See ya later 2017

"This is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an ‘Annus Horribilis.’ I suspect that I am not alone in thinking it so."

Liz Windsor

Ode to the SS8050 (or equivalent)

We tend to credit those who create an idea, not those who perfect it, forgetting that it is often only in the perfection of an idea that true progress occurs. Putting sixty-four transistors on a chip allowed people to dream of the future. Putting four million transistors on a chip actually gave them the future.

Malcolm Gladwell

Once upon a time when we knew way less about transistors (er, about 12 months ago) we thought that a big chunky TO-220 logic level monster was good for all applications, and ordered mosfets like the IRLZ44N  rated at 55V and a whopping 47A (!!) and the FQP30N06L rated at 60V and 32A accordingly. We even secured some Darlingtons like the TIP-12X series, and lately Darlington arrays in ICs like the ULN2803A and similar.

Then we spotted TO-92 packages and read online that they were awesome for amateur electronics - so away to the online store again and soon we had a swag of different transistors, each with their own confusing array of characteristics.

Finally (and hindsight is wonderful) we found the amazing and versatile SS8050 which is rated at 40V and 1.5A with a Base-Emitter Saturation Voltage of 1.2V (logic level) and is available in TO-92, SOT-89 and SOT-23 packages.

So much transistory goodness

Now we use the SS8050 almost exclusively and lately have been miniaturising via adapters (for instance the SOT-23 package is 3mm x 1.4mm, i.e. damn hard to see let alone solder)

It now appears in our joule thief torch for "spent" batteries as follows:

Just add used battery - and check out that stupidly cute gold button!

Miniaturising has been frustratingly good fun and very satisfying, for example when we modify a crappily designed early edition candle PCB to actually fire up with some creative use of 1206 form resistors.

Resurrecting a sick puppy with tiny tiny components!

Where will it all end? Probably when a stereo microscope is first ordered then sent back as the level of ridiculousness reaches it's zenith (any day now).

Returning from fantasy to reality it has been a really great festive season with many social engagements (yay we know people now) and the lovely Jackson gracing us with his presence. Take care y'all and come back soon for a visit.

At the Hobart airport post Christmas

P.S. not one ellipsis - take that Donald Trump!

The end (of 2017) is nigh

"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas."

Calvin Coolidge

Kym has been enjoying working with the Feds again, but she received a call that the pesky goats had escaped and were out on the road! A phone call to Anthony who makes a quick dash up the mountain and literally drags mummy Fergie 300 metres up and down dirt roads and back to the paddock to be tethered until the night.

One hilarious vignette forever etched on the brain is the scene with Eugenie stuck with the handle of the bucket over her head and slinging goat pellets everywhere for Beatrice to gather up - such fun! 

After work, we arc up the new solar portable electric fence and go to bed to sleep the sleep of the just. But the goats have other ideas, and escape again!  Luckily the original route onto the road wasn't repeated as we had stopped up the little wallaby holes that allowed the earlier transgression. So more wires were added and now that the solar unit is almost fully charged we are seeing some better behaved and firmly corralled goats...

Now we wait for the next breakout!

Speaking of naughtiness, the church has suffered two break-ins this last couple of weeks, so with a few hours to kill a little program was written around this circuit...

So much nerdy goodness!

...and after a bit of soldering and making, we get this ominous black box...

Beep beep - go away!

The box senses mammals (PIR module), then checks the light level (LDR) and if it is dark, the two 1W LEDs are lit and a message booms out about being filmed (a clear lie).

A nice little project for a Saturday arvo - and hopefully after installation the crinimals cowardly crawl away..

You've got to be kidding!

"In the silence, I could hear the distinct sound of goats maa-ing in the barn. Lying there listening to them made me smile, too. I'd always loved goats - every one of them different from every other one, and all of them goofy and playful."

Steve Watkins

After all the rain (thank you now the tanks are chock-a-block for summer), today we could finally venture out to collect two goats that we ordered three weeks ago. It did rain of course, but not enough to dampen our spirits. We had been told that there was a cross-breed mum (3yo) and female kid (3mo) that had been corralled and drenched in readiness for our visit. We borrowed a trailer and headed over to Deep Bay. Well it was a goat bonanza and their yard was full of trailers full of goats!

