Author Topic: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications  (Read 289510 times)

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #705 on: November 07, 2018, 10:10:09 PM »
Hey Glort...

Yeah, been having a good time lately... I enjoy the analytical type problem solving... shut myself off from the world, tell everybody to piss off and leave me alone, growl at anybody sidling towards me unless they bring a cuppa coffee of course, and make it perfectly plain to everyone in the vicinity that I am not interested in conversation, I'm busy, leave me alone, bugger off, I will let you know when I am interested in putting up with the bullshit, until then, just bring coffee by the gallon, when I am sated and have worked all the frustrations out and spent enough quality time with some mechanical gizmo, I will let the world know when I am ready to be social.... meantime, grab me another brick of ammo, I have an appointment with some tin cans in the back yard....

All good fun actually... by recusing myself from the rest of humanity for a week or two, the world is actually a safer place... I wonder if the local population actually realise that the 6ft walls and electric fence around my property aren't for my protection, but theirs!

Ran some more waterborne diesel through the SCFM today, only about 10L or so, but it went from milky orange juice to pale yellow pee like colour in a single pass... removed about 750ml of water from 10L, not too bad methinks... I ran it through a second time for good measure, less than 5ml caught in the cup, so I think it's good to go...

Also got a 5L diesel that had been used to wash out a sump or something similar... that was interesting... first pass pulled out about 200ml water, and few solids, but it was still jet black...put it through a second time, wound up the wick a bit, ran it at about 15000rpm, and pulled out about 100ml of what looks like graphite grease out of the stuff... it's now an almost cardboard brown colour with a yellowish tinge... if I get a chance I will push it through a few more time tomorrow at highish rpm's and see what falls out of the mix... might even put it under the microscope and see if I can work out the particle sizes, if any, that remain...

You know when you think a project is done...and then another, nice to have change comes to mind... Well, 2 or 3 or 6 changes have taken place on the SCFM lately... put clear plastic pipe on the bowl to catch tank, so I can see the product flow rate and quality leaving the fuge... put a small pump on the catch tank, now if the crap needs a second pass, plug in the pump, up it goes back to the header tank... now with the pump, I am going to install some power sockets on the fuge with a couple of switches to save me tripping over electric leads... but....with a pump on the catch tank, add an old dishwasher water level pressure sensor....and voila... catch tank will fill to a point, pump comes on, pumps it to header, wash, rinse repeat... Pump wont fry itself, pump wont run dry, can be left mostly unattended to cycle the sludge... tomorrows gonna be another interesting day!

Right, enough rambling, time to hit dreamland and an sf book or two...

Keep it spinning...

Cheers
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
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EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #706 on: November 10, 2018, 06:36:17 AM »
Right, so rhe SCFM is just about completed now...Added a pressure diaphragm switch to the catch tank, salvage off the same dishwasher that the pump came from... It works well!

As soon as a couple of inches of oil accumulate in the catch tank, the switch trips and turns on the pump, turns off again once the level has dropped to a settable present...

This lead me to do an 8hr test with some waste oil that had sump washings, diesel, turps, grease and god knows what in... interesting things came to light and might explain some "heated discussions"held in the dim distant past...

Things that I could identify that were extracted:
Water-Easiest to spot, comes out at moderate g forces, fairly quickly
Aromatics-comes off at higher g's, mostly as a pale mist
Silicates and oxides-dense, hardened, crusty, packed tight in lower strata in cup, medium g's, abrasive
Asphaltines- oily crude like, semi solids, mildly abrasive
Greases?-Difficult to remove fully, multiple passes needed at high g's, accumulates slowly, does not appear to be majorly abrasive, but, of this I am unsure. A trip under a microscope and a mass-spec reading would be needed here... If I remember correctly, good ole grease was made from soap, clay and oil.... Could this be the mysterious white abrasive powder that eats engine bits when run as fuel? (previously I speculated that the white powder could be ali oxide)....

I guess nobody in the area has a portable mass spec to come and play with over this side of the world....?

I have also noticed that the waste oil thins out remarkably every time I put it through the scfm, most evident on first pass, less and less evident on subsequent passes... It does not seem to thin out in proportion to the amount of sediments or contaminants removed either... Possible fractioning occurring under high g maybe? Who knows? Anybody else have experience with this?

