To carry on from the last post. There were two more items that have been added. The original fridge to the trailer was long gone, but it came with a little 120V bar fridge. I figured that this would draw too much current plugged into the converter box and it would eat up the battery quickly that we went to WalMart and purchased a 12V Coleman cooler. With this purchase I ran a 12V wire from my electrical junction to where the fridge and installed a cigarette lighter plug for it to plug into. This will also likely come in handy if I need to charge a phone.
The second item is that there was a propane light fixture at the front of the trailer and it was beat up. The fixture didn't stay onto the fitting and orifice off of the propane line. Also I would need a new mantle and globe, which would likely be difficult to source replacements for the originals. I looked online and I found a few propane fixtures that I could purchase, but none were quite what I was looking for and neither was the price. I had an idea that I should extend the pipe and put a ninety degree elbow onto it and from there put the same fitting as a throw-away 1lb propane bottle. I already had a camp light and there are propane trees that people tap into with lights so I figure this is a good idea to go with. I searched online and found a local distributor here in Calgary, Fairview Fittings.
With my limited experience selling brass fittings at Home Hardware in Rimbey, AB, I knew that I needed brass and that I was coming off of a steel tube that I would likely need a compression fitting. On my first trip to Fairview I was less informed than I needed to be. I knew there was a milled nut on the end going into the original light fitting, but I didn't know what that meant. I came to mean that the tube was flared and that I should go right off of that nut, but I didn't know the size of the nut. So on round two I came back with the fitting from the light, so that I would get the right one. It happened to be a 3/8" flare, from there I went into a 3" nipple so that I could get away from the wall a bit more, into a 90 degree elbow up which reduced it to the size that the Primus fitting required. The Primus fitting is the same thread as the 1 lb throw away propane bottles. I shall test it out this weekend, as we are going to take the trailer out on it's maiden voyage (for us) and there won't be electric to plug into so the light may come in handy.
The thing I have learned so far doing these repairs and upgrades to the trailer is that this stuff is not hard, it takes a little bit of learning, some thinking and figuring and just about anyone can do it. I may not be as fast a trades person that does this everyday, but I have learned something along the way and saved a few dollars in the process.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Travel Trailer
In mid June we decided to purchase a travel trailer as my wife no longer wanted to stay in a tent with our 3 year old and renting a RV would cost around $1100 for a week. Well, we picked up a 1973 Lely Greman trailer that is 23' long. There was some work that needed to get put into, but even with all that we have put into it as long as we use it twice we are still ahead of the game.
After sitting in it for a while without the pressure of people watching us inspect their trailer we noticed we had missed some things. We initially thought that there had not been any water damage to the trailer, which would was quite impressive given it's age. But as we started digging a little deeper and looking closer we noticed there was some, but there had been some craftsmen that have owned the trailer over the years and have repaired it nicely. Also there have been some hack artists that have slapped something in quick or chopped things out.
This is especially evident with the tail light wiring. As you can see in the pictures they screwed in two lights up at the top and ran the wiring up to the tongue of the trailer. Along the way they spliced in random colors of wire when it wouldn't reach. When they got to the front of the trailer they spliced in more wire to match the wiring colors of the 7 pin flat wiring connector. To hold the wires in place they were aluminum duct taped to the trailer making it look very pleasing. Now the trucks that I use are older and farm vehicles and use the 6 pin round connector so I thought that this would be an easy switch. Armed with color wiring diagrams from various places on the Internet I took apart the plug and set to switch it to the one that I would use. After trying various configurations in the plug I found it prudent to rip out everything and start again. I reused the lights but mounted them just inside the existing tail lights. I went and bought a run of 25' flat four wire, some split loom and some plastic cable clamps from Princess Auto and ran the wire underneath the trailer. I made sure that when I ran the split loom I had the opening facing down in the low spots. Under the trailer is quite interesting with many wires just abandoned from previous repairs. Not knowing what was good and what was not I left it until future investigation.
When we removed the tape holding the wires onto the trailer it peeled the tape, as well from the pictures you can see some of the prolific stickers that adorned the trailer. My wife removed all of these blemishes and armed with a gallon of Tremclad White and silicone she went about painting and sealing the trailer.
