Review on The Infinite Unknown

Hunting cold spots with the Flir One Thermal Camera

Jared Watkins — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 08:04:29 -0600

I like sharing useful gadgets with people and having an inexpensive thermal camera around the house can be very useful at times.

I’ve been in the new house for about six months now and with the cold snap making it in the mid 30s outside I thought this is a good time to break out the Flir One thermal camera and see what I can find around the house.

I’ve noticed certain rooms just feel cold and I think it’s from the older windows but I’m not sure how bad they are or if there is anything else going on behind the walls. From doing a little research I found that double glazed windows should have around an 8 degree C temperature difference to the interior walls under ideal conditions. This depends on the outside temperature but that’s a good ballpark. For single glazed windows this could be 20C and for triple glazed 4C. That’s the surface temperature of the glass vs the walls and does not take air leaks into account or the conductivity of the frame.

The windows in this house are mostly double pane with metal frames. The frames are the coldest part.. easily visible in the images. Several windows also seem to be leaking a lot of air on the bottom too and the front door also needs to be better sealed from air leaks.

In these images of the ceiling you can see how the insulation is not uniform above the vaulted ceilings leading to cold spots. The bright box in the corner is a heating vent.

The camera can colorize the image in different ways.. here I have it hi-lighting the coldest part of the image. In some of these I’m seeing gaps in the insulation behind the walls… not so easy to fix but also small enough that it’s probably not a factor. The ceiling behind the fan is about 20 feet away and you can tell the image isn’t as clear but you can still make out where the ceiling joists are behind the drywall.

Using the camera is pretty straight forward. There’s an app to install and the thermal camera plugs into the bottom of your phone. It’s powered by its own rechargeable battery. It feels a little delicate hanging by the lighting plug and using the rig pretty much requires two hands. It does seem to work pretty well though.. and seems to be great for this sort occasional use around the house. I did have to remove my phone from the Otterbox case I usually keep it in. I’m using this with an iPhone but it’s also available for Android phones or tablets.

Our cats are curious about what I’m up to. Notice how you can see the reflected heat of the cat on the door it’s standing next to. When using the camera around reflective objects be careful about not catching a reflection of heat from something nearby. You can even see your own body heat reflected in a window when standing in front of it.

Other fun uses around the house… Image your power panel to see if any circuits might be overloaded. Look at your gas grill to see exactly how and where the heat goes for better control while cooking. It can also be useful to find water leaks behind a wall.

Product Review: Trailer in a Bag

Jared Watkins — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

After I’d been riding a motorcycle for a while.. and I’d gotten rid of the truck.. I decided that I needed another way to move the bike around. I traded the truck for a TDI VW Golf which isn’t a giant in the realm of towing capacity but it is able to pull a 1000lb load which is plenty for what I needed. So after doing a very thorough survey of what was available in light weight trailers I settled on the aptly named Trailer in a Bag.

First off.. this is a great little company that manufacturers the trailers down in Florida so you are supporting a US small business when you buy one. At first I tried to find a dealer in NC (where I was living at the time) but didn’t have much luck. It seems with the recession they have had trouble maintaining their dealer network. No worries though because I went direct to the source and they shipped it right to my door in a few easily manageable boxes.

Delivery time was reasonable and took a little less than two weeks. As you can see from the pictures.. this trailer is very well designed. The steel frame is heavy duty and everything fits together really well. It’s simple to assemble.. slide the 7 major frame members together and lock with 1/2″ steel pins and cotter pins for those. From opening the trunk to ready to load the bike takes me maybe 10-12 minutes doing it alone in the hot NC summer sun. It’s best to assemble the trailer hooked up to the hitch on the car which acts like a second set of hands and helps you hold it in place when the wheels start going on.

