Quads And A New Lifestyle

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xman
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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asbo wrote:No I meant that's the first thing I saw in my head when I looked at them, like this:
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It might just be my weird mind :D
Excellent morphing job you did there Asbo. Those power points are nick named China men by the way. :lol:
Here's one I did for the kitchen renovation I'm doing at the moment. You should be good to have fun with this "highlighted" one. :D

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professor_jonny wrote:Not going to put in c-bus and automate everything ? I use to program e-bos home automation and if I built a house I would put a product like that in it all runs of 12vdc and has power saving options like dimming light automatically at 10pm and lights that turn them selves off if no one is in the room, handy if you are on solar or are into power savings.
I'm not a real fan of that type of home automation P.J.. To turn lights on and off and dim levels etc to me would be more of a problem than a saving. I've seen a few setups in houses and to me it seemed it was doing jobs solely for the sack of using it. Don't get me wrong, I love automation but it really needs to be practical. Just to give you some idea what I regard as practical.
This is how I use automation at this house. This is a slide show BTW.

http://s1038.photobucket.com/user/autos ... Automation


The front gate is opened by number pad or key or switch from in side the house or remote control from the cars. Once the gate is opened only by remote or key, do you have 30 seconds to walk to the porch of the house where a sensor sees you and the front door of the house unlocked and swings open. That is why the front door of the house has an actuator above it. My thinking is every car these days has central locking, why does no house have it?. There is more to the system. As I had to make an interface board to tie the gate to the door and house because no company makes off the shelf parts for this, I let my imagination go a bit wild but I still think practical. Here's a couple of other features I made into the interface board.
If the gate is "locked open", if someone walks through the opening it rings the inside house door bell so you know someone has come in the property. This uses the PE beams across the gate opening that reverses the gate if something is in the gate's way when it tries to auto close. If it is dark, I put a CDs cell on the interface board, opening the gate brings on the gate and house lights to light up the front yard. These lights also come on if the gate is in the locked open position when the door bell rings in this mode. Walking though the opened gate does not unlock and open the front door by the way. I also had at one stage the Cds cell backlighting the house number but the local kids kept stealing the blue LEDs I had set in the perspex the house number was lit with so I disabled that. Little bastards. There are also switches inside the house that can open the gate, lock the gate open as well as door control buttons to open and close the door. Both the gate and door have battery backup. Gotta have battery backup. Without battery backup on the gate you are climbing the front brick fence. The front door does have a dead lock that you can use a key on to open the door but battery backup on it comes with it anyway so may as well use it I figured. There is also, not shown in the pics, an auto garage door opener. It is a Roller door. The garage door is operated by the 2nd button on the car's remotes. There is also motorised roller shutters on the front windows of the house. These are mainly for noise suppression as well as bush fire shielding and are just controlled by switches beside the windows inside the house. We are in a bush fire area here BTW.

So as you can see, I do love automation. It has been one of my occupations for some time. Why I would be opposed to auto lighting at the farm would be mainly lights at night attract people at night in the bush. Not an issue while we are there but not wanted when we are not. I do have the outside area lights around the farm house remote controlled. They use the same remotes we use in the city house. It gets real dark at night down there and it is nice to light the place up when you get there at night and it makes it easy to see the door keyhole at night as well as lighting up the paddock around the farm house. Prior to doing the remote lights, I was having to leave the car headlights on till I got inside to manually turn the lights on. I will be using a few forms of automation on the farm though but these will be mainly for water pumping using solar/ battery setups as well as irrigation in the green house. These will mainly be stand alone timer systems but I do want to be able to manually control them if need be via the internet from here when we do get a satellite connected up. I also want to have a few web cameras set up not only for surveillance but also to monitor the automation is actually doing what it is supposed to do. i also have quite a few auto gate actuators I can use. Mainly swing gate actuators like these and control boards for driving them.

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With these actuators and some mag locks I have you can do shit like this...

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I'd still leave my trusty double chains and padlocks on the front gate but I do have a need for other gates on the property. These actuators aren't only limited to gates though. You can use then to open or move anything that needs up to 250Kg of thrust in a lineal motion and they use 24vDc to operate. They can easierly be solar powered, work on a timer, be remote controller or internet linked.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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I understand where you are coming some go over the top.

If you used cbus you could automate light switches to power specif ic parts of the house zones only when you are in the room or using proxes turning off the inverters automatically after a time of inactivity in a room that was more along the lines I was thinking.

