Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was
about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the
coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average daily
power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake to
minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor. If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the new box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the old
one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But she
might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. (-:

--
Bobby G.

On Aug 4, 7:52*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. *I 've got sensors for kWhs used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. *I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was
about 20 degrees over normal. *Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. *That's why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the
coils builds up. *That should be detectable by looking at the average daily
power used figure. *I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. *I also want a baseline on energy consumed and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake to
minimize coil cleaning. *I found out the hard way that an added filter can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor. *If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. *A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! *She's been unable to do it with the new box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the old
one. *Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. *But she
might figure out how to do it in time. *She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. *She's still not quite comfortable with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. *(-:

--
Bobby G.

I'd like to be the first to cast a vote for sanity, haha :-)

Did the amperage actually go up? Or was it simply that the compressor
was running a lot more due to the lack of cooling? I'd expect the
later. It will be difficult to early detect a problem based on
electrical operating conditions. An internal temp sensor is all that
most manufacturers use as an alert system.

1) You must be an engineer?
2) Please consider a logger for how often and long the door is open.
That's a major factor in power usage.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions
before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours
used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that
became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp
was
about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't
have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's
why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my
home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on
the
coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average
daily
power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal
temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like
this
stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed
and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air
intake to
minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter
can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the
motor. If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption
and the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A
battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because
the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the
new box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than
the old
one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But
she
might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very
closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the
new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable
with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully
welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer.
(-:

--
Bobby G.

On Aug 4, 6:52*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. *I 've got sensors for kWhs used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. *I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was
about 20 degrees over normal. *Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. *That's why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the
coils builds up. *That should be detectable by looking at the average daily
power used figure. *I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. *I also want a baseline on energy consumed and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake to
minimize coil cleaning. *I found out the hard way that an added filter can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor. *If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. *A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! *She's been unable to do it with the new box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the old
one. *Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. *But she
might figure out how to do it in time. *She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. *She's still not quite comfortable with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. *(-:

--
Bobby G.

Did you ever use a kill-a- watt meter, they are accurate, easy to use
and record Kwh usage over several days. They are great for doing you
own energy audit of most all apliances and devices.

On Aug 4, 12:35*pm, ransley wrote:
On Aug 4, 6:52*am, "Robert Green" wrote:





Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. *I 've got sensors for kWhs used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. *I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was
about 20 degrees over normal. *Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. *That's why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the
coils builds up. *That should be detectable by looking at the average daily
power used figure. *I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. *I also want a baseline on energy consumed and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake to
minimize coil cleaning. *I found out the hard way that an added filter can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor.. *If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. *A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! *She's been unable to do it with the new box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the old
one. *Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. *But she
might figure out how to do it in time. *She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. *She's still not quite comfortable with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. *(-:

--
Bobby G.

Did you ever use a kill-a- watt meter, they are accurate, easy to use
and record Kwh usage over several days. They are great for doing you
own energy audit of most all apliances and devices.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes. And I've always been able to spot a fridge failure without a
dozen sensors monitoring my fridge. After all, it's a fridge not a
Boeing 777.

On Aug 4, 12:45*pm, wrote:
On Aug 4, 12:35*pm, ransley wrote:





On Aug 4, 6:52*am, "Robert Green" wrote:

Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. *I 've got sensors for kWhs used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. *I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was
about 20 degrees over normal. *Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. *That's why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the
coils builds up. *That should be detectable by looking at the average daily
power used figure. *I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. *I also want a baseline on energy consumed and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake to
minimize coil cleaning. *I found out the hard way that an added filter can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor. *If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. *A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! *She's been unable to do it with the new box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the old
one. *Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. *But she
might figure out how to do it in time. *She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. *She's still not quite comfortable with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. *(-:

--
Bobby G.

Did you ever use a kill-a- watt meter, they are accurate, easy to use
and record Kwh usage over several days. They are great for doing you
own energy audit of most all apliances and devices.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes. * And I've always been able to spot a fridge failure without a
dozen sensors monitoring my fridge. * After all, it's a fridge not a
Boeing 777.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

His frige may outlive him, I could understand monitoring boiler flue
temp or furnace temp at the coil or computer core temp, but right its
no aircraft.

"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.


We once had a cabin up on a mountain. On occasion, the power would go out
and the refrigerator would let food thaw. When power returned, the only
clue would be misshapen packages or a scent, so I wanted a sure-fire way to
know not if there was a power failure, but whether a failure had affected
the freezer and refrigerator contents.

The solution was inexpensive: a high/low thermometer from Radio Shack.
When we'd go to the cabin, I'd simply look at the high temp and instantly
know if the power had been off and if damage had been done.

Nonny

Nonnymus wrote:


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions
before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.


We once had a cabin up on a mountain. On occasion, the power would go
out and the refrigerator would let food thaw. When power returned, the
only clue would be misshapen packages or a scent, so I wanted a
sure-fire way to know not if there was a power failure, but whether a
failure had affected the freezer and refrigerator contents.

The solution was inexpensive: a high/low thermometer from Radio Shack.
When we'd go to the cabin, I'd simply look at the high temp and
instantly know if the power had been off and if damage had been done.

Nonny

Hmm. Commercial coke machines, really just fancy refrigerators, already
come with onboard sensors and alarm systems, web page control consoles
for remote management, and modem (maybe even LAN by now) jacks. They
even Phone Home when they need refilling, or the cash box is full. It'd
be trivial for a manufacturer to add that to a home fridge. Probably
already on the 'to do' list for the smart power networks the tree
huggers keep pushing. Master Control up in the sky dials back the power
whenever the temp is within acceptable range, and it hasn't logged a
door opening in the last hour or something.

Another damn appliance smarter than the bipeds living there....

--
aem sends...

Fridges don't, typically carry that mush value in food contents to make this
worthwhile. Fun but not worthwhile.

Freezers, however....


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was
about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the
coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average daily
power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake to
minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor. If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the new box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the old
one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But she
might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. (-:

--
Bobby G.

"jamesgangnc" wrote in message
...
On Aug 4, 7:52 am, "Robert Green" wrote:
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours
used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was
about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the
coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average daily
power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake
to
minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor.
If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and
the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the new
box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the
old
one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But she
might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully
welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. (-:

--
Bobby G.

I'd like to be the first to cast a vote for sanity, haha :-)

Arf, arf. Is there an emoticon for glaring? -.-*

Did the amperage actually go up? Or was it simply that the compressor
was running a lot more due to the lack of cooling? I'd expect the
later. It will be difficult to early detect a problem based on
electrical operating conditions. An internal temp sensor is all that
most manufacturers use as an alert system.

