Saturday 7-15-23 New Puzzle, Games, Project & More

 

Keeping Cool

The high today was 106 degrees. we kept cool under the air conditioner. 

Update on the battery box shipped via FedEx from China. It arrived in Memphis, got shipped to Austin, was suppose to be delivered on Friday but ended up back in Memphis. Today it went from Memphis to Temple and is suppose to be delivered on Monday. 

Temple has a brand new FedEx distribution center and I guess when it got to Austin they must have said, not us, that should have gone to the new Temple distribution center. Rather than sending it 60 miles north to Temple they returned it all the way back to Memphis. Of course we are just guessing. Hopefully it will arrive on Monday.

Larry continued working on his solar generator project. In the afternoon we received the new battery. This is our first Lithium iron phosphate battery (LiFeO4) so Larry was very excited. He spent hours experimenting with it. He setup a work station with a power inverter, solar controller, power supply and the battery. Using a couple of multimeters he was able to monitor volts, amps (current) and heat. He had fun learning how the battery works.

Testing station

 

Lithium iron phosphate Battery

 

Larry having fun

After selling the boat (via Craigslist) Larry gave a bunch of things away that either had little value or was too large to ship. We had a number of other items he listed on EBay. Everything he put up sold, brought in a little over $500, of course there were EBay fees and shipping costs that came out of that but still a nice little sum.

Years ago we were scuba divers and still have all of the equipment. We haven't been diving in many years so at the time we were selling the boat stuff we decided to sell the diving stuff. Unfortunately if you have to ship it most of it is too large to sell individually, the shipping cost would be too high. Larry put everything up for sale as a package locally and in the Austin area via Craigslist and FaceBook Marketplace. Apparently diving is not as popular as it used to be or the drought has slowed things down. We have had no interest in it.

When Larry dug our dive computers out he was surprised that the battery was not dead in my computer, it came right on, however, his did not. The manufacture claims that the battery is only replaceable by a dealer. The computers are old and don't have a lot of value so it was not worth having someone replace the battery but Larry thought he might be able to do it himself. It takes a special tool to remove the battery, he was able to build one using a block of wood and a steel dowel, once he had it out he was able to figure out what it was and order one via Amazon. It came in today so while he was playing in his workroom he decided to work on replacing the battery. To replace the battery he had to do a bit of soldering, he put the battery in the computer and now the computer works. Larry's amazing how he can figure things out.

Our pinball machine has what is called a lock down bar at the front of the machine, it keeps the playfield monitor locked into place, remove the lock down bar and you can lift up the monitor. Larry built it using a board and some aluminum plate. He attached the aluminum using spray adhesive, awhile back the two side pieces came loose and he had to reattach them using a different adhesive, yesterday the front piece fell off. Tonight Larry glued it back on, he is holding it on with clamps until the adhesive dries. It will be ready in the morning.

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event today was Event: Hard Road Mini of 5 games. It took me 55 minutes and 30 seconds, which put me in 33rd place in my group. Then I moved onto Angry Birds 2 and Angry Birds and Friends.

I played three pinball games on the pinball cabinet, they were Taxi, Star Wars and Total Nuclear Annihilation. I got a new high score of 2,081,410 playing Taxi. I played a couple of arcade games: Pac Man and Mappy. My high score in Pac Man was 7720. 

New high score

 

Total Nuclear Annihilation

 

Star Wars

In the evening we continued watching the eighth season of Grantchester on PBS. Then I started watching a new detective series on Acorn called The Tower. I watched the first season of it. It is good so far. Then I watched a couple of episodes of The X-Files. I ended up doing 17,000 steps, which put me in first place in my group.