The 12V system had been neglected sometime in the past as the previous owner had never used any of it. There was no sign of where a battery was to go or a converter box was supposed to go. I grew up with an old tent trailer of similar vintage and it had a converter box that converted 120V power to 12V power to run the lights and the water pump, or when AC power was not available you could run it off of a deep cycle battery. This was a good set up from my memory and I would like to have that in my own trailer. Luckily for me my in laws had a tent trailer that they were going to gut and I could salvage whatever I wanted from it. So we popped it open found the converter box and removed it. The power system in my trailer consisted of plugging into the main power which was breakered into two receptacles and a light that was unswitched.
I went to NAPA and picked up a group 27 deep cycle batter, some 8 gauge wire, and a battery box and mounted it on the tongue of the trailer as I didn't want to have it inside for venting purposes. I didn't need to drill a new hole, just pop out some old unused BX cable. I hooked the battery into the converter box that I had installed into side of the bench. From the panel I ran the positive to a distribution block where I have everything fused, and then out to the various items. I wanted a nice clean grounding set up, so I wanted to get a common ground block found in AC electrical panels, but none of the vendors in Calgary stock those, but I was talking on the radio with a few guys and one from Bragg Creek had some left over from an old panel. With that installed the converter, battery and all devices are now grounded. Also, on the battery I put a 50A fuse just in case.
There were two water pumps in the trailer, one for the kitchen sink and one for the bathroom sink. As I was moving wires around the kitchen sink pump's wire broke free of it's solder joint, that was all that needed to be repaired with that pump. The bathroom pump wouldn't turn on, so I got the probes of my multimeter into some of the butt connectors and I measured a voltage across the switch, which meant the switch was malfunctioning. After a trip to Canadian Tire for a SPST switch I was able to get that pump working. I filled the water tank and shocked it with a little bit of bleach, because we don't know how long the tank has been empty and what may have lived in there during that time.
Upcoming items on trailer include:
- running wire for a car stereo and install one with some speaker
- running wire for a FT-2900 and install a 2m antenna
- replace furnace
- replace one of the 120V fixtures for a 12V fixture
- open up and repair the 12V spot light
The rear of the trailer. See the dangling wires and the stickers.
Passenger side of the trailer. More stickers and the tail light wires coming down the side.
After sitting in it for a while without the pressure of people watching us inspect their trailer we noticed we had missed some things. We initially thought that there had not been any water damage to the trailer, which would was quite impressive given it's age. But as we started digging a little deeper and looking closer we noticed there was some, but there had been some craftsmen that have owned the trailer over the years and have repaired it nicely. Also there have been some hack artists that have slapped something in quick or chopped things out.
This is especially evident with the tail light wiring. As you can see in the pictures they screwed in two lights up at the top and ran the wiring up to the tongue of the trailer. Along the way they spliced in random colors of wire when it wouldn't reach. When they got to the front of the trailer they spliced in more wire to match the wiring colors of the 7 pin flat wiring connector. To hold the wires in place they were aluminum duct taped to the trailer making it look very pleasing. Now the trucks that I use are older and farm vehicles and use the 6 pin round connector so I thought that this would be an easy switch. Armed with color wiring diagrams from various places on the Internet I took apart the plug and set to switch it to the one that I would use. After trying various configurations in the plug I found it prudent to rip out everything and start again. I reused the lights but mounted them just inside the existing tail lights. I went and bought a run of 25' flat four wire, some split loom and some plastic cable clamps from Princess Auto and ran the wire underneath the trailer. I made sure that when I ran the split loom I had the opening facing down in the low spots. Under the trailer is quite interesting with many wires just abandoned from previous repairs. Not knowing what was good and what was not I left it until future investigation.
When we removed the tape holding the wires onto the trailer it peeled the tape, as well from the pictures you can see some of the prolific stickers that adorned the trailer. My wife removed all of these blemishes and armed with a gallon of Tremclad White and silicone she went about painting and sealing the trailer.