I only had the Kil-o-watt meter on the machine during the final stages of
what I assumed to be a pinhole leak in the coils in the freezer compartment
due to some oaf manhandling them during a rapid defrost. (me)

What I saw was a constant increase in the KWH's used. I assumed that to
keep an unvarying temperature inside the unit it was working harder and
harder (longer, actually) to cool as it had less and less refrigerant. Or
that the compressor was experiencing greater friction from having less
refrigerant.

I was monitoring the room temperature as well. When that shot up high
enough, the freezer temps began to rise almost in perfect correlation to the
room temp. Only when the room temp got below 70 would the refrigerator
maintain normal inside temps. All this leads me to believe that long before
I notice a change in the internal temperature of the unit, I would see a
rise in energy consumption. In any event, just like medicine, it's probably
a good idea to have as many "base level readings" as you can. That way,
when they change substantially, it's a pretty good idea that something's
wrong.

We'll see.

--
Bobby G.

"Stormin Mormon" wrote in message
...
1) You must be an engineer?

Father was one, and I started out in his footsteps but then got sidetracked.
To my wife's eternal annoyance, I am a home automation enthusiast. Her take
is "we wouldn't need all this automated crap if you weren't too lazy to get
up an turn off a light." That's probably true but it hasn't changed
anything. She actually likes *some* of the features of an automated house,
but clearly not nearly as much as I do.

2) Please consider a logger for how often and long the door is open.
That's a major factor in power usage.

That's actually a great idea. I knew we kept you around for a reason
despite all the folks who'd like to lynch you for being a top poster. (-:
(just kidding!)

Tracking "door open time" will allow me to determine if increased energy
usage is from mechanical issues or just greater use. That might also mean
tracking humidity because the unit has to work harder if lots of humid air
is allowed in during long openings like the ones that occuring during
loading after a grocery trip. I've also decided to track peak current draw
(now at 760 watts) because I assume that any nascent compressor problems
will cause that number to increase. I can also set a variable that rings an
alarm if the door open time exceeds a predetermined value.

The old box would probably still be alive had it closed properly on one very
humid night. It didn't take much time at all to encase the coil in a block
of ice and during my impatient defrosting efforts, I cracked a solder joint.
Since it was 30+ years old (Westinghouse) I figured it was time for a new
one, even if we plan to move soon. It was worth it just to have ice cold
beer again.

Thanks for your input!

--
Bobby G.

"ransley" wrote in message
...
On Aug 4, 6:52 am, "Robert Green" wrote:
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours
used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was
about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the
coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average daily
power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake
to
minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor.
If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and
the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the new
box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the
old
one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But she
might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully
welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. (-:

--
Bobby G.

Did you ever use a kill-a- watt meter, they are accurate, easy to use
and record Kwh usage over several days. They are great for doing you
own energy audit of most all apliances and devices.

Yes, that's what I was using to calculate the increasing power usage during
the fridge's final days. I have four of them now - Fry's was selling out
the old model (where you had to do your own math) for $12 each so I got
three extra ones. One to leave on the refrigerator 24x7, another to leave
on the window AC in the bedroom, a third to lend out to friends and a fourth
to be perpetually lost somewhere in the house.

--
Bobby G.

wrote in message
...
On Aug 4, 12:35 pm, ransley wrote:
On Aug 4, 6:52 am, "Robert Green" wrote:





Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions
before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours
used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp
was
about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't
have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's why
I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my
home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on
the
coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average
daily
power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps
as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed
and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air
intake to
minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter
can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor.
If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and
the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the new
box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the
old
one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But she
might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable
with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully
welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer.
(-:

--
Bobby G.

Did you ever use a kill-a- watt meter, they are accurate, easy to use
and record Kwh usage over several days. They are great for doing you
own energy audit of most all apliances and devices.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes. And I've always been able to spot a fridge failure without a
dozen sensors monitoring my fridge. After all, it's a fridge not a
Boeing 777.

Even when you're traveling and away from the house? How do you do that?

--
Bobby G.

"ransley" wrote in message
...
On Aug 4, 12:45 pm, wrote:
On Aug 4, 12:35 pm, ransley wrote:





On Aug 4, 6:52 am, "Robert Green" wrote:

Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions
before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours
used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that
became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp
was
about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't
have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's
why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my
home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on
the
coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average
daily
power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal
temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like
this
stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed
and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air
intake to
minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter
can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the
motor. If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption
and the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A
battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because
the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the
new box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than
the old
one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But
she
might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very
closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the
new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable
with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully
welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer.
(-:

--
Bobby G.

Did you ever use a kill-a- watt meter, they are accurate, easy to use
and record Kwh usage over several days. They are great for doing you
own energy audit of most all apliances and devices.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes. And I've always been able to spot a fridge failure without a
dozen sensors monitoring my fridge. After all, it's a fridge not a
Boeing 777.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

His frige may outlive him, I could understand monitoring boiler flue
temp or furnace temp at the coil or computer core temp, but right its
no aircraft.

You have a great faith in modern manufacturing that I don't think is
warranted considering all the refrigerator issues that crop up regularly on
this list. But in your house, you can do what you please, obviously. In
mine, I like to use technology to keep ahead of the repair curve. Someday,
items like refrigerators will contain an ethernet jack and can be remotely
monitored for abnormal conditions with ease. In the next house, we'll have
an autostart generator, but where I am now, the power rarely goes out but I
want to be on top of it if it does.

FWIW, I do have a number of extra heat, CO and other sensors covering the
furnace, the hot water heater and the A/C if only because I have a great
interest in home automation.

For now, I am quite happy to know that I've taken as many precautions as
required to prevent coming home and finding all the frozen food melted and
refrozen.

--
Bobby G.

"Nonnymus" wrote in message
...


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions
before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.


We once had a cabin up on a mountain. On occasion, the power would go out
and the refrigerator would let food thaw. When power returned, the only
clue would be misshapen packages or a scent, so I wanted a sure-fire way
to
know not if there was a power failure, but whether a failure had affected
the freezer and refrigerator contents.

The solution was inexpensive: a high/low thermometer from Radio Shack.
When we'd go to the cabin, I'd simply look at the high temp and instantly
know if the power had been off and if damage had been done.

A while back I bought a nice magnetic fridge thermo that Bob Bass found on
the net that has an RF sender for the freezer and refrigerator compartments
and high and low alarm settings. That's what got me started on automating
the temperature (and other) readings.

I wanted the home automation system to call me if the conditions indicated a
power or mechanical failure in the fridge. You can get one hell of a
stomach-ache eating refrozen food if it's sat out long enough. As you point
out, sometimes the clues that refreezing has occurred can be mighty subtle.
Tupperware containers don't get misshapen. I always leave something in a
cardboard container on edge in the freezer to make it obvious that a
meltdown has occurred.

