ALright, anyone who know’s anything about this, let me know - RE: Heating.

So my gas boiler coughes out hot water at about 180 deg F @ 15 psi. It goes from a 1″ galvinzided to some 4″ hunk of steam optiimized crap to the radiatiors. The question I have is can I replace that 4″ stuff with 1″ copper? 15 psi is well within the 400+ psi limit of copper and the temperature range is well below the solder melting point (saw 400 F +). Has anyone had any experience with this??? My boilier is the typical blue bastard with about 300,000 BTU/hr input capacity (so imagine heating a medium sized warehouse). It has a 1/2 HP pump on it to circulate the water, but I don’t want to go (fall?) downstairs to check. My main concern is to not blast someone through the wall because some retareded pressure built up and split the pipe like E-Bay stock.

Well, I try not to do this - this being posting after having several beers (read sorta drunk), but I really can’t help it. When I’m stone cold sober, I’m actually a pretty boring person. I do my work, I spell words correctly and I don’t usually post about what I’m really thinking.

A long time ago, I wanted to be an author. I probably would have sucked big time, but for whatever reason, I think I can come with stories to tell. These stories are usually right out of my dreams so I don’t even have to think, just sleep (hah hah hah). I swear though, there is some pretty good stuff that floats around in my cranium. So real it is in fact, that I often have trouble telling fiction from reality - so if I ever seem to be making stuff up, just play along.

I know not whether other people have such livid dreams but I don’t think so soley by judging on the blank stares I get when I (very, very rarely) tell people about me dreams (they’re screwed up, you don’t want to know . . . you’re head would likely implode).

The really funny (?) part is that sitting here, listening to my music obscenely loud, Blink 182 came on playing Adam’s Song came on. Dammit I hate that when one song totally changes your mode. Before I was all “Post and go to bed” now I’m all “Dammit, maybe Blink 182 is on to something”.
Moving on, I really hope my current residents are impressed with the improved electrical system. I mean before, noone (including me) wanted to go within 15 feet of the damn thing when it was hot (aka all the time). Now, I’d gladly hold a pickic next to it. Yes folks, the cover will actually fit on it now. Hmmmmm, I’m getting the feeling I’m a bit preoccupied with my achievement. Oh well, all I can say is it looks amazing (gloating here) and I only have one Band-Aid to show for it (stabbed myself in the hand again). Alright, I’m haning up here . . . as usual, I’m sure the “real” (?) me will be embarassed by this post but that guy’s a square anway, right?

Yep, after a couple of lond days of work, I’m back home. Actually, Thanksgiving break was pretty good (minus the cleche “Is your house done yet?”). Anyway, I’m back in Michigan . . . by myself . . . at the house . . . . so I can listen to music as loud as I want (currently at vol=70/90 = pretty damn loud).

So what have I done with all this time you ask? Fair question - but I have a valid response. My 200 Amp power distribution panel is now a work of art (just waiting for Mack to send the pictures (my camera died). . . hint hint). But really, I no longer feel like I’m going to die by standing next to it. I can’t wait to post the pictures - they are truely amazing. I wasn’t sure I could produce a finished product like that, but damn, I think I topped any Yooper installation (forgive the brashness, it was a longtime coming).

Anyway, hopefully I can post the pictures tommorrow so I can prove to the world that I’m not a total screw-up when it comes to home renovation.

Yep, after a couple of lond days of work, I’m back home. Actually, Thanksgiving break was pretty good (minus the cleche “Is your house done yet?”). Anyway, I’m back in Michigan . . . by myself . . . at the house . . . . so I can listen to music as loud as I want (currently at vol=70/90 = pretty damn loud).

So what have I done with all this time you ask? Fair question - but I have a valid response. My 200 Amp power distribution panel is now a work of art (just waiting for Mack to send the pictures (my camera died). . . hint hint). But really, I no longer feel like I’m going to die by standing next to it. I can’t wait to post the pictures - they are truely amazing. I wasn’t sure I could produce a finished product like that, but damn, I think I topped any Yooper installation (forgive the brashness, it was a longtime coming).

Anyway, hopefully I can post the pictures tommorrow so I can prove to the world that I’m not a total screw-up when it comes to home renovation.

Well, I drove the 468.2 miles home yesterday. That’s a bit longer then usual, but I had to stop off and pick up my sister Sarah in Minneapolis. I followed the directions that the MSP airport told me; got lost; and was being a bitch to. The ride home was a bit unconfortable, but we reconcilded after the 19th mile. Now, she’s sitting here watching me type this and critiquing(sp?) what I write. Now she’s making fun of how I spell critiquing(sp?). Whatever.
Yes, a happy birthday goes out to the cronic drunk Manard at the Mantorville Social Club - “We all thought you’d have died by now”. And one quick question - do you want to be buiried in that crazy hat?
We (Dan, Sarah and I) also managed to score a ride home from the ‘rents in the Tahoe. Heh heh hoe. Anyway, I need some sleep in case you can’t tell.

Well, I drove the 468.2 miles home yesterday. That’s a bit longer then usual, but I had to stop off and pick up my sister Sarah in Minneapolis. I followed the directions that the MSP airport told me; got lost; and was being a bitch to. The ride home was a bit unconfortable, but we reconcilded after the 19th mile. Now, she’s sitting here watching me type this and critiquing(sp?) what I write. Now she’s making fun of how I spell critiquing(sp?). Whatever.
Yes, a happy birthday goes out to the cronic drunk Manard at the Mantorville Social Club - “We all thought you’d have died by now”. And one quick question - do you want to be buiried in that crazy hat?
We (Dan, Sarah and I) also managed to score a ride home from the ‘rents in the Tahoe. Heh heh hoe. Anyway, I need some sleep in case you can’t tell.