The 12V system had been neglected sometime in the past as the previous owner had never used any of it. There was no sign of where a battery was to go or a converter box was supposed to go. I grew up with an old tent trailer of similar vintage and it had a converter box that converted 120V power to 12V power to run the lights and the water pump, or when AC power was not available you could run it off of a deep cycle battery. This was a good set up from my memory and I would like to have that in my own trailer. Luckily for me my in laws had a tent trailer that they were going to gut and I could salvage whatever I wanted from it. So we popped it open found the converter box and removed it. The power system in my trailer consisted of plugging into the main power which was breakered into two receptacles and a light that was unswitched.
I went to NAPA and picked up a group 27 deep cycle batter, some 8 gauge wire, and a battery box and mounted it on the tongue of the trailer as I didn't want to have it inside for venting purposes. I didn't need to drill a new hole, just pop out some old unused BX cable. I hooked the battery into the converter box that I had installed into side of the bench. From the panel I ran the positive to a distribution block where I have everything fused, and then out to the various items. I wanted a nice clean grounding set up, so I wanted to get a common ground block found in AC electrical panels, but none of the vendors in Calgary stock those, but I was talking on the radio with a few guys and one from Bragg Creek had some left over from an old panel. With that installed the converter, battery and all devices are now grounded. Also, on the battery I put a 50A fuse just in case.
There were two water pumps in the trailer, one for the kitchen sink and one for the bathroom sink. As I was moving wires around the kitchen sink pump's wire broke free of it's solder joint, that was all that needed to be repaired with that pump. The bathroom pump wouldn't turn on, so I got the probes of my multimeter into some of the butt connectors and I measured a voltage across the switch, which meant the switch was malfunctioning. After a trip to Canadian Tire for a SPST switch I was able to get that pump working. I filled the water tank and shocked it with a little bit of bleach, because we don't know how long the tank has been empty and what may have lived in there during that time.
Upcoming items on trailer include:
- running wire for a car stereo and install one with some speaker
- running wire for a FT-2900 and install a 2m antenna
- replace furnace
- replace one of the 120V fixtures for a 12V fixture
- open up and repair the 12V spot light
The rear of the trailer. See the dangling wires and the stickers.
Passenger side of the trailer. More stickers and the tail light wires coming down the side.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Ham Shack Computer - Linux Install
A couple of weeks ago I received a computer from Wayne VA6AWR so that I could use it in the ham shack, for digital communications on 2m FM Packet. I was interested in using Linux for this project and so I set about to install it on this computer. Since this is an older computer a Celeron 900Mhz with 300 some megabytes of RAM I needed a lightweight OS. In discussion with a friend he suggested to use Xubuntu as it is ideal for that application.
I downloaded Xubuntu 9.10 on my other computer burned the LiveCD and put it in the computer. The first time it booted off of the disk into loader prompt, so I decided to check the memory. There was a few bad sectors, so I went back into Windows and did a scan disk and corrected that. When I went back to reboot the computer it would no longer recognize the CD and would boot to Windows. I tried to use a USB key but the bios would not recognize it to boot off of.
From here I went with AFU Knoppix 6.04 as this was a ham build and had the software that I was looking for preloaded. I found that this was a little bit sluggish on this machine so I downloaded the Xubunut 8.04 LiveCD and installed that onto the computer. Being that I am not a Linux guy I am learning as I go. I had a programming class on a linux machine 5 years ago and I was very capable with DOS, but I do not know any of the terminal codes so that I can install the program that I want to us, which is FLDigi.
So here I am googling how to install this program, I am starting to see a pattern now of how things are done.
./configure
make
make install
Hopefully I shall have it done tonight so that I can test it on the air tomorrow.
Ben
VA6KAZ
I downloaded Xubuntu 9.10 on my other computer burned the LiveCD and put it in the computer. The first time it booted off of the disk into loader prompt, so I decided to check the memory. There was a few bad sectors, so I went back into Windows and did a scan disk and corrected that. When I went back to reboot the computer it would no longer recognize the CD and would boot to Windows. I tried to use a USB key but the bios would not recognize it to boot off of.
