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Year of the Monkey: Guan Yu and Me

spannerspencer

Year of the MonkeyCelebrate Chinese New Year with element14!

 

Day Five: Guan Yu and Me

 

Nimen hao! Perhaps you remember our Christmas advent calendar shenanigans, when members of the element14 team all gave away their deepest, darkest secrets, and we asked you to guess which skeletons belonged in which closet?

 

Well, one of my fun facts was a long-time love of kung fu, and I mention it now in the midst of our Chinese New Year celebrations as today's patron is someone I'm very familiar with from those kung fu classes. He's the Chinese God of War, and a very popular figure when the New Year rolls around.

 

But first, it's the Year of the Monkey, so in order to win our time-limited badge, all you need to do is stop by to read and comment on each of our New Year blogs. The badge will only be available to earn until February 23, after which you'll have to wait 12 years before it comes up again (given the cycle of the Chinese zodiac).

 

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

We won't get into a debate about the existence of gods here, but a unique aspect of the Chinese God of War, Guan Yu (or Guan Gung, as he's also known) is that he really did exist. His epic exploits saw him become the subject of one of China's greatest works of literature of all time (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms), and his subsequent ascension into being a recognised deity.image

 

When you position your Guan Yu statue in your house (and every respectable house has such a statue, of course) he's positioned to face the door. This prevent bad luck, demons and those of ill intention from being able to enter your dominion.

 

So in honour of Guan Yu in the New Year, we want to hear your thoughts on new or existing security-focused projects. Digital security, physical security, personal security -- any clever ways to make the world a safer place through the magic of electronics!

Top Comments

  • Well, I'm really concerned about the security at home. I'm working on improving it by using self powered wireless nodes consisting of PIR sensors placed all around the home. By self powered I meant Solar energy based. No need to worry about power/power failure. Just install it and forget till the battery needs replacement. I already have installed cctv camera's but this is going to be an addition in security. Each nodes will be connected to the nearest node thus making a communication path, one master node or a main board will process the data and can be seen on any smartphone with the help of android app(GUI).

    Cheers! image

    mudz

  • in reply to mzungu

    I like the word dam, because it is the colloquialism that is uttered (spelled differently) when it fails, or when flat tailed rodents (USA, Michigan) put one up where you weren't expecting. Hoping for relief.

    Cheers,

    Jack

  • in reply to jack.chaney56

    Sorry , I must learn to be more precise! (slaps own wrist!).  The DC side of the solar is 24V, supplying some loads directly, and 230VAC loads via an inverter.  The pump is a 250W submersible, dropped down a 6 inch (150mm) pipe at the side of the dam - the pipe is L-shaped, ie has a 90 degree bend below the pump, with the horizontal portion connecting to the dam.  This is about 120 metres (yards) away from the house, down in a valley.  A water pipe (continuous HDPE, 20mm (3/4 inch) and a wiring conduit are buried 1 metre (3 feet) deep, the conduit containing a 2.5mm2 T&E for the AC, and an old cat5 cable I put in there for monitoring the water level at the pump.  As the cat5 contains 4 pairs, I can use one pair (or two) for the alarm loop.  Two pairs are already used for the monitoring function. The volt drop on the T&E cable is about 3V.  I could probably have got away with using 1mm2 cable, but the motor starting current is about 5A, and I wanted to make sure image. The pump, by the way, pumps about 2000 litres of water daily, over a 4 hour period (weather permitting!).  As of this moment, we are in the middle of a severe drought, and the dam has completely dried up image

     

    Don't worry, I'm not so crazy as to power the pump on the cat5!

     

    Many thanks for the concern, and interest.

    Cheers,

    Tony

  • in reply to mzungu

    Tony,

    I was wondering, because you mentioned "230VAC from an inverter", is the source AC or DC.  Running the AC line with a DC trigger is a simple matter, and can probably be done on CAT5, but you really need to watch out for power draw, even in a higher voltage AC line. If the pump draws more than a few miliamps, you could wind up with some overheating problems in the wire. Might be a better solution to fish a lamp cord to the pump for supply, then use the CAT lines for monitor and switching.  I hate the stories of houses burning down from edgy electrical work.

     

    Jack

  • in reply to mzungu

    Tony.

    I think just a connection as the pump should be electrically earthed.

    The other option is one wire to one part of the body and another to another part, and once broken it goes off.

     

    You could easily drop the input side down to 5v.

    I always switch the ground side ie 5v to the opto and then run the other side out to the switch.

    This means a short will not destroy the power supply.

     

    Your 100mW might be close, 10mA at 5v would be 0.05w (if my maths is right), but you might be able to use 5mA.

     

     

    Glad I could help.

    Mark