the Snow Month looms

 Well, it's almost February - our historically snowiest month on the hill-top. January has mostly been dry, cold and clear, with about 1/3 of normal precipitation. The pattern change is right on schedule!

I have surgery scheduled for mid-March based on our February snow history; looks like it was a good idea.

It's still about a week away, so no doubt the numbers will dance a while before the event unfolds.

Update: a respectable forecast! We had 2" in the 2nd, melted half of it then added two more! Quiet on the 4th but more showers on the 5th. No big dump (which was not predicted) and it was gone below 400'.

My First Sensor Bath

Until now I've been able to dislodge dust with a squeeze blower. Last week I took many images at the local park/lake and after further review, I saw spots! 

When I saw the images I knew just what to do - until I saw the spots. These were not dusty bits holding on to the sensor glass by electrostatic magic, they were once-liquid blobs. Like rain on a windshield. I dabbed at them gently but they were not persuaded to leave, and once I applied a touch more pressure I had a smear. 

It was clearly time for a wet cleaning!

I was not afraid of the process, but it hadn't been necessary until now. I learned that newer designs like rakes are common now, and my kit arrived in a short time.

The kit was simple, just a cleaning solution and a dozen or so long-handled rake/trowel thingies each wrapped individually. Two drops on each side, a swipe back and forth at a rather shallow angle (no poking!), and .. done!

I'm not sure if the camera came to me that way; I should think I looked at the sensor last month when the S⁵ first arrived but I'm not certain. And I don't know what the firm liquid was: I remember the Nikon D600 and its oil issues, but I'd expect the odds of oil spatter is much greater on an SLR than a mirror-free design.

But what do I know about it? Can't believe everything I read in the virtual world. Not even my own work, especially when I claim to own the perfect kit and will shop no more. Oopz.

I shall be watching my sensor more closely now!

Plumbing day. Again?

Our master shower has been running cold lately. It occurred to me that our other shower would do fine. 

I was wrong. The push-pull hot-cold part didn't provide any water of any temperature.

While looking into the magic cartridge that controls such taps I leaned that a lack of heat or cold is a possible sign of failure. How nice: they both need replacing!

I tried to visualize what the correct part would be on the local store's parts shelf, but clearly the best option was to bring a part with me - both parts, in case they differed.

The main bath cartridge didn't want to yield at first, but the master tap cartridge let go without trouble. I went back and did the same on the other and finally extracted a much smaller and incomplete part :√(

Exhibit A: 1½ cartridges

Off to the repair store again - this time with a samples! As I'd suspected the Moen 1200 was the right choice, and the specialist agreed that they were probably both the same despite what I carried. Once home I used a big drill bit and some pliers to yank out the remaining cartridge bits. Everything went smoothly after that! 

- Until I visited the water heater, where one more task waited me. While putting a light amount of pressure on the outlet post on top, the one task became two:

Exhibit B: outlet hose failure 

Off again to the store, and I decided to grab two hoses. I'm tired of digging into this closet to change out fittings!! I needed threads on one side and a slip-on clamp for the other, and it went together pretty well. All done?

Oh no - not yet. I'd totally forgotten the original reason for visiting the water heater, and it took full advantage of my forgetfulness when I restored the water pressure. All the hose work I performed had caused the suspect part to fail - so off with the water supply, again.

The problem was another fitting I had put in a year ago. The cold-water pipe had failed lower down, but a slip-on clamp solved the problem; parts for the hot side were in hand but it hadn't been updated. I knew it was a matter of time.. and that time had now come. The hard way.

After inspection I decided this last problem was in fact two, or perhaps more: two suspicious connectors (one showing it had failed, the other waiting its turn) plus poor routing of my new hoses from the water heater. One final store visit brought home a longer pipe, another slip-clamp connector and the right tools (locking pliers and pipe cutter) to see things done right.

I rerouted the heater hoses, shortened them a bit and replaced the old tubing and two connectors with a solid piece. I also marked the pipes to ensure the slip clamps were fully inserted, as a few drops along one hose weren't reassuring.

So my two-plus days of shopping drilling cutting and yanking are done, and everything is currently holding! Both showers have hot water again, toilets and dishwasher are functioning, and a bunch of wet towels are off the ground and in the laundry.

Oof.

Later - wow that was a hot shower! Perhaps the heater can be turned down a notch..

Also later - I found my pipe-cutting tool right after returning home with a new one. I look forward to all my missing lock pliers coming out of their hiding places soon!

Christmas in liquid form

 

Our hill-top forecast for Christmas looks mighty wet. It's been this way for a few days now, so it's getting harder to ignore. Christmas Eve isn't too bad, but if we head north to the in-laws neighborhood we have no decent day for the return trip. Rivers would be high and possibly dropping debris into the Puget Sound, possibly affecting ferry service. That would force us into Seattle traffic.. seldom pleasant even in a light rain, and forecasts there are 1/2 inch each day. Not ideal.

