Clean Start

@Patrick I think we should go serenading @grumpyrick with dueling accordions once we get the act together. What say you?

This is what would happen

mars-attack-21.gif
 
Rep'in Pop's Bike Shop today, since I'm in Hillsboro.
I forgot my race belt to hold my number. Been so long since I pinned one on! Both figuratively and literally!

New race age group this year! I'm in the 60-65 geezers. Aaaahhhgh

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I have a 5K today - hopefully break 30 minutes.

My watch said 32 minutes - there is a traffic jam at the beginning, and the recorded distance was long -
so I was close. Nailed the 10 minute pace tho (which is a 31 minute 5k.) Only 10 minutes off my PR.
Now to sign-up for a half marathon......lol
 
January 2023

Total exercise time was a bit short of 20 hours - not a great number, but a start.
Just for some comparison, Dec '22 - 0.75 hours. Nov - 12ish.
Most of this has been zone 2 work - 1 run, brisk walking, rower, drainer, elliptical, hiking, and a bit of dreadmill.
0 rides outside, which is really bad considering the weather was conducive.

The sessions have been trending longer, still nothing over two hours, but getting closer.
Been doing the "indoor triathlon" the last couple days at home. Row, Ride, Elliptical.
We've had nightly zoom seminars which last ~90 minutes on different aspects of officiating athletics (track & field in the US.)
It makes the time go by quickly - even better than Chicago Party Aunt.

This gave me the funny idea of doing a spoof on taking zoom calls from different equipment.
Or I may just turn the video on, and get the RL take!

Dropped about 12lbs - most of which was put on during the holiday eating season. maybe 18 or so to go.
Getting mentally back in the game - prep'd the bike for a trip up to the ADKs.
Planning to hit Gurney Ln at least once. Maybe try Cat Mt Climb and some other stuff around Lk George.
Decided to leave the snowboard home.

Have a month before heading down to Florida - Hopefully Rick has an extra mtb for me.
We'll be discussing gun control, food security, economic issues, and pickleball.

Think I'll jump on one of those Zwift FTP-builder plans. Time to get the HR up.

Speaking of triathlons - Xterra is coming to NJ this year. Need to test the buoys.

IMG_3429.JPG


Hopefully i can locate the leaks while in the hottub....maybe i should go to the YMCA pool?

IMG_3459.JPG
 
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January 2023

Total exercise time was just short of 20 hours - not a great number, but a start.
Just for some comparison, Dec '22 - 0.75 hours. Nov - 12ish.
Most of this has been zone 2 work - 1 run, brisk walking, rower, drainer, elliptical, hiking, and a bit of dreadmill.
0 rides outside. Which is really bad considering the weather was conducive.

The sessions have been getting longer, still nothing over two hours, but getting closer.
Been doing the "indoor triathlon" the last couple days at home. Row, Ride, Elliptical.
We've had nightly zoom seminars which last ~90 minutes on different aspects of officiating athletics (track & field in the US.)
It makes the time go by quickly - even better than Chicago Party Aunt.

This gave me the funny idea of doing a spoof on taking zoom calls from different equipment.
Or I may just turn the video on, and get the RL take!

Dropped about 12lbs - most of which was put on during the holiday eating season. maybe 18 or so to go.
Getting mentally back in the game - prep'd the bike for a trip up to the ADKs.
Planning to hit Gurney Ln at least once. Maybe try Cat Mt Climb and some other stuff around Lk George.
Decided to leave the snowboard home.

Have a month before heading down to Florida - Hopefully Rick has an extra mtb for me.
We'll be discussing gun control, food security, economic issues, and pickleball.

Think I'll jump on one of those Zwift FTP-builder plans. Time to get the HR up.

Speaking of triathlons - Xterra is coming to NJ this year. Need to test the buoys.

View attachment 206307

Hopefully i can locate the leaks in the hottub....maybe i should go to the YMCA pool?

View attachment 206308
When you said indoor Triathlon, I was fully prepared to see….. Treadmill, Trainer and Bubble Bath.☺️ What’s the rate of deflation on dem buoys? Might be a fun way to enforce cutoff times for the swim leg 😈
 
When you said indoor Triathlon, I was fully prepared to see….. Treadmill, Trainer and Bubble Bath.☺️ What’s the rate of deflation on dem buoys? Might be a fun way to enforce cutoff times for the swim leg 😈

damn, i need to add hottub to the mix!

Some of them deflated overnight, some over a couple days.
They are incredibly expensive for a vinyl balloon! - a few of them have tire patches. Kinda funny.
Also need to redo a few to check if it was the valve. Amazon to the rescue.

The ones used for the regatta markings are the best - APS - they haven't deflated a bit - but they are a darker color.
 
