Well, this evening I decided we were done with POTS wiring in the house. Everywhere CAT-5 wire goes now, it goes to a T568B jack. The whole house is thusly set up for gigabit Ethernet.
We still have a couple of uses for analog phone lines, but they don't need to go over the house wiring.
I went to Fry's and bought a wall mount set of punchdown CAT5 8P8C jacks and just punched down the whole house onto it. We have an 8 port gigabit switch in the front of the garage, and it's all lit up for gigabit now.
So... w00t.
Showing posts with label home_improvement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home_improvement. Show all posts
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Teachable moment
In all of the fussing I've been doing over our Internet connection and the microcell lately, I came to discover that the latency on our connection had suddenly become about 40 ms, where it used to be much, much lower than that.
This happened after I had swapped out the Netopia modem/router combo for a separate Speedstream 5100 modem and a Linksys E1000 router.
I just couldn't believe that a separate PPPoE router would add that sort of latency to the connection. In trying to figure it out, I put an Ethernet switch in between the modem and router so I could conveniently connect a laptop simultaneously up to that segment to talk to the modem to get its current line quality metrics and such.
Well, long story short, over the weekend, our link not only had the high latency but started dropping 3-5% of the packets. That's enough packet loss to make the connection seem like EDGE. It was horrible.
Well, we had AT&T come out to check the line, and the technician reported that when he plugged his own laptop in, he saw the latency (as I did), but the packet loss went away.
Turns out the home-made Ethernet cable I had made to go between the modem and router was bad.
That's the one piece of equipment in the mix that I never tested and assumed was good.
Oops.
The latency, it turns out, was caused by the DSLAM putting us in interleaved mode rather than fast-path. So the tech changed that up. Our first-hop latency when the connection is not being used is now an astonishing 7 milliseconds (from quack).
So big ups to AT&T - at least the part of AT&T that runs our DSL line. The Microcell folks... well, the jury is still out...
This happened after I had swapped out the Netopia modem/router combo for a separate Speedstream 5100 modem and a Linksys E1000 router.
I just couldn't believe that a separate PPPoE router would add that sort of latency to the connection. In trying to figure it out, I put an Ethernet switch in between the modem and router so I could conveniently connect a laptop simultaneously up to that segment to talk to the modem to get its current line quality metrics and such.
Well, long story short, over the weekend, our link not only had the high latency but started dropping 3-5% of the packets. That's enough packet loss to make the connection seem like EDGE. It was horrible.
Well, we had AT&T come out to check the line, and the technician reported that when he plugged his own laptop in, he saw the latency (as I did), but the packet loss went away.
Turns out the home-made Ethernet cable I had made to go between the modem and router was bad.
That's the one piece of equipment in the mix that I never tested and assumed was good.
Oops.
The latency, it turns out, was caused by the DSLAM putting us in interleaved mode rather than fast-path. So the tech changed that up. Our first-hop latency when the connection is not being used is now an astonishing 7 milliseconds (from quack).
So big ups to AT&T - at least the part of AT&T that runs our DSL line. The Microcell folks... well, the jury is still out...
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Concrete anchors - lessons learned
Scarlet bought us a 10' x 10' gazebo for the patio. It replaced our patio umbrella, and is nicer in that it's bigger, anchored down (and so, permanent), and has mosquito netting that can be zipped shut, if desired.
As for that "permanent" part of the equation, the disclaimers on the packaging actually don't imply that at all. They warn against leaving it up during extreme weather, and it comes with 6" long spikes that are intended to be driven into the ground. Well, we want to set ours up on our concrete patio, so we decided to permanently affix it with concrete anchors.
So, I've learned a thing or two having done it now.
The basic procedure is that you use a hammer drill to drill a hole in the concrete, then you hammer the bolt in and then put whatever it is you're attaching over the bolt and then tighten the nut hard so that you pull the expansion wedge through the sleeve to lock the bolt in permanently. If you ever change your mind, your only option is to cut the bolt off flush with the surface of the concrete.
So the first bit of advice I've learned is that before you start bashing away at the head of the bolt with a hammer, thread a couple of the nuts on and lock them together. This will protect the threads from the hammer and insure that you'll have no trouble threading the nuts on later. This is particularly important if you need to bash on the side of the bolts to 'adjust' them a little to line up with whatever you're trying to attach. I wound up having to cut the top 1/8 of an inch off one of the bolts with a hacksaw to get past the bit I damaged a little too much. And some of the other bolts were a little hard to thread.
Another bit of advice was that if you happen to drive one a little bit too far, don't worry too much - they are designed to pull back out a little bit as you're tightening them. Just thread the washer and nut on without the thing you're attaching and tighten. You'll get maybe 3/16 or 1/4 inch that way, which hopefully will be enough to let you thread the nut on properly with the attached object back in place.
