Olympic Men’s Luge
Olympic Torch Tree Climb
The turnout at this event was a fraction of the previous evening’s, even though the sights were more interesting, in my opinion. For this leg of the torch relay, the flame was carried 80 feet up and down a spur tree at the Squamish Logger’s Sports grounds.
The first picture was taken during Squamish Days 2006, but thought it might show just how tall these spar trees are.
I wanted to call this post, “Pole Smokers” but though the reference might be perceived as derogatory toward those who participated, so then I called it, “Flaming Poles” but that might have mislead the eastern European gay community (who all follow this site quite closely, I’m sure)
Olympic Torch Community Celebration in Squamish
A third of Squamish was at Brennan Park to see the Olympic Torch. Inspirational words were shared with the crowd by important officials. Original phrases such as:
- “We’re all here because of you, Squamish!”
- “Go Canada Go!”
- “Are you ready to make some noise?”
- “These are *your* games!”
- “You can accomplish anything you set your mind to!”
- “This is the best crowd yet!”
and my favourite:
- “Thank you, mayor MacGregor.” (The mayor’s name is Greg Gardner. If only he had said, “Mayor McCheese“)
The generic Coca Cola stage show was about the weirdest bit of corporate propaganda I have ever witnessed, but the crowd’s red-white-and-red enthusiasm was for Canada, not Coke. The torch was brought in, the cauldron was lit, and important officials patted each other on the back for a while. There were some great performances by the Squamish Community, including G. Jogi Daduwalia and the Squamish Bhangra Crew, and the West Coast Lumberjack Show.
The evening ended with some really good fireworks, but for some reason I was thirsty for a cola-like beverage, so we called a friend on my Samsung phone, hopped in a Chevrolet, gassed up at the Petro Canada with my RBC VISA, then headed off to McDonalds.
OK, we didn’t do any of that stuff. We went to the Shady Tree and had beer and chicken wings.
DSC – Differential Solar Controller
To control the solar hot water system, a custom controller was built using the Arduino Duemilanove. It reads temperature inputs from the tank and roof sensors to drive a relay that turns the circulator pump on and off. Temperature readings are sent via serial port to a laptop which records and graphs the temperature data. The graphs and data are sent wirelessly to a web server, that displays the current temperatures and status using a Google Gadget.
Firmware
Built with the Arduino environment and the Dallas Temperature Control Library. Download the sketch.
Hardware
Need to upload a schematic.
Temperature Sensors
A single strand of Cat5 cable forms a bus for a network of Dallas DS1820+ 1-wire temperature sensors (datasheet). The Cat5 cable is run from the controller, past the heat exchanger (for input, output, and tank sensors) and cold water inputs, then up onto the roof and into the temperature sensor well inside the solar collector. Temperature sensors can be added anywhere along the bus using telephone 3-Wire Butt Splice (blue) connectors. Be sure to crimp them tightly so that all the wires make solid contact.
- Blue = DQ (pin 2)
- Blue/White = GND (pin 1)
- Orange = +5V (pin 3)
Solder a 6″ lead of the appropriate colour to each leg of the DS1820. Wrap leg #2 in 1/8″ heat-shrink, then wrap the entire device (all three legs and part of the semiconductor) in 1/4″ heat-shrink.
The temperature sensor can be mounted to a conductive surface (pipe, side of a tank, etc.) using 3M Picture Hanging Strips, Exterior Mounting Tape, or plain old duct tape. They can also be inserted into metal knitting needles and sealed with epoxy to make probes.
Logging
The system can be monitored using the serial port output. I use a bash script called from a cron job to read the state and temperatures via tty and insert them into a round robin database to create useful graphs. The bash script also outputs an XML file, which is used as the data source for the Solar Hot Water Google Gadget. Get the gadget and view the system status here.
Solar Water System is Running
The domestic solar hot water system is fully functional. Still some minor things to tweak, but almost there. See live system status here.
You can also read some details on the installation of the collectors and the building of the heat exchanger, and there are some construction photos here.
Happy Canada Day
Canada Day Fireworks
Domestic Solar Water Heater
Installation of a domestic solar hot water system. The system was originally installed on a house in the early 1980’s and was in use for around 10 years. The system was removed and not used for the next 15 years. Some parts and components have disappeared.
The system is a water-based, open drain-back system. It requires a separate unpressuried storage tank and is freeze-proof. While this system is not as efficient as newer ones, it is the simplest and cheapest system for a DIY installation.
Solar Collectors
Two 8′x4′ flat-plate collectors from Solartech (cira 1983 – company is now defunct I beleive) are installed on the roof. Optimum angle for this location is 65 degrees from horizontal. The roof is only 30, but mounting them flat reduces the complexity of the mounting brackets and eliminates problems from wind. Should they prove inefficient they can be raised later.
The roof mount was built from 2 8-foot pieces of 2×2 angle iron bolted to 6 1-foot ‘riser’ pieces of 2×2 adjustable steel track. This type of track is typically used for installing gas, water, or electrical fixtures and was purchased as a 10-foot length from Fastenal for $30. This includes the spring nuts and bolts required to mount the angle-iron. All pieces were primed and painted with black rust paint.
The risers are affixed to the roof with 2 lag bolts each through the roofing into the rafters below. The holes were sealed liberally with roofing cement. The angle iron was bolted horizontally across the risers and are adjustable to obtain the optimum angle for drainage.
A material lifter ($80/day from United Rentals) made lifting the 65kg panels onto the roof much simpler. The material lifter is like a hand-crank operated forklift that can lift up to 700lbs 30 feet straight up. The lifter should come with 4 foot extension arms to make lifting panels, etc. more straight forward. This one did not come with extensions, so a couple of 2×4s were lashed to the tines of the lifter.
Heat Exchanger
At some point the original heat-exchanger coil was lost. A new one was built from 50 feet of 5/8″ O.D. copper refrigeration tubing, which is cheaper ($60 vs. $300) and more flexible copper pipe. Designing a proper heat exchange is complicated stuff – this one was built using the I-think-it-looks-like-the-old-one principle. It may or may not work, but it looks good.
heat exchanger coil
coil detail
The tubing was wrapped tightly around a 12″ diameter cardboard concrete form. A ‘tail’ was run through the middle of the form, then carefully bent to form the first loop in the coil. This tail will be the heated-water return, which will eventually be connected to the hot water tank.
To prevent the coil from turning into a giant slinky, two lengths of old copper pipe were wired to each loop. This gives the coil support and some ‘legs’ to keep the coil off the bottom of the tank. A 2″ spacer (a roll of masking tape) was inserted between each loop as it was wired in place to maintain the even spacing.
Garibaldi Neve
Day 1, Diamond Head parking lot to Elfin Hut / Day 2 Elfin Hut to Burton Hut / Day 3 Burton Hut to Highway 99.
South to north traverse of the Garibaldi Neve, the classic route in Garibaldi Provincial Park. Track is quite accurate until below Barrier Lake. Stay on the trail at the 2.5km mile marker… or else. Google Earth file (.kmz) has geotagged pictures included.
Garden Timetable
|
This spreadsheet shows planting times and dates relative to the estimated frost dates for this area. To date, everything seems to be delayed by 2 weeks. The garden calender (right pane) is used to record estimated and actual planting times. |
Menu
Categories
Recent
- Olympic Men’s Luge
- Alfresco Install on Ubuntu
- Disk Usage By File Type
- Olympic Torch Tree Climb
- Olympic Torch Community Celebration in Squamish
Recent Photos