Eventually it was just us, the owners and a paddock full of bleaters. We explained that we had chosen "Fergie" and "Eugenie" as names for the new additions to our plot, and before we knew it we had "Beatrice" as well - bonus?

Rural ambience courtesy of the B-list royals

Anyhoo after trucking them back to our place everyone settled in well and the bleating has subsided enough that rural tranquility reigns again. We also took advantage of the trailer to dump some rubbish at KWS and pick up an old bath ($20) for water on the other side of the property. Some new hoses will provide the necessary dihydrogen oxide as summer approaches.

The new family has already been munching away at the weeds that have been bothering us, as well as stripping the few little pines that had sprung up in the shadows of their ancestors.  So now we have sheep for mowing the grass and goats for mowing the weeds - good one...

In the meantime what is happening in the civilised world?

Baaaaa!!!

Hiding in the plane site

"Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night." 

Sun Tzu

Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump seem to be hankering for a nice little diversionary war as "enfant terrible" activities threaten to swamp their respective domestic agendas.  So it's a bit of a worry for us peaceniks lolling about in our down-under paradise, but here in Tassie we have the whole thing figured out.

Firstly, we are mightily heartened by the fact that the official military maps these deranged demagogues use for their planning are missing a certain island south of the Australian mainland...shhh...

Where's Tassie?

Also we note that the distance from Pyonyang to Hobart is a healthy 9,359 km - a bit of a stretch if the bloke firing rockets only ever uses binoculars to sight his targets.

But finally, and most sneakily, today we've covered the entire island so that only our most diligent detractors will be able to see us, check this out from the BOM radar...

There's an island around here somewhere?

Hah! Good luck getting through that muck ya dastardly bomb loving buffoons! Take care y'all and please come and join us in our safe space anytime - that is, if you can find us...

Old Man of the West

"Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years."

James Thurber

Happy Birthday Moo you old bloke!

Cheeky from the start!

Value Adding

"There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats."

Albert Schweitzer

Nine years ago we were contacted by our local vet in Leeming who had been given three stray kittens (all siblings) found on a super hot day in Perth abandoned by their mum.

Well how could we not be simpatico with that situation?

So into our lives came Lulu (named after Lucy Liu), Casey (named after Casey Stoner - but female?) and Tycho (named after Tycho Brahe).

Casey, Lulu and Tycho in a familial clinch

All was peachy until Lulu (Anthony's favourite) went missing the same day as a verge collection (possibly trying to fatefully disprove the old "curiosity killed the cat" aphorism). Then it became apparent that Tycho should not have been named after an intellectual giant - he was so stupid he fell off people's laps and chairs, ran into doors and generally exhibited the IQ equivalency of a cloth hat.

So we renamed him "Marvin" and suddenly it seemed like he found his niche - sort of like an eccentric uncle that you try not to be alone with in the same room for any great length of time.

Anyhoo Marvin and Casey continue to sail blissfully through life - now in Tasmania. They rarely leave their beds (23 hours of sleep a day seems reasonable given their total lack of economic output) and sometimes they need to be literally carried outside to enjoy a constitutional. Mitch made a "cat hotel" for them many years ago and it dominates our laundry and their lives.

Cheque please!

So what's the point of these useless freeloaders.  Kym says "They make me happy!"

Good enough...

Full throttle

"Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

What a week! Good news on so many fronts it's difficult to know where to start. Kym will be working once again in Hobart, for the Feds - nice one Kym. Anthony is to start 2018 half teaching students and half teaching teachers at a new school - that should be interesting.

Good health news after a week of nail biting (apparently being sent out into the sun for regular crisping as a child is not a good thing), and of course all around nature is providing.

Tiny strawbs peeking out now means yums just around the corner!

Today we sprayed blackberries and other invasive weeds - this after whacking them for the last few weekends with the whipper snipper. The "organic" food zealots are probably spluttering up their triple distilled apple cider vinegar even as we go to print - but as a couple of organic chemists we can honestly testify that both acetic acid (in vinegar) and glyphosate (in Roundup) are all organic chemicals - you know, like DNA and Proteins that humans are made of (as well as sugar and spice) - well, you can look it up if you're really interested!