Currently we are in the design stages of automating a house for a client that is a bit different, the house is round and sits on a rotary platform and has the ability to spin around once per minute.

The automation will be used on this to spin the house around to specific spots depending on which room the proximity sensors are working in the house to keep the room you are in in the sun.

It will also have the ability to spin around to the park spot if you have guests arrive etc when they drive in the drive way so you don't have to walk around the house to find the front door.
when you open the front door the lights will stage down the hallway as you walk down it.

and it will also have an in house audio system that will turn on the radio or music depending on the user preference.

There will be a dmx lighting gateway with rgb led strip lighting in the bedrooms and lounge that will change to soft warm tones at sleepy time and can help with aiding people to go to sleep.

the system will dim at night time as your perceived brightness level change at night this will add power savings.

the curtains in the house can be controlled via temperature and so can the ventilation to close curtains in the atrium and open vents and run fans to keep the temperature of the house consistent it is all designed to minimise heating costs.

The centre of the house the roof will be a series of stainless steel evacuated tube heat exchangers and it will be heated by the sun and has water running through it to heat the home the pumps will automate the heating.

It will have approx 95 solar panels in a grid out side the house and 36 on the roof of the house, I'm trying to convince them the one on the house will be useless as half the house is pointing in the wrong direction and the ones on the side of the arc will be pointing in a non sun orientated direction and only 4 panels at a time will really create any power.

the seem to want to keep them for the green factor it is more to do with the look of the house I think.

the panels on the roof will be stick on flexible solar sheets.

The system will have a inverter in the garage and battery's pumping 240v through the gland in the house.
the solar on the house will back feed into the garage to charge the battery's in the garage, as the distance is too far and the volt drop will make it in effective and the large current will cause the gland to fail over time.
round house.jpg
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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I made a actuator that works off water pressure to close a gate once before or a mate.

On a farm you have water pressure for the stock trough's and it used a actuator to close the gate and a solar panel and solenoid valve to retract the actuator by forcing the water in the exhaust port of the actuator

we made the actuator with a bit of SS pipe a stub or nylon bar for the piston and a few orings and a bit of earth peg for the actuator arm.

first attempt was a failure as the water pressure broke the actuator an I had to beef it up but as far as I'm aware it is still operating.

it worked way quicker than an electric actuator, it was some what annoying to wait for the gate to open the water fixed that problem.
The sneaky stock would wait by the gate if you operated the opener far away so you did not have to wait they would walk out.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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Jesus PJ, a house that spins around. I'd be having more fun designing there system tan they would using it. :lol: I can only image the fun you are having. What motor are they using to spin the house?. The very common method is a car or truck tire on a rim driving the lower platform on the outer edge driven by a hydraulic motor. That is how most carnival rides are anyway. It is simple, can be worked on and is reliable. The only part that wears is the tire. The tire pressure had to be adjusted as the tire wears but other than that and changing the tire, nothing. The drive wheel worked best on the outer end because it gave leverage over the platform rather than it being mounted in the middle of the platform and also the wheel lasted much longer driving on the vertical outer end rather than the underside because underside wheels would wear the inner edge of the tire because believe it or not, the inside edge of the tire was no spinning as fast as the outer edge of the tires. I hope these people are going the obvious and doing an auto opening front door. It would be by far the most "convenient" automation add on for there house. This is the one I used. You can get cheaper Chinese but this one has been going in my house for over 10 years now with nothing more that battery changes about once every 5 years...
http://ftp.ditec.it/volantini/EN/DitecS ... B_Rev2.pdf
You should get one of those units for under $1000. Add to that the cost of the strike lock and a moment sensor or remote and they are up to about $1200. Talk to the owner and I'm sure you will be installing one. I found most people simply didn't know something like that was available for domestic use. I have picked up quite a few sales and installations of these exact units by friends of those that I have installed the units in. Just make sure they have a good, existing solid front door or they will be changing the door as well. Aluminum framed doors are sweet. Solid timber as easier. Nothing wrong with a bit of up selling on an automation job. :lol:
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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I do get to do some cool stuff at work this is possibly one of the odd/ different ones to do as there is a lot of unknown things as it is still in the design stage.

The house will sit on rollers up against the bottom of a I beam I don't know how many but there will be a pinch roller running on the side of the I beam the I beam will be rolled on site to form a donut from straight sections and wielded together.

there will bee vertical rollers on the side of the I beam that will locate the I beam above each roller keeping every thing square.

