I started this blog to write some stories and about my various projects. Since retiring I have some time to reminisce about my past experiences. Also I have started a project to build a monitoring station that will have sensors to monitor various aspects of the atmosphere and the environment around my place. This blog will describe my efforts to design, build and operate the sensors. Plans are to make near real time data from the sensors available on my web page at htttp://ocrslc.net. My monitoring site is called Otter Creek Research Station because it is located between the east and west branches of Otter Creek.
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Jim Hannon's Blog 
Jim, greatly appreciated seeing your story about rebuild of your Hearthstone H1 stove. We have the same stove and are going to attempt a rebuild as well, as we are getting smokey smell in the house and see wisps of smoke coming occasionally from stove top. How did the sodium silicate hold up? We notice we have several stones on the side panels that have hairline cracks and are being told that the stones cannot be repaired, only replaced.Thanks in advance!
The sodium silicate has worked well. It is only good to join broken stones that have a break that fits tightly together. The stones that I glued are still tight and you can barely see the joint. The joints between the stones is another matter. The stones are held in place with metal strips placed in grooves in the stone. To make the stove air tight these joints have to be sealed with stove cement also called furnace cement or fireplace mortar. This can only be done effectively by disassembling the stones and cleaning the joints before applying the cement between the stones. It is important that the stove be airtight no only for smoke leaking out but for proper operation of the stove air control system. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the info, I understand the bit about re-mortaring the stones, Just wanted to ensure that you had no breakdown of the sodium silicate, Our cracks on the side panels are hairline, so figured we’d fix those when we had the stove apart. Happy to know the stove can be saved!
Jim, very good setup. I am working on setting up precipitation station at my place. One setup that I would like to do but have not found plans for is an ice measurement guage. Any thoughts.
I do like automated sensors but measuring ice accumulation is a bit iffy. Ice seems to form quite differently depending on all sorts of variables. So I just go out and have a look. I have had my anemometer ice up a few times so it sort of acts as a detector. 🙂
Hi Jim, I’m station ams29 in Florida and have a few questions relating to the allsky acrylic domes, which are susceptible to degradation and distortion. Just wondering how difficult it would be to use a white acrylic. Form it over a mold with flat spots that can be cut out and optical glass be added as camera windows and fastened with silicone and/or a retainer?
James,
I am way behind on making blog posts. I assume you have seen my post on the alsky7 camera and also the post on making acrylic domes. The making domes post is the start of a series of planned posts on building and experimental allsky7+ camera with optical windows. That camera (AMS118) is built and operated for a while until the computer failed. Gotta get that fixed. I used clear acrylic just because that was what I had and it was less expensive the white. I was not so much interested in degradation. I wanted to see if the optical windows would improve the image quality even with a fresh dome. Building the dome with windows is quite a bit more complicated than assembling the original camera. Stay tuned, I will try and get some more blog posts on the new camera written this winter. I operate AMS48 here and take care of AMS41 and 42. BTW there is no need to mold a dome with flat spots, just cut holes in the right places.
Jim, Thanks for the info. Looking forward to your updates this winter.
JMathews