Speaking of which, once upon a time, when I did photography as a side line,
I was doing a food shoot of a Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey had been out
under the lights for about 4 hours and then we put it back in the fridge in
case we had to do a re-shoot. Well, the guys we shared the studio with saw
the turkey in the fridge a week later and made turkey sandwhiches. That was
the first time I had ever seen someone turn green (right before the sluices
opened at both ends of their alimentary canals).

You can't be too careful with your food storage these days, especially with
all the recalls and salmonella poisonings.

Thanks for your input!

--
Bobby G.

"aemeijers" wrote in message
...
Nonnymus wrote:


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions
before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.


We once had a cabin up on a mountain. On occasion, the power would go
out and the refrigerator would let food thaw. When power returned, the
only clue would be misshapen packages or a scent, so I wanted a
sure-fire way to know not if there was a power failure, but whether a
failure had affected the freezer and refrigerator contents.

The solution was inexpensive: a high/low thermometer from Radio Shack.
When we'd go to the cabin, I'd simply look at the high temp and
instantly know if the power had been off and if damage had been done.

Nonny

Hmm. Commercial coke machines, really just fancy refrigerators, already
come with onboard sensors and alarm systems, web page control consoles
for remote management, and modem (maybe even LAN by now) jacks. They
even Phone Home when they need refilling, or the cash box is full.

There's an idea for dieters - a refrigerator that charges you a quarter
every time you open the door. Probably ends up saving energy, especially if
you have teenagers that like to stand in front of an open fridge for a long
time with that "deer in the headlights" look.

It'd
be trivial for a manufacturer to add that to a home fridge. Probably
already on the 'to do' list for the smart power networks the tree
huggers keep pushing. Master Control up in the sky dials back the power
whenever the temp is within acceptable range, and it hasn't logged a
door opening in the last hour or something.

Eventually, all major home appliances will have LAN enabled monitoring
features built in. The problem is that every manufacturer wants a
proprietary system. When that river is crossed, we'll see LAN jacks on
everything. I'd hate to think my power company would EVER be able to tell
me how cold my beer should be. That's when I'd go off the power net
completely.

Another damn appliance smarter than the bipeds living there....

Just as long as they don't get "smart" like Microsoft and have a little
paper clip pop up and annoy the living hell out of you. "I see you're
looking for something to eat. I see you weigh more than government
recommended target weight. You may access only the vegetable crisper." PS.
If you do hate Clippy, just rename ACTORS directory in Windows to
DEADACTORS. One of the more valuable things I've learned from Usenet.

Thanks for your input!

--
Bobby G.

"Josepi" wrote in message
...
Fridges don't, typically carry that mush value in food contents to make
this
worthwhile. Fun but not worthwhile.

Freezers, however....

"Mush" is what I am trying to avoid my freezer contents from turning into.
It's not very much more effort to monitor both compartments if you're going
to monitor the freezer. Besides, this is my hobby.

--
Bobby G.

On Aug 4, 6:52*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. *I 've got sensors for kWhs used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. *I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was
about 20 degrees over normal. *Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. *That's why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the
coils builds up. *That should be detectable by looking at the average daily
power used figure. *I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. *I also want a baseline on energy consumed and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake to
minimize coil cleaning. *I found out the hard way that an added filter can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor. *If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. *A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! *She's been unable to do it with the new box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the old
one. *Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. *But she
might figure out how to do it in time. *She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. *She's still not quite comfortable with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. *(-:

--
Bobby G.

Have you automated a solenoid to push you out of bed when something
goes wrong in the middle of the night?

Nice. In that case!...LOL

Temp probes have to be run trough the case. No RF will get out of a metal
straight jacket.

I have used a high low alarm thermometer (as suggested elsewhere here) and
it beeps every 5-10 minutes until reset. Wire has to break the gasket seal
though.


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
"Josepi" wrote in message
...
Fridges don't, typically carry that mush value in food contents to make
this
worthwhile. Fun but not worthwhile.

Freezers, however....

"Mush" is what I am trying to avoid my freezer contents from turning into.
It's not very much more effort to monitor both compartments if you're going
to monitor the freezer. Besides, this is my hobby.

--
Bobby G.

"PLEASE STEP ONTO WEIGHT PLATFORM FOR FRIDGE DOOR RELEASE OPTIONS"


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
"aemeijers" wrote in message
...
Nonnymus wrote:


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions
before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.


We once had a cabin up on a mountain. On occasion, the power would go
out and the refrigerator would let food thaw. When power returned, the
only clue would be misshapen packages or a scent, so I wanted a
sure-fire way to know not if there was a power failure, but whether a
failure had affected the freezer and refrigerator contents.

The solution was inexpensive: a high/low thermometer from Radio Shack.
When we'd go to the cabin, I'd simply look at the high temp and
instantly know if the power had been off and if damage had been done.

Nonny

Hmm. Commercial coke machines, really just fancy refrigerators, already
come with onboard sensors and alarm systems, web page control consoles
for remote management, and modem (maybe even LAN by now) jacks. They
even Phone Home when they need refilling, or the cash box is full.

There's an idea for dieters - a refrigerator that charges you a quarter
every time you open the door. Probably ends up saving energy, especially if
you have teenagers that like to stand in front of an open fridge for a long
time with that "deer in the headlights" look.

It'd
be trivial for a manufacturer to add that to a home fridge. Probably
already on the 'to do' list for the smart power networks the tree
huggers keep pushing. Master Control up in the sky dials back the power
whenever the temp is within acceptable range, and it hasn't logged a
door opening in the last hour or something.

Eventually, all major home appliances will have LAN enabled monitoring
features built in. The problem is that every manufacturer wants a
proprietary system. When that river is crossed, we'll see LAN jacks on
everything. I'd hate to think my power company would EVER be able to tell
me how cold my beer should be. That's when I'd go off the power net
completely.

Another damn appliance smarter than the bipeds living there....

Just as long as they don't get "smart" like Microsoft and have a little
paper clip pop up and annoy the living hell out of you. "I see you're
looking for something to eat. I see you weigh more than government
recommended target weight. You may access only the vegetable crisper." PS.
If you do hate Clippy, just rename ACTORS directory in Windows to
DEADACTORS. One of the more valuable things I've learned from Usenet.

Thanks for your input!

--
Bobby G.

On Aug 5, 6:24*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
wrote in message
Yes. * And I've always been able to spot a fridge failure without a
dozen sensors monitoring my fridge. * After all, it's a fridge not a
Boeing 777.

Even when you're traveling and away from the house? *How do you do that?

