DK's m..a..d.. d..o..-i..n..g..s........

[Soothing Shrimp]

Oh! The gauntlet is thrown! :p

[DKShrimporium]

Originally Posted by shrimpnmoss

....MANUAL test bottles in the Shrimporium?...I thought DK didn't believe in repetitive manual labor?....that's a nice rack for your test reagents to sit....until you figure a way to AUTOMATEwater testing...

Originally Posted by Soothing Shrimp

Oh! The gauntlet is thrown! :p

DK's already doing live, inline monitoring of the Water Factory III. The testing she does on a case-by-case basis to see effects of things she's trying, or changes she's made. Such things aren't by nature to be automated as they aren't steady state. Remember, using the WFIII she can set any individual tank to unique water, so she can try a lot of things when her curiosity calls.

And besides, remember that DK uses a sort of algebra when it comes to how she approaches something. Yes, she loves to automate; yes, she avoids tedious repetitious tasks manually. But she also factors in weights toward costs, proprietary nature, consumables, etc. It is for these reasons that many functions are still via drop bottle tests. They don't merit the costs involved to automate them, or aren't needed at the frequency to support automation.

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IN OTHER NEWS:

The prehistoric samplings for the Overalls project have just arrived and will be entered into beta testing this weekend.

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At present, DK is tied up surgically removing an SUV center console and installing an after-market one. Y'know, better drink holders more suitable for 34 ounce Bubba Mugs, etc. Of course, she can't just plop it in; she has to cannibalize the ports (aux headphone jack and power plug) off the original one and fit them onto the the aftermarket one, so some alteration is in order.

[wicca27]

very interesting... i want to see pics of the new mug holder hehe. and check your pm's silly woman lol

[DKShrimporium]

Wetwedding project 01

Hmmmmm...mmm....hmmm...hmmm.

DK's been busy with the chop saw, harvesting parts from Water Factory II. It feels a bit macabre.

She's preparing for a big ol' wedding, of sorts.

Diggin' around in her bins & barrels, assembling something big.

You KNOW she's consumed with a project (upcoming project) when she forgets to eat all day for days at a time, and her dreams in her sleep are populated with problem solving, assembling lists of parts, and mentally assembling schematics, testing things out...

She's been on the horn, arguing and conferencing with tech support from a variety of places, trying to find someone whose scope of knowledge will result in the right set of parts and design for this marriage to actually WORK!

Because, of course, amongst them, none have heard of this being done.

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IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has just about mastered snacking with chopsticks using her non-dominant hand. She's a whiz with them with her dominant hand, can do things like pick up dry rice grains no problem. She's ALMOST that good now, with her non-dominant hand.

You'll never guess what she eats all the time with chopsticks, and how it started, as a habit...

[DKShrimporium]

Wetwedding project 02

A picture's worth a thousand words...

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IN OTHER NEWS:

DK heard back from the World Experts!!! She is definitely on the right track, and she got one bit of data that was really useful to know.

However, it may turn out that Wetwedding supercedes Overalls. Overalls is still gonna happen, but its importance will be dwarfed by Wetwedding.

And so, DK waits for the parts to roll in, and a gigantic freight delivery in about a week...

This morning, she was on the horn, again, talking to tech support. They are so interested in what she's doing that they gave her their direct number and asked her to call back in a few weeks to let them know how the system works in the different configurations we discussed.

Stay tuned.


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[wicca27]

this will be interseting, new mad water since department going up? i sooooo wish i could be a shrimpturn

[DKShrimporium]

Originally Posted by wicca27

this will be interseting, new mad water since department going up? i sooooo wish i could be a shrimpturn

YEAH!! I really, really need a Shrimptern next week, too, as there's a-gonna be a WHOLE lotta activity here, whatwith the wedding preps an' all...


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Wetwedding project 03

OF COURSE, DK needs a part that doesn't exist. She really, really needs this part, because it's going to solve a few problems.

So, she ponders, and figures out how to make it.

Here's the start:


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[wicca27]

with gettin ready for disability on the 4th and surgery on the 17 im stuck here lol. and then was talking with hubby and found out will be moving some time between august and september so tryin to figure out how to tear down tanks its going to be a mess. any who i cant wait to see all the goings on will be more good reading lol

[DKShrimporium]

Originally Posted by wicca27

with gettin ready for disability on the 4th and surgery on the 17 im stuck here lol. and then was talking with hubby and found out will be moving some time between august and september so tryin to figure out how to tear down tanks its going to be a mess. any who i cant wait to see all the goings on will be more good reading lol

Well, at least you will have several months between surgery and moving...!

I do not envy anyone who has tanks and wants to move them!

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Wetwedding project 04

While it might seem odd that DK focuses on this part, you will see at the conclusion of Wetwedding whyso. That is, if it works the way she hopes it will...

As for most weddings, which are consuming affairs in more ways than one, DK has had to bend many of her rules and abandon the usual.

She has shipments coming in over the coming days from all over the country, including the keystone piece for the Ultimate Shrimp Kegger tracking to arrive Monday, although the last of her five shipments won't be here until mid-week so the install can't happen until then.

DK is focusing on thishere (do you like how DK's taken to making wedded words??) homemade part, because it is a culmination (she hopes it will be) of many "married" elements, when Wetwedding concludes. So stick in there with her, and you'll see, at the end, why she has focused on this particular part... (There is a favorite coo-el aspect to every project she does, and in Wetwedding, she thinks this will end up being it.)


