they contains mercury. For the 4 ft fluorescent tubes in the kitchen, they are hard to reach inside the ceiling. But CFL bulbs will be everywhere, many near the switch in lamps.

I brought a lot of good stuff online and particularly cheap from eBay. Then I worry about their safety. Here's my research after the fact. So I may be biased to make myself feel better.

LED can generate high energy beam a bit like laser (!). So if you are replacing over 100 watt bulbs, don't look at the tiny bright squares, or make sure they are well diffused by shade. The new squares are higher power and smaller. It's not more dangerous than looking at bright spots, and the sun is the extreme case. And for high power new round bulbs, they don't use tiny squares anymore but have a continuous coating on the bulb, which distributes light more even.

LED use semiconductor to generate blue light, then the yellow phosphorous coating turns the blue light into white light. There's no UV generated at any stage, or there's no significant source. CFL is basically a mercury lamp that generates UV. The white coating of a CFL turns the UV into white light. The problem is that the coating are seldom perfect, leaking UV.

The tiny square chips are probably made in Taiwan or S Korea. You can measure the size and know the chip model. They are made in huge lots and if there are problems you will hear about it in many different products.

The chips aren't that hot but they are tiny so they need huge heat sinks to draw the heat away to prevent the chip from frying. So I would think there's virtually no fire risk, just the risk of malfunction even if you seal off the bulb.

LEDs work on DC so there's a voltage adaptor inside each bulb or tube, like those of portable computers or many other electronics. Because the circuit is simple, cowboy factories in China could produce a finished product totally via trial and error without proper design. (I have used a battery charger with just a resistor inside.) However, I would think it's really hard to create a potential fault to generate a fire. And anybody with any common sense will put together something with popular chips and standard circuits.So I would test the bulbs extensively for the 1st few days and would not worry about it anymore, unless you have something high power that you have to leave unsupervised sometimes.

Also, bulbs and tubes are naturally well insulated, and they are out of touch. And most lamps have grounds.

Well, as for the quality, you can always return it if you "know" that it's not satisfactory. So avoid buying something from the far east when you have to pay for the return shipping, unless if you have to, and that you can tell if the device is good or bad right away. These merchants aren't trying to rip everybody off. I brought a few silent clock mechanism. One doesn't work after a couple of months and the seller just refunded me without needing to return the faulty one. One seller asked me for a picture of the faulty inkjet cartridge and then replace it without return. I also got free batteries because I complained that the battery is faulty but later I found out in fact it's my flashlight. The seller replaced it without me returning it.

First of all, many LEDs are not instant on, but they call it instant on even with a power on delay for a fraction of a sec to a sec. "Instant on" is a comparison to good old fluorescent tubes that flickers a bit before steady. I have a quick electronic starter so my old fluorescent tubes are almost instant on, faster than it's LED replacement.

Power on delay is probably due to the voltage adaptors. LEDs are instant. I also think that energy efficient bulbs are more likely to have a delay. I have very cheap energy star rated CFLs from IKEA that are almost instant start, but you can barely see anything until a minute later.

Power on delay is something you can get use to it, especially if the bulb is half the price and it saves more energy. But imagine that you rush to the bathroom in the middle of the night, flip the switch and shoot, only to find out that you did it too soon before you see the target.

The previous owner of the house (or the builder) put an energy saving compact fluorescent tube in the bathroom inside the master bedroom. It was at least a decade old CFL. It flickers a lot before it lights up. I swear I will open up that odd thing in the bathroom ceiling when it stops working. I don't even know that it's a CFL. It never stopped working.

I gave up on flipping the switch. When I can see something after the flickering, I would have finished or I couldn't afford to wait. So I often shoot in the dark.  That's only half the bathroom with only the toilet in it.

As for the brightness, you can tell if you put the old bulb side by side. The color temperature is a big deal but only in reviews to persuade you to buy more expensive bulbs. If you want to match your other incandescent bulbs you need the same color temperature range and CRI of near 100%. If you replace everything with LEDs, they will probably match if you buy the same brand, use the same technology (eg, yellow square) and at the same color temp range.

Honestly I don't give a fuss about the color temperature. For the kitchen or workspace you may want anything daylight (with sun) or cool white (cool than sunny daylight with overcast). It's also best for makeup since one need to look good at least when going out under the sun. In other case warm white is more relaxed but how warm doesn't make a lot of difference to the eye comfort. I know your million dollar home is designed to look best for incandescent lighting. But then it have to look at daytime right? So the CRI is really a fuss for nothing.

The power used and the efficient really doesn't matter that much. If the running cost is $1 a year, what's the difference can it made? Especially when the bulb is half the price? I know it's not as green as it can be but you have done your part by looking at the specs. There's nothing you can do if the seller misreport by 10%. Also, if the bulb is affordable, doesn't need 20 years to break even, you are already doing something good by buying it now.

I hate CFL's. I only brought them when my old bulbs went out. I discovered that I can hear them, everyone of them.

