It was a standard week. We had the perfect snow Monday. When we looked out of the back window, we saw snow clinging to the trees, sparkling in the sunshine. When we looked out the front window, we saw clear streets. Both were beautiful in their own way.

I got several projects done recently. The first was backups on our website. They aren’t working the way they are supposed to, but we are getting daily backups placed in our neighborhood’s Dropbox account. I had to use a Linux Cron job to get the backups to run automatically at midnight every day. It’s not the most elegant solution, but it sure works.

Charge Timer

Another other project was a timer for the car charger. We want to charge our car battery to 80%, then stop. It should help the battery last longer. The car *should* be able to do this for us. The car’s manual says it *can* do this for us. But it *can’t*. We have a simple formula to know how long to charge the car, and we were using the kitchen timer to remind us when to unplug the charger. But sometimes we would forget, go downstairs, and not hear the timer. I wanted to install a timer that would turn the charger off automatically. That requires a relay that will handle 240 volts at 40 amps. They make such things, but I thought I would have to go to a specialty supplier, spend a small fortune, and wait 6 to 8 weeks for delivery. When I actually started looking, I found that these relays are easy to get and cost about $20. They are used in air conditioners. That made this a straightforward project, and I finished it this week.

The business end. That black thing in the middle switches 240 Volts at 40 amps.

The last project was our doorbell. The builder put our doorbell button on the wrong side of the door. When we installed the storm door, the door bell was hidden. Only the most persistent people would open the storm door and reach inside to push it. It’s easy to install a wireless doorbell, but there was another issue. When we are downstairs watching TV, we can’t hear the doorbell chime which is upstairs. I didn’t want to install a doorbell if we couldn’t hear it. I’ve been thinking about this from time to time since we moved in, coming up with Rube Goldberg contraptions that would let us hear the doorbell downstairs. Finally, I did a doorbell search on Amazon. These days, they make kits with one button and two chimes. I plugged one chime into an outlet in the basement, the other chime upstairs, and attached the doorbell button next to the door with two screws. It took about 10 minutes to do the whole project.

That’s the news for this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.