Lastly, if you're using these things with a tensioned load, you'll want to periodically check to make sure they're still tight, since a varying tension load (like the wind acting on our gazebo) may make them pull out slightly as they wedge themselves in harder. I'll be visiting them periodically to make sure they're tight for the first few months at least.
As for that "permanent" part of the equation, the disclaimers on the packaging actually don't imply that at all. They warn against leaving it up during extreme weather, and it comes with 6" long spikes that are intended to be driven into the ground. Well, we want to set ours up on our concrete patio, so we decided to permanently affix it with concrete anchors.
So, I've learned a thing or two having done it now.
The basic procedure is that you use a hammer drill to drill a hole in the concrete, then you hammer the bolt in and then put whatever it is you're attaching over the bolt and then tighten the nut hard so that you pull the expansion wedge through the sleeve to lock the bolt in permanently. If you ever change your mind, your only option is to cut the bolt off flush with the surface of the concrete.
So the first bit of advice I've learned is that before you start bashing away at the head of the bolt with a hammer, thread a couple of the nuts on and lock them together. This will protect the threads from the hammer and insure that you'll have no trouble threading the nuts on later. This is particularly important if you need to bash on the side of the bolts to 'adjust' them a little to line up with whatever you're trying to attach. I wound up having to cut the top 1/8 of an inch off one of the bolts with a hacksaw to get past the bit I damaged a little too much. And some of the other bolts were a little hard to thread.
Another bit of advice was that if you happen to drive one a little bit too far, don't worry too much - they are designed to pull back out a little bit as you're tightening them. Just thread the washer and nut on without the thing you're attaching and tighten. You'll get maybe 3/16 or 1/4 inch that way, which hopefully will be enough to let you thread the nut on properly with the attached object back in place.
Lastly, if you're using these things with a tensioned load, you'll want to periodically check to make sure they're still tight, since a varying tension load (like the wind acting on our gazebo) may make them pull out slightly as they wedge themselves in harder. I'll be visiting them periodically to make sure they're tight for the first few months at least.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
There! I fixed the backyard gate!
We used to have a nice handle and lever style latch on our backyard gate. It was very attractive, and allowed operation from both sides. The problem was that it turns out it wasn't dog proof. Our new dog, Luna, was able to "bonk" into the gate and get it to flip open. She escaped into the world a couple of times, only to have neighbors return her. That's rather embarrassing, so that gate latch had to go.
Everyone has seen the standard kind of gate latch. It consists of a horizontal bar that attaches to the door (if it's inward-swing), and a metal bracket with a slot for the bar to fit into and a hinged metal piece that goes up and down to lock the bar in. It's serviceable, and (at least in our case) dog-proof. The difficulty is that it has no provision for operation from the outside.
Well, not quite. There is a small hole in a tab on the latch that you're supposed to tie to a piece of string run through a hole in the fence. We've all seen those, and the various failure modes.
If the string in any way restricts the free movement of the latch, the whole mechanism is bound to fail. And, of course, in this case, the failure mode is unlatched, dog-roaming mode. Even if the string works, it won't work for long - the wood fence material will no doubt shred the string before too long.
Well, you could attach a wire instead of the string. The problem there is that a solid wire is even more likely to impede the free movement of the latch.
No, what you need is a frictionless, low profile linkage between the cable and the latch.
What you need, is a fairly standard part from the RC model hobby industry: A clevis linkage. A clevis linkage is a small pair of long, thin metal plates that normally sit parallel to each other. At one end of each, there is a round grommet through which you run the cable and either crimp or solder to permanently attach the linkage to the cable. At the other end of one of the parallel plates is a pin, and at the end of the other plate is a hole inside which the pin sits.
Solder a foot long (or so) piece of 1/16" braided cable in the clevis, and use a crimp coupling to form a finger loop at the other end. Drill a 1/4" hole right behind the top of the latch. Run the clevis coupling end of the cable through the hole and attach the clevis pin to the latch.
I have to admit, I didn't come up with this idea myself. We used to have this same problem on our other gate - the string wore out almost immediately, and I was just used to reaching over the fence (I am tall enough) and flipping the latch by hand, but that didn't help Scarlet. So one day while I was in our local hardware store, they had a display for a gate latch improvement kit. It was virtually identical to what I've described above, except that their kit also included a very, very large spring intended to go between the gate and the latch to help insure closure, and a washer with a flange that was meant to sit in the hole and hold the base of the spring centered around the cable hole.
I'd heartily endorse that kit, except that the local hardware store doesn't carry that product anymore, and nobody else has ever heard of it.