Cliff Mass blog is on it as well: 

https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2024/12/an-intense-christmas-atmospheric-river.html

update - storms were not as extreme for the most part, and my Saturday drive was into a cloud bank but not miserable. From 12/24-31 we received a total of 4.6" on the hill-top, which gave us a 125% of normal for December. The wettest days were Thu and Fri with just over an inch each.

Finding S users..

It's amazing how gear choices affect one's online presence. As a Pentax user I had a few very friendly groups where I could contribute chat or just blurt things out. 

When I branched out to μ43 I found more people, and learned more about diversity. Lumix/Oly, stills/video, feature sets and more - each forum sliced the topics in different ways! In some I had things to say, in many others not much.

Moving into Sony brought me into contact with really tech-minded folks, most of  whom clearly had larger disposable incomes than I could imagine. I could still give and take information,, but many times the easy answer (upgrade!) was nothing I could manage. 

When I shoveled nearly all my gear into one pile and shipped them away, I joined the Lumix-S crowd. Since it's a subset of the L crowd, it's been .. well, familiar and strange, both at once. 

• One L-mount site I visit is mostly Leica users; if any group can make my income look worse than Sony users it's Leicaphiles. Therefore I'm pretty quiet there.
• Another puts Panasonic mirrorless users together, so S users and G users are intermixed. I think I'm reading about a surprising S9 feature them realize it's a G9 being discussed. Oops.

So no group of S-centric users really exists. It would not be a large group: compared to other "full frame" marketers Lumix is probably a pinch above Pentax with its K-1 bodies keeping the spirit of DSLR alive. SoNiCan has its masses; Lumix-S does not.

This is not a bad thing, and does not correlate to the S5 capability and impressive feature set. It's just different, and not a surprise. If I found no one to speak with online, my photos would speak for me! : √)

a wee new thing

 Several months ago I learned of the microcomputer form factor. I was at the doctor's office and noticed the monitor cable led to a box little larger than a dollar bill. What?!? Yep, just the processor, memory, a small hard drive (likely SSD =solid state drive) Ethernet and a few USB ports. Really amazing.

Well now I have one.

The mini i5 box that I've been using is pleasantly small and can take a few cards when it's important (i.e. video) - but its size was not the problem. The i5 box just wouldn't stay wi-fi connected. I even direct-wired it to the network box, and added an antenna.. but still it was not reliable. Worse yet, its delays spilled over to the mouse, which meant I couldn't accomplish offline stuff as long as the connection was being rude. Not Good.

I decided to check the micro form to see what was available. If you already have USB items to do some of the work, it's a really cheap way to go. I picked up an old Dell with Win10 on a 500G SSD, an i7 processor and little else - for about $160. The power supply is an external brick, and it has six USB3 ports, a DP monitor and HDMI outputs, and audio in/out. Done.

The i7 chips beats an i5 in general, even more so when it's two generations newer. The SSD means no platter to spin: it's like a memory card for your camera but with massively more space. Windows loads in a hurry and every process is faster than I've experienced elsewhere. I plugged in a USB wi-fi thingy and found some issues on the 5G wi-fi, but since I connected to the slower broadcast all has worked really well. 

Now to clean up the i5 and set it free..

keeping up with the times

We bought/leased a Niro EV about four years ago. It's doing fine and serving us well, and we just put on new tires for another 40k+ miles of quiet motion. 

Right after we picked it up I bought a 220v adapter for our garage. The price was good for its time, and charging overnight is a great feature and a stupid good price compared to other fuel types. However..

We got home yesterday with 23 miles left in the tank - about 9%. I plugged it in and it's plugging along, filling at 3.7kW - taking about 18½ hours to do so.

I decided to check on my fuse boxes to determine if it was doing as quickly as it could. Nowadays these cars can charge 60% or more in an hour, but that's at AC+DC charging stations ($25 bucks to go 250 miles, instead of under $10 at home). A difference in speed and expense is reasonable - but that much of a speed difference? Hmm..

Garage #1 has two 220v plugs available, and they are fused for 50A current. Wow - but the former owner did work on old cars for a living/hobby, so he needed serious juice! Garage #2 has just 30A on the 220v for the welder. I then found the obvious choke point: my 4-yr-old EV charger draws just 16A from its 50A plug.

Looking at online options I found one that can be set from 8-32A for charging. At 1/3 or less of what I paid for the new tech four years ago. Wow!

So I'll be swapping out my old receptacle again and adding an app to my phone, and local charge times will be cut by a factor of two. Yippee!!