40kg of stupidity and cuteness

Then we shifted, fed and watered the sheep. Re-programmed the irrigation, snippered the garden weeds and finally took the pups down to the beach for a swim. So nice sitting on the balcony having a beer after all of that!

It wouldn't be a proper blog without some news from the world of electronics! We managed to make a 3.3V low quiescent current, small dropout voltage regulator by combining a couple of online suggestions.  Works a treat! Nice one interwebs...

Ready for action - just add voltage...

Y'all have a great week.

Gardenation

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” 

Anaïs Nin

Little buds and little flowers abound! All around us people say that their fruit trees are groaning this year and ours are no exception.  The "orchard" is looking great and the prospect of a bumper jam season seems likely.

Fruit in the making

Seasonal workers helping out in the "orchard"

Yums!

One of our barneys has gone broody so Anthony has a "pecked" hand - hilarious (and a bit painful). We've set up a nursery and will transfer her tonight when she's less violent (maybe after dark).  Meanwhile we found about 10 eggs out in the orchard area as the other hens had obviously been a bit taken aback by the viciousness as well!

In other news the seasonal workers have set up camp in a tree house in the forest  - how very rustic! I suppose we'll need to provide them with a tarp and a portaloo?

Ahoy there!

Shrinkage

"Why don't we pay more attention to little children and be nice to each other?"

Nurudeen Ushawu

Little things have become smaller - here's is the latest incarnation of the LED Strip project.

Proof of concept?

The old one (small) worked fine. The new one (tiny) also works. We're not sure why we needed the shrinkage but we do know the soldering is more challenging - so that's good? Also on the fiddling front is the creation of a very small RGB LED ball based on the attiny13 and an RGB LED strip based on the attiny85. Here are the prototypes humming away on our shelf at night.

We're working with Łukasz via the interwebs which is great and reminds us of our Amiga days swapping assembler code around the globe via the old 3.5" floppy disk - back to the future! Also the puppies had a heavy weekend of therapy with three kids - and are now sleeping soundly in recovery mode, as are we...

You know this is my bed...right?

The garden is amazing at the moment - we'll take a few pics and get them to you sometime over our long long 4 day weekend...

Bowing to the rain

I love the rain. It's my favorite weather.

Kristen Wiig

Spring's four seasons in one day makes for great pictures - enjoy!

From the bedroom window

We have three fosterites coming in today for an overnight stay. We've had this mob before and they were great so here's to another nice 24 hours or so of madness!

In the meantime Mitch and Chels are on their Hanoi-moon in Vietnam (Mitchell's joke, not mine...honest...).  We'd show you a picture of the happy couple but Mitch is in one of his "filthy moustache" moods...so here's some scenery instead!

Nice rice

Roll me Dover in the clover

"The key to a wonderful life is to never stop wandering into wonder." 

Suzy Kassem

Okay so we were going on a "little trip" to Dover today - maybe about an hour away.  Well it was such a lovely day (as predicted by the air pressure rise in our en suite!) that we kept going - in fact we thought we'd find the end of the road. And we did at Cockle Creek!

Just keep driving, just keep driving, ...

We had packed a picnic lunch with coffee, cake, fruit and lots of confectionery - so it was a grand day out in the sunshine - delightful!  A two hour trip turned into a six hour trip - and what a great way to spend Saturday - well done Southern Tasmania...

Always a whole beach to ourselves in this part of the world

Point camera, get lovely image - easy!

Bath House

It looks as though yields of over 10 times what we can currently grow per acre are feasible if you control the CO2 concentration, the humidity, the temperature, all the various factors that plants depend on to grow rapidly.

Ralph Merkle

Finally with some time (thanks holidays!), the Green House Project has bubbled to the surface again. Firstly we are planting peas and pumpkins in it's embracing warmth, but also it is appropriate to revisit the online monitoring with some new equipment that has arrived recently(-ish).

The old monitoring station used a crude time-stamp provided by literally turning on and off an ESP8266 using an Attiny85 as an alarm clock. The ESP8266 would power up and then log into the internet, hit a googlesheets page, and upload temp and humidity data gleaned from a DHT11.

