Re: VNC, No Matching Security Types

Be careful you don't compromise any of those tubes, bad things can result.

Wonder what's wrong with the gas ? Usually carbon suggests a slightly off air/fuel ratio. Did you miss a vent tube somewhere ?

Personally, I won't have gas appliances. Seems like every week there's a news story of something burning down or entire homes exploding into splinters.

I know the UK govt had a wild hair up its ass and was intent on switching everyone to electric - UNTIL somebody actually DID THE NUMBERS and they realized they'd have to double or triple the capacity of the national grid ... right down to the level of every little street. That was just an unthinkable expense and SUDDENLY the govt swerved towards other 'fixes'. Now it's "heat pumps", which are fine, but pumps require electricity and typically the "used water" is just dumped out somewhere. LOTS of water.

Oh, they ARE ... by charging 300 to fix a 300 old stove :-)

Anyway, as for PARTS ... older usually meant "simpler" and that puts them in the range of what 3-D printing can now do.

Sounds like a good project. Heating/cooling is always a pain because such systems often use "interesting" wiring and often 24 volts (USA anyhow). Getting the "IQ" down just right will probably take awhile. I'd suggest a good old 'fuzzy logic' approach, esp if you have multiple temperature sensors.

Oh ... and if the wi-fi goes down, can you still make the damned heating work ? "Fail Safe" thinking needs to go into it all. Oh, gas again, if you're using gas heating DO look into CO/CO2 monitors that can shut off the whole thing Just In Case.

I think it *used* to be ... sort of a "historical pride" thing - "STILL using great great great Grandpa's pizza oven !". There are also a lot more people now, with no more money than before, and thus not enough "old" appliances to go around.

However the EU, like the USA, seems to have shifted to the cheap-n-crappy thinking that profits China. If you want a good washing-machine expect to pay twice as much - and it still won't be 50s/60s "good".

You could probably rebuild an old washer - Pi controller, DC motor for the swishing action, instead of a 'transmission', but it'd COST.

It runs on kerosene

It is literally a large paraffin stove.

heating oil slowly fills a baseplate with concentric rings into which are alternately placed circular wicks, and cylinders of perforated metal. The wicks help with lighting - in use the rings are hot enough to vaporise the kerosene so the fuel burns as a vapor.

If the fuel level is too low the temperature drops and it starts to burn via the wicks, produces a lot of soot and eventually goes out.

In use the baseplate where there is a pool of hot oil cokes up and blocks the feed pipe. The hot oil essentially distils into a vapourisable component and carbon. Fuel has been getting worse and worse. I originally used to service it every 18 months. This last fuel seems only to have lasted 3-4 months without coking up and it caused or exacerbated pother issues. I.e. the stove is equipped with a sort of carburettor. There is a float valve, and a sliding fuel flow valve which is comprised of a vertical cylinder inside which another cylinder slides. The inner cylinder has a slot about 10 thou wide and maybe 3/16" long, and that slides past a hole in the outer cylinder. That's the fuel metering - the base of the outer cylinder feed the burner.. Bad kerosene tends to separate out and fill the slot with a sort of wax, thereby obstructing fuel flow. I had a succession of problems with everything.

There are no vent tubes as such

I am not keen on it either. But most of the UK runs on it without dying. Statistically it is less dangerous than firearms are in the USA. It used to be cheap, but not anymore. Now kerosene is the cheapest.

I was one of those people. No one listened to me. Ive been banging that drum for over ten years now.

That was just an unthinkable expense

What 'used water' ?

But who would accept that? A few years pack I looked inside the 'electronics' part of the local wastes disposal yard as I had some really old PCS and CRT based TVS to get rid of. It was full of TVs - most less than 5 years old.

Yes, in many cases it does. My car features HVAC vents that rotate open via little servos on startup. The manufacturer expects you to replace the whole unit doe $250, but some guy on ebay is printing a little plastic gear that replaces the s*it one that always strips, and he sells

Oh, we are full on 240VAC here. the 'interesting' wiring is all mine, from 2001. When I first built the house

If the wifi goes down that means the power has gone down and the CH wont work anyway.

I have never had a case of long term wifi failure. A temporary wifi outage upsets the wifi thermometers though. They need rebooting. Another slight bug that needs fixing

They did a useful thing in terms of cars, by forcing manufacturers to release car part specifications to anyone who wanted to manufacture aftermarket spares. Or third party independent mechanics.

But mostly the EU are owned by large companies, Arab oil interests and Russian gas interests and the Mafia, similar to the USA.

Which is why we have windmills instead of nuclear power stations. Any fool can erect a windmill and grab subsidies. And the gas is still needed when the wind doesn't blow.

Actually in many cases they are better.