Well, enough rambling, time to go put tools away and find something else to destroy/rebuild/break/fix then modify!

Keep it spinning...

Cheers
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #707 on: January 11, 2019, 12:20:17 AM »
Hi Guys...

I hope you all have had a quiet, festive, restful, peaceful Xmas!

Current status... Haven't blown anything up for the last 24hrs, survived XMas, all good... SCFM is packed away and will be taken out in a day or two to process more burner fuel...

As usual, a comment/question passed by some members had me thinking... Here we go, off at a tangent again...

Question: How to use excess solar/wind power when the batteries are full?

As to how to store it, heat water, pump water up to a raised tank, whatever, but the main question for me has been how to detect and automate it....

I have a partial solution that I have put together, not infallible, but interesting (for me anyway)...

Grabbed hold of a pre-loved Allen Bradley PLC, an old Delta 16-shades-of-grey HMI, Half a dozen 40A contactors and a good few hours of programming time...

Essentially, the PLC monitors battery voltage levels and turns on/off various loads as battery levels hit the float voltages(or whatever you preset for each output)...once voltages start falling to presets you decide, contactors unload individually and allow levels to recover, cycles start again... The box of tricks also has additional controlling capability to bring additional solar panels on line, as well as a backup, mains based charger should levels fall too low.. this is to prevent battery damage... Also hidden in the coding is current charge and discharge monitoring, as well as load dumping facilities should charger fail and the batteries hit a really low level...

Tested it out today, on the small solar/wind setup and it drew about as much out of the environment as it could, hovering the batteries around 26V (24v system)... Had it hooked up to a few workshop lighting circuits - Was quite interesting to see things coming on and off on auto mode....

The HMI is quite handy, not essential, for setting parameters and controlling the loads..(as well as to see what is actually happening)

Anybody wanting some crappy pictures of HMI screenshots to get an idea of how a simple problem can suddenly get quite complex, just pop a reply and I will find a few mins to stick them somewhere to entertain y'all.....

Keep it switching...

Cheers
Ed

PS - I did test SCFM with a larger bowl (about 200mm dia OD) ... The spindle shaft is too thin to support it... A slight bump to the frame at hi RPM results in resonance setting in and 13000RPM of 5kg rotary mass changing into a good couple of kHz worth of 5Kg oscillating mass... It tends to make motor mounts break, scares the pets, shatters spindle bearings, bend spindle, scares the ladies in the house and turns underwear brown... But SCFM now has another spindle, new bearings, repaired motor mount.... And I got new underwear out of the bargain too!
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #708 on: January 12, 2019, 12:58:17 PM »
Hey Glort...quick reply(for a change, flat out busy recusing myself from humanity at the moment)...For me a plc is a box with built in relays, and inputs inputs-same as an ah-do-no processor, but in a more ruggedised, commercial, ready built, easier to program package (Ladder Programming) ... Not too difficult to get to grips with, but tricky to start understanding...I am sure that between the likes of the professors on here that have had years of industrial experience and a dumb sh!t like me, we could get you going on the path of understanding (or avoiding like the plague if it doesn't tickle your fancy)... If you download a free version of "RSLogix 500" from Rockwell's site, I will pm my source coding to you and you will be able to open it and take a look see...My code is quite well commented, albeit not the simplest, and it will give you an idea of whether you want to go the plc route or further the ah-do-not-no processor studies...Cya Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
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Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
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dax021

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #709 on: January 13, 2019, 10:56:55 AM »
Hi Ed, good to see you're back.  There is someone on the forum by the name of Jackie who lives in your area and needs your expertise.  Don't know if he/she has been in touch with you.  I sure wish you lived closer to me.

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #710 on: January 13, 2019, 08:13:11 PM »
Hi Dax,

He/She is welcome to contact me... "they" can send me a pm and I will respond... (another blatant marketing ploy to get another user on the forum  ;D )

Cheers
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #711 on: January 16, 2019, 03:07:59 PM »
Hey Guys...