@Magic
Not sure what I want to do with the reveal of the crown.

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Agree with Magic's version. Pat's look like the wrong size cabinets are being used over the microwave, especially if you are short like me. And nicer lighting.
 
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Two issues.
The space isn't wide enough for the cabinet, so I modified the sides of the 12" ones for the m/w and used a modified bridge cabinet set out to match the m/w.

There is a block wall back there with plumbing, so I couldn't bring the vent down, it would have been a visible box.

It brings dramatic architectural interest to a grey and white kitchen. 😉
 
Is there an app to generate more excuses?
Basically skipped any sustained workouts in March -
Vacation didn't help - when my original plans got the kibosh, I didn't recover.
And so goes the "bounce"



I'm going the opposite of @Karate Monkey with my home projects.

Here are a bunch of race clocks - 3'x1' - they are used at marathons.
Note they are two sided..

IMG_3750.JPG


The segments of the digits are high-contrast neon yellow??? There are no "lights" -
the segments get flipped by a coil that is energized in a certain direction (review your magnetism from 6th grade.)
Cool eh

The clock with the missing minutes has a problem on the logic board - it was built in the mid '80s
when all the good music came out! The designer worked at Bell Labs. High concentration of Deadheads.

The logic is 'hard wired' - so there isn't anything to reprogram.

The guts look like...

IMG_3627.JPG



The lack of flexibility is bothering me - so I've decided to replace the boards with a microprocessor.
Maybe add some internet-of-things connectivity, and spy on the people that come near the clock.
I mean, "send offers which match their interests."

Don't want to fry the coils with bad programming,
so i whipped up an LED display for proof of concept.


IMG_3786.JPG


Yup - major geek action here. The microprocessor is an Arfuino Uno, simple and cheap.
Ignoring everything other than the display:

The first position is what is showing on the clock.
The fourth position s what I want to display next.
The second position is(are) the segments which need to be turned "off" to go from current to next
The third position is(are) the segments which need to be turned "on" to go from current to next

in an LED - it is just on or off - with the race clock - the change is from off->on and on->off are two different actions.

Why?
Cause the first thing you thought was, just go with "on" for all the ones that are supposed to be "on" and
"off" for all those that need to be turned "off"
- or simply, do something to all seven segments, then worries
about transitions are moot.

That's true. But since sustainability is a buzzword now - and these clocks are battery powered,
each flip has a cost (12v x 120mA x 25ms.) When I simulated an hour of clock time counting seconds,
the number of flips was reduced by ~60% using this logic. (energizing a coil costs the same whether is flips something or not)

Flipping the segments also has a failure rate - more so with the horizontal ones since they deal with gravity.
Think of a 3 ->4. if the top segment doesn't flip "off" (haha) the 4 will look like a 9.
In the 10s of seconds or 10s of minutes would be out of bounds -
in the seconds it isn't a big deal - cause 5 is coming! and it needs the top segment - but in the minutes, it is going to be
5 minutes ahead for the whole minute. (you wouldn't want to be 5 minutes behind pace at the 5k mark)

More fun with clocks coming...
 
Are you planning on using these at races or just for fun?

I ask because if it's for fun, more power to you. If it's for races, I'd just buy some new ones. :)

Although I wonder if doing it on one gets you 90% of the way on the others? Which Arduino are you using? There's some more industrial ones out there you may want to consider.


And have you considered a small solar panel for these? Would probably run indefinitely.
 
Are you planning on using these at races or just for fun?

I ask because if it's for fun, more power to you. If it's for races, I'd just buy some new ones. :)

Although I wonder if doing it on one gets you 90% of the way on the others? Which Arduino are you using? There's some more industrial ones out there you may want to consider.


And have you considered a small solar panel for these? Would probably run indefinitely.

They aren't mine - they belong to DJB Productions (Dan Brannan) - needed new battery packs - the 10yo ni-cads were failing.
Built a new pack, and found i could buy them for the same price (12x5Ah D-cell) - they are used at quite a few events.
Next one is the jersey city marathon - they were used at Philly last year, and NYC in the past.
(i set the clocks on the course at Philly last year)

Well - if i can upgrade them for a couple hundy...


Solar panel is a good idea! thanks -

Pictured is a very basic Arduino Uno R3 (I have a Mega 256, and an ESP32 sitting here, but the Uno makes ya think more.)
Would def go with something a bit more hardened for deployment. It was 20F at the start of Philly, and got up into the 60s
with the sun baking down on the box - so I'm sure it can get hot in there - even if the solar panel ran a cooling fan....
It was almost 80 at NYC last year. Thanks for the lead!

