Posts in category "post-retirement" - page 3
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DC Energy Measurement Using PZEM 017
You might remember that I have been looking for an accurate DC current measuring device for a long time for my solar project. The hall effect sensors I have been using in my solar project was inaccurate. Basically the zero current point drifts quite a bit depending on the ambient temperature and power supply voltage. While a shunt would give more accurate zero cross overs, I did not want to modify my setup to use it. You see, the problem with shunt resistor based sensors was that they have to be inline with current. Which means I have to remove a bunch of wiring from my battery and UPS and insert these sensors inline. I was not willing to do that. However I recently came across another project which would be a good fit to test out these shunt resistor based sensors. So I tried a couple of them and what follows is my experience with one of them.
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Rain Water Harvesting Update
A long time ago, soon after I retired we build a DIY rain water harvesting at our place. We even made some upgrades along the way. Since it rains a lot here in Bangalore (or I should say used to rain a lot), we enjoyed a few good years of rain water harvest. For those of you who don’t know, there is huge water shortage here in Bangalore and any water we can save is extremely helpful. We generally use about 22 tankers of water in a year. But since setting up the rain water harvesting, it has reduced to almost half. Thus not only saving money but also water.
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Organic Gardening Update
As we progress in life, things come and go. We start out with a plan and later it may fail or we stop executing it for some reason. Take the most common failed plans that most people complain about – exercise. When the new year rolls in some of us plan to exercise routinely and stay fit. Eventually, due to various reasons, some stop doing it. There were several plans I made after retirement, and some of them have either failed or we stopped them intentionally. One such plan was organic gardening. Just after retiring, we started to grow a small vegetable garden in the open space on the sides of our house inside our compound. I even built and programmed an automated drip irrigation system so we don’t have to worry about watering. But we stopped growing vegetables on the sides. So what happened?
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Converting a USB printer into a WiFi Printer
We have an old USB laser printer which was purchased in early 2012. It has been in fine working condition since then. I rarely use it because usually there is nothing much to print. We do the occasional flight ticket print outs. Once our daughter was born there was a little bit more printing. I changed the toner just twice in these 11 years. Anytime anyone in the family needed a printout, they would connect their laptop to the printer via USB and print. Although it wasn’t that much of a hassle, I wanted to make the printer a wireless one. This post is about how I achieved it. As you can imagine, it can get technical and if you are not into computers and software, it is better you skip this one :).
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Blogs I Follow And Why
A reader asked if I can share a list of blogs I follow. So I thought I should write a post about how I ended up with my subscriptions. When I was a kid I used to love to read books. A lot of books actually. Most of them were just story books initially, then I started reading “how things work” and computer related books as I got interested into computers and science. I used to enjoy our semi annual trip to Jyoti book stores back in the town where I grew up. I would go on a long walk through the collection of the books in that large book store while my parents waited patiently until I am done reading a few pages of several books and finally picked some. Not sure what happened, but as I grew up I stopped reading. I don’t read much these days. I have become more of a hands on guys and learning things on the job. Both have their advantages and disadvantages and I don’t mind either.
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My Daily Routine: 2023 Edition
It has been a couple of years since I gave my last “daily routine” update. A reader of my blog also asked me to give an update, so here it is. There is almost no change in my routine since about 2 years ago which is nothing to be surprised about since that was the whole plan in retirement. Just chill, take it easy and live life on the absolute slow lane. Almost nothing in our life is urgent since early retirement. Things will happen when they happen :).
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Power Bill Is Zero, Thanks To Solar Panel
If you remember, I recently posted that I cannot add any more solar panels given my current setup. You might also recall that I have a lone 320 W solar panel. Surely that cannot generate enough power to reduce my electricity bill to zero. Yet, my latest electricity bill is exactly zero. Thats what happens when you mix politics with lifestyle. Some of you might understand what I am talking about. For others, here is the clue – Gruha Jyothi scheme. Unless you like reading about politics, or belong to Karnataka, one of the southern states of India, you might not know what I am talking about. Let me explain.
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This Blog Is 5 Years Old
I cannot believe that this blog is already 5 years old! When I first started, I did not know if I will have much to write. I just wanted to write about financial planning for early retirement because a bunch of friends and colleagues asked me for it. I thought I would be done in about 15 to 20 articles and stop writing. But here I am still continuing the tradition all thanks to my readers. As I kept writing, different people asked for different topics like home schooling, health, fitness, my hobby projects, sustainable living and so on. I started writing about varying topic and the blog evolved to what it is now. But every beginning has an end and so I am not really sure how long I will continue. There is absolutely no dearth of topics, but time is something that is hard to find.
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Accessing My Home Network From Anywhere
There are two kinds of apps that I build when I am working on my personal projects. They are either apps that are confined to my home network or ones that run on the web. Examples of apps that run on the web are my investment planning app or investment recommendation app. I can access them from anywhere. Examples of apps that only run in my home network include home automation, drip irrigation, solar power management, etc. These are apps that are running on android devices, linux PC or ESP8266 boards and are connected to my wifi. You cannot access them from outside the home network.
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Medical Expenses Inflation
I had no idea very simple medical treatment is so expensive in India! We rarely have to visit a doctor and as such I have no idea how much it costs to consult a doctor these days. I know medicines are becoming expensive but this was the first time I experienced unexpected medical charges. It all started when our daughter had a minor fracture in her elbow when she fell down while skating on the road. We did not see the accident, but apparently she was skating over some humps and perhaps due to over speeding lost her balance and landed on her left elbow. Her friends accompanied her home and we were facing a rather sad elbow condition. She was in noticeable pain but was not crying, so we did not initially think it was a fracture.
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