Hurricane Ike, MacGyver, and an Engineer's Heroic Aspirations
Dear Friend & Subscriber:
The other day watching the weather maps on TV, I was noticing how the hurricanes in Texas were spinning off big chunks of precipitation and hurling them right up here. Right through northern Illinois and into Chicago.
It rained for DAYS. No thunder, no lightning, just a quiet steady downpour that caught my neighbor by surprise when he found himself sloshing through two inches of water in his basement. More rain than we've had in 100 years.
We collaborate and suddenly, it's a scramble. Mad dash to a series of hardware stores, each of which sports a minor mob scene in the Sump Pump aisle. All the utility pumps are sold out and I'm resorting to MacGyver tactics.
Can't buy a pump of any kind... gotta improvise. Looking smugly at all the desperados and their Sump Pumps thinking "I'm going to outsmart all these lemmings!" I bought an odd assortment of clamps and hoses and a Shop Vac which I proceeded to dismantle.
Well... the 2" hose attached to the intake of the Shop Vac *seemed* like a really clever idea at the time. And man, that puppy was spitting out water gallons at a time, draining the basement FAST.... for about 7 minutes.
Then his kids started yelling because the vac was making these funny jerking motions and the motor was spewing white smoke.
That new machine is now buried in the Shop Vac graveyard of formerly brilliant ideas.
Surely you've got your own MacGyver story going on over there - and it probably somehow involves data communications, monitoring, and perhaps even wireless. Some ideas for you today, ideas that will NOT result in a plume of white smoke and a burned-out motor:
-Not only do we have hurricanes, but Thunderstorm Season is in full swing for some people too. Lightning is deadly for communication. The good news is, you can isolate yourself from lightning strikes and lethal voltage surges for as little as $75.
How Optical Isolation Works - an illustration:
http://www.bb-elec.com/tech_articles/dataline_isolation_theory.asp
Isolated RS-232, RS-422 and RS-485 Repeaters protect any serial port:
http://www.bb-elec.com/SubCategory.asp?SubCategoryId=19
Isolate your USB equipment with an isolated USB Hub:
http://www.bb-elec.com/product.asp?SKU=UISOHUB4
-How to isolate and extend your Ethernet lines
Not only will our Ethernet extenders stretch your Ethernet runs to heroic lengths over any pair of wires, they provide an additional layer of isolation as well thanks to the use of DSL technology.
http://www.bb-elec.com/product_multi_family.asp?MultiFamilyId=71
Got your own MacGyver story for me? I'll take hurricane stories or Digital Communication stories, either one. It may even make a great topic for next month. Write me at e-support@bb-elec.com.
Meanwhile I'm still trying to maintain the illusion that I'm more intelligent than all those other hapless folks milling around in the Sump Pump aisle at Menards, while I entertained vain dreams of converting a Shop Vac into a bilge pump.
Can you imagine the "based on a true story" movie that we could have made?
"Honey I Electrocuted The Kids!"
Happy Low Voltage, Double-Isolated Connections,
Mike Fahrion
(815)433-5100
support@bb-elec.com
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