Indeed. My latest washing machine is just such a thing. Entirely UK made. Brushless motor that makes groaning sounds at part throttle.

Slightly cheaper than the Miele brand, but guaranteed the same.

But twice as expensive as some Italian Turkish or Korean crap.

I think that modern technology is enabling craftsmanship at a whole new level. 3D printing, CNC machining, laser cutting - these are all technologies that friends have. I can produce a circuit board via China faster and cheaper than I could punch out an aluminium chassis for valves (tubes) such as would have been the case in the 1950s. Now I can even print plastic cases designed to fit them. Or wooden ones for that retro look.

Its a changing world. Its up to us to try and make sure it doesn't change too much for whatever we consider to be the 'worse'...

...but AFAIK this is almost entirely due to the electricity used to recharge electric road vehicles and the extra cabling needed to support

No sir: lots of water is not required: the pumps that are/were being installed in UK houses as replacements for gas central heating are all extracting heat from outside air (unless the garden contains a large enough pond to allow it to be used as the heat source) and using it to heat the water circulating through radiators and the hot water cylinder.

This water CIRCULATES through the pipes connecting radiators etc, so the same water is used over and over: such a system doesn't require any water from outside the house except to deal with leakage from piss poor installation.

Agreed ASHPs don't consume any water, they do produce a small amount of condensate (as do most gas boilers).

They asked an economist for them of course:

Q: What is two plus two ? A(mathematician): Four! A(physicist): Three point nine plus or minus point three.. A(economist): What would you like it to be?

That depends !

If you need a flame for some exotic cooking or you wish to cook with glass saucepans, pure copper or aluminium (shudder) , then you're forced to use gas. In the sense that you can use those utensils yes, gas is better.

But if those exclusions are not important to you then I have to say induction is much faster and just as controllable as gas and far easier to clean. In addition it does not fill your home with combustion gases and is far less likely to cause a fire.

To be clear, I'm NOT anti-fossil fuels or any of that &*£^%^&. Just that in practise we found Induction was a clear practical winner.

YMMV.

I'll go back under my stone now. :-)

Bob.

Re: Re: VNC, No Matching Security Types By: The Natural Philosopher to All on Tue Nov 28 2023 07:01 am

That sounds interesting, but when you look for something autonomous like that you may be better served with something that boils solid fuel.

I can use my fireplace for both heating the home and cooking at the same time, and if you aren't cooking you may also use lots of residual material as fuel. You can feed it horse dung, your ex' love letters and mailbox spam if need be.

It is maintenance intensive, though, but also a very economical way of roasting, frying, baking or grilling, and can be used if electric power is unavailable. It gets hotter than Árelor's Hell so you need to watch you don't burn the food.

Re: Re: VNC, No Matching Security Types By: Bob Latham to Charlie Gibbs on Tue Nov 28 2023 08:05 am

Induction is awesome and nowadays I would take it rather than gas, but lots of cooking implements won't work on induction. There is also the fact it is backed by electricity, so it can get a bit wasteful.

In Spain, most people who is not using a wood stove in a rural area has moved on to electric cooking because it is just more comfortable, but I think it is a luxury that people is not treating as such.

Hmmm ... "Brushless DC" really means "Three Phase". Those are pretty good, though you need an AC->DC converter and then a DC->3Ph converter. That's two things that can burn out.

There are various designs of 1ph->3ph converters, I've worked with them in the field, but the good ones have a rather BIG transformer and a cap bank. (try RONK Industries, one of the few designs that can put good power into the synthetic phase, but you have to "tune" the xformer/caps for the particular motor/load)

There are actual "solid state" converters/drivers but in the end they're AC->DC->3Ph though fairly small and compact (and $$$). They typically require notably more input voltage than the voltage output ... so if you're 240v you might have to provide 480v. I seem to remember ONE that was 240 in/out however.

Lots of water and wet laundry are high mass. Shunt-wound DC motors have more TORQUE than a 3-ph AC. Alas they also have brushes that will eventually wear out. EZ to replace, but still. Also, if rapidly reversing, you'll get a big voltage spike.

Due to rare-earth magnets, there are designs based on a wired stator and passive, supermagnet, rotor. No brushes, but again $$$ for anything of any size. Samarium magnets are preferable - they resist demag better and can tolerate more heat plus are a bit more corrosion-resistant than Neo. These sorts of motors are sometimes found in e-vehicle designs.

I've looked into all sorts of motors for light/medium industrial apps. Alas there are NO perfect solutions, for ANY app. Always trade-offs. If you want something kinda weird, try 'written pole' motors :-)

Anyway, for a humble washing machine, "brushless DC" is maybe the best modern compromise. The motor may be better than its power/control circuitry though ...