The pinch roller will have a solid rubber wheel with about 5cm of rubber on an 6" wheel attached to a right angle drive box one one side.
It will have a large spring and nut attached to an idler wheel on the inside holding tension on the beam between each wheel.

It is the same idea of a rotary cow shed.

There may be two drive units one on either side it will possibly be two .55kw 240v three phase motors running of an inverter. the gear box will be a reduction of approx 75:1 possibly a bit more.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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professor_jonny wrote:
there will bee vertical rollers on the side of the I beam that will locate the I beam above each roller keeping every thing square.

The pinch roller will have a solid rubber wheel with about 5cm of rubber on an 6" wheel attached to a right angle drive box one one side.
It will have a large spring and nut attached to an idler wheel on the inside holding tension on the beam between each wheel.

It is the same idea of a rotary cow shed.

There may be two drive units one on either side it will possibly be two .55kw 240v three phase motors running of an inverter. the gear box will be a reduction of approx 75:1 possibly a bit more.
I get what your doing. I'd be inclined to put the drive or drives on the side of the "I" beam after boxing in the outer edge to prevent the drive wheels chewing out the inner edge of the drive wheel though. I would also be using ties that can be pumped up over solid rubber wheels as well. The rubber wheels end up with flat spots on them over time. Also, when and it will be when, you need to change bearings , wheels etc, using inflatable tires allows you to just lower the pressure and swap the wheels rather than needing to jack the floor up to get the weight off the wheel for changing. Also the inflatable tires can be pumped up or lowered in pressure to apply more pressure on the "I" beam if required. The drive especially. Using inflatable drive wheels stops the need for any form of spring loading of the drive unit. It can be mounted solid. A classic example of this was on the rides, when the drive surface got wet resulting in the wheel spinning rather than gripping. Pump the ties up harder would stop the slipping. You can also use the tie pressure to level the platform. It also allows for tire wear. These are common drive solutions on carnival rides. Working at Luna Park taught me the shortcomings with some of the designs the manufactures had used.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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That is how they are the drive wheels are on the side of the I beam with a tensioning wheel on the inside.
you could think of it as a hinge with a wheel at either end with a spring holding the hinge closed pinching the beam between the wheels.

The drive wheels are not really rubber they are more like nolethene kind of a solid hard wearing rubbery plastic.

The rollers that hold up the house are solid steel and roll on the flat bottom of the I beam with a locator roller on either side but it may be like below with a locating lip that goes just above the flat bottom outer and inner edge to locate it they are not rolling on the same face as the drive wheels.

You can see where the drive wheels go as is has polished the paint on the side of the beam as below I don't have a pic of a gear box on my work pc tho but you get the idea:
greaser2.JPG
The bearings on the rollers will have grease nipples and will need to be greased every now and then as well as the track which the rollers run on.

each roller will have 4 bolts on the base plate to lower or raise it or tilt it to run flat on the bottom of the beam.

The house will be possibly around an estimated 40-60 tonne with everything inside the whole house is made of magrock concrete and steel beams as a frame.

Some cow shed have a slew bearing that is about 1mt in diameter and spokes out from centre it still has rollers on the out side but they are just to add support not really for load bearing. but as you can imagine it requires a bit more to service as you have to lift the hole platform and they are only on smaller cowsheds.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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That hydraulic motor should be OK. You said you were using quote,

"There may be two drive units one on either side it will possibly be two .55kw 240v three phase motors running of an inverter. the gear box will be a reduction of approx 75:1 possibly a bit more."

This may not be such a good idea. Let me explain. I'm imagining this will have to be a worm drive for that much reduction on the electric motors. You also said the house would weight about 40-60 tonnes. That is a lot of inertia. If the house is spinning and the drive power fails, like an inverter dies, fuse blows etc, being a worm drive, it will not it allow it to free wheel resulting in the gearbox breaking, the motor/ gearbox mount breaking or best case, flat spot the drive wheel. I understand the inverters can ramp up and ramp down the speed but if the power dies to the motor, the motor does stop dead and a worm drive does not allow being driven backwards. No motor power and they lock up dead.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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Is there such a thing as a sprung worm drive? The idea just popped into my head reading this.
Behold this quality paint drawing: :roll:
Image
If the worm drive were to stop suddenly, the gear would push it forward against the spring, compressing it instead of destroying anything. In normal operation things would have to slow down gradually to avoid compression, but you wouldn't want a house decelerating fast anyway.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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The gear boxes are worm drive with helical spur gear the pitch of the worm.