Nothing Lister...Well not directly anyway...(Unless I hook my load controller to the battery charger on TM2)

Playing with the plc based load controller I am designing... Added a few more things...

#1 - Bloody great big manual push buttons on the front of the cabinet to allow for night time turn on by feel... (read that as "trying to squint and focus on a touch screen to turn on the sodding lights because I left my glasses in the workshop")

#2 - Daylight sensing... Code is in place, just need to install a LDR or something on one of the inputs to allow the box of tricks to sense light and act accordingly ... Pretty damn useless turning on a lighting based load during the middle of the day...

#3 - RTC functions to allow the b.o.t. to turn on a load based on time...

Interesting things will soon be able to be processed... Particularly when you start combining the parameters, which are all inter-dependent...   An example would be "If there is excess battery power left over from the day's solar/wind, turn on the pretty garden lights after 5pm and if it is dark...."

Another example that will come into operation... as soon as the damn post office pulls its digit out of orifice and delivers my 24 to 60VDC 1.5kw boost converter... I am planning to use this b.o.t. to bump some power through to my main inverter system, the main inverter is only solar boosted... In the event of available wind power overnight, or excess battery levels pre-dawn, the little b.o.t. must push some charge into the main battery bank, to get the place off the grid a little earlier than is currently happening... At the moment, we hit solar around 6am and the pre-charge and offgrid kick is around 6.30 to 7ish on a clear day...maybe I can get things rolling a bit earlier with the b.o.t..... Its gonna be a case of "suck it and see" I reckon....

Ah well... Time to go and take over the dining room table again... Prod some keyboard and partake in the "mental masturbation" of software coding....

Keep it spinning....

Cheers
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

BruceM

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #712 on: January 16, 2019, 04:38:05 PM »
Is there a PLC with a RTC (real time clock for non embedded processing types)?  How is the time set?  This is a dilema I face for embeddded micropower controllers-  I'd often rather not have all the software and hardware for manually editing date and time.

I've never used PLCs- interesting beasts but pretty pricey, new, for what you get. 

I checked, yep, for $156 and 4 watts minimum you do get a new PLC with LCD and RTC and buttons to set time.
http://us.idec.com/Common/Download.aspx?d=383668 

Not my cup of tea, as I'm "allergic" to OPS - other people's software (limitations you only find out about after a huge investment in learning time), but could be just the ticket for many applications.




 
« Last Edit: January 16, 2019, 05:05:13 PM by BruceM »

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #713 on: January 17, 2019, 07:29:01 AM »
Hey B...

I'm using an old Allen Bradley ML1100....12 or so in(2 of which are analog) and 8 outs, all relays, driving 220v contactors...

RTC is disabled by default to conserve battery(replaceable), enabled via programming...Setting is done online via rs232 or ethernet... I haven't looked specifically at button setting as such. I think with the industrial nature of this little beastie, it's expected by AB that you do the bulk of the button bashing via remote pc...

Wrote the RTC turn on and duration routines last night... Was tricky because of the 32768 limit on numeric registers and I didn't want to double up on the storage space for a single variable... and all the normal timers can only drop down to 1sec intervals... A day has 86400sec.... Eventually used a "minute ticker" I wrote in and a few count-down registers... Wanted up to 23H59min max on duration per load circuit to a 1min resolution...

Enough waffling...

Keep it ticking...
Cheers
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

saba

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #714 on: January 17, 2019, 04:45:52 PM »
Heavy respect to work with plc's I had a look into it when I started to get something automated, for the expenses and the diffeculty I decided to go the arduino route.

For somebody who is not into electronics and programming I would highly recoment just to have a look at it. It's really cheap and there are so many people busy with it you can just use the code from somebody else and adapt it a little to your own needs. Now there are the esp8266 boards that are super powerfull and have wifi on board and you can program it with arduino. They cost less then 4 dollar in china.

Just a message to encourage people not to get scared away when it comes to automation,

Greetings Bernhard

BruceM

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #715 on: January 17, 2019, 08:35:34 PM »
Allen Bradley MicroLogix ML1100 looks interesting and capable. $150 for refurbished ones here in the US. They aren't particularly proud of their power consumption, I couldn't find it anywhere. Not an issue in most industrial control situations.

