Tag: LED lights

January 23, 2024 – Do You Have a Lightbulb From College?

January 23, 2024 /

As I dream about putting the next duct into the floor joist, I visualize in my head the steps and what obstacles are around. My basement is where everything that has a little bit of use goes to die. The lightbulbs in use are a hodgepodge collection of things that were changed out for aesthetics but still had function. One of those lightbulbs I purchased when I was in college. Specifically 1996-1997.

I lived in a townhouse my senior year. That was built in the 1970s and it had recessed lights in a lot of the building. Most college students swapped the proper floodlight bulb with a regular bulb when they burned out because they were five times cheaper (If they swapped bulbs at all!). I ended up purchasing the correct bulbs before I moved out and like a good preparedness person, I had a spare.

Since I have lived in that townhouse, I have never lived somewhere that had recessed lights requiring that particular style of bulb. This bulb moved from southern Oregon to two apartments in the Portland metro area to our first house in Salem, to South Carolina to where I live now. A couple of years ago, I realized that I was never going to have a proper application for that bulb and so it ended up in the basement. I probably should have donated it to Habitat For Humanity.

It is not like I will run out of mismatched bulbs any time soon. In fact, about fifteen years ago, the city (electric utility) changed all of our bulbs from incandescent to compact fluorescent. When they did that, they left all the bulbs they took out in a plastic bag and gave them back to me. As those CFLs burned out (one of the biggest scams ever), I replaced them with the bulbs that they took out.

I am on the last of those bulbs now. I am very skeptical of the lightbulb environmentalism. We took an inert technology albeit less efficient and replaced it with a high technology, high toxicity product. We saved 50 watts of energy times the number of bulbs and congratulated ourselves when we should have been looking at the social engineering of the problem in the first place. If you want to read about that type of discussion, this is a good start here.

I regret the loss of the incandescent bulb. There were certain applications that really benefited from the inefficiency. An old, rural trick was to plug in a lightbulb in the well house to prevent the pump and line from freezing. You cant do that with CFL or LED bulbs. The next best solution is a space heater. So instead of burning 100 Watts, we are now using 1000 Watts. So, I suppose if the farm house changes all of their lightbulbs to LED, the net difference even with the heater is still lower energy consumption.

But, what do we have to do to make these bulbs and what do you have to do to get rid of them? The old tungsten filament bulbs were simple and safe. When those were replaced with compact fluorescents, those bulbs contained mercury vapor. Once vaporized, these would eventually rain down into surface water and accumulate in aquaculture. Hence, we are advised by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to eat no more than two servings per week. Pregnant women are a no for any exposure. This is a problem caused entirely by our own industrialization and fluorescent light bulbs are a contributor.

There is one facility within a one hour window that accepts fluorescent bulbs. It is open every Tuesday from 12-4 and one Saturday per month. When you get there, enjoy your one hour wait to get to the facility. My point is the disposal effort is extremely impractical. Consequently, I throw them away. And I am a person that puts a lot of effort into recycling. I have a technojunk pile that goes for a specific recycling. I disassemble things to get to there component parts that are trash verses recyling. I reuse materials wherever possible. I even think about the lifecycle of things before I buy them.

LED technology isn’t much better but there are some real advantages to LEDs. The flashlight power and shock resistance is miles better than twenty years ago. I do not hold the same regard for home level bulbs. The materials to make the bulbs come from dubious partners. The components in the bulbs are of toxic makeup. The color of the cheaper bulbs are terrible. At least they don’t kill our environment when they break but they are still supposed to be recycled. Again, they need to go in the technojunk pile.

I can see that I got way off base from where I started. Whenever I see that bulb and think about it, I think about my life in summary. It is amazing to me how long I have had this consumable. As we think about our next phases in life, I have to believe that this is probably the last stop. I suspect that it will be left here when we go to our next house because that time is approaching.

End Your Programming Routine: While the story is cute and anecdotal to me, hopefully the greater lesson in the story is beware of the universal solution. Whether it is vaccines will cure a disease or a new kind of lightbulb will solve climate change. We always, always, always have to consider who is to gain from legislation and policy. The educated consumer/voter is less likely to fall for the false prophet scam. Some things may be problems that don’t need solving and then all of a sudden, new solutions create newer and worse problems.

August 17, 2023 – Accessorizing Your Safe

August 17, 2023 /

One of the first lessons I learned when we moved into this house was that keeping firearms in the basement, left unattended started to rust. I looked into several options. The one I eventually chose was long term storage bags (kind of like giant ziplock bags). Each time I handled a firearm, it would get a heavy buff with a silicone product called Barricade. That seemed to protect them once I started doing it.