These clocks are rented out - various people own 5-10 of them. and the group moves them around.
Clocks for one of the big marathons means 1 every mile, 1 at the half, and 1 at every 5k point.
They weigh 40lbs - and have a heavy duty tripod. They'll do 20 hours of run time in the current configuration with fresh batteries.

If i can get the consumption down, then I can reduce the weight - and maybe the footprint.

I did buy a broken one to mess with. A little newer version, so if i wanted to mess with the board.....
there are two boards in this 8 Digit clock (lane/place/time) it is for lane oriented racing.
This is board #2

Not much going on - couple of shift registers and latch drivers for the 12v.

IMG_3737.JPG
 
FYI, from the same site, DIN-rail mounted temperature switches. Something like this would probably work great for a small internal fan. And if it's hot, you probably have solar pumping out power... I use these a ton for panel cooling.

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I forgot how big some of those clocks are. When you're halfway through a race looking at the mile marker, you're not thinking how big it is.... :) Like traffic lights, bigger than they seem.
 
Are you planning on using these at races or just for fun?

I ask because if it's for fun, more power to you. If it's for races, I'd just buy some new ones. :)

Although I wonder if doing it on one gets you 90% of the way on the others? Which Arduino are you using? There's some more industrial ones out there you may want to consider.


And have you considered a small solar panel for these? Would probably run indefinitely.
Philly alone, 30,000 runners x $120 reg fee = 3.6 million and here pat is fixing a clock from the 1980's.

This may be the most Pat thing ever. Kudos for out doing yourself.
 
They aren't mine - they belong to DJB Productions (Dan Brannan) - needed new battery packs - the 10yo ni-cads were failing.
Built a new pack, and found i could buy them for the same price (12x5Ah D-cell) - they are used at quite a few events.
Next one is the jersey city marathon - they were used at Philly last year, and NYC in the past.
(i set the clocks on the course at Philly last year)

Well - if i can upgrade them for a couple hundy...


Solar panel is a good idea! thanks -

Pictured is a very basic Arduino Uno R3 (I have a Mega 256, and an ESP32 sitting here, but the Uno makes ya think more.)
Would def go with something a bit more hardened for deployment. It was 20F at the start of Philly, and got up into the 60s
with the sun baking down on the box - so I'm sure it can get hot in there - even if the solar panel ran a cooling fan....
It was almost 80 at NYC last year. Thanks for the lead!

These clocks are rented out - various people own 5-10 of them. and the group moves them around.
Clocks for one of the big marathons means 1 every mile, 1 at the half, and 1 at every 5k point.
They weigh 40lbs - and have a heavy duty tripod. They'll do 20 hours of run time in the current configuration with fresh batteries.

If i can get the consumption down, then I can reduce the weight - and maybe the footprint.

I did buy a broken one to mess with. A little newer version, so if i wanted to mess with the board.....
there are two boards in this 8 Digit clock (lane/place/time) it is for lane oriented racing.
This is board #2

Not much going on - couple of shift registers and latch drivers for the 12v.

View attachment 210353

Really getting creative manufacturing excuses to not ride - impressive!
 
They aren't mine - they belong to DJB Productions (Dan Brannan) - needed new battery packs - the 10yo ni-cads were failing.
Built a new pack, and found i could buy them for the same price (12x5Ah D-cell) - they are used at quite a few events.
Next one is the jersey city marathon - they were used at Philly last year, and NYC in the past.
(i set the clocks on the course at Philly last year)

Well - if i can upgrade them for a couple hundy...


Solar panel is a good idea! thanks -

Pictured is a very basic Arduino Uno R3 (I have a Mega 256, and an ESP32 sitting here, but the Uno makes ya think more.)
Would def go with something a bit more hardened for deployment. It was 20F at the start of Philly, and got up into the 60s
with the sun baking down on the box - so I'm sure it can get hot in there - even if the solar panel ran a cooling fan....
It was almost 80 at NYC last year. Thanks for the lead!

These clocks are rented out - various people own 5-10 of them. and the group moves them around.
Clocks for one of the big marathons means 1 every mile, 1 at the half, and 1 at every 5k point.
They weigh 40lbs - and have a heavy duty tripod. They'll do 20 hours of run time in the current configuration with fresh batteries.

If i can get the consumption down, then I can reduce the weight - and maybe the footprint.

I did buy a broken one to mess with. A little newer version, so if i wanted to mess with the board.....
there are two boards in this 8 Digit clock (lane/place/time) it is for lane oriented racing.
This is board #2

Not much going on - couple of shift registers and latch drivers for the 12v.

View attachment 210353
Is there a "Members Only" jacket somewhere behind that PCB?
I interviewed a guy about 4 years ago who told me he has 3 tons of TI data books from the 1980's. When I asked why, he responded that someday that information will not be available and he will have it on hand.
We passed on hiring him.
 
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