Random slightly cool stuff you built but not worth its own thread, thread

[ThePog]

6 minutes ago, anglia4 said:

That’s awesome!

I’ve got a freebie spa that im Working on at the moment. Planning to put a heating loop of black pipe on the roof to supplement it. Maybe some kind of fire also.

Its surprisingly expensive to run a spa. Unfortunately the boss is insinuating that there is little point to a spa if you cant just get in whenever, so I may have to look at constant heating options...

[SOHC]

13 hours ago, ThePog said:

Actually its tonight

I made something similar to this but the water would get so hot if it wasn't moving through the coil fast enough it would melt the buteline pipe, 

[ThePog]

Yea before the rad popped you could hear the water boiling and see bubbles coming through. So I imagined some bad things could happen. The other coil is a bit slower so probably better.

[SOHC]

4 hours ago, ThePog said:

Yea before the rad popped you could hear the water boiling and see bubbles coming through. So I imagined some bad things could happen. The other coil is a bit slower so probably better.

Yes i had super heated steam coming out of the tap that was so hot it vaporized the washers 

[SOHC]

I forged this tool for capping off expansion chambers, to fill with compressed air to pop out dents, I made a few of thees but they get borrowed and never returned 

[h4nd]

That's way cool, but surely heaps safer to use water - like from a waterblaster. (Less spring pressure in the gas)

[SOHC]

[h4nd]

I finally got some WFH done after a grot week with a cold, and I had the office window open, so tonight I tidied up the wiring and software for an MH-Z19B  CO2 sensor I bought years ago.

I guess I'll just shove it in a cardboard box now, with hot glue.

(Arduino library here:  https://github.com/WifWaf/MH-Z19)

[h4nd]

Hmmmm. That figures

 

[NickJ]

910ppm?! did you get the Dai to idle overnight?

[Lord Gruntfuttock]

Did other wood bin. Cut some discs out of the copper footing and found a brass one from something I'd made earlier to blank off the holes. Had visions of a beautifully free flowing solder job...

But it was really hard, turns out a copper bin is a huge heat sink, so when doing the big one the other ones just slid off... 
Eventually got there, and after sanding and dent hammering clear coated it...

And done, looks ok I guess....
 

But bloke at work was just saying he got $150 scrap each for 2 smaller copper cylinders. Not sure it was worth the hassle/breathing in all the dust, could have just bought some bins, but that's not the OS way... 

[h4nd]

1 hour ago, NickJ said:

910ppm?! did you get the Dai to idle overnight?

Just existing in a small bedroom/office while making kiddo a low rent gameboy.

Keeping the door shut so as not to wake middy and kiddy

[h4nd]

Mora Arduino crap:

from this recipe: https://www.hackster.io/turingTurtle/esp8266-mini-gaming-console-236d58

 

[SOHC]

It was too expensive to get some channels folded up for the motorcycle trailer so $20 in reinforcing steel and I made some, was a ridiculous amount of welding but I only have $42 invested in the trailer.

[ThePog]

Cranking the redneck spa again, its about 2 hours to get to 38deg which isnt too bad. Altho you do need to be there to keep the fire stoked.

 

It always amuses me that for a while at least there is condensation on the pipes enveloped in flame.

 

[NickJ]

I can understand your DGAF attitude more now I see that your spa is in direct line of sight to the neighbours

[ThePog]

22 minutes ago, NickJ said:

I can understand your DGAF attitude more now I see that your spa is in direct line of sight to the neighbours

Na the extensive real estate holdings of the pog empire means that that is our actual house. The only one spying on my magnificent manlyness porpoising in the spa is the middy.

Of note is that the shed is significantly better appointed than the house as you can see.

[NickJ]

wait, your shed has an outdoor entertainment area and spa?

Gods walk among us

[Adoom]

So the new shoots of my grape vines keep getting fucked by late frosts. I had no luck at all using frost cloth. It's also super tedious to put on cause I've got 40m of grape.... erm fence.
So this spring I made a thing.
Frost doesn't like water cause it's warmer than ice so I put sprinklers over them.

I put some extra sprayers at low spots to drain the pipe when it's off. I don't want the water freezing in there making it useless.

But I'm not gonna manually turn that shit on early in the morning.
So I dug up an old arduino board.
And bought a relay thingy and a waterproof temp sensor and a 24 volt solenoid valve thingy(not pictured) for the outside tap.
And hot glue. Lots of hot glue so stuff stays plugged in.

Old laptop power brick is perfect for the solenoid valve.
My sketch checks the temperature every 10 seconds. If it drops below 0.5 degrees it turns on the water for 60 seconds. Then turns it off and waits 5 minutes before looping back to checking the temperature again.
I had some 'stunt frost' for testing.

The brass solenoid valve is screwed directly to the outside tap which is attached to the brick facade of the house. It's pretty loud when it thumps on, I think it might be loud enough to wake me up.

Hopefully I'll get some grapes this year, if the birds don't steal them all.

 

[Nominal]

8 hours ago, Adoom said:

 

Hopefully I'll get some grapes this year, if the birds don't steal them all.

 

We got some of these (probably a bigger size)

100Pcs Fruit Protection Nylon Mesh Net Bags with Drawstring-M | The Warehouse

Worked pretty well in keeping the birds off long enough to get some grapes to eat.