What good does knowing do when you're away from the house? All that
does is make you worry and ruin your vacation.

wrote in message
...
On Aug 5, 6:24 am, "Robert Green" wrote:
wrote in message
Yes. And I've always been able to spot a fridge failure without a
dozen sensors monitoring my fridge. After all, it's a fridge not a
Boeing 777.

Even when you're traveling and away from the house? How do you do that?

What good does knowing do when you're away from the house? All that
does is make you worry and ruin your vacation.

Well, I can have someone go and check to see what's wrong for one thing.
YMMV, but if I was away and kept seeing news reports of the electricity
being out in 100,000s of home in my area (as just happened in the DC area -
thousands are still without power 5 days after the storms) it would be
*very* comforting to know that my house still had power and I had nothing to
worry about. The exact opposite of the situation you've envisioned.

--
Bobby G.

"Josepi" wrote in message
...
"PLEASE STEP ONTO WEIGHT PLATFORM FOR FRIDGE DOOR RELEASE OPTIONS"

It will be MUCH worse than that if MS is involved:

"Mr. Toilet has detected high levels of glucose in your urine and not enough
roughage in your stool. The only food you Mr. Refrigerator will allow you
to eat today is kelp. Please step away from the door. Your kelp will be
placed in the automatic dispenser. Enjoy your kelp and have a nice day!"

When it discovers you've been sneaking jelly dougnuts on the side, it would
go into the drill sergeant mode:

Fridge: Holy Jesus! What is that? What the f_ck is that? WHAT IS THAT?
Human: Sir, a jelly doughnut, sir!
Fridge: A jelly doughnut? What is your major malfunction, numbnuts? Didn't
Mommy and Daddy show you enough attention when you were a child?
Human: Sir, yes, sir!
Fridge: How did it get here?
Human: Sir, I got it from the donut shop, sir!
Fridge: Are you allowed to eat jelly doughnuts?
Human: Sir, no, sir!
Fridge: And why not?
Human: Sir, because I'm too heavy, sir!
Fridge: Because you are a disgusting fat body! Were you born a fat, slimy,
scumbag puke piece o' ****, or did you have to work on it?
Human: Sir, yes, sir!
Fridge: Then why did you try to sneak a jelly doughnut by me?
Human: Sir, because I was hungry, sir!
Fridge: Because you were hungry... You had best square your ass away and
start ****ting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely f_ck you up! NOW!
MOVE IT! Or I'm going to rip your balls off, so you cannot contaminate the
rest of the world! I will motivate you IF IT SHORT-DICKS EVERY CANNIBAL ON
THE CONGO! NOW DROP AND GIVE ME 20!

--
Bobby G.

In article , (Robert Green) writes:

| Someday,
| items like refrigerators will contain an ethernet jack and can be remotely
| monitored for abnormal conditions with ease.

Of course, you will have to pay a monthly fee to the monitoring service.
The protocol used will not be available to the consumer for "safety reasons".

| In the next house, we'll have
| an autostart generator,

I'm working on this now. I told the propane company that I wanted a
remote tank level indicator in the house. They said they had a great
service where I could check my tank level on the Internet. I explained
that I wanted a wire from the tank to a box in the house that showed the
level and had alarm contacts for low level. (I even showed them some
sample devices in catalogs.) They said they could program their "modem"
to call me when my tank was low. I said that I didn't want to involve
their "modem" at all. They said I shouldn't worry about it because
something could always be done after the tanks were installed. I pointed
out that the nice monitor device in the catalog supported only two of
the four popular tank gauge fittings (not including snap-in) so it would
really be better to work this out before the tanks were in the ground,
especially since I'm buying the tanks.

It's been several weeks and still no quote.

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

Dan Lanciani wrote:
In article ,
(Robert Green) writes:

Someday,
items like refrigerators will contain an ethernet jack and can be
remotely monitored for abnormal conditions with ease.

Of course, you will have to pay a monthly fee to the monitoring
service.
The protocol used will not be available to the consumer for "safety
reasons".

In the next house, we'll have
an autostart generator,

I'm working on this now. I told the propane company that I wanted a
remote tank level indicator in the house. They said they had a great
service where I could check my tank level on the Internet. I
explained
that I wanted a wire from the tank to a box in the house that showed
the
level and had alarm contacts for low level. (I even showed them some
sample devices in catalogs.) They said they could program their
"modem"
to call me when my tank was low. I said that I didn't want to involve
their "modem" at all. They said I shouldn't worry about it because
something could always be done after the tanks were installed. I
pointed
out that the nice monitor device in the catalog supported only two of
the four popular tank gauge fittings (not including snap-in) so it
would
really be better to work this out before the tanks were in the ground,
especially since I'm buying the tanks.

It's been several weeks and still no quote.

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

expect an outlandish bid, in effect telling you that they don't want to do
the job. i own my own tank and call around for quotes before every fill,
which has saved me hundreds of dollars. i did find someone who will match
any fill quote from anyone in the area; unfortunately he didn't say that
he's beat any quote.

I wouldn't select that character profile on a fridge! Other appliances,
maybe but never a fridge!

The sexy female personality is much more appealing for weight control but it
would depend what period it is selected for, in the scene profile selection
on the fridge. Sometimes I just can't wait to deselect the "vistors in the
house" scene. The personalities used tend to lie about contents all the time
and I have a good idea what is in the fridge from the details on my online
grocery item tick list from the last auto-delivery. That really ****es me
off and I have deducted merit points from that scene I paid good money for.


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
It will be MUCH worse than that if MS is involved:

"Mr. Toilet has detected high levels of glucose in your urine and not enough
roughage in your stool. The only food you Mr. Refrigerator will allow you
to eat today is kelp. Please step away from the door. Your kelp will be
placed in the automatic dispenser. Enjoy your kelp and have a nice day!"

When it discovers you've been sneaking jelly dougnuts on the side, it would
go into the drill sergeant mode:

Fridge: Holy Jesus! What is that? What the f_ck is that? WHAT IS THAT?
Human: Sir, a jelly doughnut, sir!
Fridge: A jelly doughnut? What is your major malfunction, numbnuts? Didn't
Mommy and Daddy show you enough attention when you were a child?
Human: Sir, yes, sir!
Fridge: How did it get here?
Human: Sir, I got it from the donut shop, sir!
Fridge: Are you allowed to eat jelly doughnuts?
Human: Sir, no, sir!
Fridge: And why not?
Human: Sir, because I'm too heavy, sir!
Fridge: Because you are a disgusting fat body! Were you born a fat, slimy,
scumbag puke piece o' ****, or did you have to work on it?
Human: Sir, yes, sir!
Fridge: Then why did you try to sneak a jelly doughnut by me?
Human: Sir, because I was hungry, sir!
Fridge: Because you were hungry... You had best square your ass away and
start ****ting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely f_ck you up! NOW!
MOVE IT! Or I'm going to rip your balls off, so you cannot contaminate the
rest of the world! I will motivate you IF IT SHORT-DICKS EVERY CANNIBAL ON
THE CONGO! NOW DROP AND GIVE ME 20!

