[TriLUG] OT: need ideas for a project that just landed in my lap

[Ben Pitzer]

Jon's option #2 seems like the best at the moment, given the cirumstances.
Why over-engineer this thing?  Seriously, if you've got that much free time
on your hands, you may need a better job.  *chuckle*

Long term, of course, they will need to dig up the road to fix the wire, but
in the meantime, don't spend days on this.  If need be, make a new post.
Materials will include a 5 gallon bucket, a sack of Quickrete, a 4x4 post, a
weatherproof fiberglass box (such as <a href="
http://www.hometech.com/techwire/boxes.html#RJ1008HP">this</a>), a couple of
screws, and a garage door opener.  If you're looking for something a bit
more permanent, substitute a post hole digger for the 5 gallon bucket.

That's my opinion, anyway.

Regards,
Ben Pitzer


On 15 Feb 2006 23:48:52 -0500, Jon Carnes <jonc at nc.rr.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2006-02-15 at 21:31, Pat Regan wrote:
> > Greg Brown wrote:
> > > Sadly the problem seems to lie somewhere in the wire path under the
> existing
> > > roadway.  And they say digging up the road in any way, shape, or form
> is not
> > > possible.
> > >
> >
> > I may be naive, but wouldn't the wire have to be running through some
> > kind of conduit?  If it isn't, I would imagine that would have helped it
> > to fail :p.
> >
> > If it is, you could just tie the new wire to the old and pull it
> through.
> >
> > Pat
>
> If it's an old park road then most likely whatever conduit there was has
> either cracked or rusted to dust and you'll never get the wire to move.
> That's probably why the circuit got cut as well.
>
> Still there are two very obvious non-linux solutions here:
> 1) Rent a trencher with a boring rod (drill down, then *under* the road)
> and this time put a decent conduit under the road.
>
> http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/sw_sod/article/0,2029,DIY_14369_2278540,00.html
>
> 2) Buy a "garage" door opener and glue it to the old button stand. Yes
> you'll have to bring out spare batteries every now and then, but it's a
> cheap solution that gets you up and running fast.
>
> Other than that, I've used some old A/D cards that cost around $20 to
> turn really old PC's into rather elegant switches and sensors. That
> would easily turn on/off a relay to open/close the gates remotely.
>
> Good Luck!
>
>
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