The other problem is that while that kit worked flawlessly on the gate where I installed it, a quick test shows that it wouldn't have worked quite so well on this gate. The issue here is that the latch is installed on a 2x4, but the hole you drill for the cable is above that 2x4. That means that the washer / spring base would sit a good two inches behind where it's designed to. I'd either have had to build up the face of the fence at that spot so that the hole emerged "at grade" or modified the kit's spring somehow. But that implies I would have had the kit to start with - I didn't.
Instead, it appears that, at least in this case, the spring is unnecessary. Of course, YMMV.
Everyone has seen the standard kind of gate latch. It consists of a horizontal bar that attaches to the door (if it's inward-swing), and a metal bracket with a slot for the bar to fit into and a hinged metal piece that goes up and down to lock the bar in. It's serviceable, and (at least in our case) dog-proof. The difficulty is that it has no provision for operation from the outside.
Well, not quite. There is a small hole in a tab on the latch that you're supposed to tie to a piece of string run through a hole in the fence. We've all seen those, and the various failure modes.
If the string in any way restricts the free movement of the latch, the whole mechanism is bound to fail. And, of course, in this case, the failure mode is unlatched, dog-roaming mode. Even if the string works, it won't work for long - the wood fence material will no doubt shred the string before too long.
Well, you could attach a wire instead of the string. The problem there is that a solid wire is even more likely to impede the free movement of the latch.
No, what you need is a frictionless, low profile linkage between the cable and the latch.
What you need, is a fairly standard part from the RC model hobby industry: A clevis linkage. A clevis linkage is a small pair of long, thin metal plates that normally sit parallel to each other. At one end of each, there is a round grommet through which you run the cable and either crimp or solder to permanently attach the linkage to the cable. At the other end of one of the parallel plates is a pin, and at the end of the other plate is a hole inside which the pin sits.
Solder a foot long (or so) piece of 1/16" braided cable in the clevis, and use a crimp coupling to form a finger loop at the other end. Drill a 1/4" hole right behind the top of the latch. Run the clevis coupling end of the cable through the hole and attach the clevis pin to the latch.
I have to admit, I didn't come up with this idea myself. We used to have this same problem on our other gate - the string wore out almost immediately, and I was just used to reaching over the fence (I am tall enough) and flipping the latch by hand, but that didn't help Scarlet. So one day while I was in our local hardware store, they had a display for a gate latch improvement kit. It was virtually identical to what I've described above, except that their kit also included a very, very large spring intended to go between the gate and the latch to help insure closure, and a washer with a flange that was meant to sit in the hole and hold the base of the spring centered around the cable hole.
I'd heartily endorse that kit, except that the local hardware store doesn't carry that product anymore, and nobody else has ever heard of it.
The other problem is that while that kit worked flawlessly on the gate where I installed it, a quick test shows that it wouldn't have worked quite so well on this gate. The issue here is that the latch is installed on a 2x4, but the hole you drill for the cable is above that 2x4. That means that the washer / spring base would sit a good two inches behind where it's designed to. I'd either have had to build up the face of the fence at that spot so that the hole emerged "at grade" or modified the kit's spring somehow. But that implies I would have had the kit to start with - I didn't.
Instead, it appears that, at least in this case, the spring is unnecessary. Of course, YMMV.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Casing up the audio amp
The audio amp project turned out much better than I anticipated. There's just one hiccup to take care of before it's perfect.
First, a picture:
I had to cut a couple of square holes in the case to install a couple of the parts - namely the power switch and the power receptacle. So I just drilled a couple of holes in the middle of where the square holes needed to go and used a pair of files to enlarge them to the necessary size. It worked pretty well!
The right side is sort of the back panel and the left side is the front. The layout sort of winds up putting AC carrying wires rather close to the low voltage stuff, which is perhaps not the textbook way of doing it, but I don't intend to submit this thing for UL approval. The entire case is tied to ground, which ought to keep it safe enough once the cover is on and screwed in.
Note that each channel of the amp has the input grouped with the matching output. That way it's relatively easy to figure out left from right - in fact, there's no reason to label left and right, since the input is right next to the associated output. Of course, this might be a problem if your RCA cabling can't stretch far enough apart to hit both of them, but that's not a problem for my application.
You'll notice that leads from both sides of the AC in go over to the power switch. This is because the switch itself has a little neon light in it - it lights up when the unit is turned on. Bonus!
The one hiccup I mentioned above is that I put one of the big 2200 μF capacitors in backwards. When I applied power to the unit, it promptly started bubbling and smoking. The irony is that despite that, the amp works pretty well for brief periods. But I obviously can't leave it like that. I'm going to have to very carefully unbolt the heat sink, rotate the board up so I can get to the bottom, desolder and replace the blown cap and then put it back together - hopefully without wrecking the wiring job I did. Wish me luck!
