Generator trials (by alaric)

Yesterday, my friend Mike (who is interested in generators) was around, so we tested the generator out with the cable I made.

It could run the computers, or the fridges and freezers, without straining; I couldn't try running everything at once since I don't have the spur in my cable yet to reach both bits of the house.

We tried running the kettle on it, since it's a 2kW kettle and a 2.1kW generator, and when the kettle was switched on you could hear the generator rev up to deal with the load, then when the kettle clicked off, the generator settled down again.

I wonder how the generator actually outputs AC - the revving up and down would imply that it's not just a synchronous generator. Also, when I hooked it up to an oscilloscope, it showed some kind of spiky noise at a few hundred Hz (nicely synchronised to the 50Hz sine wave) - so perhaps it's a DC generator running an inverter with voltage and frequency regulation?

The computers ran fine with the noise - but the UPS was suspicious of it and thought the incoming frequency was fluctuating between 50Hz and 80-90Hz, so kept switching to battery and back again. In the long run this would probably run the battery out, so I may have to build some kind of low-pass filter (at scary mains voltages and high currents!), just to stop it panicking.

Talking ’bout my generation (by alaric)

Since, as I mentioned before, the generator has 16A IEC 60309 weatherproof power outlets:

...I had to order special bits to make a nice lead for it. Well, they arrived today (along with a 20 litre petrol can), so I've made my nice lead:

Doesn't that look like it was bought in a shop rather than home-made? Nice arctic-grade PVC cable, since it'll need to run outside (we're not running the genset indoors!)

Well, that's the prototype of it. I have the same length of cable again plus a second set of sockets. I need to get a junction box to run the second set off, since we will need backup power on both floors of the house.

Since it took forever to get the nice white grommet on the cable where it goes into the twin socket, rather than redo it, I'll just cut the wire a metre back from the sockets to put the junction box on, making this just a little spur in a long cable.

And if there are any problems with power factors, I'll put appropriate reactive components in the junction box (plus test points so I can use my dual-trace scope to get voltage and current traces), too.

Costco (by alaric)

Ah, the benefits of having a limited company!

We're now members of CostCo, a wholesaler of general retaillable things. Which means we can go to their nice warehouse, flash our membership cards, and load up on bulk packs of all sorts of stuff, generally quite cheap (although some of their stuff is more expensive than on the high street; it pays to check carefully).

This, however, is great for stocking up on food for Christmas, printer paper, and so on...

And handily, they sell generators. Since we're a bit worried about power cuts here interrupting my ability to work, we've picked up a generator capable of running the PCs and freezers for a few hours before needing refuelling.

I've had to order a special plug, though - it has a 16A weatherproof socket on it:

...so I'm making up a custom extension cable starting with one of those and ending up with two different sets of 13A outlets, so we can run the computers (upstairs) and the freezers/ADSL router (downstairs)

Religion (by alaric)

A friend visited over the weekend, and we got chatting about religion, which got me bringing out my copy of the Tao Te Ching.

I liked the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching; my translation tried to preserve the translator's interpretation of the meaning of the text into modern English, which makes it pretty approachable; I know that I'm going to be missing some of the 'original meaning', but I won't get that unless I learn ancient Chinese, so so be it. But either way, it was pretty close to the philosophy of life I'd developed myself.

And yet, I can see how people can turn it into a religion. The Tao Te Ching, as I read it, is about the fact that the universe is a large complex system full of interrelationships and feedback loops and so on; that attempts to take control of it aggressively will tend to lead to failure, since it is not something you can master, and that success is to be had in seeing yourself as a part of this complex system (ecosystem, economy, society, ...) and striking a balance between letting it carry you around in its eddies and gently guiding yourself in the way you want, while accepting that your guidance is merely guidance and not absolute control, and that the gentler your guidance is the more effective it is likely to be - and the less extreme the side effects.

However, somebody with a different mindset could read the text and see "the Tao" as meaning "an omnipresent sentient God". My interpretation of "the Tao" is something more akin to "chaos theory".

My visiting friend had heard from somewhere that Taoism was a 'bit scary', and I confessed that despite having avidly enjoyed the Tao Te Ching, I really had no idea how "modern Taoism" worked as a religion, so I did a bit of research.

Rotten.com's writeup on Taoism seems quite good - as I had suspected, some folks had gone and converted a philosophy into a religion. Sigh. There are Taoist temples?

A state may be ruled by (measures of) correction; weapons of war may be used with crafty dexterity; (but) the kingdom is made one's own (only) by freedom from action and purpose. How do I know that it is so? By these facts:--In the kingdom the multiplication of prohibitive enactments increases the poverty of the people; the more implements to add to their profit that the people have, the greater disorder is there in the state and clan; the more acts of crafty dexterity that men possess, the more do strange contrivances appear; the more display there is of legislation, the more thieves and robbers there are.

The Tao Te Ching, verse 57

Amen, brother!

Nostalgia (by alaric)

This morning, I went downstairs. It was chilly, and the light outside was slightly grey. I lit the fire.

This brought about intense nostalgia!

My mother's house was mainly heated by fireplaces, so this is the kind of thing I would have been doing on non-school days during late autumn and winter when I was a kid. And for some reason, I've always liked this time of year more than the summer. It's a time for staying indoors, looking out into the twilight, as I worked on exciting projects, alone or with my friend Lorenz.

It also reminds me of a time when computer games were more fun. Indeed, I was struck by a strong desire to play StarGoose.

Looks like I'll have to resurrect my 486 and install DOS, though...