With this new safe, I didn’t want to use the storage bags. My safe has a a power strip inside of it and I wanted to take advantage of that. I do still plan on wiping them down after handling. I took a very poor picture to highlight some of the accessorizing that I chose.

You can see how bright it is. This is because I installed some LED strip lights. These are multi-purpose light kits that can be used under cabinets or even gun safes. I don’t think lights are really necessary unless there is a lot of stuff in there. Then it starts to get a little more helpful. But, I wanted to pimp out my safe.

The black caps on the floor are covering bolts that I drilled into the concrete. The safe manufacturer recommends at least two bolts. I did four. Now, I thought that I was already paying for this with delivery and installation. As I pointed out last week, nope.

Aside from keeping valuables safe, you also want to protect them from the environment. You can barely see it at the lip of the door, but I added a heating element. This is supposed to drive air circulation within the safe. And with circulation, there is less chance of rust. I will be testing that out for sure.

The white item on the upper left is some rechargeable desiccant. The balls within absorb water vapor. They have some kind of magic that changes from purple to pink when they need to be recharged. To do that, there is a plug on the back of the case and you plug in the device until it is dried out.

The tiny sliver of black you see at the top/middle is a remote hygrometer/thermometer. You probably know that I am a data junky. I want to see what it happening with temperature and humidity more so to get a sense about how the heating bar and desiccant are working. I already had one in my shop so I swapped this new unit in for the old one and now I have a monitor in the basement.

It is already yielding interesting data. It is typically a degree warmer inside and a couple of percentage points higher in humidity. It could be that the sensor for the inside has a different calibration for the sensor on the outside. Or, I suspect that this moving air and desiccation is actually drawing moisture into the safe. I am going to keep an eye on that.

These were the accessories that I chose. There are other variations of lights and moisture measurements. I have even heard of motion detectors to alarm you if someone is trying to access the safe if you are not around. You can purchase various pistol racks and over the door hangers as well. Mine comes with a factory door hanger so I didn’t need that. But that is it.

End Your Programming Routine: If it is cars, boats, computers or safes accessorizing is the way to make things our own. Despite the fact that I am no where close to filling it up and probably never will, it gave me a lot more breathing room in my former cabinet. Since I have been reloading, I have run out of room to store all those plastic boxes and shotgun shells for trap season. Not just storing them but getting to specific loads is a chore having to pull everything out to find something. This day was a long time coming.

April 13, 2022 – Lessons Under the Light

April 13, 2022 /

Every year I learn something. Given my state of having a place to plant my starts, I am more concerned about identifying the variables then the results thereof. Today, I am going to talk about how my starts are doing.

Before that, I thought that I would mention that it is currently snowing. We are 9 days away from the average annual last frost date. Granted, it is not actually freezing, it is 34 degrees but it is worth noting for those itching to get starts into the ground. By all accounts, I think this is going to be one of those later years because we have this forecast for the foreseeable future.

What did I do differently this year? Well, I changed from fluorescent to LED grow lights was the biggest thing. I don’t know if it was coincidence or not but I did have a pretty high germination rate. This year I also rotated the tray every couple of days. I was trying to get more equal light and heat distribution.

My observation is that different plats are growing at different rates. this makes it difficult to have the optimum conditions for all the items in the trays. For instance, initially, I had five of six habanero seeds germinate. Whereas last year, I think that I only had one pepper germinate. These were new seeds, so maybe it was a vitality problem but I don’t think so. Four of six jalapenos germinated and three of six bell peppers germinated and those were the same seeds from last year. So, something of those variables I changed last year worked.

Getting to my point now, even though the peppers germinated, I don think any of them are going to make it. It seems like the grow lights are too intense and are burning the dicots (the two initial leaves that come up with the start). Every day, I am watching them slowly wither from the intensity of the light.

The tomatoes on the other hand are doing better than I have ever seen. They are the reason I had to take the humidity dome of as they were touching the top within two weeks. They are clearly adapted and thriving in the environment. Ideally, with each of these plants I would have the capability to cover and move the light higher or lower to get the best results.

I have thought about the idea that maybe I should upsize the pots that they are in. This is the six week mark for the seedlings and they are probably going to stay potted for the foreseeable future. I feel like six inch is probably the optimum size, so maybe I will try to get this done this weekend. The last couple of years that I have been dragging my feet getting stuff potted, the roots were highly constrained in these little starter cells.

End Your Programming Routine: I am pretty sure that I can get the tomatoes to survive. The rest of them, I will cross my fingers. But, like I said in the beginning I had a pretty poor germination rate over the last couple of years so as much as I want to have a yield, I am focusing on getting stuff started first.