Loading the bike is uneventful. I have no trouble walking it up the ramp from the side on level ground. The key is to maintain enough momentum to roll smoothly into the chock.. more about that later. Of course my bike only weighs about 450lb.. have to love these Triumphs. By default these trailers come setup for one bike.. but they can be ordered, or modified after, to accommodate two if your car can handle the load with a class 2 hitch. (mine can’t) I ordered the basic trailer but with the Condor chock accessory which I recommend as it works really well and makes one person loading easy. The Condor chock is just as heavy duty as the rest of the trailer and fits like it was made for it… as it should. It adjusts to fit different sizes of front wheel so you might have to play with it a little if yours is something unusual. The front wheel on the Triumph is a little smaller than average so I used the set of alignment holes just forward of the middle. When properly set.. the bike easily stands on its own in the chock letting you load and tie it down with no problems.

The real thing that sets this trailer apart through is that the whole thing can break down and fit in your trunk or in the corner of the garage for storage and I’ve had a chance to try out both of these aspects. When I decided that I wanted a Triumph Bonneville I was able to find a guy selling a barely used one in a nearby state. So I loaded up the trailer in the back of my VW Golf and hit the road. Did the deal and brought the bike back on the trailer no problem. Since then I’ve moved to Seattle and have a much smaller garage to work with but that’s not a problem with this trailer.. because it breaks down and fits nicely in an unused corner. I’d never have room to store a more traditional plywood deck trailer… which was the other (cheaper) option I was considering at the time.

I’m pleased with the company and the product here.. as evidenced by taking the time to write this up. Hopefully if you are on the fence about this what I’ve said here can help you decide to pull the trigger.

A few usage tips. Spray some lube (I used Slick50) on the steel pieces that slide together.. makes it much easier to assemble and disassemble. I also put some strips of wide adhesive grip tape on the ramp because I found that when unloading the front tire tended to slide down the ramp with the front brake on without it. Pick up some quality ratchet straps for the front. Be sure to get the kind that can’t come off if the strap goes slack. The motorcycle should be secured firmly but not overly compressed on the front fork. You are depending on the bike shocks to absorb road bumps. In this case the bike weighs more than the trailer.. and it has no suspension of its own. I also picked up a small tool bag from Harbor Freight that holds the straps and all the other hardware when the trailer is stored.

Sketchy Things From China: "Apple" Power Supply

Jared Watkins — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

As part of a new project I needed a power connector for a macbook. Not wanting to shell out $65 for an official power supply just for the connector I picked one up from ebay for about $20. On first glance this looks like an apple power supply.. but something just seemed off about it.

On closer inspection I found lots of things were different… this was clearly a knock off. Of course.. for my use I didn’t really care as I only needed the proprietary connector but I decided to do some testing and side by side comparisons just to find out. First off.. there are no Apple logos or markings on this supply so it’s not technically pretending to be official. The color of the plastic is a shade different.. it’s not white. The body has a sort of lavender tinge to it.. the removable plug has this as well but a bit lighter. The under side of the removable plug has visible assembly screws (one with a stripped head) while the Apple one has none. The ‘button’ the removable piece snaps over is metal on the official supply while it’s plastic on the import. The power connector on the official one is metal while the import uses silver colored plastic. The knock off is noticeably lighter but I don’t know why that is without opening them both up.. which I don’t plan to do. The technical info is printed in a different location and I am highly suspicious of the CE stamp and I note a missing UL (underwriters labs) stamp. So if you used this power supply and it started a fire.. would your insurance cover it since this is not an ‘approved’ electrical device? I checked the output with a volt meter and found that it was putting out the right voltage.. but that’s all I can say about the electrical quality of the power supply.

Update: I can now report seeing three different behaviors from the various power plugs I’ve been playing with. When my Macbook Pro is powered from the actual ‘official’ apple wall supply it will charge the battery while running (obviously) AND continue to operate the laptop even with the battery removed. The official airline supply cable can be run with about 14-16.5v and will run the laptop but not charge the battery and it won’t power the laptop with the battery removed. My external solar/battery power supply using the chinese connector will run and charge the battery but will NOT power the laptop with the battery removed. That last bit of behavior was unexpected and I have to wonder what else is going on there to cause that.