From here I went with AFU Knoppix 6.04 as this was a ham build and had the software that I was looking for preloaded. I found that this was a little bit sluggish on this machine so I downloaded the Xubunut 8.04 LiveCD and installed that onto the computer. Being that I am not a Linux guy I am learning as I go. I had a programming class on a linux machine 5 years ago and I was very capable with DOS, but I do not know any of the terminal codes so that I can install the program that I want to us, which is FLDigi.
So here I am googling how to install this program, I am starting to see a pattern now of how things are done.
./configure
make
make install
Hopefully I shall have it done tonight so that I can test it on the air tomorrow.
Ben
VA6KAZ
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Radio Tuned
Yesterday evening I was able to get the radio tuned with the help of Wayne, VA6AWR. There was really only one slight glitch, the tuning wands that he had brought were the wrong size, so we had to run down to Active Electronics to get some, luckily they had the ones that fit.
On the way back from Active we stopped in at Wayne's house and he showed me his 20m and 40m antenna as well as his NVIS antenna. It was a pretty slick set up with his antennas. Maybe once I move from my current location I will be able to put up some HF antennas and make some contacts.
Hopefully, i have some time during reading week next week that I will be able to case the radio, but who knows since school is getting busy right now.
On the way back from Active we stopped in at Wayne's house and he showed me his 20m and 40m antenna as well as his NVIS antenna. It was a pretty slick set up with his antennas. Maybe once I move from my current location I will be able to put up some HF antennas and make some contacts.
Hopefully, i have some time during reading week next week that I will be able to case the radio, but who knows since school is getting busy right now.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Going to Tune the Receiver
Today, I am off to go see Wayne, VA6AWR to help me tune my radio receiver. As I do not have all of the equipment and cannot justify the expense or the space to get it at the moment I need to seek out those that have it. One of the great things about Amateur Radio is that most people within the hobby are willing to help out where they can. As this is a hobby that attracts those that build things it is good for me who doesn't have a lot of equipment yet, as well as I lack a lot of experience. I have a little bit of knowledge of how the fundamentals are supposed to work, but I am willing to learn and gain new experience. Isn't what building new things is all about.
Ben VA6KAZ
Ben VA6KAZ
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
First Post
I love to build, and I thought that I would share my progress.
My current project is building an amateur radio transmitter hunter. I have done considerable research on the topic, and the most popular type in the region is 2m fm. I do not currently have a handheld transceiver and I am on a budget as a student I needed the most economical choice.
I decided to build a Vectronics VEC-1002K 2m fm receiver.
http://www.vectronics.com/Product.php?productid=VEC-1002K
I needed an attenuator to mitigate the signals at close range, so I will be using the following circuit.
http://www.homingin.com/joek0ov/offatten.html
The receiver has no signal strength meter, so I found an LED circuit that I could add to the radio. I have modified the circuit designed by N9ZIA.
http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/wireless/appendixF.html#8
After that it is all built I will likely build a tape measure yagi.
http://home.att.net/~jleggio/projects/rdf/tape_bm.htm
I have completed the construction phase of the receiver and will be going over to VA6AWR to get his help to tune the receiver so that I can add the attenuator and signal meter circuits. Pictures will come soon.
VA6KAZ
My current project is building an amateur radio transmitter hunter. I have done considerable research on the topic, and the most popular type in the region is 2m fm. I do not currently have a handheld transceiver and I am on a budget as a student I needed the most economical choice.
I decided to build a Vectronics VEC-1002K 2m fm receiver.
http://www.vectronics.com/Product.php?productid=VEC-1002K
I needed an attenuator to mitigate the signals at close range, so I will be using the following circuit.
http://www.homingin.com/joek0ov/offatten.html
The receiver has no signal strength meter, so I found an LED circuit that I could add to the radio. I have modified the circuit designed by N9ZIA.
http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/wireless/appendixF.html#8
After that it is all built I will likely build a tape measure yagi.
http://home.att.net/~jleggio/projects/rdf/tape_bm.htm
I have completed the construction phase of the receiver and will be going over to VA6AWR to get his help to tune the receiver so that I can add the attenuator and signal meter circuits. Pictures will come soon.
VA6KAZ
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