First, a picture:
I had to cut a couple of square holes in the case to install a couple of the parts - namely the power switch and the power receptacle. So I just drilled a couple of holes in the middle of where the square holes needed to go and used a pair of files to enlarge them to the necessary size. It worked pretty well!
The right side is sort of the back panel and the left side is the front. The layout sort of winds up putting AC carrying wires rather close to the low voltage stuff, which is perhaps not the textbook way of doing it, but I don't intend to submit this thing for UL approval. The entire case is tied to ground, which ought to keep it safe enough once the cover is on and screwed in.
Note that each channel of the amp has the input grouped with the matching output. That way it's relatively easy to figure out left from right - in fact, there's no reason to label left and right, since the input is right next to the associated output. Of course, this might be a problem if your RCA cabling can't stretch far enough apart to hit both of them, but that's not a problem for my application.
You'll notice that leads from both sides of the AC in go over to the power switch. This is because the switch itself has a little neon light in it - it lights up when the unit is turned on. Bonus!
The one hiccup I mentioned above is that I put one of the big 2200 μF capacitors in backwards. When I applied power to the unit, it promptly started bubbling and smoking. The irony is that despite that, the amp works pretty well for brief periods. But I obviously can't leave it like that. I'm going to have to very carefully unbolt the heat sink, rotate the board up so I can get to the bottom, desolder and replace the blown cap and then put it back together - hopefully without wrecking the wiring job I did. Wish me luck!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Velleman K4003 2x30 watt audio amplifier
I blogged a couple days ago about the outdoor speakers I mounted on the patio. I'd like to talk a little bit more about the problem I had in setting this up and how I solved it.
It's hard to find a standalone stereo audio amplifier anymore.
You can find amplified speakers, typically intended for use with computers. Those do take line-in, but typically have integrated speakers which typically are designed for a desktop installation. It's not really the right thing for a patio, and the speakers you get are certainly not weather resistant.
You can find home stereo receiver/amplifiers, but those typically have AM/FM radios built-in at the very least, and typically even in this day and age still include phono preamps as well. If all you want to do is plug in something like an iPod, it's just overkill.
No, what I want is an audio amplifier that takes a single stereo line level input and has a pair of speaker connections. For controls, a simple volume knob and power switch is fine. No need for anything fancier.
Well, I've found a solution, though it does come in kit form, so you need to be good with a soldering iron. It's the Velleman K4003 2x30 watt audio amplifier.
I actually bought one of these a while ago for use out by the hot tub, where there's another pair of speakers set up. I used to have another amplifier kit that I had built before that ran on 12 vdc. The best I could do was a 12 volt wall-wart power supply, but that was inadequate for the purpose, since it introduced a nasty 60 Hz hum in the speakers. The Velleman amp, by contrast, is designed to run with a 12 vac bipolar power input. That is, you hook up a 24 VAC center tapped transformer.
With an iPhone hooked up to the patio speakers, the output is quite loud. But even so, it's not at all distorted. The levels are high enough that you'd want to use a volume control in front of the input. A dual gang 20 kΩ logarithmic pot works perfectly. You hook the "counterclockwise" end of each pot up to ground, the opposite end to the audio input, and hook the sweep of the pot up to the amp's audio input.
The kit is available from Jameco, part # 129138. A suitable transformer can also be had from them, part # 99654.
It's hard to find a standalone stereo audio amplifier anymore.
You can find amplified speakers, typically intended for use with computers. Those do take line-in, but typically have integrated speakers which typically are designed for a desktop installation. It's not really the right thing for a patio, and the speakers you get are certainly not weather resistant.
You can find home stereo receiver/amplifiers, but those typically have AM/FM radios built-in at the very least, and typically even in this day and age still include phono preamps as well. If all you want to do is plug in something like an iPod, it's just overkill.
No, what I want is an audio amplifier that takes a single stereo line level input and has a pair of speaker connections. For controls, a simple volume knob and power switch is fine. No need for anything fancier.
Well, I've found a solution, though it does come in kit form, so you need to be good with a soldering iron. It's the Velleman K4003 2x30 watt audio amplifier.
I actually bought one of these a while ago for use out by the hot tub, where there's another pair of speakers set up. I used to have another amplifier kit that I had built before that ran on 12 vdc. The best I could do was a 12 volt wall-wart power supply, but that was inadequate for the purpose, since it introduced a nasty 60 Hz hum in the speakers. The Velleman amp, by contrast, is designed to run with a 12 vac bipolar power input. That is, you hook up a 24 VAC center tapped transformer.
