! [Hidden Spoiler Text] (A little flower collection I bought for my dad's birthday)
Hello and welcome to my Sublime Sunday, it seems like years since I last did one and it probably is. I am however impressed to see so many people keep on using the #sublimesunday tag - and great content with it too always plenty of pictures and information to go with it.
True to form I am going to start with some lovely flower photos - and who doesn’t like some nice flowers in the sun. The photos are mine - the flowers are my Dad’s - they look good though don’t they?
The main reason I do not post very often now is the ongoing demands of running a coffee roasting business, I upgraded the 5kg batch roaster in May to a new shiny 10kg roaster - double the roast capacity and the cooling exhaust is now separate from the roast exhaust so we can start roasting again while the last batch is cooling - this has helped considerably in speeding up dispatch times. But only a few weeks from starting using it the cooling fan would trip its fuse after a few minutes of roasting - reseting it solved the problem but it would keep randomly happening. I tried increasing the fuse tolerance so it allowed a few more amps before tripping - and this helped for a while but then the issue returned. More recently it started a different behaviour - it would run fine for the length of cooling, but then as soon as the cooling fan got turned off the fuse would trip and would not reset for five minutes. I asked the manufacturer and they suggested the motor capacitor was failing, so I procured a new one as they readily available - and had to set to work getting to the motor - which is in the centre of the roaster helpfully. So 20 plus bolts to remove to get the gas burner cover off, 25 bolts to remove the side panel - and then because the cooling pipe goes through that panel - and I did not want to spend even more time removing the cooling pipe ducting - it was a tricky squeeze past the panel as far as I could pull it to remove the motor wiring cover and get at the capacitor.
I will leave you to guess which one in the photo was the failing one, after fitting the replacement a did a few test runs of the cooling motor before putting it all back together. First two all good, third ran it for longer and three minutes in it tripped the fuse for the motor. This was a bit perplexing - hopefully the motor itself is not bad because I do have a spare - but it’s a horror of a job to replace needing all the back panels off, numerous torqued to death bolts removing, the motor and fan assembly is 18kg of difficult to move lump - have to try and undo bolt holding the fan blades in place, then unbolt the mounting - swap to the new motor - refit it all. Anyway given the new capacitor is bigger, I figured maybe it was pulling a few more amps then the old one, so tweaked the fuse tolerance up another notch (only one more left to maximum) set the fan off again and it lasted fine for the full 5 minutes roast cooling time. And all day Friday it worked fine for all the roasts, so it looks like I might be ok - if less than impressed on having to do such maintenance after just four months of use.
! [Hidden Spoiler Text] The bonnet emblem, looking good still after two and a half years of being hit by the debris the car in front fires at you
Would you believe, the UK - this little island surrounded by water - currently has a Hose Pipe ban because we are short of …..water! I think it has been five weeks now, and they are saying it will be on for some time yet because our reservoirs are running dry. So the Tesla has not had a wash for 5 weeks, I got a good jet wash and snow foam done at home just the day before the hosepipe ban started. I am sure the hand wash car washes have done a roaring trade with the hosepipe ban - which does not cover business - but seeing as Tesla advise against using high pressure washers on their cars I have always washed mine at home, with my dinky little jet washer which does not seem to have harmed anything. Tesla’s have many funny little quirks like that, in the manual it does actually say you have to close the frunk (front bonnet) by placing a palm either side of the Tesla logo - because if you press with your fingers it will dent. And I believe them - every panel on the car is tin foil thin - saving weight for more battery miles, or money on the panels.
Anyway after 5 weeks or so of not washing my well loved car, it was starting to look a bit grotty, dust, rain wash (because we have had rain while the hosepipe ban is in place) birds leaving little presents on it which I have had to wipe off but it still leaves a wash mark. So to beat the ban I purchased a bucket and some cleaning sponges / mittens to give it a good old fashioned hand wash, a good measure of auto finesse ceramic foam and rub it all down. At least using water from the sink I could use the hot tap. After a good rub down all over with the ceramic foam, swap for fresh clean water and a wash mitten to rinse it all off nice and clean, and scrape down the windows with a squeegee, taking the last water off the panels with a microfibre cloth. More work than jet washer and snow foam, but it gave a good finish in the end.
On my way to the supermarket to stock up on food, there was a massive queue on the road to get to the car park entrance - when I finally got there the reason was obvious. I have no idea how people manage this on a 30mph road with clear visibility either direction it is a long straight road.
So ends my #sublimesunday, I never seem short of things happening - just the time to spend writing about them! All photos are my own taken badly with my iPhone. All text is my own writing - even AI could not make this sort of rubbish up.