Worm drives can keep running once the input is removed the reduction ratio/ static friction is the factor, generally a 60:1 gear box you can spin the output and get the input to spin, that's why we don't use them on winch drum's on backing gates in the cow shed.

A 75:1 reduction gear box will self lock meaning if you remove the input the output will stop eventually.

But once the output is spinning it will ramp down in aprox 2-3 seconds because the input motor rotor has a bit of weight and is spinning at either 1400 or 2800rpm and acts like a fly wheel they don't stop instant.

Rotary platforms have active braking in four forms in a cat3 emergency stop this can break gearboxes or slip the wheels but if someone is getting crushed in the platform you want it to stop as quick as possible.

free wheel the motor
pump dc in the motor to lock the motor shaft.
use the spinning motor like generator and dump the voltage it creates in to a brake resistor.
reverse the motor phases in timing to slow the motor.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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Well it has been over 2 1/2 months of no farm on account of damaging my right knee the last time I was down there but finally the knee has come good and I was able to get down for the last 5 days. I took my youngest son and his mate with me just in case something went wrong and to give me a bit of a hand. First thing I noticed was how high the grass had grown. There has been a bit of rain and with the excellent summer sun, the grass grows well unlike in winter where it is more just fighting to stay alive with the frosts and occasional snow. Between the three of us we mowed about 5 acres of grass with the ride on lawn mower. Shit, I remember when I used to use a push fuel mower to do that job.
A couple of things that also like the summer. Snakes.... eastern brown, tiapan, tiger, death adder and red belly black. Google to see how venomous these five snakes are if you're interested. I will say I have only seen one snake so far since we bought the place but my eldest son has seen a couple so far. Spiders, none venomous in the area of the farm but most will make you sick and regret being bitten if your unlucky enough. This is a huntsman spider I took a picture of in the power distribution room. Very good for eating up the insects.
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That close up shot I took with the camera had the flash on the camera go off and the flash caused him to jump onto my hand and the camera. Scared the shit outta me actually. :lol:
Frogs like the summer or probably more the case they have grown up by summer and that I why I see more in summer. This one was having a great time eating the insects caught in a spider's web. I also think he thought the cream of the house wall was giving him a bit of camouflage as he was cream as well...
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Summer time is also yabby time. They hibernate in holes they dig in the mud of the dams during winter but come summer time, there is a good feed to be had eating these things up not that I did this time. It was solely a trap and release exercise this visit..
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I put that soft drink can in the picture so you can see the size of the yabbies.
See, trap and release. Here they are going straight back to the dam they come from...
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While the water level was down a bit in the new dam I decided it was the idea time to start on the duck island and house so the native ducks have a safe haven from the foxes at night. This is just the start but I now have a platform to work on. I'll put a flat surface on the island and a ramp with a house and hopefully they will use it for breeding there young. It is no where near finished but it is a start. This picture as shows the nine ducks that are currently using the dam as there home. It is two families with 5 extra chicks that weren't there last year. The 5 chicks that is...
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I got a 8 of these "bunker lights" for lighting up around the house at night from the hardware store. $8 each because they came with no bulbs and the bulbs were $23 each. I thought idea lights but the bulbs suck being so pricey so I ripped out the bulb holders and special transformers they needed and put in normal bulb holders. Bulbs I use a lot of in the farm house. Good cheap bunker lights now that look the piece to I think..
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I put three along this wall because the over head spot light I have fitted already to the upper floor roof has it's light shaded by the lower roof and this is where you back the vehicles up to unload usually late at night when I usually go down. The third one will look a lot better where I get the last of the rain gutter up. Haven't got to that job yet. :(
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I finished off putting in the false ceiling through half of the house, the side pictured actually. It is now ready for filling the gaps and painting, one job for next visit I hope. I also took some measurements so I can make up some metal plates to go round the fireplace chimney pipes..
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Well other than about a hundred minor jobs I also did, that was about all I could fit in this visit. Until next time, that is it, my latest Quads and a New Lifestyle install.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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Good post as always xman :)
I usually don't mind spiders but that fellow would make me uncomfortable!
So those frogs can climb up vertical walls?
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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asbo wrote:Good post as always xman :)
Thanks Asbo. I do try to keep it interesting. I do miss so may good pictures because I don't always carry the camera on me when things happen but not much I can do about that.
asbo wrote:I usually don't mind spiders but that fellow would make me uncomfortable!
Those spiders require you to put your full body weight on them to pop them. Extremely hearty spiders. Hit them with a shoe and chances are they will be gone in the morning.
asbo wrote:So those frogs can climb up vertical walls?
Well that frog is about 1.7 meters off the ground so yes, they can climb and stick to the wall especially nice shiny, smooth painted metal surfaces like that wall is.

