IHC Work ongoing

You recall the IHC I have been cabling, terminating and working on since we moved in our new House ?

Yippeee !!

Amazingly but not surprising my sense of engineering has enabled me to work on/off with sometimes pauses of three months between work packages, e.g. cabling the alarm/shell integrity circuits last summer with a bit of faultfinding on cut cables where the insulation guy seems to have cut the cable installed by the electrician.

Last fall before beginning the hopefully temp job as a busdriver, I cabled all cores for the downstairs controller, fitting the battery backup and most importantly the smoke/fire indicators, so finally we are legal.

Now after the summers vacation I have the odd mid week day off from driving and I has now tested, verified and put the house alarm on-line.

Remaining work will consist of cabling the upstairs controller, connecting all remaing switches and also connecting all the occasionally used power outlets to a timed switch to save at power expenses for the relay outputs.

We have come a very long way from when we moved into the house in january 2007, where I was to be off for SriLanka with Brodersen, where I had to set up the table PC with the propietary software to enable Annette and Maria to turn on the lights as at that time no inputs had been connected- only the 230V outputs mounted by the licensed electrician. And it was dark scandinavian winter....

Last news and 2010 summers vacation

Pia: Is now in Bolivia again working for UNIFEM Andina, this time ...
De Accuerdo ese no se puede ser in Ingles, Entonces por Espanol.
Pia esta una vez mas in Latino America, hoy in Boivia, trabachando por UNIFEM in Cochabamba, para obtener su dissertaction de estudios Sociales in Lund Suecia.
Buena suerte, cara :-)





Nosotros, Oh heck, Us others just had a nice vacation in Marielyst on Falkevej just next door to the house we rented up til 10 years ago, and as usual we also managed to fit in preparations for a birthday again.
Tricking myself a bit I managed to insist to myself that I had a deadline on the IHC house controller alarm and also the BMW passenger front seat (which to be frank had awaited finishing since march 2006) reclothing, though the drivers seat was finished at that time.


This time Marias 11 years birthday in three installments, the classmates, Then Anettes sisters, Then my cousin Susanne with lovely Marianne and Niels and Charlotte and Lars. Maria thus managed to get three for one :-)








The school classmates party was a huge success, even if the weather, which as You may know has been fickle with monsoonlike rains, made us move from the terrace and inside. The Beolab 6000 speakers also had premiere being moved downstairs to Marias room using the PowerLink connection via IHC from the B&O Ouverture we bought last Year, playing streamed TDC music from WMP on our Media Center via the Sony flatscreen TV.
Technical note: We had problems with power hum noise on the TV - Ouverture connection but replacing the video card in the Media Centre with a full HDMI/HD ATI Radeon card allowing the sound to be sent digitally to the Sony TV , this noise has disappeared.
The boys loved the speakers, the girls danced :-)
And us parents? We are happy when Maria is happy. Our little kids are now pushing just a bit at being teenagers. Time flies, and did I hear that from my own parents not believing it of course, well now I know better:-)

Copenhagen carnival

This saturday Annette, Maria and I went to samba carnival in Copenhagen.

At the onset back in the 1985-87 the Carnival covered much of the inner city.

Not so much today, and we are not THAT many 50 ish onlookers or concert listeners.

The music, colours and rythm is still alluring, and Maria enjoyed the scene too, but maybe most the tivoli and merry (mad) go round

A nice evening !

BMW E21 the never ending story

Our old '76 BMW E21, which has been a family member since 1990 (at that time 14 years old), is of course still in the middle of restauration.

Last autumn I replaced the inner rear wheelarch, without removing the wing.

As it turned out I could have saved myself the trouble of the ship-in-a-bottle work, because during the winter I was hit by another car, bending the same right rear wing I had worked to preserve.

The matter of claiming insurance had more than a touch of red tape around, since the other drivers insurance company preferred that our car be assesed at a proper garage, which as BMW Jan Nygaard in Lyngby was so nice to point out, would result in our heritage car being scrapped, since the cost of repair in that case would exceed the legal limit.

Back at the insurance companys office I finally managed to insist that I be connected with an assesor who as it turned out, could and did did assess our car at our home.

The assesment was then based on private repair of the car, notional cost of manhours (mine), parts and painting.

But, of course I would only be reimbursed when the work was completed....

Thanks to our IDA master card I had the means to buy the parts, and the paint I have an ample supply of.

The job has taken 2 weeks of work, with only four full days off from bus driving, but the result is really nice.

Transportation engineer (a.k.a) busdriver

So spring is back.

Finding me behind the steering wheel of a Volvo B7RLE at Nørreport station in Copenhagen in the worst winter for 19 years.

Now I can drive heavy vehicles in slippery road conditions too.

Last summer I also took a C drivers license for trucks as well.

Now all I need is to integrate this practical experience with my engineering expertise for integrating IT, SW and machines.

Factually speaking there is a large need for better integrated drivers information units with passenger information , GPS location information and travellers plans.

Imagine a driver having a map displaying the route (with planned deviations), on-schedule info, interconnection requests (e.g. from passengers electronic ticket and interconnecting busses and trains. Lovely and efficient

As the complex systems work now, the driver communicates via a Motorola Tetra radio with garage and other busses through a 5 button menu system, a separate GPS based next stop and zone information system from IMPC in Jutland requiring You look down away from traffic, while checking discrete timing points in a paper plan. And have to walk out of the bus to see if a train is approaching even if delayed.... Its junk really.

As You see I cant help inventing better ways of doing things.

Just possible we could do the busses exhaust even better for instance with Purefi on top of the AdBlue technology :-)

Goodbye to the car Nice Pug.. But Skip the car keep the house

Pug is british shorthand for Peugeot . Just FYI.

We had the car from last march till yesterday when I sold it on to a used car dealer, for a price of DKK 76.000. As we bought the car for 115000 privately, spending a new clutch installed by myself, underbody protection we have lost about 40.000, but considering we have run the car for 37000 kms and the market for mid size business segment cars has bottomed out completely, that was probably a very vise decision right now.

Only thing is... Now we are back to the old BMW again. Stepping back 27 years technological wise is quite a bit.

Our house finally nearing completion

Now while spring is nearing, I just found out its about time to reflect a bit on our House.

We have had so many problems with the installation firm and the builders faults.

Also I have done a huge work with last summers bricklaying and the carport the first year, not to speak of finishing the lower floors twoo rooms with cupboards and flooring.

Guess what ? We have actually forgotten to enjoy the view and the setting in beautiful Slagslunde.

Simones (Marias classmate) s father mentioned the lovely indoor lightpatterns of the sunshine outside the other day. And he was right!

Besides I can be very proud of the work I have laid into the house, welding the stair railing, milling the wood handrail, building the carport with cast foundation and siberian larchwood cladding, putting up the cupboards and flooring on the floor and finishing outdoors with bricklaying on our very nice porch outside facing south.

The IHC intelligent house control is a beut too, only the antenna amplifier for our new digital MPEG4 Sony TV, just didnt transfer all the QAM's (digital compressed signal package), so after fiddling and adjusting I finally gave in and pulled out the Nopovic cable pulling in a normal coax cable, splitting the signal in our systems frame, and having a direct YouSee signal feed to the Sony leaving the split signal for the remaining IHC cabling.

Maria got her first chance to work as master electrician there, helping me feed in the coax cable while I pulled the Nopovic out.

LK (IHC producer) is rumoured to come up with a new amplifier for digital TV so lets hope!