With an iPhone hooked up to the patio speakers, the output is quite loud. But even so, it's not at all distorted. The levels are high enough that you'd want to use a volume control in front of the input. A dual gang 20 kΩ logarithmic pot works perfectly. You hook the "counterclockwise" end of each pot up to ground, the opposite end to the audio input, and hook the sweep of the pot up to the amp's audio input.
The kit is available from Jameco, part # 129138. A suitable transformer can also be had from them, part # 99654.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Fireplace trouble
We had a gas insert put in our fireplace last year. We didn't really do it in anticipation of the new BAAQMD fireplace regulations, but because of Scarlet's lung problems. Burning wood was just too smokey in the house for her. We're fairly satisfied with the new insert, but it came with a remote control made by Acumen that really sucked.
First, some background.
A gas insert is not unlike a gas furnace. There is a standing pilot which heats a small thermocouple. The thermocouple serves two purposes: the voltage it produces holds open the valve supplying the pilot flame (so that if the pilot goes out, the gas supply for it will be cut off), and it also is the power supply for the burner valve. Close a switch and the valve opens and gets lit by the pilot. In old fashioned furnaces, this switching was done by a simple thermostat based on a bimetallic strip.
The thermocouple is only capable of producing a few hundred millivolts, though, so if you want to do something more sophisticated, the control mechanism (whatever it is) will need to be self-powered. This is unlike most central HVAC systems today that use a 24 VAC circuit to power thermostats. There are so-called battery eliminator circuits or remote controls that can be powered off the thermocouple. More on that later.
In our case, our gas insert actually also has an electrically powered, thermostatically controlled fan. Whenever the flame is on and heats the box up to a certain temperature, the fan kicks in. The fan is powered off an outlet we had installed actually inside the fireplace itself. Given this state of affairs, it's only natural that our remote control system would have had a receiver that simply plugged in to the AC outlet.
Guess what.
They supplied us with a receiver system powered by 4 AA batteries, plus 3 AAA for the remote. Not only is that a lot of batteries to have to deal with, but it seemed like it wouldn't go more than a month or two before petering out. I did some research on the Internet and discovered the battery eliminator solution, but though Skytech did make a 6 volt battery eliminator, it didn't work on our Acumen receiver. I'm not sure if it's because our receiver was bad or whether they're all like that. But in any event, it was dismissed.
In its place, I installed a Skytech 5310. Yes, it's got a Jetsons remote, but that's not why I chose it. It was just about the only model I could find out there that had a plug-in receiver. No more batteries ever.
Anyway, ripping out the old receiver and installing the new one was a snap. Just a pair of push-on spade terminals. There was only a single outlet in the fireplace, so I added a "Y" cable so the existing fan and the remote could plug in. That's all there was to it.
First, some background.
A gas insert is not unlike a gas furnace. There is a standing pilot which heats a small thermocouple. The thermocouple serves two purposes: the voltage it produces holds open the valve supplying the pilot flame (so that if the pilot goes out, the gas supply for it will be cut off), and it also is the power supply for the burner valve. Close a switch and the valve opens and gets lit by the pilot. In old fashioned furnaces, this switching was done by a simple thermostat based on a bimetallic strip.
The thermocouple is only capable of producing a few hundred millivolts, though, so if you want to do something more sophisticated, the control mechanism (whatever it is) will need to be self-powered. This is unlike most central HVAC systems today that use a 24 VAC circuit to power thermostats. There are so-called battery eliminator circuits or remote controls that can be powered off the thermocouple. More on that later.
In our case, our gas insert actually also has an electrically powered, thermostatically controlled fan. Whenever the flame is on and heats the box up to a certain temperature, the fan kicks in. The fan is powered off an outlet we had installed actually inside the fireplace itself. Given this state of affairs, it's only natural that our remote control system would have had a receiver that simply plugged in to the AC outlet.
Guess what.
They supplied us with a receiver system powered by 4 AA batteries, plus 3 AAA for the remote. Not only is that a lot of batteries to have to deal with, but it seemed like it wouldn't go more than a month or two before petering out. I did some research on the Internet and discovered the battery eliminator solution, but though Skytech did make a 6 volt battery eliminator, it didn't work on our Acumen receiver. I'm not sure if it's because our receiver was bad or whether they're all like that. But in any event, it was dismissed.
In its place, I installed a Skytech 5310. Yes, it's got a Jetsons remote, but that's not why I chose it. It was just about the only model I could find out there that had a plug-in receiver. No more batteries ever.
