December 29, 2009

Get BOMBED!

So it is about time that I started wrapping up some older projects so I can start enjoying their fruits, and clear the decks for new projects. Specifically, SuperBrewDay is around the corner as I have all the necessary ingredients, so the complimentary project is to complete Operation Kegerator.

I left off on this project after I had finished most of the heavy lifting. There were a few small bits to organize – and I had to get small rubber gaskets to go in all of the fittings. The 10lb CO2 tank with the dual gauge regulator fits nicely in the back of the space, and the five gallon soda keg in the front. I ran 3/16” tubing to the tap.

Additional mods: I installed an old external thermostat that my uncle had in his equipment. The device is what the kegerator is plugged into, and it in turn is plugged into the power supply. Only when the probe run into the depths of the keg area matches the temperature selected on the dial will it receive electricity to run. That was the main problem when I did the initial construction, the compressor seemed to run all the time! Hopefully this will make it a more economically and environmentally friendly appliance. I also went ahead and made a temporary tap handle using a broom stick and a classic ½” drill bit - but I don't have a power drill bit that large, so it required manual labor. Which left me parched.


5k words: a) the connections; b) overview of dispenser guts; c) external thermostat; d) a drill that is older than this project; e) malty dividends, project complete!



Telling it like it was:
Trips to home depot: 1
Money Spent on Project Phase: $2.07
Profanity used: 0
Price of a new Danby DKC645BLS: $599.00 (http://www.kegerators.com/)
Price of a used kegerator (Cheap!): $300.00 (http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/)
Price of a used pepsi machine: barter a used 32” WEGA
Number of hours spent converting: approx 30
Current DOL Federal Minimum Wage: $5.85
Estimated on-air hourly rate paid to Brian Williams for anchoring nightly news*: $76,923
Size of soda keg (pictured): 5 gallon
Estimated number of pints: 40
Cost per pint home brew: ~ $0.95
Retail of 12oz can of miller lite, yuengling, or seltzer water at my vending machine: $0.50
Retail of any size glass of beer (limit 40 pints): $0.00


*$10M Salary, half hour taping, 5 days a week

December 13, 2009

Bomb the BASS!

So I am now a homeowner, so my footloose adventures wandering around will be replaced with more mundane projects and tasks. While lamentable, the reduction of my adventures will still be documented so I can share with family and friends what I am doing, and I’ll be able to remember it later.

Sometime in 2008, home entertainment center cooked out the circuit board in his subwoofer. He wrote away to the company and got a replacement board, but for some reason the new circuit board was a different size from the original. For at least fourteen months I’ve been listening to sub-par sub-woofer and staring at the circuit board laying on top of the box. Today I was going to go to the quarry and get a truck load of gravel to handle the mouse problem, but time was tight so I tackled something more manageable. It really doesn’t need much explanation – I made the hole bigger, and routed it so the panel would sit flat, then used some shoe polish to darken the MDF, drilled some pilot holes and assembled.

a) before, b) during, c) after






Datum Multiplied
Trips to home depot: 0
Money Spent on Project: $0
Profanity used: 0
MDF: Medium Density Fiber Board
KMFDM: Kein Mehrheit Fur Die Mitleid, German Industrial Rock Band (aka Kill M.F. Depeche Mode)
GDP Germany: $2.925 Trillion
International Rank: 6
Exxon Mobile Revenues: $0.443 Trillion
Fortune 500 Rank: 1
GDP of Egypt (#27): $0.445 Trillion
Population of Egypt: 83 Million
Population (employees) of Exxon: 80,000