Parcels!

Diy lighting

Didn't have a starter, but I did have a blown bulb!

New mixer!

Stuck @ work :(

Fridays photo decided not to upload so I'll have to sort that out later.

One week left of term, need to finish cw for susee, which is mostly done. Need to finalise my scarp poster, need to finish off my scarp report as well, that's sitting at 3/4 pages with placeholders for the diagrams.

Hopefully finish the scarp report today, do susee tomorrow and then I can catch up with dsp work, and I want to get the results section of my final year project report finished as well. That means that all that easter holds is revision for 3 exams, fyp report, which is already reasonably drafted. And the dsp report.

Good times.
Hate being stuck at work when I've got uni stuff to do :(

Working project!

Innaccuracy

Comparing my cheap multi meters to a reasonably process power supply shows why you shouldn't trust cheap equipment....

Wireless led

Funny things at work

Cust: this cable is broken the other one I got from you sounded better.

(the other cable was a longer version of the same cable)

Got out the two cables and I tested them, no sound difference, and he was completely insistent the 6m version didn't sound 'right' at home.

A few hours later got an apologetic phonecall from him confessing that he discovered the problem wasn't with the cable.

Cust : (holding hdmi - dvi-d adapter) will this let me use the vga on my TV as hdmi? That person took about 15 minutes to understand why not.... He even tried arguing that he had seen one elsewhere so we had to sell it!

Change of Plan

Decided to change this to just trying to put up a post a day, be it a photo or text.

Energy efficiency

I've been interested in the power use of various items around the house, I've modified my power meter ( which monitors power for my room) so i can see the display from my desk, and got a household power meter.

some interesting things i've found....

A single watt of standby power costs around £1.50 a year to run, not much you say, but when your house has 10 or 15 things permantly on standby, they all add up!

Idle powers ;

Laptop PSU's use almost no power when a laptop isn't on. Same with phone chargers
The cordless phone in our house ( which is never used) draws 5W on idle!
The microwave draws 5W on idle
The TV draws almost 10W on idle

By turning these things off at the wall we save around £30 a year!

On top of this energy efficient light bulbs really make a difference.

A "normal" lightbulb uses around 60W
an equivalent CFL ( energy efficient bulb) uses around 12W....

Our bathroom has 4 spots in the ceiling, each being 50W..... Thats 200W of power just for turning on the lights. Considering our "idle" draw ( when nothings on, just power that essential devices draw) is about 300W, and our usage when people are in, isn't normally more than 700W/h,  200W is alot....

Ok Light is needed above the mirror, so keeping them as "normal" bulbs is ok, but above the shower, where only 1/4 of the house doesn't need glasses to see, having lower wattage, higher efficiency lights won't change things much. As a result 2 x 3W LED bulb replaced 2x50W bulbs. The LED's pay for themselves in about about 6 months, assuming 4 hours usage a day ( Reasonable considering 4 people in the house)

The hall light was also changed out from 2x60W bulbs to 2x6W CFL's, considering this is left on alot, this helps! assuming 6 hours use a day, this saves around £40!

I've still got more testing to do, I think that the 300W idle power still seems high. but managed to save £30 a year on idle devices and about £65 a year in lighting.

not bad, not bad at all!

Height adjustment

Engineers flowers

Remote monitor power meter