Anyway, ripping out the old receiver and installing the new one was a snap. Just a pair of push-on spade terminals. There was only a single outlet in the fireplace, so I added a "Y" cable so the existing fan and the remote could plug in. That's all there was to it.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Need a cordless phone jack - any help?
Here's the situation:
We have one cat 5 line running to the living room. I used to run 100baseT Ethernet over it plus a phone line. I really want to stop doing that - instead to run all 4 pairs as Ethernet so I can do gigabit. The problem is that I need a phone jack in that location as well for the DirecTV receivers.
My first attempt at a solution was the RCA RC940 wireless phone jack. It runs a signal through the building's power lines. It is almost completely worthless. I could get a dial-tone without difficulty, but the line is so noisy that the self-test inside the receiver fails every time. I tried about 19 different configurations and the only way it wasn't so noisy you wouldn't even want to make a regular phone call with it is if the base and extension units are plugged into the same socket, which is obviously not very helpful.
We have a 5 GHz cordless phone system, but of course it doesn't have a remote jack, so that's no help. Google gives me nothing but the powerline variants when I search for 'cordless phone jack,' which is not helpful.
Attempting to search for phone / POTS over ethernet gives me either VoIP stuff, which is way, way over engineered for what I want, or gives me Ethernet over Phone line wiring, which is, of course, the exact opposite of what I need.
Are there any wireless phone jacks that do not use the power lines for transporting the signal?
Why, yes! There is the RTX DualJack... except that you can't buy one anywhere. Best of all is WalMart. "Not sold online" and "not sold in stores." Why fucking bother listing then, retards?
It seems like it would be something that would be both easy to do and useful. Surely there are lots of situations in this world where ethernet is already run and you have an analog phone device you need to use. Doesn't anyone make a dumbed-down raw Ethernet POTS line bridge system? There's no need in this circumstance to even use IP networking.
The other irony here is that virtually every google result where I see this question asked, the first response is, "I don't understand what it is you want to do."
So I'll say it again: I have a fully functional gigabit Ethernet network. I have a POTS phone line in one place. I have a need to plug in a POTS device (a DirecTV receiver) in another place. I attempted to use powerline phone extenders and it was an unmitigated disaster. Is there no way that a pair of boxes could use Ethernet to transport the POTS line?
We have one cat 5 line running to the living room. I used to run 100baseT Ethernet over it plus a phone line. I really want to stop doing that - instead to run all 4 pairs as Ethernet so I can do gigabit. The problem is that I need a phone jack in that location as well for the DirecTV receivers.
My first attempt at a solution was the RCA RC940 wireless phone jack. It runs a signal through the building's power lines. It is almost completely worthless. I could get a dial-tone without difficulty, but the line is so noisy that the self-test inside the receiver fails every time. I tried about 19 different configurations and the only way it wasn't so noisy you wouldn't even want to make a regular phone call with it is if the base and extension units are plugged into the same socket, which is obviously not very helpful.
We have a 5 GHz cordless phone system, but of course it doesn't have a remote jack, so that's no help. Google gives me nothing but the powerline variants when I search for 'cordless phone jack,' which is not helpful.
Attempting to search for phone / POTS over ethernet gives me either VoIP stuff, which is way, way over engineered for what I want, or gives me Ethernet over Phone line wiring, which is, of course, the exact opposite of what I need.
Are there any wireless phone jacks that do not use the power lines for transporting the signal?
Why, yes! There is the RTX DualJack... except that you can't buy one anywhere. Best of all is WalMart. "Not sold online" and "not sold in stores." Why fucking bother listing then, retards?
It seems like it would be something that would be both easy to do and useful. Surely there are lots of situations in this world where ethernet is already run and you have an analog phone device you need to use. Doesn't anyone make a dumbed-down raw Ethernet POTS line bridge system? There's no need in this circumstance to even use IP networking.
The other irony here is that virtually every google result where I see this question asked, the first response is, "I don't understand what it is you want to do."
So I'll say it again: I have a fully functional gigabit Ethernet network. I have a POTS phone line in one place. I have a need to plug in a POTS device (a DirecTV receiver) in another place. I attempted to use powerline phone extenders and it was an unmitigated disaster. Is there no way that a pair of boxes could use Ethernet to transport the POTS line?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
New Water Heater
Well, there are only two major appliances in the house that we hadn't replaced since moving in - the furnace / AC and the water heater. And now, there's just one. The water heater started leaking and set off the flood detector Friday morning. We called our favorite plumber (Gus at Castle Plumbing), and he said he could come out and take a look Saturday, but that if it needed to be replaced and we couldn't wait until Monday that that likely meant getting a new water heater at Home Depot, since nothing else would be open. But the good news is that the Home Depot water heaters are made by Rheem, which has a good track record.