--
Bobby G.

Robert Green wrote:
I am a home automation enthusiast.
sounds like an understatement.

I'd like to hear more about the monitoring system
as a whole.

I'd like to graph total electric power consumption.
I use a Palm Pilot to count the IR pulses out of the
power meter, but the newer palms that support bluetooth
have the newer OS that doesn't support direct reading
of the IR port. So it's not wireless.
Then I got a BlueLine wireless power meter, but that doesn't
support logging. I've never been able to determine the communication
protocol or whether there's a pin inside that I can tap to log the
data.

What's a good cheap method to log total consumption...emphasis on the
cheap...free...?

Thanks, mike

Robert Green wrote:
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was
about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's why I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the
coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average daily
power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake to
minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor. If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the new box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the old
one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But she
might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. (-:

--
Bobby G.


Hmm,
Automation system itself can fail too. Even if it had redundancy
built-in. I'd rather depend on my ears, eyes, hands and common
sense. Also house insurance covers for spoiled food in case of break down.

On Aug 5, 6:24*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Aug 4, 12:35 pm, ransley wrote:





On Aug 4, 6:52 am, "Robert Green" wrote:

Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions
before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours
used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp
was
about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't
have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's why
I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my
home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on
the
coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average
daily
power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps
as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed
and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air
intake to
minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter
can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor.
If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and
the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the new
box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the
old
one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But she
might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable
with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully
welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer.
(-:

--
Bobby G.

Did you ever use a kill-a- watt meter, they are accurate, easy to use
and record Kwh usage over several days. They are great for doing you
own energy audit of most all apliances and devices.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes. * And I've always been able to spot a fridge failure without a
dozen sensors monitoring my fridge. * After all, it's a fridge not a
Boeing 777.

Even when you're traveling and away from the house? *How do you do that?

--
Bobby G.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When I'm traveling, I have much better things to think about than what
the temp and operating efficiency of my fridge is. Do you have $20K
worth of food in that fridge? So, if I lose $200 worth of food, big
deal. Guess what. In 40+ years, living in many houses and
apartments, it has happened exactly one time. That was when I was in
college and since it was a dorm fridge, the college even paid us for
the lost food. And it's not exactly a bad thing either, as when u
clean out the freezer, probably 20% of the food has long been
forgotten and should have been chucked long ago.

On the other hand, what's the cost, time, and maintenance involved in
placing multiple monitors on a refrigerator over 40 years? How often
do the sensors and other parts of the system fail compared to the
fridge? In my experience, home electronics is far less reliable than
the fridge.

"mike" wrote in message
...
Robert Green wrote:
I am a home automation enthusiast.
sounds like an understatement.

Nah, there are people who have systems that astound me. They log everything
that happens - from all details of the weather to the daily consumption of
water, gas, electricity, etc. One gent in California had a solar heating
and power system that even opened and closed casement windows automatically
according to the weather conditions.

I'd like to hear more about the monitoring system
as a whole.

Not if you want to do it on the cheap. In the search for a "magic bullet"
I've bought a lot of bullets and very few of them were magical except in the
holes they put in my VISA balance.

The Kill-o-Watt provides a visual indicator and a reference but I do
datalogging with old Radio Shack PC-interface meters and old, low power
consumption laptops like a Dell Crapitude with broken hinge running a very
old version of the Ratshack recording software (actually developed by a
company called Metex).

The laptop is hooked up in the basement just below the fridge with a 30' ft.
serial cable I used to use Fastwire and LapLink with (before LANs were
reasonably priced). Real time monitoring is done through a power strip that
has the conductors separated and a home-brew "current sensor" (a few turns
of wire wrapped around one of the conductors) running into a CPU-XA that can
send alarms or take actions based on preset analog values.

Calibration of that was done using a strip of 8 porcelain lamp sockets and
combinations of 25, 40, 60 and 100 watt bulbs so I could simulate the draw
of various wattages. The Kill-O-Watt is very useful for knowing the exact
number but basically I will set the new fridge up by making sure that the
starting up current draw won't trip the alarm, but eight 100 watt light
bulbs do. (Shut up about your solenoids, "Doc" - it's my hobby!)

I'd like to graph total electric power consumption.
I use a Palm Pilot to count the IR pulses out of the
power meter, but the newer palms that support bluetooth
have the newer OS that doesn't support direct reading
of the IR port. So it's not wireless.

There's nothing wireless about my current setup except the Chaney fridge
thermometer. I will be installing my own digital temperature sensors in the
freezer compartment by going in through the unused water line for the
icemaker option that I declined.

Then I got a BlueLine wireless power meter, but that doesn't
support logging.

I "fight" continuously with makers of home automation equipment to convince
them that data logging is an important part of home monitoring. Well, for
me, anyway. (-:

I've never been able to determine the communication
protocol or whether there's a pin inside that I can tap to log the
data.

Ah yes, I see you've been searching for the magic bullet, too. I've been
very disappointed by the number of proprietary protocols in devices like
wireless thermometers. Like remote controls, there's only moderate
agreement about how things should be done.

Stuff like monitoring the fridge is really just a curiosity. Since there
are no "blood tests" to see if a fridge is sick, I want to monitor whatever
conditions I can to see if I can determine when it's in need of cleaning or
when something's out of whack. Someday they will come with a little LED
like on my central vac that goes from green to yellow to red as it fills up
telling you the coils need cleaning.

This newer GE is far better sealed off from dirt that the 30+ Whirlpool it's
replacing. Anyway, I'm just curious to monitor the life cycle of the fridge
to see what is revealed. While I am it, it seems logical to try to prevent
or at least alert me to certain modes of failure, as someone suggested, a
horn that sounds when the door's been open longer than a few minutes.

As noted in a previous message, once I have enough readings about power
usage, temperature of the backplate, internal compartments and ambient room
temperature, I am going to try placing a custom made filter over the
openings in the bottom of the unit where dusty air is likely to enter. I am
afraid that by lowering the airflow to the compressor by filtering it I will
shorten its life or even burn it out. The data I collect running it
filter-free will allow me to compare the two states to help decide whether
it's useful to filter or not. As someone else pointed out, it's a lot
easier to pop an old filter out and a new one in that it is to get all the
dust off the innards once it has built up. Since it's always moist from
condensation, dust and hair can matte up into a mighty sticky, very "uggy"
plaster on the surface of the coils, lowering their heat transfer capability
significantly.

What's a good cheap method to log total consumption...emphasis on the
cheap...free...?

