Entropy

Relax in southern comfort on the east bank of the Mississippi. You're just around the corner from Beale Street and Sun Records. Watch the ducks, throw back a few and tell us what's on your mind.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy Peltier dehumidifier part three

Post by JR. »

Well the slick solid state peltier dehumidifier that should not wear out (except for the fan) is broken again... new different symptoms this time, Electronics work, but when it detects high enough humidity to run it just locks up. :cry:

I am losing interest in fixing this repeatedly. Its a little too needy for a 24x7 appliance.

JR
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mediatechnology
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Re: Entropy

Post by mediatechnology »

I just finished mowing the back yard. I could use a dehumidifier right now before I lock up. :lol:
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

mediatechnology wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:33 am I just finished mowing the back yard. I could use a dehumidifier right now before I lock up. :lol:
air conditioning is a pretty effective dehumidifier... my overnight dehumidifier heats the house...less of a problem in the winter.

I could probably afford to run the air conditioner cooler and use less dehumidifier in the summer. Might even be less electricity. ;)

JR
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Re: Entropy Peltier dehumidifier part three

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JR. wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 9:21 am Well the slick solid state peltier dehumidifier that should not wear out (except for the fan) is broken again... new different symptoms this time, Electronics work, but when it detects high enough humidity to run it just locks up. :cry:

I am losing interest in fixing this repeatedly. Its a little too needy for a 24x7 appliance.

JR
Well the Peltier dehumidifier just officially became too high maintenance to bother with.

I moved it to my test bench and it powered up and looked almost normal until I reduced the humidity threshold to turn it on, and it went completely dark... the external PS died (again).

When it worked it was removing on the order of only a pint of water a week.

so see ya... nice product concept but ineffective, unreliable, etc.

JR
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Re: Entropy

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I am such a pack rat I am having a hard time just discarding this broken dehumidifier. But the parts inside are barely worth the labor.. fan probably still works since I only recently replaced it, heatsink and peltier device may have some modest value but nah...

Its a shame, it looks like somebody invested a bunch in the tooling for a nice looking product that just didn't collect much water. :oops:
======

easiest repair this week... my outdoor electronic thermometer was stuck on 96' even late at night so obviously in error. I fixed that by removing one battery and resetting it... the old processor reboot.

------

For an example where a little does a lot, I oiled the hinges on my kitchen door to stop them from squeaking. A few drops of oil on both the inside door hinges and even outside screen door hinges. Now blissful silence. 8-)

The squirrels I have been shooting with my new pellet gun have learned to leave the area when they hear my kitchen door squeaking.

JR
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Re: Entropy

Post by mediatechnology »

A pint a week? My A/C probably gives that off in 5 minutes on a good day.
Too bad the Peltier is so inefficient.

This week's quick repairs included a new mower wheel and replacing the circuit board in a remote thermometer.

The mower wheel had just worn out.
The thermometer, only a few months old, just died.
I had an old one with a bad humidity sensor so I took the board out of the one with the bad sensor and mounted it in the unit that had failed.
Glad I saved the old one for parts.
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Re: Entropy

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mediatechnology wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 8:28 pm A pint a week? My A/C probably gives that off in 5 minutes on a good day.
Too bad the Peltier is so inefficient.
This is a huge disappointment, a silent dehumidifier with no moving parts seems like a useful design goal.

I could almost live with the modest water capture but the broken fan (an obvious weak link) and second failed power supply, made it too fragile to bother fixing.

In hindsight I have thought about what would make it not suck.... maybe a second or third Peltier device with larger passive heatsink. I would need to fashion some kind of a heat tunnel/smokestack so hot air would flow up and out, drawing in moist room temperature air.

Perhaps a two sided heatsink mounted horizontally so room air is drawn across the cool side (bottom side of heat sink) before turning the corner and then flowing across the warm side and then up and out, purely from convection.

This thing already draws some 70 W so maybe a double to 150W.

Perhaps I could recycle the electronics that had a humidity meter and controller, but seriously NOT a great use of my time. The water collection tank (maybe 1 quart) with full cut off switch could also be reused.
This week's quick repairs included a new mower wheel and replacing the circuit board in a remote thermometer.
my quickest was popping and replacing a battery to get my electronic thermometer unstuck. yesterday I moved the pickup away from the back side of my house because of 105' and climbing readings in the shade.... I moved it to the front of my house inside a larger evergreen and the temp reading are more believable. I may put it inside a plastic baggie for better environmental security.
The mower wheel had just worn out.
The thermometer, only a few months old, just died.
I had an old one with a bad humidity sensor so I took the board out of the one with the bad sensor and mounted it in the unit that had failed.
Glad I saved the old one for parts.
I have a spare big dog dehumidifier with a bad temperature sensor. The vendor replaced it under warranty and just had me remove serial numbers. So when the working one fails, and it will, I will have plenty of spare parts as long as the same temperature sensor doesn't fail. :lol:

In the summer when my air conditioner is working my daytime dehumidifier collects about zero moisture, my night time dehumidifier that doesn't compete with the air conditioner still collects about a gallon every night.