In the meantime, we called a national plumbing chain (I won't mention their name) and they sent someone out who gave us a free estimate of $1300, but who knows whether they would have put a good water heater in for that price? In any event, that's way, way too much, so they were dismissed.
Saturday came around and I decided that it was just too likely that the water heater had to be replaced. It was 11 years old, and I strongly suspected that it wasn't the 12 year warranty kind. One thing you can take to the bank is that an N year warranty water heater will last for about N years + 1 day before giving out. So I decided to attempt to save some money by at least starting the demolition of the old unit myself. It was pretty easy, and I managed to get the old unit out all by myself. The gas and water connections came off with a wrench. The T&P relief valve had a sweated connection that I needed to desolder before I could unscrew the rest of it. Lastly, the chimney was held on with a couple of sheet metal screws.
We went to Home Depot and bought a 12 year warranty 40 gallon natural gas heater. It was about $550 or so, but the extra-cheap 6 year warranty units were about $400, so I think that's pretty clearly money well spent.
In retrospect, I probably could have installed the new unit myself. The new unit is a little taller than the old one was, because between then and now the building code has an added safety requirement - a special sealed combustion chamber that has a spring-loaded door held open by a thermal fuse. The idea is that if the burner area overheats, the door will spring shut cutting off the combustion air flow, choking off the fire. I had Gus install the new water heater mostly because of the fear that the size difference was going to make a difference between it being easy and being hard. The worry was that the water connections were going to need to be moved, which would have involved tearing out some sheetrock in the back of the water heater alcove. But there are flexible copper pipes and there was enough flex left for the new heater to fit. The only other work needed was to trim the chimney to fit and to re-plumb the T&P relief piping.
The last advice Gus had was to keep the home depot receipt, because Home Depot has a reputation for doing anything they can to low-ball you on any warranty claims. I stapled it to the door of the water heater closet. He also said we should drain it once a year, but that didn't mean emptying it all the way - just opening the drain valve and pouring off a gallon or two is enough.
In the meantime, we called a national plumbing chain (I won't mention their name) and they sent someone out who gave us a free estimate of $1300, but who knows whether they would have put a good water heater in for that price? In any event, that's way, way too much, so they were dismissed.
Saturday came around and I decided that it was just too likely that the water heater had to be replaced. It was 11 years old, and I strongly suspected that it wasn't the 12 year warranty kind. One thing you can take to the bank is that an N year warranty water heater will last for about N years + 1 day before giving out. So I decided to attempt to save some money by at least starting the demolition of the old unit myself. It was pretty easy, and I managed to get the old unit out all by myself. The gas and water connections came off with a wrench. The T&P relief valve had a sweated connection that I needed to desolder before I could unscrew the rest of it. Lastly, the chimney was held on with a couple of sheet metal screws.
We went to Home Depot and bought a 12 year warranty 40 gallon natural gas heater. It was about $550 or so, but the extra-cheap 6 year warranty units were about $400, so I think that's pretty clearly money well spent.
In retrospect, I probably could have installed the new unit myself. The new unit is a little taller than the old one was, because between then and now the building code has an added safety requirement - a special sealed combustion chamber that has a spring-loaded door held open by a thermal fuse. The idea is that if the burner area overheats, the door will spring shut cutting off the combustion air flow, choking off the fire. I had Gus install the new water heater mostly because of the fear that the size difference was going to make a difference between it being easy and being hard. The worry was that the water connections were going to need to be moved, which would have involved tearing out some sheetrock in the back of the water heater alcove. But there are flexible copper pipes and there was enough flex left for the new heater to fit. The only other work needed was to trim the chimney to fit and to re-plumb the T&P relief piping.
The last advice Gus had was to keep the home depot receipt, because Home Depot has a reputation for doing anything they can to low-ball you on any warranty claims. I stapled it to the door of the water heater closet. He also said we should drain it once a year, but that didn't mean emptying it all the way - just opening the drain valve and pouring off a gallon or two is enough.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
New kitchen sink
If you've been paying attention, you'll know that we've been doing some home improvement work from time to time. We were impressed when we moved in with how new and modern everything was. Well, in the time we've owned the house, we've more or less discovered or realized now that all of the work the previous owners did was all done with the cheapest, crappiest Home Depot junk money could buy. Now, we don't really have many complaints. We're not saying we were ripped off or anything. It's just that every time we've decided to redo something, we've been astounded at how much better it was after we were done. Case in point was our kitchen sink. We didn't like it because the bowls were rather small, weren't flat on the bottom, and because we had a dishwasher, we didn't really need a two bowl sink. Our garbage disposal was also very loud, and the reverse osmosis system would gurgle loudly too.