Good news is I'm heading back down for another couple of days to do a few things I didn't get done this time. Bad side to that is my Xbox projects will have to wait. I have two machines in progress, one for each son, and both are using the new HDMI boards internally. A few other nice features going in them as well but at the moment they both have wait. :x Bonus to all this is I will most likely have another post to add next week. :D
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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Yep a good read, I miss the aussie critters, I remember digging up funnel webs when I was working on the building sites in Sydney, they would make the roughest builder jump in the pocket of the bloke next to him! :D - think I'd be more scared of the Plywood expanse than the critters thou.. :(
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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Your photo of the Huntsman is amazing. What a beautiful creature.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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spicemuseum wrote:Your photo of the Huntsman is amazing. What a beautiful creature.
Until its staring at you from the back of the bathroom door in the morning! :lol: or in your trousers as you're pulling them on in the morning... mate had that with a red back when we were fruit picking in WA, bit him too... no big deal, just made him feel ill for a few days. :lol:

I've got a huntsman at home... found it dead at my mates house (think the dog had it) I pressed it in a book... big bugga too... ;)
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by grimlok »

Looking amazing my friend!

I confess I only stopped by to check out the progress. Don't really have a lot to contribute to the boards now that I'm using kodi on PC platforms but it warms my special place to know the forums are still kicking along.

<Threadjack>
Hiya to all the old school guys still kickin' it in the xbox modding scene. I still think of ya's from time to time and wonder how you all are, Might even try to drop by on phazer's Team Speak channel if that's still even going. Take care guys!
Peace Love and free parkin'

Grimski the love muscle!
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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It's been a while but better late than never I guess. I've been down twice since the last post so I'll incorporate them both into this one post. I painted all the false ceiling after leveling it over the last couple of visits. Glad to finally have the place looking like a home rather than a factory with the silver insulation exposed.
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The wooden beams and vertical posts are all that is left on this side left waiting on painting now. I got my home made pool table light in place. It also needs painting in the same lacquer I'm using for the posts and beams. It's a clear gloss as I used on the radio box that is featured at the back end of this post you will see. I "think" the overall colour scheme of the place will look fine but only time will tell I guess.
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I've slowly been backfilling up to the house dam wall. The intention here is to back fill to the top of the wood and then put a capping of top soil so the ground is all level to the concrete the house is built on. Throw some grass seed in and hope to hell it grows well so the house has a nice grassy area behind the house out to the dam and the cliff over looking the valley.
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Last time I was down I noticed the upper strut mounts on the wife's buggy and our main vehicle for collecting firewood had cracks in both. I did a quick bush repair on one side to keep it going some time ago but it was time to take them off and repair them correctly. Actually more a case of remaking them the way they should have been built originally.
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OK, now we are up to what I did this visit. The strut mounts repaired and ready to be fitted once I file the strut holes square. When I took them off I never measured the size the square strut shaft was so it needed to be done this time before I fitted them back on the machine.
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The steel "D" plate is twice as thick as original and the welds are about 4 X heavier. Like I said, the way they should have been made originally.
After filing the holes square, they went straight on and the buggy is fine now. Back grabbing firewood and all the other jobs I give it around the farm in places only the quads can get to. Speaking of quads, mine developed a problem with the starter circuit. Funny way only the Chinese would do it. The handbrake light supply provides the positive power to the start relay only when the ignition is on and a brake or brakes are on and the starter push button supplies the ground to the starter relay. I checked all the wiring and it all checked out fine . I pulled off the starter handlebar button cluster and checked it only to fine a problem with the kill switch that is in series with the start button. WTF, why would you do that I thought but really it is a smart idea. It stops you from needlessly cranking the motor only to find the kill switch is on stopping the spark. Any ways after putting the whole switch cluster back together and cleaning parts that were obviously affected by dirt and crap, it worked.