But I hate my 4 ft fluorescent tubes more, there are four of them in the kitchen.  Seldom all 4 of them works. I have a quick starter so they are almost instant on and seldom flickers. But only if they works. I suspect that the quick starter reduced the life of tubes a lot. I can see black burnt marks every where near the connectors. And that the paint on the metal housing directly above the tubes have some sort of heat pattern.

When the tubes are near fail, it takes minutes for any tube to become bright, if only at all. At those times I never know if I should replace the decade old starter or just new cheap tubes, or new expensive tubes. Until I saw affordable LED replacements. Now I don't hear the tubes at all and I hope I don't need to open the ceiling anymore for the next 20 years.

Now, if only they can make the fridge shut up.

Telemarketing combined with door to door?

I discovered a worrying and very annoying trend, that telemarketing is being combined with door to door sales. I searched on the net and can't find anything about it.

I discovered this only after I changed over to VOIP and the telemarketing guys can't really get to me. All they can get is to my voicemail if I allow them. But then they find something else to get to me!

First somebody called from a local number. I answered the phone but they hang up. Soon, but not immediate, somebody knock on my door. Obviously, it dawned on me that they called to make sure somebody is home to answer the door! However, I would think this is some desperate local business promotion. They have my phone number and my address because I once patronized them. So it's legal to call me. Of course it's legal to hang up, especially I don't know who hang up on me. Still, these business hire some marketing company to do the dirty work and risk annoying their local customers.

Now the others are big guys like solar, energy, windows. They sent a whole team to "invade" whole neighbourhoods. They drop off truck loads of mostly out of work but presentable people on a neighbourhood in day time, and then pick them up at sunset. How do they use the telephone?

No, they don't worry nobody answers the door. They have time, the whole day. They want to make sure that you are not at home! They already know that the "decision maker" blocked them one way or the other, either telemarketing or door to door. They watch you until you went to work. Then they call to see if the wife or somebody other than the decision maker is at home to gain entry. This is evil.

I have received calls at home when I worked at home in those days, but at a time just when I was out!

It's absolutely not tinfoil that they watch me. They just do. Once there was a farm promotion. I told the door to door guy that I don't deal with grocery and my wife is not around. When my wife return home and parked the car on the driveway, the guy soon knock on the door. But I don't think they sit in a car watching like a PI. They drive around or walk around in the neighbourhood and made sure that they visit my wife when she returns before sunset.

The best defence against door to door is a security cam. They don't seem to like it. If you have those cheap ones with blinking led's and able to turn around and pick up sound. They will probably leave you alone in the 1st place because you wouldn't need to go to the door and have plenty of time to decide not to open the door for bullshit. Our house is full of windows and it's impolite not to open the door to told them to go away when they see you near the windows.

But then even neighbour kids are nervous to come to your door when they know that you have a security cam.

How to wall mount cheap power strips and add electrical outlets where you want as much as you want

I want to add electrical outlets and usb charging ports in a lot of places around the house for portable computers, tablets, phones and such. I have been thinking for years but no cost effective solutions.

Adding inside wall mount outlets is the ultimate solution but they are actually not cheap, and a lot of hassle to open up the dry wall. With a cheap oscillator tool and a bundled wall cutter, it's trivial to open up the drywall, but you still have dust and you have to paint over patches that isn't covered by the new wall socket plates.

USB in wall sockets are way over priced, considering that adaptors comes "free" with your device. I don't think they can fast charge the iPad's while some high current charger for the iPad's may damage your Android phone (I've heard).

Power strips are attractive. In the same spot you may need an outlet for the computer, an USB for the phone and one for a tablet. With the extension cord, basically you can add them where you want them. But the problem is, the mounting holes are trash. I've been using them for years. It's only OK if you leave it on the ground or hang over some screws. If you need to plug and unplug occasionally, they just come off from the mounting screws.

In the past, you can open up the power strip, screw the bottom onto the wall securely, and then put the cover back on with screws. For reasons of safety or cost, they don't do it anymore, at least not on a few dollar power strips.

All of a sudden, it dawned on me that I can sacrifice two earth pins as the mounting holes. If you mount the strip on a vertical stud, it will never come off. As they are mostly for electronics, the earth pins are never used.

If you have doubts, unscrew the strip and take a look inside if it is possible and safe to wall mount like that. But for the cheap strips from hardware store, you can do it easily and safely.

The earth pin socket are usually connected by two horizontal rails on the sides of the socket, with nothing blocking the bottom housing. A screw will pass through the plastic bottom and straight into the wall.

By construction, the earth pin will be well isolated from the other pins so after mounting, the screws will still only be connected to earth. You don't worry about exposed earth because some appliances with metal cases are just earthed outside. Earth is a safety pin and normally nothing happens over it. You can also cover the screw with a piece of insulating electrical tape of the same color.

No, cheap outlets don't have USB's but USB adaptors/chargers are cheap and plentiful. Pick some with national lab certified. If you want, you can glue it on the power strip too.

Replace aluminum security patio sliding door rollers

I found many sliding door repair or replacement videos on Youtube but I almost gave up when nothing applies to my patio door. I cannot lift the door out of the track from inside. It could be lifted out of the track from outside, but I have to take down the still panel first. The still half of the door seems to be securely installed with no screws in sight.