Go with what you've got or are most familiar with is usually wise for one off automation projects...saves a lot of time, money and frustration.  PLCs are a nifty solution, a dozen brands and types available, and more than 10x that in microcontrollers.

I've got to do some power consumption testing on the TeensyLC board- one of the things I liked about that 32 bit ARM microcontroller on board was  the seven 16 bit+ timers. It's a big jump in performance and capability from the Arduino (8 bit ATmega328).  The Teensy 3.2 even more so, with fast floating point math support and built in RTC, but it's a power hog (to me, mister micro power).

BruceM

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #716 on: January 18, 2019, 03:52:16 AM »
I could certainly manage a 4W continuous phantom load for a PLC, but I don't need to, as my former PICaxe based controller used less than 1/100th of that.  If I have to program something I'd rather program a PIC or AVR chip via C and not deal with other people's software (OPS). In my working career as engineer and project manager I saw too many projects get in serious schedule trouble with finding bugs or limitations in OPS that was supposed to save time.  So I have an allergy to learning ladder logic or whatever PLC language and would rather roll my own. 

Someone with lots of experience with one or two families of PLCs would feel just the opposite.







saba

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #717 on: January 18, 2019, 01:00:38 PM »
Hey Bruce I know you do not like other people's software but I am not smart enough to make something myself from scratch. There have been times I came close but after a small year most of my skills are gone again.
With the "new" esp8266 you can collect data send it wirelessly with mqtt to a broker and use node red to control all of it. Node red is also something to google. Really interesting. You can do your "coding"in there it's graphical.  Just like to encourage people to have a look, it's not hard even I can use it.

You mentioned the teensy board, I heard about it but am not familliar with it. I saw you can also program it with arduino ide.

In my job we have mostly siemens s7 plc's there is no ladder diagram inside (was made 2013). Nobody in the group has really the skills to really find what your looking for in the raw code. There is scada wich gives you access to certain things but at times you need to adjust a timer or such and most of the time it takes a day to find what you need to change where. I really don't know what they used for programming they have remote sessions to adjust/make changes.

So in short with mqtt and node red and some microcontrolers of your choosing you can make something complex dirt cheap and with very limited knowledge. Have fun.

Greetings Bernhard




BruceM

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #718 on: January 18, 2019, 04:26:24 PM »
Node Red, the 10,000th attempt to make a proprietary programming language to avoid learning a standard programming language!  After watching this happen with breathless introductions of new products for the last 40 years, I'd rather wait for the AI version.

But clearly I'm the odd man out, and much of the industrial world runs on PLCs of all sorts.
There are more out there now than ever before. 

The real problem is that C and worse, object oriented C are so cryptic as to make simple solutions unintelligible.  There was a concerted effort in the early 1980's to improve code quality and to design and write code that was easily understood and modified.  Alas, it did not change things.  My experience was that many programmers should not be allowed near a keyboard. Instead of studying a problem and designing a solution, they started throwing code and then modified it until it sorta worked.  If their code had to be modified, it typically had to be completely rewritten, as it was unfathomable and full of special case itis.  As the need for more programmers grew, the bar kept getting lower. 

When I look at much of what is proudly released as "open source", I am flabbergasted that anyone would openly put their name to such piss poor code.  Object oriented languages have only made opacity (unable to see actual function) worse.   

C is a disaster, though it can be used responsibly, and is great for quasi assembly language interrupt and I/O handlers. 


« Last Edit: January 18, 2019, 06:38:06 PM by BruceM »

saba

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #719 on: January 19, 2019, 01:27:38 AM »
Hey Bruce, the only language I "know" is C I put a lot of time and effort to master the language. At moments I came close, but after a while .... at the moment I can sort of read the code and understand what is happening, it's not so hard actually.

Mqtt is just made to send short messages or to reseave a message to do something((Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is an ISO standard (ISO/IEC PRF 20922)[3] publish-subscribe-based messaging protocol.). Small and powerfull.  Node red can do also  someting with mqtt but it's really powerfull it's not some half ass attempt. Just google or have a look on youtube.
It's standard inside raspberry pi.

Bernhard