cyborgworkshop.org

I’m closing in on this darn HVAC project, slowly but surely. After reviewing the data, the basement return vents seem to have done me little to no good.  The upper levels are still too hot, the basement is still too cold and the HVAC is cycling just as much as it ever has.  A friend from my old stomping grounds just this morning dropped me a line reminding me about the Midwest, radon and negative pressure zones in a basement structure all of which have prompted me to close off the basement return.   It’s not all bad news though. Running the blower 24×7 and my upstairs ceiling fans has made an enormous difference.  WHIA hasn’t had to do much work after it initially balanced out the house. In fact, I had to check it this weekend to make sure that it wasn’t locked up. The pressure sensor is working well and I should have it’s graph online by this weekend and, most importantly, this project has passed the wife test.

So next up, we finish and document the amp clamps and get that pressure graph online!

The air conditioner started leaking water all over the place a few days ago, and not interested in being without AC in the 100 degree heat we’ve been experiencing, I promptly called in the pros to take a look at it.  While it cost me $80 for some strategically placed tar tape, I did get to ask the tech a few questions.  His immediate reaction when he saw all of the servos was “You should sell this to your neighbors, their house is burning up!” to which I replied “oh hell no, I lose sleep over just one of these things”. I asked him about how much pressure I should expect to measure in the main air plenum (didn’t know) and then got the sign off on putting a return vent in the basement.  I was able to install that this evening and while it’s too early to call, I’ll be watching the graphs real closely tomorrow.  Next step, controlling the thermostat!

OK, so here is where I’m at and what I’m up to.  WHIA is working really well, but I still haven’t put up pictures of the pressure sensor assembly and for that, I suck.  I have picked up a Toshiba Magnia SG20 that was going to find a new home in my truck as an MP3/GPS/DVD/OBD-II/War Driving Wifi Sharing piece of geekery, but seems to want to live life as a firewall instead.  It’s getting hacked to run either Linux or PFSense (BSD).

The small form factor PC that I had picked up for WHIA has been re-purposed for the truck PC now. I pulled the mobo out of it and smacked in a dual core Atom based board, giving me USB, SATA and a bit more umph and lower power to boot!

I’ve got a snow crash inspired Big Board project brewing on paper to give me a nice sized board with 64 or so RGB LEDs telling me all about the health of various monitored systems, but that one may be on the back burner for awhile.  And during all of this, we are running new electricity and lights throughout the house, painting the whole thing and laying  wood floors on the entire first floor.  I’m not usually one for having so many irons in the fire, but it just kinda worked out that way.

Snowflake magnified from 93x-36000x.

I thought this was way cool.  Looks totally fabricated.

All of my sensors except for the Analog Devices AC to DC stuff have arrived. But so has the need to paint our house and install new flooring, so I’m on a hiatus for a few more days while I roll on the color. Next up though is getting the pictures of the pressure sensors online, getting that mounted with something a little more permanent then the duct tape that is currently charged with the task and getting the twitter interface working again.