There were some issues:

1. The DHT11 was slow to stabilise (around 2-5 seconds)
2. Sometimes the Attiny85 would shut down the ESP8266 before connection or data transfer!
3. Power usage wasn't ideal, with two devices and a sensor gobbling up more power than we would like
4. Some other nerdy stuff like the nightmare of reprogramming the ESP8266

Since then, a couple of BME280 devices have arrived, which don't need the long stabilisation time and can also measure atmospheric pressure (useful for the remote prediction of storms). Of course, they are more expensive, but not prohibitively so.

We've also grabbed the more easily programmable NodeMCU version of the ESP8266, which is just plug and program, rather than the confounding rat's nest of cables and separate power supplies previously needed for ongoing development. Also, we can now reprogram the device "over the air" OTA, which is way cool - look ma no wires.

Finally, we can put the device into deep sleep mode, which means no separate μC is needed to provide the wake up call, and therefore the device doesn't sleep until it has finished it's programmed functions (i.e. the data is transferred) which is highly efficient. We've also been toying with alternative power management, so hopefully there will be increased power efficiency.

Next on the list is to swap away from the ESP8266 altogether, and use the newer ESP32 (which some really nice features including bluetooth), a few of which have found themselves in southern Tasmania. But before learn run, learn walk.

So the fully experimental prototype of the new system is cranking out the air pressure, temperature and humidity from our en suite bathroom for your viewing pleasure. It looks like this...

Dodgy looking, but functional!

Stay tuned for more developments as the weeks unfold and the growing season swings into insane mode...

Destination Nauru

Through the inevitable mismanagement of resources and goods at the disposal of the state, all forms of collectivism lead eventually to tyranny.

Friedrich August von Hayek

We remember the young citizens of Nauru being dispatched to all parts as boarders in educational institutions throughout Australia in the 1970s. The Nauruan economy was flourishing on the back of a resources boom in phosphate.  Cue financial mismanagement, poor vision and a lack of diversification and you now have a crappy economy where 90% are unemployed and of those who are employed, 95% work for the government.  It's so bad, they get paid to bear the burden of our sins.

From Wikipedia:

Because of mismanagement, the Trust's fixed and current assets were reduced considerably and may never fully recover. The failed investments included financing Leonardo the Musical in 1993. The Mercure Hotel in Sydney and Nauru House in Melbourne were sold in 2004 to finance debts and Air Nauru's only Boeing 737 was repossessed in December 2005.

Whilst Australia is way more robust, more diverse and therefore more immune from such sudden and catastrophic economic collapse - the warnings of what can happen when a resources boom is squandered are clear from Nauru.

Apart from noting recent incompetent political profligacy, we could also be more mindful of the dangers of Dutch Disease and the need for diverse and deep investment. We could perhaps avoid sacking a heap of scientists, and push money to the future rather than into making babies!

History is there to repeat, but why do our politicians crave (craven?) a repeat, and why are we so complicit in their ineptitude?  Bread and circuses anyone? From the quote above, does collectivism lead inevitably to mismanagement or can we the people intervene (assuming democracy isn't irrevocably busted)?

Meanwhile, after a good rant we need to till the soil, or supervise such noble pursuits...

Tending the garden at the start of growing season

The official garden renovation supervisor...

Fake fake fake

"All electronic devices are powered by white smoke. When smoke goes out, device is dead."

Milan Nikolić

The candle project has reached it's zenith - although the next incarnation of the PCB was a bit of dead duck on arrival, the victim of auto-routing. Now we don't auto-route anymore, and in the meantime we banged up a few candles for a customer. Thirty more to make for a local restaurant as well - not a bad return on all that work <sobs>.  Makes us feel like maybe a bit of country and western will help drown the pain...

Thanks Willie Nelson (again), apparently more than just a cool haircut.

Skylarks

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." 

Leonardo da Vinci

We didn't realise how much gardening we had to do post winter until we saw the place from the air - thank Chels and Mitch for the nifty quadcopter Papa Bear Day present!  When we're more practised pilots expect a few more sky-larking on the blog ...

Maryknoll

"Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?"

