A little bit of solder

I got sidetracked a little from finishing the radio box with a little bit of plumbing.  The ensuite toilet valve needed to be replaced.  I had replaced the toilet when we moved in as the bowl was broken due to the house being frozen.  This was supposed to be a simple install as I had replaced one toilet ion the main floor.  That toilet flange was below tile so I had to get an extended.

The toilet flange in the ensuite was just above the finished floor level, so a lot of the wax oozed up through the bolt holes.  When I went to attach the supply line up to the tank, the fitting came off of the line.  This was an old supply line, that was apart of the valve, so I had to replace it.  The valve that came off of the 3/4" copper line was a compression fitting.  I was replacing the fitting with a soldered on connection.  This was going to be my second plumbing fitting that I was going to be soldering I felt confident.  Funny enough I had also learned a little from a recent Holmes show on how to solder and position the torch. 

The key to soldering a good joint is to make sure that the copper is clean and bright.  I made sure that I took the emery paper and sanded down the pipe.  From there I applied a liberal amount of flux and fitted the valve to the final location.  From my understanding the flux serves a couple of purposes. The first is to shield the metal from oxidation during the application of heat.  Oxidation would create a barrier from the sold from joining the two metals together.  The other is to help wick the solder up the joint.  As a person that is used electrical solder that has a rosin core this weting action is very different to me, this is acomplished through the capillary action of the joint. I applied the heat to the joint and since it was a very tight location I could only apply the heat at one side. Due to the heat on one side I had the solder on the other side, so that once the pipe was heated the solder was just sucked up into the joint. 

With a ring of solder around the valve I deemed it good and turned the water back on.  The moment of truth came seconds later as it held water.  I cooled the valve with a wetted wash cloth and hooked up the new supply to the toilet tank and went on my way.

Until next time...

Radio go box Part 1

So, a couple of months ago I was approached by VA6SDM to spec and then asked to put together a radio kit.  It is referred to as many things as a radio go kit, radio go box, or a slip seat box.  So this is the equipment that has been put into it.

TM-D710A (dual band radio)

TS 480SAT (Multi-band HF radio)
LDG KT-100 (antenna autotunner)
Rigblaster PNP
Rigrunner RR-4004USB
Rigblaster PG-40S Super PWRgate
PWRBrite
Power Supply SS-30DV (by PowerWerx)

I had originally thought that I would put the unit into a tool box or into a road case (the ones that bands  or DJ's use), but due to the lack of fabrication tools I was extremely limited to what I could case the unit in.  The radio operator that will get this will likely not use it too frequently so one of my design considerations was to have everything as operationally ready as possible. 

One of the problems that I had with casing a kit like this into a tool box is that the rigrunner gets buried in underneath all of the other components and that adding a unit is not really easy, or accessing a blown fuse will take a lot of time.  Or accessing the power supply main switch without removing the main plate and creating a panel for it.  The other issue that was of real concern was that of cooling.  If I started cramming in all of those devices into a small space I would be limiting air circulation so I would have to add some active cooling devices. 

I decided that I would build a small cabinet out of wood.  I am very familiar with wood cabinetry or joinery.  I received the highest mark in CTS 30 or Grade 12 shop class with the dresser that I built for myself.  Now this cabinet is nowhere to the same quality as that as it has been a few years and I don't have a fully equipped shop to build it in.  I will post my sketches that I used to plan my cabinet as well as estimate my material. 

Currently I am placing the equipment into the cabinet, which is a little difficult because I did not mount the brackets in place before I assembled the cabinet so I have to put all the screws in place with a stubby ratchet screwdriver. 
 
The last installation issue is that of mounting the power supply and the autotuner into the box so that the do not move.  I have thought about using some All Round Steel Strapping, but I do not want to scratch up the devices.  My wife suggested I use some nyon straps, which is likely what I will use, but I am still open to options at the moment.
 
Well, I well get back to assembly and be back later with pictures and an updated. 
 
73s
Ben

New House - New Year

Well,

This year it is shaping up to be plenty of projects for me to complete.  We recently purchased a house in NW Calgary.  It was built in 1980.  There were a few renovations done to it, but several were not fully completed.  I am not saying that it is not livable, but little things like there was no trim put over the tiles, so there is a bare edge kind of stuff.

In October we had bought a 2001 Nissan Pathfinder at the auction.  It has been a great vehicle and the only thing I have done to it thus far is change the oil and replace the battery.  We have had an unusual cold winter here in Calgary, so I am not surprised that the battery failed.

A leader at Church wants me to put together a radio go box for him.  This is exciting, because I get to buy all these radios and put them together, and it won't cost me anything to play with them.  I will discuss that project in detail in a future post.

So for the house thus far we have done a little bit of work on it thus far.  We purchased a home foreclosure from the bank, so there are some risks that are Realtor's explained to us.  They were rather nervous about it, probably because they haven't processed very many foreclosures in recent memory.  There must be some systemic issues here in Calgary that are not well publicized because approximately a quarter of the houses that we viewed were foreclosures.  One of the things that our Realtor said was that it must have been some young couple that got in over their head.  Well, that didn't make us young first time home buyers feel better, but we knew our financial position so we charged ahead.

On the day of possession we arrived and the heat was off.  It was a very cold February day, so it took a long time for the house to warm up.  As it did, we noticed some dripping from the cold water line by the clothes washer pipes.  There was still some water left in that pipe and it split it.  So off to RONA to get a pipe cutter and some pipe solder.  I already had the torch to solder the pipes.  Now our cold water tap is approximately 2 inches above the hot water tap.  Now we were able to charge the rest of the house water lines.

During this time we noticed that there was still water (i.e. a block of ice) in all of the toilet bowls.  This was going to take some time to thaw, but once we charged the tanks, there was one tank that was full of ice too.  It turns out as the ice melted there became a lake around this toilet.  It had broke the bottom of the toilet out.  Lucky for us we were already planning on changing the toilets with high efficiency dual flush toilets, which we had got on sale at RONA.  There is a RONA about 3 minutes from our house, so it is likely to be the unofficial supplier for most of our home renovation needs.

The third frozen item in our house was a trap of the main floor half bathroom.  It is the only metal trap in the whole house and when the water froze in it, it split the metal.  Lucky for us RONA, was also the unofficial supplier for the previous occupants renovation efforts.

So I spent the weekend getting plumbing issues sorted out.  A blog on toilet installation to follow.  During this weekend we had several of our good friends come over and assist us in painting the house.  There were a couple that were very experienced which helped the finished product look superb.  As we were removing face plates for the electrical outlets we commented on the fact that the outlets were the original cream colored round plugs, but in an attempt to modernize the look of the house the previous occupants had used white cover plates.  This looked rather poor to us, so we decided to replace the oulets and plugs to the decora model.  A quick conversation with one of my electrical engineering consultants at worked agreed with the decision to change plugs as they typically have a useful service life of approximately 25 years.  They tend to get loose and don't make a very good contact after a while.

So for upcoming projects:
-fur out the basement wall and run electrical wire for plugs, and install a new sub-panel
-install a hitch onto the vehicle
-change the regulator on the trailer
-build and install some raised flower beds for some produce this summer
-install a vhf and hf antenna

This should be a good start for the year.  A lot of new experiences to learn from.

Travel Trailer Cont'd

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. 

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.

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

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.