JR
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Re: Entropy

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I had another quick fix, not really a fix but a work around.

I use a crock pot like slow cooker to cook a big roast on low over night, then finish the next day with the rest of the ingredients. My fancy microprocessor based cooker brain apparently runs 24x7 in the background waiting for button presses to come to life. Late thursday night after I loaded in a roast and the beans to cook, no response. The micro was locked up and cycling the power just resulted in a brief display flash and then locked up again.

Since i was half asleep I decided to try magic... I held down one of the buttons while cycling the power.... Bingo it started working...I guess it didn't have time to lock up. So for now it works until it doesn't. No obvious way to troubleshoot that random intermittent fault.

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Re: Entropy

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OK this is kind of on topic about order returning to disorder. I live on low ground so after it rains I get a lot of rainwater runoff flowing through my rain ditches. Before Hurricane Katrina my back rain ditch system and front were not hydraulically connected. After Katrina dropped a 100' cottonwood from my side yard I saw the opportunity to connect the two systems. I bushwhacked some surveyors who were working up the road from my house to shoot an elevation from the bottom of my front culvert to the back ditch level. It turns out I had 8-9" of drop I could take advantage of. Since the front ditch drains much better than the back ditch system (that end of town often floods after heavy rains) I decided to connect them.

With help from a back hoe and bulldozer we rearranged a bunch of dirt to cut a gentle swell (ditch) from back to front. Most of the time it just looks like a lumpy yard, but when it rains hard it becomes a river.
runoff.jpg
After over a decade of multiple storms with serious water flow coming from an unintended direction the roadside bank by the culvert eroded. The turbulence caused when the heavy flow down the front ditch meets the even heavier flow from my new virtual ditch, causes turbulence and more hydraulic stress on the roadside bank. In the picture you can see the high water level from sediment left after the last storm.

Since I didn't feel like calling in the state highway department and having to ask for retroactive permission for drainage flow changes I made over a decade ago, I decided to practice some self help.
P1010277.JPG
This is the after picture, after 4x50# bags of quickrete concrete mix were used to create a wall across the front of the erosion cavity. I backfilled the hole with dirt/sod from the bottom of the rain ditch that accumulates there. In hind sight I could have used a few more bags of concrete but that's another story***.

Now I need a few weeks of normal rain to cure the concrete in place before the next gully washer... we had one 3" storm a week ago that brought this to my attention. I had seen the erosion when cutting my grass but was unclear about the direct cause, but now it is pretty clear. Since it took over a decade to erode this much and it seemed to be getting worse, hopefully my remedy will stabilize it.

JR

**** sourcing the concrete was another story. Don't read this if you believe "free shipping" is an actual thing. Since small town hickory no longer has a hardware store left (used to have two) I decided to let my fingers do the walking. The first internet fail was google search telling me that a hickory flea market (inside a empty building abandoned by a lawnmower business) was a dealer for quickrete. I didn't believe google but since I ride past them on my bike almost every day I decided to drop in. No surprise they didn't sell concrete and I advised them to check their web advertising search terms :o . Next failure was to look for free shipping. Amazon Prime claims free shipping, but does not list 50# quickrete even when searching for that specifically by name. I did find 50# quickrete with free shipping (cough) from Wally World for $15 and change. That same 50# bag of quickrete from Lowes was $3.50 ea. It required an almost 50 mile round trip to Lowes, but I figure I paid 25% of what I would have with "free" shipping. :lol: I guess simple math is becoming a lost art.
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mediatechnology
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Re: Entropy

Post by mediatechnology »

Nice fix!
I like the multiple attachments. You should tell me how you did that. :lol:
(Thanks for finding that php bug.)

I think you'll find that the concrete will cure a lot faster than you think.
My contractor likes to set post holes dry and then after he has the posts plumb he adds just a little bit of water.
After about 2-3 days the absorption of ground water provides enough for a hard cure.
Its a lot better method then setting posts in liquid concrete.

I realize your bags are pretty high up but if they're in direct ground contact they'll suck up a tremendous amount of moisture.

Some people around here use concrete bags as steps.
Fortunately for use we have four Home Depots and two Lowes within a 5 mi radius.
I shop my local Ace Hardware though whenever I can and avoid the big box.
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