Shirdi Sai Baba

Maryknoll for a couple of hours this week produced some lovely Spring-i-ness - enjoy!

Postponed springtime

"The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches."

E.E. Cummings

It looked a little bit like Spring for a short while, and in fact hay-fever sensitive noses were flaring, snorting and leaking, but then this on Friday...

Thanks for the grass Dad, we couldn't find anything under the white stuff

Spring buds, but snow on the top - confusing!

No gardening until this all melts...

Mitch and Chels can't believe we're in the same country as they had 26 degrees in Perth that day. Anyhoo the red wine and fireside chats about politics while all around the snow falls is pretty special. So we're not in any great hurry for Spring just yet...

Across the country

“It wasn't until we dropped him at his university dormitory and left him there looking touchingly lost and bewildered amid an assortment of cardboard boxes and suitcases in a spartan room not unlike a prison cell that it really hit home that he was vanishing out of our lives and into his own.”

Bill Bryson

Another Papa Bear Day - this one with Kym across the country in Perth watching Mitchell graduate, and meanwhile Anthony and Jackson catching up in Tasmania. Lovely!

Skype pic - Perth to Tassie

What is it with old men and wacky knitwear?

How's the serenity?

“If you are driven by fear, anger or pride nature will force you to compete. If you are guided by courage, awareness, tranquility and peace nature will serve you.” 

Amit Ray

24 hours - 4 pics

A funny thing happened on the way to China

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy!

Robert Burns

The plan was to cut down on soldering by designing and manufacturing our own PCB. So off to the appropriate website, mouse away and click merrily, then hand over a very small fortune (US$13.81 including shipping) and finally sit by the post box and wait (25 days from order to arrival).  And they were so pretty, and so horribly designed in the flesh...

Ooops - let's call it a learning curve ball...

The manufacturers had faithfully reproduced the nonsensical design. After 24 hours of thought (and some swearing), a bit of creative "re-wiring", some non-UN approved soldering and then voilà!

So it's lost a bit of functionality - it no longer turns on at night by itself (the LDR is incorrectly wired), but the chip does talk to the LEDs nicely to make a flickering candle effect as per the original idea way back when.  The new version is wired correctly (crosses fingers and toes) and should arrive within the month - watch this space...

It was frosty overnight and very crunchy when going downstairs to feed the girls this morning.  The pups find the first light and warm up as soon as possible.

Two dogs, one horse

We are finally getting some rain and the tanks are filling up. The rainbows are nice as well - here is Dip Road on the way to work...

A pot of gold?

Mostly we sit by the fire - although Kym has been a demon in the garden and it's looking ripe and ready for the growing season.

Fiddling while Rome burns

A fool and his money are soon elected.

Will Rogers

While it's certainly not likely that Nero fiddled while Rome burned (no fiddles back then, was it a lute?), it's a wonderful allegory for the real world events in Canberra this week, and also shows that perhaps the other meanings of fiddling are more relevant to this political life (fidget, fool, interfere, dabble, doodle, mess, monkey, play, potter, puddle, putter, tamper, touch, toy, trifle, twiddle, ...)

All those chooks seem to be running about dealing with Earth shattering events such as:

• the "Marriage Question" (please Tony, just have a vote in parliament like you were elected to do - earn your keep!) and... 
• the backgrounds of various elected officials (Barnaby - step aside and do your paperwork, it's what the rest of us have to do).

The morass of these moribund monsters, brought about by the bubble-like nature of the professional pollie, means that we aren't being effectively governed at the moment.  Perhaps we could look to Belgium for solutions.  Kick em out and let the public servants get back to the sanity of running our country?

Congrats to the parliament for the wastage and inefficiency - that's gonna help lift us up.  And we're not just complaining amongst ourselves up here in the hills...here is the research...

Mmmm...where is that trendline heading?

On a more positive note, the garden is waking up!  Pictures to follow...

The lengthening days

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”

Albert Camus

When the chooks woke up this morning (Sun 13 Aug 2017 07:35:48 AEST) and looked at the mountains they saw this view from their yard...

Good morning mountain

...and when the mountain looked back it saw this...

Good morning chooks!

Egg production is up with the days getting noticeably longer - everyone is happy...