So we decided to buy a new sink. If you're going to bother buying a new sink, you might as well replace the garbage disposal while you're at it. We decided to go with an asymmetric two bowl design. The smaller bowl has the disposer in it, which sort of makes it the equivalent of a wet trash can, sort of.
This time we had a plumber come in and do the work. Not that I couldn't have done it, but it was a trade-off of time and money I was willing to make. While they were at it, we had them re-plumb the washing machine drain. It used to drain out on the lawn. Not kidding. I didn't think such an arrangement was even legal, much less good for the grass. They even added a clean-out just in case something ever clogs. We also added a proper air gap for the dishwasher.
We've had the whole set up for a few days now. There's only been one mishap. I ran some corn cobs down the disposer a little too quickly and one of them managed to get stuck in a way that blocked the dishwasher inflow. Oops. The disposer can actually take corn cobs. It's just that it's so quiet I wasn't able to distinguish between it being done or having one stuck. The disposer is actually a "compact" model, which means that it was easy to clear. One downside of it being so small is that you need to cut things like corn cobs in half before you send them down or else their top halves will spin around above the rubber drain cover and fling water all over.
So what's next?
Honestly, we're running out of easy stuff, but there are a couple left. We have some folding doors on the office closet that need to be replaced with sliding doors - or just simply removed. We could replace the master bath shower door, I suppose. We could replace the HVAC system, but I'm not sure there's enough gains to be made now that we've insulated. We could remodel the kitchen, but unless we make it larger it's probably not worth it. Then there's the "small" remodel idea (wall in the raised part of the patio as a kitchen extension), and then the "large" remodel (2nd story master suite and office).
So we decided to buy a new sink. If you're going to bother buying a new sink, you might as well replace the garbage disposal while you're at it. We decided to go with an asymmetric two bowl design. The smaller bowl has the disposer in it, which sort of makes it the equivalent of a wet trash can, sort of.
This time we had a plumber come in and do the work. Not that I couldn't have done it, but it was a trade-off of time and money I was willing to make. While they were at it, we had them re-plumb the washing machine drain. It used to drain out on the lawn. Not kidding. I didn't think such an arrangement was even legal, much less good for the grass. They even added a clean-out just in case something ever clogs. We also added a proper air gap for the dishwasher.
We've had the whole set up for a few days now. There's only been one mishap. I ran some corn cobs down the disposer a little too quickly and one of them managed to get stuck in a way that blocked the dishwasher inflow. Oops. The disposer can actually take corn cobs. It's just that it's so quiet I wasn't able to distinguish between it being done or having one stuck. The disposer is actually a "compact" model, which means that it was easy to clear. One downside of it being so small is that you need to cut things like corn cobs in half before you send them down or else their top halves will spin around above the rubber drain cover and fling water all over.
So what's next?
Honestly, we're running out of easy stuff, but there are a couple left. We have some folding doors on the office closet that need to be replaced with sliding doors - or just simply removed. We could replace the master bath shower door, I suppose. We could replace the HVAC system, but I'm not sure there's enough gains to be made now that we've insulated. We could remodel the kitchen, but unless we make it larger it's probably not worth it. Then there's the "small" remodel idea (wall in the raised part of the patio as a kitchen extension), and then the "large" remodel (2nd story master suite and office).
Saturday, May 26, 2007
House stuff
So last week we got contractors to come and blow cellulose insullation into the walls and attic of the house. The attic was easy, but to do the walls they had to drill holes in the outside wall, blow the insullation in, then patch the holes up with either stuco patch (for stuco walls) or bungs and putty (for wood), and that we were on the hook for painting them afterwards. Our house looked like there had been a drive-by shooting. Well, I promised Scarlet that I would paint this weekend, and I kept my promise. We had used Kelley Moore flat latex to paint the house before, and since we were painting a whole new color we were able to just go with the sample we liked best and use the name for ordering (our house is "Del Covino").
So I ambled over to the KM store in Mountain View, picked up a quart of the stuff and a narrow roller on a long handle and came home and got to work. It took about an hour, but the amazing thing is that the old and new paint blended perfectly. You can't see that anything happened unless you really know exactly where to look. This is particularly impressive given that the wood part of our house faces west into full sun, and we last painted when we bought the house almost 5 years ago.
So big ups to Kelley Moore.
So I ambled over to the KM store in Mountain View, picked up a quart of the stuff and a narrow roller on a long handle and came home and got to work. It took about an hour, but the amazing thing is that the old and new paint blended perfectly. You can't see that anything happened unless you really know exactly where to look. This is particularly impressive given that the wood part of our house faces west into full sun, and we last painted when we bought the house almost 5 years ago.
So big ups to Kelley Moore.
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