No cheap, free that I know of, although there are suitable broken hinged
laptops and new and used PC interface meters on Ebay all the time for less
than $100 combined. There are, I am sure, people who will be able to
suggest cheaper methods - mine is just what evolved.

--
Bobby G.

(crossposted in comp.home.automation and alt.home.repair)

"Dan Lanciani" ddl@danlan.*com wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Robert Green) writes:

| Someday,
| items like refrigerators will contain an ethernet jack and can be
remotely
| monitored for abnormal conditions with ease.

Of course, you will have to pay a monthly fee to the monitoring service.
The protocol used will not be available to the consumer for "safety
reasons".

We can only hope that "open standards" will prevail but I have my doubts. I
read a news item about Intuit just completely screwing over its users who it
had migrated to the "cloud" and only providing a data converter when hounded
by thousands of irate loyal customers. I wonder when the first national
cloud computing disaster will occur. Critical business data stored and
managed off-site by who knows who or what working from where? Yeah, I'll do
that. (-:

It would be great if all home appliances (and maybe even cars) had a LAN
jack and all basic setup functions and data analysis could be performed with
a web browser. It really is a great modular design and all the standards
are already in place.

| In the next house, we'll have
| an autostart generator,

I'm working on this now. I told the propane company that I wanted a
remote tank level indicator in the house. They said they had a great
service where I could check my tank level on the Internet. I explained
that I wanted a wire from the tank to a box in the house that showed the
level and had alarm contacts for low level. (I even showed them some
sample devices in catalogs.) They said they could program their "modem"
to call me when my tank was low. I said that I didn't want to involve
their "modem" at all.

When I first started to install CCTV around the house that I wanted to be
able to see over the internet, the vendors all proposed solutions involving
running all access through servers in China with javascript and all sorts of
other security holes enabled. Uh uh. No way.

They said I shouldn't worry about it because
something could always be done after the tanks were installed. I pointed
out that the nice monitor device in the catalog supported only two of
the four popular tank gauge fittings (not including snap-in) so it would
really be better to work this out before the tanks were in the ground,
especially since I'm buying the tanks.

It's been several weeks and still no quote.

That's a clear indication your salesmen is way outside his comfort zone. If
you pester him he might eventually find someone up the food chain that knows
about these things, but you'd really have to pester him. Sounds like they
want your remote access device installed *afterward* so they can blame any
problems (which will most likely be related to their inexperience with the
device) on you.

You can tell the pioneers by the numbers of arrow stuck in their backs.
(0-:

--
Bobby G.

wrote in message
...
On Aug 5, 6:24 am, "Robert Green" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Aug 4, 12:35 pm, ransley wrote:





On Aug 4, 6:52 am, "Robert Green" wrote:

Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions
before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours
used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that
became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp
was
about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't
have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's
why
I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my
home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on
the
coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average
daily
power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal
temps
as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like
this
stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed
and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air
intake to
minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter
can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the
motor.
If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption
and
the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A
battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because
the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the
new
box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than
the
old
one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But
she
might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very
closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the
new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable
with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully
welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer.
(-:

--
Bobby G.

Did you ever use a kill-a- watt meter, they are accurate, easy to use
and record Kwh usage over several days. They are great for doing you
own energy audit of most all apliances and devices.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes. And I've always been able to spot a fridge failure without a
dozen sensors monitoring my fridge. After all, it's a fridge not a
Boeing 777.

Even when you're traveling and away from the house? How do you do that?

--
Bobby G.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When I'm traveling, I have much better things to think about than what
the temp and operating efficiency of my fridge is. Do you have $20K
worth of food in that fridge? So, if I lose $200 worth of food, big
deal. Guess what. In 40+ years, living in many houses and
apartments, it has happened exactly one time. That was when I was in
college and since it was a dorm fridge, the college even paid us for
the lost food. And it's not exactly a bad thing either, as when u
clean out the freezer, probably 20% of the food has long been
forgotten and should have been chucked long ago.

On the other hand, what's the cost, time, and maintenance involved in
placing multiple monitors on a refrigerator over 40 years? How often
do the sensors and other parts of the system fail compared to the
fridge? In my experience, home electronics is far less reliable than
the fridge.

I keep the severed head of Jimmy Hoffa in my freezer. I wouldn't want it to
go bad just because a breaker tripped or something failed. (-;

--
Bobby G.

"Tony Hwang" wrote in message
...
Robert Green wrote:
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions
before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours
used
shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became
obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp
was
about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't
have
good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's why
I
am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my
home
automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and
process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on
the
coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average
daily
power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps
as
well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this
stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed
and
back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air
intake to
minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter
can
decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor.
If
the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and
the
back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A
battery-backed
dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the
power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog
manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the new
box
because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the
old
one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But
she
might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very
closely.
In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new
unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the
fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable
with
it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully
welcome.
Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer.
(-:

--
Bobby G.


Hmm,
Automation system itself can fail too. Even if it had redundancy
built-in. I'd rather depend on my ears, eyes, hands and common
sense. Also house insurance covers for spoiled food in case of break down.

You aren't implying that just because safety systems can fail, they
shouldn't be used, are you?

You can't really hear a bad compressor all the way across the country, can
you? I'd like to be able to check my home's critical equipment when I am
away on travel so that there aren't any unpleasant surprises when I get
home. Same with dust on the coils. Getting down on my hands and knees to
check for dust bunnies was something I might have done when I had two
working knees, but facing two TKR's now it's a real issue to deal with
anything that far down. Even with an inspection camera on a stalk there's
still the faceplate that has to be removed. If I can tell the coils are
clogging up by some other means, then my knees will be very much the happier
for it.

But the biggest reason to do it? Curiosity. I want to know if the
appropriate sensors *can* give me a heads up on incipient failure. One of
my first jobs was doing quality control at a photofinisher and the test
strips, PH readings and other diagnostics often saved thousands of dollars
in reworked or ruined jobs. One disgruntled employee kept tossing copper
pennies in the color developer tank, which made it impossible to get good
colors in the printing process. It was easy to spot, even though the penny
was at the bottom of a six foot tall, 4 foot wide tank filled with rollers,
because of the change in the test strips we ran 3 times a day. Since then
I've been sold on process monitoring, even with something as simple as a
refrigerator.

My deductible would just about make filing a claim a total waste of time.
Most likely, it would raise my rates or give my insurer a reason to cancel
me.

Many of the refrigerator issues I've had over the years wouldn't have
happened with a redundant sensor system in place. These include the dog
opening the fridge door and yanking out stuff that blocked it open (here
come the "kill the dog" remarks from the heavy breathing Neanderthals), my
loading the freezer too full and not noticing the door hasn't closed, going
away without realizing the lack of opening and closing the door would drop
the refrigerator compartment to below freezing, having a blocked drain back
up condensate into the coils and freezing into a solid block, having the
fridge pop the GFI circuit it used to be plugged into,. etc.

