The life of one complete idea is rarely traced from the very beginning to the end, more often, its small fragments are recorded. Here, a small, but quite elegant thought crystallized in a muddy solution of everyday life and embodied in a short time, and experienced relief and joy prompted to take up a pen. Praise, but how.
In the order of "surfing under the drizzling autumn rain outside the window"
In our current, market (or rather, bazaar -) capitalist era, intensive work with the brains of the average man is not in honor, so, by inertia, there are still some things. In some ways it became more cozy and comfortable, in shops there are a lot of ready-made solutions and usually the mind revolves around one thought - how to make money. Bored gentlemen! Our beloved Ali Express mercilessly finished off the little that was left in the corners. Accustomed to the finished, weaned from ingenuity. I remember in the old days, whatever you take, you had to modify it with a hammer and a file, in place and in place. With matyuki and wishes for a long and happy life to all who had a hand in the birth of THIS. The planned economy and the meager, its cold, reality gave rise to such works that you won’t look without tears. And here also every third with the highest technical. In a word, I had to, but where to go? If you want to live, be able to do a lot, including stirring convolutions. And they moved, and even how - legends circulated about the unprecedented household and technical ingenuity and resourcefulness of Soviet citizens.
Now we live in a world of turnkey solutions. For every taste. Take and use, but then - no, no. User Age, yes. To our great regret, in such a seemingly limitless field of being as creativity (including technical), our actions are often visible without any desire to think independently. Well, still, a person does not immediately become another - a habit, however. A rut in the brains as if from a loaded timber truck on an autumn country road - the doctor said to the morgue, then to the morgue! Unless satori. An example, maybe not the most characteristic and convex, but undoubtedly from one floor, or even from one chamber - the use of microcontrollers for the most trivial tasks. When used up to the simplest devices, a full functional analogue, which a device with several transistors could very well become. Moreover, they will attach a screen, which itself is almost like Arduino.In a word, almost thoughtless decisions in the forehead, like painting the grass. At best, standard, heavy. Without zest and twinkle. Until - I ask, no, I ask, me?
Take the textbook task - to make sure that in the barrel above the water does not overflow over the edge when filling with a pump or from a water supply system. As a problem from the textbook about the pool and flows in and out. Our contemporary would have set up a sophisticated automatic machine, and if we did not allow moving parts or electrodes inside, then he would have adapted a surveillance camera. With wifi. Ancestors, on the other hand, dispensed with a hose or a thin pipe down from the edge of the barrel to a sink or sewer. As the water flowed - it's done, turn it off. At the same time, a fuse against all sorts of failures and accidents, such as overflow in the bathroom. Simple, efficient, clear, uh? Well, that’s the same.
Another example
But the task arose - to control the temperature in the cellar in the winter. The cellar is new, newly built, we should have a look at how it is in the cold. So that the vegetables do not freeze, and indeed. Remove, so to speak, frequency response. But to climb down every day is a humble servant! The lovers sewed it in a famous place, the size of a TV tower, and I need to move all the time for no reason, I have enough movement, I don’t want too much.
It would be logical to make a thermometer (electronic) with an external sensor - a sensor in the cellar, a thermometer on the wall of the cellar roof. You can position the measuring unit in such a way that the indicator readings (small - no grief, you can see through the existing binoculars with a slight increase) directly from the window of the house. The trouble is that ordinary electronic units cannot withstand our frosts, and the measurements are most interesting and critical at this time. As a way out - put the thermometer in a thermostatic box. There was just a double thermostat available, but somehow it was ... bulky, yes. One ideal option is to make or purchase a simple digital thermometer with DS18B20 sensors. The sensor is, the essence is a specialized three-legged microcircuit capable of exchanging data with the microcontroller over long wires. The main unit is brought into the house.
Of course, for a normal cellar all measures of this kind are superfluous, it is enough to find out if the temperature inside drops below zero into prolonged frosts in the first winter. Further, just in case, keep a regular thermometer pinned to the wall below. Here, however, it is supposed to isolate a third inside the large cellar for wintering bees - it will come in handy.
What was used for work
Alcohol thermometer, Penoplex scrap, rope. A piece of plastic pipe, mounting foam. Knife, scissors.
And here we are!
The most varied ideas were swarming in my head, reducing the laboriousness of measurements, from which, at last, the simplest and most logical - a mobile thermometer crystallized. While part of the cellar is an Omshanik only in the project, the task can be simplified for ordinary vegetable preservation. That is, a conventional alcohol thermometer rises up to take readings. Through a special tube without opening the cellar. The principle of "Reach the fish."
The method resembles measuring the oil level in the crankcase of a “great family of internal combustion engines” - the wire probe sticks into the unknown depths of the motor, having taken it out, by the level of its soiledness one can judge the presence of oil inside. What is characteristic - without disassembling the engine. Great thing for the idler.
A hint of such a “deep” method of measurement was shown to us in childhood. Well, what - comes in and goes out!
Now, when, so to speak, a complete technical task has been received, it’s as simple as simple - to pick up materials that are appropriate for the case and connect everything into an existing system. So.
Thermometer. He was scraped from susek and more likely alive than dead - after working for several seasons in a greenhouse, he was irradiated in the sun. The red, positive part of the scale has completely faded. Good would be blue, and so - strange. Nevertheless, the remnants of the scale at a certain angle differed as a device with an LCD screen and dead batteries.
Nothing, the design of the device is quite collapsible, the reference points on the glass ampoule are also intact. We are restoring.
The thermometer dismantled - the scale of thick cardboard is glued to the capillary ampoule. Above and below, the cardboard is slightly fixed and inside the glass tube-case.Understands easily. The glass case was washed from the inside, dragging a wet rag wad several times, and washed the plastic “tips” with a narrow paint brush. While everything is dry, he restored the scale with a gel pen, cut off the plastic mounting paws with a sharp knife, and drilled small holes in the covers.
A thread passed through the central holes, inside the thermometer it passes behind the scale. The thread was used waxed (paraffin wax) used during radio installation. These were knitted wire harnesses during radio and electrical installation until plastic fasteners were widely used - all kinds of straps, clamps, platforms, nets and spirals. The result was a thermometer on a string. Hangs smoothly and reliably.
The end of the rope was passed through a cover made of dense building polystyrene so that the knot did not rinse the soft cover and limited his freedom with a home-made coin washer (50 kopecks). A significant diameter of the foam cover allows you to block the neck of the pipe in any horizontal position of the rope.
Inside the cellar, a thermometer hangs about halfway between the floor and the ceiling. It is quite convenient to use outside.
Babay Mazay, October, 2019