It hasn't been raining to any great degree lately, not climate change, it is quite normal for our late summer early autumn or fall not to have much rain in this area. This is the dam on the other side of that wall I'm back filling up against. This is the driest I have seen it however I did cut off it's water supply from the house it used to get from the house roof last year in favour of filling the water tanks.
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At least I know there isn't any real crap in it. I'm thinking now that it is dry, I'll dig it out much deeper and longer.

This is the main house dam we had dug out last year. Seems to be holding water OK but the blue/ green algae has taken hold in it. This occurs when the temperatures are high enough when new water hasn't been coming into it. It will dry off, the algae that is, when the temps start dropping off over the next week or too as we enter winter here. That shit certainly doesn't like ice and that dam will ice up soon.
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Last week, the neighbor brought over his excavator and widened my main creek crossing down from the house. It isn't prefect but I can work with what it is now.
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And from one side to the other across the creek gully. It will do but I really need to get my bridge in to cross the gully successfully. I'm hoping on starting the bridge this year. The bridge needs to support the tractor and 4 X 4 but need to be easy enough for the wife to drive across. This gully will be costly if you get it wrong as it is.
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Even though it is the wife's 4 X 4, the only time that 4 wheel drive lever is engaged with her at the wheel is when she moves the lever accidentally grabbing her hand bag.

I wired up my $7 bunker lights I bought a while ago. $7 because no one was buying them because the special bulbs they used originally were $22 each. After I ripped out the special bulb holders and the special ballast they had and installed normal fitting to take normal bulbs. Now these lights are wired to one of the 4 channels on the remote so you can hit the remote button at night and light the place up about 1/2km away from the house. This place is mighty dark at night and having it light up like this when you arrive at night is nice.
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And lastly, I installed the radio box as I call it for the radio I made here some time ago. The radio was a major drama as it was just sitting on the cabinet next to the post it is now mounted on. It has 2 USB charging ports on the face and a car cigarette lighter socket on it. Other than that, just the radio itself that supplys the sound to the house be it radio, USB thumbstick, blue tooth or what ever. It has 4 channels @ 55 watts and is ideal for the house's 4 speakers mounted around the lower level floor.
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That radio box is painted in the same lacquer the house posts and beams will be painted in by the way.
Well that is all I have ATM I'm afraid. Until next time, Seeya guys.
hawsey
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by hawsey »

Great stuff Xman , always love your posts :-) I holidayed in Greece many moons ago and they had a car radio in the apartment I always liked the idea , love what you've done with it .
Thanks for sharing ....

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xman
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by xman »

Been a while since I put something up on this post. I haven't really had a great deal to put up of much interest really but I went down a couple of weeks ago with a mate to start on the bridge to go over the creek gorge but unfortunately it rained and it rained hard for the whole 3 days we were there so no bridge work got started. I still managed to get a bit done inside the house and was able to walk around the house to see exactly how the water runs when it rains.
Remember last post I took a picture of this dam with the blue/ green algae....
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Not after some rain, no sign of the algae, it is also about to overflow....
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Dam near the house dry....
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Picture is a bit foggy but you get the idea....
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Creek crossing down from the house...
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Now in full flood....
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Interesting picture this one. According to Google maps, this is the origin of the creek that goes behind the house straight down the gully. I have never seen it before but it looks like Google is correct. Here it is right here exactly were they say it starts....
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I really wish I was able to cross the creek that was in full flood so I could get up the back of the block and see the half dozen creeks that are down there. Every time I have seen them in the past it has been days since rain and they have only had nothing more than a trickle in them. I suspect these creeks would have been in full flood also. Once I get the bridge in, I will be able to get my tractor and large machinery to the back of the farm and the idea is to put dams on those back creeks as well so there are large ponds on water down there as well. There are some nice valleys down there on these creeks that will bank up large areas of water once a 1 meter wall is put in.

After a couple of days of heavy rain it was time to leave. This is the new bridge that has just been opened in the last couple of months to replace the old river crossing. this new bridge is seven meters higher than the old crossing. We went over at 2PM and the river was set to hit it's max height at 10PM that night. This new bridge was supposed to be above the flood height. I suspect this new bridge would have gone under as here it is a mere 400mm above.
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We got a further 10kms up the road and that creek was over the road. 200mm over and flowing fast. There was a line up of traffic not prepared to cross. After getting out and looking at the height, I realized it was a lower height than what i had been through that same crossing the last time I had been down by about 10mm so I drove though quite safely. Further along the road there are another two crossings that while they had no water over them, there were trees over them showing at some stage, probably the night earlier, water had been over them.
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