Monthly Archives: April 2018

Shrimp, Shrimp, and, of course, Shrimp . . .

After a quiet morning, me doing web site stuff and Jan reading, I went out about 2pm to add air to the rig’s tires.




I used my Sears 150 psi Air Compressor to quickly air up all my tires, the front ones to 105# and the rear duals to 100#. All of the tires were in the 90# range when I started, not because they had leaked down in the last 5 months, but because when I last topped them off the temperature was in the high 90’s, while today it was in the low 70’s.

I’ve had this compressor since January 2011 and it’s never had a problem. It can air up the big RV tires to 120# plus without breathing hard. The one I have came from Sears but they no longer sell it. (Do they still sell anything?) But you can get the same one under the Porter-Cable brand from Amazon, probably who made it for Sears.

Porter-Cable Air Compressor

Porter-Cable 150psi Air Compressor




I did add this Power Tank TIG-8170 Digital Inflator with a locking chuck to make it easier to air up the tires without bending over the entire time. Just lock the chuck on the tire valve and go to it.

Power Tank TIG-8170 Tire Inflator

The only other thing I’ve done to it in the last 7 years was to replace the compressor’s air hose with a longer one.

I also planned to add water to the rig’s house batteries, but discovered that I was out of distilled water. So it got put on the WalMart list for tonight.

About 4:15 Jan and I headed up to Webster to meet up with Chris, Linda, and Miss Piper at the East Star Chinese Buffet for dinner.

We’ve never eaten here, but a number of our friends have recommended it, and it turns out Chris and Linda have eaten here too.

How did we get left out?

I ended up getting the shrimp, the shrimp, and, of course, the shrimp. And some veggies too.

East Star plate

Cold Boiled Shrimp, Hot Pepper Shrimp, and Shrimp with Veggies.

The Trifecta.

Everything was really good, although Jan didn’t like the Hot & Sour Soup as much as I did.

But we’ll go back.

Coming home we made a WalMart stop for a few things before getting home about 8.

Tomorrow, more work, and probably more machine repairs.



Thought for the Day: 

Exercise. Eat Right. Die Anyway. What’s the point?

dfgadfd

Scoping It Out . . .

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Work today was only about half machine repair, so I guess I lucked out. I have come to the conclusion that these boards are not designed very well. There are two boards in this model of machine, a power supply board and an oscillator board. But every board will not work with every other board.

I started to notice that I would swap out what seemed to be a bad board with another one that would work. But the supposedly bad board would work in another machine with a different board. So each machine has to be ‘tuned’ by swapping out boards until you get a set that works.

This is a symptom of boards that are designed with sloppy tolerances, tolerances so wide, i.e. + or – 30 % instead of +- 5%. So that if the tolerances of a particular set of boards go the wrong way, they don’t work together. But each board might work with another one. It’s just the luck of the draw.




At some point I’m probably going to have to start repairing the actual bad boards. And to do that I’m going to need an oscilloscope of some sort. I sold off mine a long time ago so I’ll have to get something new. Luckily digital scopes are a lot cheaper than they use to be, $100’s instead of $1000 of dollars.

Even Amazon has a nice selection of scopes, even some kits. Since I don’t have any schematics of these units, what I’ll do is to use the scope to start recording waveforms at key points on each board which I can then use to diagnose bad boards.

Tomorrow I’ll take care of some chores before our planned jaunt in the rig this weekend. I want to check the pressure in the rig’s tires, and the water in the house batteries. The engine batteries are sealed so I don’t have to worry about them. I’m also going to untie the anemometer pole from where it’s zip tied to the ladder on the rear of the rig.

As it stands now we’ll probably do this on Sunday since it looks to be stormy all day Saturday. I’m thinking about just making a 40 mile loop, heading south on Hwy 6 down to where it joins up with I-45, then back up north to FM517where we’ll take that back over to Alvin, and then back down Hwy 6 to Santa Fe and home.

We may make a stopover at the La Marque Buc-ee’s to top off on diesel, and then another stop along the way to fill up on propane. We’ll see.

Our RV Advenutes LOGO 4

I noticed yesterday that my Texas Lottery app had been updated, and I was happy to see that they’ve finally fixed the problem with the lottery ticket scanner function not working. That’s make finding that winning ticket a lot easier.

As it stands right now we’re getting together with our son Chris and his family for dinner tomorrow night. Really looking forward to that..




Thought for the Day:
 

I know the difference between Right and Wrong. Wrong is usually much more fun.

  ghnfgh