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to ask exactally WFT is up with this stuff. Thank you Diane. Rather then duplicate other peoples more eloquent descriptions of how they work, I’ll just provide some links to some of the better pages: Probably the best was written by my advisor Brad King that’s here but some more description is here [1], [2]. I’d like to provide more information, but most of what I have is technical papers and stuff like that. You could try Google (notice deanmassey.net is #9 if that gives you a feel for how many people work on this stuff).

In a nut shell though, Hall Thrusters are used primarly now in orbital transfers of satillites (low earth orbit to geo syncronous orbit) and North-South station keeping (NSSK). Station keeping is just a fancy way of saying “we keep our bird from crashing down into the new Walmart”. The drag of the atmosphere, how ever slight it might be, will eventually cause a craft to slow down and hence fall out of orbit. These hall thrusters then kick on for a while and give it some more speed. Within the last few years though, people have found that they can scale these puppies up from the 200-5000 watt range to the 20,000+ range (to put that into perspective, remember that there are 746 watts in 1 horsepower). With this higher powers, it is then possible to hurl stuff much further, much faster. Why not chemical rockets then? Because those things suck. Their efficency is absolutly horrible which translates into most of the space craft being propellent. Hall thrusters and their 50+% efficiency take care of that problem.

Along those same lines, I’m working on (some Old Milwaukee Light) and my latest abstract/proposal. I just found out about this last night when the person who was supposed to have submitted a proposal couldn’t get all the paperwork done in time for the Nov. 24th deadline imposed by the Michigan Space Grant Consortium With some guidence from Brad, the topic will be “Probe Studies in a Bishmuth Plasma for Hall Thruster Diagnostics”. That title intimidates me . . . and I have to write it. Anyway, I have a pile of papers about 3″ thick to read (so I know what I’m doing) so I better get cracking.

What a day. After waking up *before* my alarm (been doing that a lot lately, although only by about 5 minutes) I arrived at our research group’s weekly 10am meeting. I was expecting a lot of crap for flooding the tank yesterday (and I did get some). My task for the day centered around getting that pump up and running again. With some help from Alex and about 5 gallons of oil we hit the start button. That thing has never run so smoothly in its life. I’m not kidding here. Before it used to sound like at any minute it was going to rip itself apart but today, you could actually talk in the room when it was on. It took a while longer then usual to reach 40 milliTorr which is when we switch over to the cryopump but this was likely from all the water still in there boiling off and getting sucked out. I’m just amazed though - from disaster to better functioning in less then 24 hours. Now if only I can keep that up for my thermodynamics exam tomorrow and get my MSGC fellowship application done.
Since I was having some trouble with the pictures before, the Thruster Testing pictures are now all there. I like this one a lot so it’s worthy of putting on the front page for a while.

As much as I hate to say this, after a few beers tonight with some good friends, I feel a whole lot better about being me then I did earlier (see vacuum chamber full of water). I’ve got to say that to Brad’s testimate, despite me putting $1 million worth of equipment in danger he only said “Hey, shit happens”. I can only hope to be that cool when someone burns down my house (or blows up my car).

In other news, Ben and Jake have somehow managed to swindle thier way out of the on-campus housing contract (a feat I thought impossible) which means that next semester will totally kick ass. They are cool as hell and know how to pick up after themselves.

The sauna is nearing completion pending the installation of some floor tile and the aquisition of a heater. I thought about making my own heater. I mean, I didn’t cough up $40k for an EE degree and be unable to make my own heater. I estimated that with 3 2400W heater units (~$30 each), I could build the whole thing for about $260 rather then the $1000 they want for commericial. The trouble is, even though I’m a FE (almost a professional engineer), my insurance company would most likely tell me to pound sand. In fact, others have also conveyed some concern as well. To be honest, on the surface, I’m a bit offended that people would doubt my skilz as an engineer. Below that though, their doubt mates with mine (did I do it 100% correct???) and I begin to wonder if it’s a good idea. In the end I think I’m going to get a commerical 8.4KW heater and just be done with it.

And one final note: I use Linux and if you own SCOX, I hate you.

I’ve finally risen from the lab and will now share the fruits of my labor. Actually, I have been completely occupied working on a fix for the thruster short that happened last week. I didn’t escape until 9 pm tonight. It was just an all around crappy day. I ended up accidently flooding the vacuum chamber with water while trying to figure out what caused the short. I was rough pumping the tank (with the mechanical pump) and somehow one of the coolent lines was letting water into the tank. I didn’t notice until it had been on for about 20 minutes and I saw water splashing up against one of the windows. I ran around and shut everything down and waited for it to come back up to pressure. When that door opened, water just poured out of it. Then Brad (my PhD advisor) came into the lab. Perfect timing. Water everywhere, everything in the tank wet and water in the pumps. So I spent about five hours tonight cleaning that up and changing the oil in the pumps. Anyway, I’ll quit bleeding on the floor here and get to the good stuff: The 11-13-03 Hall Thruster Test. Enjoy.

Update 11:53 am: Ok, the pictures are fixed. I tried to fix one mistake late last night and I didn’t notice that Netscape screwed up all my picture links.

Update 12:17 pm Dammit, that first image is still screwed up. I think my super huge harddrive will all my life’s work on it is dying. I’ll try and fix that later tonight.

Update 12:45 pm Ok it’s all fixed and I no longer think my harddrive is going nova. It was just an ftp client on crack.