Re: Re: VNC, No Matching Security Types By: Stephen Pelc to All on Tue Nov 28 2023 09:49 pm

That's new to me. Everybody around me uses vitroceramics with the exception of old people clinging to old gas equipment, and rural northerns using some wood stove (ie. Cocinas bilvaínas)

Meybe people around me is just weird :-P

Wow ! Didn't know they sold those outside of the 3rd world.

Sounds like the old gasoline "blow torches".

So long as not too many people demand it.

Heat pumps extract heat from the input water (sometimes air) to heat, and usually have a reverse mode where the water/air is heated while cooling the home. Air CAN be used, but ground water is more efficient and tends to hold a fairly constant temperature year 'round. Hard to warm a home using air that's already at freezing.

The water that has passed through, been warmed or cooled, is the "used water". Gotta DO something with it. COULD pump it back down, but then you're likely messing with the source water's temperature.

Heh, I bought what was the bitter last gen of "giant tube" telly's. The thing weighed at least 200 pounds. 48" diagonal as best I remember. Sold it to a guy for dollar and bought a flat screen that was bigger and weighed about 200 pounds less. Lasted the guy about another 10 years, so he got a good deal AND was the one who had to dispose of it :-)

"Tech waste" IS a problem. There are often rather toxic and/or non-recyclable materials in them. Cadmium, lead and esp mercury are a big issue. Older stuff is full of PCBs. Basically all you can do is crush it and throw the bits into a heavily- lined pit and "let the future deal with it".

Theoretically, nano-bots COULD efficiently collect those nasty substances from garbage pits ...

Very clever - and he likely still makes good money from his replica gears. Even something like the old mechanical/ timer washing-machine controls - most parts really COULD be 3-D printed now even the metallic bits.

The thermostat that runs my HVAC has a number of jumpers inside it. Lets it work with a variety of units. However it also shows how many ways such units are wired - and some things have to happen with a certain timing.

Um ... I've had plenty of wi-fi units/repeaters/transponders die all on their own over the years. Of note I've had THREE Pi3s where the onboard unit has gone wonky. Maybe I was running it too hot - or maybe there's just an innate problem.

I've had similar issues with wireless cameras - esp ones that run off a Pi + Motion. The cheap-ass solution is to just use a crontab entry to restart the Motion daemon every hour or two. Only takes maybe 10 seconds. "* */1 * * * systemctl restart motion"

Note odd probs with the Motion daemon in Bullseye/Bookworm. Turns out you need to explicitly enable the daemon and then put the largely-undocumented "start_motion_daemon=yes" param up near the top of motion.conf ... the old 'daemon on' doesn't have to be there. Run into this on Pis AND "real PCs". I did tweak the systemd entry to include restarts on failure, just in case. So far so good.

I like the fast response of gas. If a pot starts boiling over, turn down the heat and it stops _now_. I haven't tried induction heading, though, so I can't say how it compares.

Re: Re: VNC, No Matching Security Types By: Stephen Pelc to All on Tue Nov 28 2023 09:49 pm

I looked the stats up.

As per 2019, about half the cooktops in Spain were electric ceramic variety (vitroceramic), a third were gas. Gas is popular in locations that see sporadic use (like second residences), remote locations and among poorer or older people.

Study is behind a paywall. Paywalls, ruining BBS conversation since they were invented.

I have used all forms of heat for cooking

There is no doubt that open flame gas is best for e,g. wok style flash frying as the heat goes up the wok sides. It is alṣo very fast acting and will turn a frying pan into a blast furnace quicker than you can say "Oh f*ck!"

For general domestic use induction is my favourite because its fairly fast, and easy to clean but even then there isn't much problem for me with my cast iron hotplate range stove or the two ceramic hobs I have.

FFS on days with power cuts I have made coffee on an open charcoal fire.

There is no 'best' - only 'different'. In practise one adapts one's cooking styles to what one is forced to use.

Its fast.

But so is my range cooker with its cast iron hotplates. you simply take the saucepan/skillet off the hob!

They are a hall mark of a certain 'country living' style. In practice a pretty good room heater that you can also cook on, beloved by wet muddy dogs. Will work without electricity in the case of power cuts. So ideal if you are rural with unreliable electricity and no gas. You can get ones that run on electricity and gas too. But why bother? electricity is expensive - very expensive and at the moment so too is gas.

It does yes but Induction is also *instant* and it gets water boiling a lot faster than gas.

Yes, I thought that you probably hadn't.

I can easily accept that some people actually need a flame not just heat for their cooking and others may like all copper pots or some such but for normal usage Induction doesn't get beaten by gas on any parameters, quite the reverse.

Bob.