I suppose it's just Usenet but it still surprises me at how many people are
concerned about how *I* choose to spend my time and resources as if it was
hurting them in some way. No offense meant, Tony. You were at least civil
in your comments. That's rare. But if you look back to threads like the
one about cabinet safety latches, people were not shy or civil in expressing
profound contempt for the way someone had decided they wanted to handle
childproofing.

I appreciate your concern about system failures, but since this is a "bolt
on" that in no way affects the system it is monitoring, there's really
nothing to worry about. It the monitors fail, I am back to where I started
from.

--
Bobby G.

"Josepi" wrote in message
...
I wouldn't select that character profile on a fridge! Other appliances,
maybe but never a fridge!

Some people wouldn't be able to lose weight without Sgt. Lee Ermey kicking
their butt. I stole most of that riff from "Full Metal Jacket" BTW.

The sexy female personality is much more appealing for weight control but
it
would depend what period it is selected for, in the scene profile
selection
on the fridge. Sometimes I just can't wait to deselect the "vistors in the
house" scene. The personalities used tend to lie about contents all the
time
and I have a good idea what is in the fridge from the details on my online
grocery item tick list from the last auto-delivery. That really ****es me
off and I have deducted merit points from that scene I paid good money
for.

When I lived in a house with 12 other kids in college, you could put a half
gallon of ice cream in the freezer in the morning, and by 9PM there would be
a sink full of dirty spoons and a single spoonful of ice cream left in the
container. The only way to make ice cream last more than a day was to
remove the ice cream from the store cardboard packaging and stick in a
plastic container marked "frozen creamed corn" or worse.

--
Bobby G.



"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
It will be MUCH worse than that if MS is involved:

"Mr. Toilet has detected high levels of glucose in your urine and not
enough
roughage in your stool. The only food you Mr. Refrigerator will allow you
to eat today is kelp. Please step away from the door. Your kelp will be
placed in the automatic dispenser. Enjoy your kelp and have a nice day!"

When it discovers you've been sneaking jelly dougnuts on the side, it
would
go into the drill sergeant mode:

Fridge: Holy Jesus! What is that? What the f_ck is that? WHAT IS THAT?
Human: Sir, a jelly doughnut, sir!
Fridge: A jelly doughnut? What is your major malfunction, numbnuts? Didn't
Mommy and Daddy show you enough attention when you were a child?
Human: Sir, yes, sir!
Fridge: How did it get here?
Human: Sir, I got it from the donut shop, sir!
Fridge: Are you allowed to eat jelly doughnuts?
Human: Sir, no, sir!
Fridge: And why not?
Human: Sir, because I'm too heavy, sir!
Fridge: Because you are a disgusting fat body! Were you born a fat, slimy,
scumbag puke piece o' ****, or did you have to work on it?
Human: Sir, yes, sir!
Fridge: Then why did you try to sneak a jelly doughnut by me?
Human: Sir, because I was hungry, sir!
Fridge: Because you were hungry... You had best square your ass away and
start ****ting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely f_ck you up! NOW!
MOVE IT! Or I'm going to rip your balls off, so you cannot contaminate the
rest of the world! I will motivate you IF IT SHORT-DICKS EVERY CANNIBAL ON
THE CONGO! NOW DROP AND GIVE ME 20!

--
Bobby G.

LOL. I could imagine.


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
When I lived in a house with 12 other kids in college, you could put a half
gallon of ice cream in the freezer in the morning, and by 9PM there would be
a sink full of dirty spoons and a single spoonful of ice cream left in the
container. The only way to make ice cream last more than a day was to
remove the ice cream from the store cardboard packaging and stick in a
plastic container marked "frozen creamed corn" or worse.

"Josepi" wrote in message
...
LOL. I could imagine.

With a food budget of $10 a week, ice cream was like frozen gold. I
remember eating lots of Rice-a-Roni at 37 cents a box which was also the
price of a gallon of gasoline. Tuna could be had, four cans for a dollar,
if you shopped the sales which was a given with a $10 budget. Things
changed dramatically, though, when I became a short order cook and later, a
pizza wrangler.

--
Bobby G.

On Aug 5, 6:46*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
"Nonnymus" wrote in message

...







"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating
parameters with my home automation system. *I 've got sensors for kWhs
used,
ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the
temperature
of a sensor on the back of the unit. *I was hoping this should give me
enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions
before
they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

We once had a cabin up on a mountain. *On occasion, the power would go out
and the refrigerator would let food thaw. *When power returned, the only
clue would be misshapen packages or a scent, so I wanted a sure-fire way
to
know not if there was a power failure, but whether a failure had affected
the freezer and refrigerator contents.

The solution was inexpensive: *a high/low thermometer from Radio Shack.
When we'd go to the cabin, I'd simply look at the high temp and instantly
know if the power had been off and if damage had been done.

A while back I bought a nice magnetic fridge thermo that Bob Bass found on
the net that has an RF sender for the freezer and refrigerator compartments
and high and low alarm settings. *That's what got me started on automating
the temperature (and other) readings.

I wanted the home automation system to call me if the conditions indicated a
power or mechanical failure in the fridge. *You can get one hell of a
stomach-ache eating refrozen food if it's sat out long enough. *As you point
out, sometimes the clues that refreezing has occurred can be mighty subtle.
Tupperware containers don't get misshapen. *I always leave something in a
cardboard container on edge in the freezer to make it obvious that a
meltdown has occurred.

Speaking of which, once upon a time, when I did photography as a side line,
I was doing a food shoot of a Thanksgiving dinner. *The turkey had been out
under the lights for about 4 hours and then we put it back in the fridge in
case we had to do a re-shoot. *Well, the guys we shared the studio with saw
the turkey in the fridge a week later and made turkey sandwhiches. *That was
the first time I had ever seen someone turn green (right before the sluices
opened at both ends of their alimentary canals).

You can't be too careful with your food storage these days, especially with
all the recalls and salmonella poisonings.

Thanks for your input!

--
Bobby G.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I assume this fully sensored and 24/7 monitored fridge is the same one
you asked for input about in the other thread? Where you indicated
you will be moving soon and leaving it behind?

With so many fridges it's odd the rest of us haven't died from food
poisoning from failure to put in 6 sensors and a couple of PCs to
continuously monitor and log our fridge. As for food storage and
recalls due to contamination, they are two very different things.