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[DKShrimporium]

While we wait for the parts to roll in, we continue the fabrication of our special part.

Wetwedding project 05


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[DKShrimporium]

A side note.

The Stenner Pump tube I used is an OLD STYLE tube, with the METAL COLLAR at the fitting ends. These OLD STYLE tubes had fitting ends made of PVC, colored DARK GREY like schedule 80 PVC.

There are now NEW STYLE tubes, with BLACK fitting ends and NO METAL COLLARS. The fitting ends on these NEW STYLE tubes are made of polypropylene or polyethylene or some other plastic than PVC that will NOT bond with PVC cement.

This is key to know, if you do not want to flood your home.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program...

[DKShrimporium]

OK, so, back to the special fabricated part.

Wetwedding project 06

The part itself isn't that remarkable. But, what it enables in the end is system optimization from a few different variables. So stick with us, and when we get to the end of Wetwedding, you will see why DK likes this part.

The objective of the part is to tie into a house main pipe, a drain. The location of the tie in is very tight access with only a few inches clearance above the main pipe. There is no room to get a drill in there or many other tools, so DK had to make up a method to get the tie in done.

She wants a hole exactly the size of the LLDPE tubing into the main pipe, located toward the top of the main pipe as much as possible, or at least more than halfway up the main pipe.

To get the hole into the main pipe, she starts with a self-tapping hex-head sheet metal screw.

To get the screw started into the pipe, she melts the tip into the PVC.

She then uses the socket to screw the sheet metal screw all the way in, then over-screws it, stripping the PVC where the screw threads went.


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[wicca27]

looks like its a bit higher than the mark so maybe a little better position on the pipe? i so cant wait to see all this come together

[DKShrimporium]

Exactly one year ago, DK was doing this massive upgrade on the Water Factory. Little did she know that she would be doing an equally challenging project, now.

DK feels like she has brain freeze. She has literally been waking up in the wees with the brain whirling through diagrams, configuring and re-configuring, trying to figure out what SHE HASN'T THOUGHT ABOUT.

Aye, there's the rub. It's the one aspect you forget to think about that will come back to haunt you.

The parts have been rolling in, the money sucking down a hole of what feels like black hole proportions.

The freight arrived yesterday, minimally damaged, thankfully - DK was worried about delays if it arrived damaged, but it's useable.

One critical part DID arrive damaged, alas, so the schedule for install is delayed until replacement can be sent.

After DAYS of searching through cyberspace, looking, looking, looking for someone who has tried what she's about to do, DK FINALLY found a reference, and, of course, it was from the Germans. Leave it to the Germans, to have done it. Thank goodness for translation services.

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IN OTHER NEWS:

Wetwedding project 07

Ah, yes. The special part. Continued, while we wait for the rest of supplies to arrive, and DK's mind to settle down and derive the final configuration.


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Those of you in the corporate world, who have had the dubious experience of having management consultants come in with their dog and pony shows, will laugh at the schematic going on inside DK's head, like a pinball machine, bouncing from point to point to point to point... (see star diagram below)


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[DKShrimporium]

Heh, heh, heh....

Yesterday, DK was on the horn again, to tech support at another company. But the switchboard messed up and she got sent to a private line, instead, which happened to be one of the company engineers....

So, she had a good half hour conversation with said engineer, about her plans, asking, "What about this component, what are its limitations, will it be able to keep up, will it function over-capacity for the system and blow anything out? What if I tweak it like this and do it this way? What are the effects of doing it this way, or that way? Is this equipment able to do x, or y, or z?..."

She managed to stump the engineer a couple of times, but did get most of her technical questions answered to her satisfaction, enough that it has helped gel the final configuration to about 95% completion, as of now.

There are still a few more shipments to arrive, and while she waits she will work on that last 5% in her head, whilst her mental pinball bounces around the star (see last picture, post, above). Ping ping ping ping ping ping ping...

She sat down with Other Geek last night with half a dozen spec sheets and went through the schematic, to see if we can put a front-end control on the process using a part in her bins.

And so it goes. It's rather like making hollandaise sauce. Hafta be patient and not rush it, for the best end result, and let the process thicken SLOWLY and THOROUGHLY. This, of course, is EXCEEEDINGLY difficult for DK during her twitchiest month of the year. Her whole being is just twitching in anticipation, wanting to plow through this and get it up and running, to see if it will, indeed, work the way she hopes.

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IN OTHER NEWS:

Our next installment of the special part.

Wetwedding project 08

Using a place-holder tubing (the green one, this time), DK places the place-holder tube into the hole, then slides the custom saddle tee over the tube, to ensure perfect alignment of the holes. She then seats the saddle properly, and draws around its perimeter to know where it will sit, so she knows where to prime and glue.

Then, replacing the place-holder tubing with a piece of LLDPE (that stands for linear low density polyethylene, by the way) tubing inserted into the saddle. She primes and glues the saddle in place, with the LLDPE tubing in place during the process.

The custom saddle tee is now installed.

She finishes off the install with a temporary plug, just in case. Far overkill is the whole saddle and plug, but she likes to practice best practices when doing infrastructure mods like in plumbing, in her home. Next time she needs a custom saddle on a PRESSURIZED line, she will have this to fall back on, to think about.


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