Thanks to allaboutdoors.com, you can just take the sliding door frame apart without lifting it out of the track.

You may try this if you cannot lift the door out to replace the rollers. Or if the fixed panel seems to be impossible to disassemble. But first of all, I think you need a security door with strong glass. Otherwise you need to be careful with the glass panel.

1. Locate the side screws holding the frame together.

It's near the top and the bottom.  Only do one side at a time. You should be able to see the screws. The other hole is for inserting a screw driver to adjust the rollers.

2. Unscrew the two visible screws holding the frame together and notice where the "sockets" are inside the top and bottom panel (for later alignment).

3. With a small hammer and a smaller block of wood, knock off the vertical side frame gently from bottom to top a little bit at a time.  Repeat the bottom to top process until the frame comes off.

4. For my particular model, keep knocking sideways until the vertical side frame pull the roller assembly out completely via a T-shaped metal strip on the assembly.

5. Rotate the T strip 90 degrees and take out from the slot of the side frame.

6. Now go to buy the same roller assembly.

7. Put the rubber gasket in position on the glass edge. Put the side frame in position ready to be knocked back in.

8. Put the T strip back in the slot of the side frame, rotate back to the normal position to be inserted into the bottom frame. You may need a little lifting of the door. I just hold and lift on the glass panel. If it's too heavy you may need a helper.

9. The key is to align the top and bottom holding screws before you insert the side frame back. Partially screw in both screws.

10. Tighten both screws and the side frame will go back to position. You will help by knocking a block of wood on the side of the frame. Repeat tighten the screws and knock of the sides gently.

11. Do the other side, same thing. One man job mostly.

How to get rid of water in underground sprinkler pipes and fix tee thread joint leaks with minimal digging

Some of the pop-up sprinkler in the lawn leaks.  It's not the sprinkler.  Must be the threaded joint in the tee down below or worse. It turns out that my ex-gardener used a metal nipple to joint the tee below to the sprinkler.  That means he repaired the bad thread by making it worse.  I don't know how many he did.  If the sprinklers are not near the concrete driveway, it's hardly noticeable.

It's never easy to replace a section of PVC pipe, not to mention an underground tee piece.  You need at least two bulky unions or worse, two extendable repair pipe sections.  The total cost is silly when a tee is some 20 cents.  For me the labour cost is infinite as I have to dig out enough soil for all those things to get in and under.

I searched the net for ideas and found only one video inspiring.  Of course it is in you-tube.  All credit to him.  What he did was drill the thread joint to enlarge it to become a slip joint.  And sand down a short pvc section to glue to it.  Then you can attach anything to the other end, use a shorter sprinkler or install a flexible swing joint.

After drilling the thread joint on the tee, I think it's easier to drill enough so you can screw in a pvc male section, or just a threaded nipple that you would normally use.  So it depends.  If the thread are very loose, it may be easier to turn it into a full slip joint.  My threads are all "screwed up" so I can't even screw in a nipple.  After drilling with a 3/4" wood hole drill, I can screw in a nipple and have a rather rigid joint.  The nipple doesn't wobble.  There seems to be some good thread left or the bad thread still holds the nipple in position.   If I use PVC glue to seal the thread it would be better than a slip joint.  The PVC glue weld both pieces together to form one single piece with the same thermal properties.

Now the only thing to do is to dry the tee and apply the glue.  It turns out to be impossible.  Closing the water supply, turning on the valves doesn't drain the pipes.  Taking off the entire sprinkler down the slope doesn't drain the pipes.  Blowing air into the pipe with my air bed pump will get rid of water for a moment until more water come back.  I searched the web for ideas and time and time again they use air compressor to force water out of the pipes and out of the other sprinklers.

I don't have an air compressor and it's silly to rent one for a simple job.  I have a hand pump that is ideal but it is for oil change.  I can still use it but then I will be polluting if I just pour the water down the drain.  Pond pumps will be ideal for 1/4" tubes but they don't have inlets.

You-tube have plenty of water pumps that use electric air pump as the driving force.  The problem is that you can't get an air tube down the tee bottom with enough space for an inlet/outlet tube.  Without that you can't lift water with air - the principle of air lift pumps.  I spent a few days in experiments on and off to realize that.

The other possibility is venturi water pump.  But water pumps using that principle are probably not using that principle.

Just when I'm ready to order a real water pump I remembered that I have this:

 

It's as good a pump as anything.  I repaired the broken tube with packing tape, and taped a 1/2" pvc pipe to the hose end.  I have the 1/2" to 1/4" tubing adaptor.  It takes less than a minute to suck out all the water, not even one bucket full.  I also have a wet vac which is easier to attach a pipe to it.  Silly me.  But then I have no idea why everybody use compress air to blow out.

All the time and effort works out.  I saved some money and delivery time.  I learned some science.  I don't need to spend money on tools I already have with superior performance.  The pay off will be coming when I have to check and repair god knows how many sprinklers.