In article , (Robert Green) writes:

| going
| away without realizing the lack of opening and closing the door would drop
| the refrigerator compartment to below freezing

I noticed this effect (i.e., that I was part of the temperature regulation)
on my previous KitchenAid refrigerator (which replaced an in retrospect far
superior 1959 Tappan). The temperature controls also required tweaking from
season to season apparently to account for ambient temperature. This puzzled
me at first. I knew that only the refrigerator section was thermostatically
controlled (relying on the compressor to run enough to keep the freezer section
frozen) but you would think that this would at least result in, like, you know,
regulating the temperature in the refrigerator section.

I eventually decided that the problem was that the thermostat in the
refrigerator section was in the air path from the freezer section, so
if you set it such that the desired steady-state temperature was maintained
it would take a very long time to get there, perhaps never getting there if
you opened the door from time to time. On the other hand if you set it to
keep the temperature where you wanted with the door opening occasionally it
would freeze as you noticed when you weren't there to open the door.

I bought a Sub-Zero which uses a completely separate cooling system for
freezer and refrigerator. This works very well, but I still wonder how
the old Tappan managed to do the same job with only one compressor. As
far as I remember it did not blow air from the freezer into the refrigerator
and I think there were coils in both sections, so perhaps it diverted
freon according to need. Systems to run multiple evaporators from one
condenser (not one outdoor unit with multiple condensers) are starting
to show up in mini-splits so this general kind of thing seems possible.

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

I remember Krapt dinner, 10 boxes per dollar IIRC.


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
With a food budget of $10 a week, ice cream was like frozen gold. I
remember eating lots of Rice-a-Roni at 37 cents a box which was also the
price of a gallon of gasoline. Tuna could be had, four cans for a dollar,
if you shopped the sales which was a given with a $10 budget. Things
changed dramatically, though, when I became a short order cook and later, a
pizza wrangler.

--
Bobby G.


"Josepi" wrote in message
...
LOL. I could imagine.

"Dan Lanciani" ddl@danlan.*com wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Robert Green) writes:

| going
| away without realizing the lack of opening and closing the door would
drop
| the refrigerator compartment to below freezing

I noticed this effect (i.e., that I was part of the temperature
regulation)
on my previous KitchenAid refrigerator (which replaced an in retrospect
far
superior 1959 Tappan). The temperature controls also required tweaking
from
season to season apparently to account for ambient temperature.

I haven't seen the seasonal affect, but as we travel for two or three days
at a time, it's clear that we need to remember to turn the dial (expertly
calibrated with a variable width line and no numerals), up when we leave and
down when we're back. The GE holds the temperature at 38 without freezing
when the door gets open even just a few times a day, but when no one touches
it, it's frozen milk, tea and more.

This puzzled
me at first. I knew that only the refrigerator section was
thermostatically
controlled (relying on the compressor to run enough to keep the freezer
section
frozen) but you would think that this would at least result in, like, you
know,
regulating the temperature in the refrigerator section.

You would think that, but for whatever reason, it's obviously not so.
"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a
dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity . . . The
Refrigerator Zone."

I eventually decided that the problem was that the thermostat in the
refrigerator section was in the air path from the freezer section, so
if you set it such that the desired steady-state temperature was
maintained
it would take a very long time to get there, perhaps never getting there
if
you opened the door from time to time. On the other hand if you set it to
keep the temperature where you wanted with the door opening occasionally
it
would freeze as you noticed when you weren't there to open the door.

It's not a good choice. I'd hate to have to add anything to the
ever-growing "leaving the house checklist" (which I hope to someday automate
with a voice that will even know when I am lying to it just to get it to
shut up). But just like the Whirlpool before it, this GE *has* to be set
back slightly if you keep the refrigerator below 40 degrees for normal use.

It may be just the way it's designed, although you would think that a
freezer that dropped from 0 to -10 would be nowhere near as bad as a
refrigerator compartment that dropped from 38 to 28 degrees. Maybe the
voltage to the compressor increases when no one's home running lights or AC.
That's something worth monitoring just because there are sometimes rolling
brownouts at this time of year. I wonder what the various tech support
people would say causes the problem of "vacation freezing."

Another thing I've found is a tremendous variance of internal temperatures.
The veggie drawer is 10 degrees warmer than the shelf where the freezer
exhausts into the refrigerator compartment. The right hand rear corner is
the best place to keep the extra milk in - until it freezes.

I suppose if I dialed in remotely, I could turn off the fridge remotely via
a relay on the cord if the lower compartment was freezing, but there would
have to be about a year of reliability testing before that happened. (-:

I bought a Sub-Zero which uses a completely separate cooling system for
freezer and refrigerator. This works very well, but I still wonder how
the old Tappan managed to do the same job with only one compressor. As
far as I remember it did not blow air from the freezer into the
refrigerator
and I think there were coils in both sections, so perhaps it diverted
freon according to need.

You would have had to have heard a pretty noticeable clacking for it to
switch coils, I would imagine. There's a very loud clack in the GE's
startup routine (cold start from the wall plug) so maybe that's exactly how
it's done.

Speaking of noises, a friend suggested that one of the most useful records I
could have would be a simple microphone attached to the frame to record what
he believes will be a unique sound signature. Since his lifetime was spent
improving the MTBF figures on F-16's, I tend to agree. Just like Brit solex
carbs, the sound a mechanical device makes says a lot about how it's
operating (and yet so many people drive around with chirping brakes that
turn into scraping ones!).

Systems to run multiple evaporators from one
condenser (not one outdoor unit with multiple condensers) are starting
to show up in mini-splits so this general kind of thing seems possible.

Did you ever look for the service manuals? I haven't for mine, but I think
I am about to. Your comments about seasonal changes have reminded me that
measure the internal and external humidity might be tell me more about what
causes the seasonal drift. Now I know why I bought that web control device
that's still sitting on the workbench with the two humidity sensors and all
the other sensors I would need to monitor (and perhaps even correct) device
behavior remotely. This is the perfect job for it.

The reason I know there's a fan inside is that when I opened the door with
room humidity near 100% I saw a jet of condensation emanating from a square
hole in the back at fan powered speed. .

Good luck with your propane sensor. I can only guess that part of their
reluctance to call back has to do with propane disasters. I am sure they
feel that by sticking to Henry Ford's "any color" theory, they are limiting
problems down the line. Did they say what their modem package cost? You
could probably piggy back on that although it seems a shame to have to kluge
it like that. Maybe they'll give you the modem deal free if you call them
back often enough. (-: I've been amazed at what persistence can achieve.

Time to search for the on-line manuals amid the dozens of scam and
drive-by-downloading sites that target people looking for drivers, manuals
and song lyrics. Maybe I'll just go to GE. I need an extra shelf, anyway.
(Anybody notice how two liter bottles suddenly got taller?)

--
Bobby G.