New Northeastern Pa Build

[jimim]

Snazzy setup!

Love the AK lodge. Do you stay on the side where you can see the giraffes outside?

Have fun and say Hi to Mickey! Tell him I’ll see him in late October! LOL. I have annual passes but don’t go May through Oct. Too hot!

We are doing a savanah view this trip cause there were no regular views left. I don't like using my points for the view cause the animals are around the property anyway, but I guess the kids will really enjoy it.

Summer we usually try to stay over at Beach Club cause of the pool and in the fall stay at AKL.

Every hotel was jammed by 7 mths out this year cause i think everyone was anticipating Toy Story land being open by then.

We are annual pass holders too. We love it at Disney. Kristen and my self have gone once or up to three times a year since we starting dating in 2000. The kids have gotten to grow up going to Disney. They love it. My parents love going with us in the fall or winter. It's just always a great trip.

October is such a great time of the year to go. Food and Wine and Halloween in MK! 2 best times at Dinsey in my opinion.

jim

 

[Captchaos]

Can I ask why you chose that tablet specifically? Googling it I see that I have apparently looked at this tablet before but I can't remember why. What else do you do with it other than run the pool app? I assuming it can be a source for your audio system? I am probably opening up a can of worms here.

My wife is asking me how we "show movies on the side of the house by the pool at night." I'm here envisioning projectors, long throw lenses, cooling the projector, a blow up screen, full audio (I sure didn't run enough cable for this!) and a million things in between.

 

[jimim]

Can I ask why you chose that tablet specifically? Googling it I see that I have apparently looked at this tablet before but I can't remember why. What else do you do with it other than run the pool app? I assuming it can be a source for your audio system? I am probably opening up a can of worms here.

My wife is asking me how we "show movies on the side of the house by the pool at night." I'm here envisioning projectors, long throw lenses, cooling the projector, a blow up screen, full audio (I sure didn't run enough cable for this!) and a million things in between.

My whole house audio is Nuvo technology. I'm in the process of switching over to thier new system. The new system uses a custom made android tablet to run their app. They had these tablets made for them form whoever OEM'ed them for them. they were made to be POE and to not have a battery or wireless card. So i'm using that one cause it's what they offered. can i have used a ipad ya but the wiring would have been harder and charging. plus alot more. could i have used an off the shelf android tablet. ya but again charging and such. this solution is really nice and to boot i run all my otehr home automation apps from it now cause it's a full blown tablet. nuvo says they don't know what apps work and don't work but that's to cover themselves. i am running my irrigation, cameras, pool, and my other large app which controls all electronics in the house (all lights, stats, security, every piece of audio and video equipment). for a 300 dollar retail tablet it's pretty powerful if you have the wiring in place already to provide PEO to it. when i built i ran cat5e to each of my 12 zones of audio and made sure they home runned back to racks which also centralized all my network for the future. so it worked out for me. and it looks good. lol

we have done outdoor simple theatre setups. if the owner has a poolhouse (cabana) that is covered we do power slide down screen with a cheap projector. we never did one of the inflatable ones before. i never had to cool the projector. its outside already. we only cool projectors if they are in a sound contained room which is completely sealed. cheap projectors had pretty short throws now a days. you can get a surround receiver on amazon fo ra 200 dollar wonder that will do all you need to at this point. speakers are cheap.

 

[jimim]

I have been having ph reading issues so I remember Jim saying he used the bigger tube for his ph so I went out and ordered one and then pier pressured cliff into getting one. Lol. I just used mine today for the first time and compared thst reading to the one we all use here. Ya it deff gives u a better readout if u want to make sure u don’t go above 7.8 or hit 8.0.

I was always guessing. Ya it’s 7.9. No it’s closer to 8.0. No way of knowing. Now with the other one u do know for sure.

 

[riley00dog]

I have been having ph reading issues so I remember Jim saying he used the bigger tube for his ph so I went out and ordered one and then pier pressured cliff into getting one. Lol. I just used mine today for the first time and compared thst reading to the one we all use here. Ya it deff gives u a better readout if u want to make sure u don’t go above 7.8 or hit 8.0.

I was always guessing. Ya it’s 7.9. No it’s closer to 8.0. No way of knowing. Now with the other one u do know for sure.

Love your interface and all your technology! Glad you had an awesome time at Disney.

I’m curious about the bigger tube for the ph test. I am really really struggling with it too. How does the bigger tube work? Do you use the same amount of water or more? I found if I’m having trouble I add a dash more pool water it makes it easier to match the colour and doesn’t change the colour itself just the shade. Was going to order a ph meter but they seem to be hit and miss. All the other tests are easy as they are objective. This test is much more subjective and it bothers me.

 

[Dirk]

Love your interface and all your technology! Glad you had an awesome time at Disney.

I’m curious about the bigger tube for the ph test. I am really really struggling with it too. How does the bigger tube work? Do you use the same amount of water or more? I found if I’m having trouble I add a dash more pool water it makes it easier to match the colour and doesn’t change the colour itself just the shade. Was going to order a ph meter but they seem to be hit and miss. All the other tests are easy as they are objective. This test is much more subjective and it bothers me.

I don't have any color-reading trouble normally (I do it for a living), but I did struggle with the pH test, too, for some reason. Marty (TFP Expert) suggested I use four drops instead of five (basically the same idea as yours, diluting), and bam! The color of the test sample is much easier to match. I ran this by Taylor's tech support and it was panned. They said "no good." But I do it anyway and it works for me (and Marty).

 

[jimim]

Love your interface and all your technology! Glad you had an awesome time at Disney.

I’m curious about the bigger tube for the ph test. I am really really struggling with it too. How does the bigger tube work? Do you use the same amount of water or more? I found if I’m having trouble I add a dash more pool water it makes it easier to match the colour and doesn’t change the colour itself just the shade. Was going to order a ph meter but they seem to be hit and miss. All the other tests are easy as they are objective. This test is much more subjective and it bothers me.

thanks!

i bought a digital stick. I think it stinks. It has to be calibrated at same temp of pool water to be accurate and even then it isn’t. I used a standard solution to calibrate. Tested water I knew was 7.5 and it said it was 8. It’s in the garbage. Let me know if u find a good one. I bought the yellow one from here.


The tube tube uses a 44 mk sample. It’s in .2 vs .4 readings so now u know if u are at 8.0. Vs the other which is 7.8 to 8.2. I add when I hit 8.0. Cause I can’t sit at 7.8 it seems. I like it so far. Right now I’m testing with both and I agree with each with my subjective reading. It uses a diff red dye.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't have any color-reading trouble normally (I do it for a living), but I did struggle with the pH test, too, for some reason. Marty (TFP Expert) suggested I use four drops instead of five (basically the same idea as yours, diluting), and bam! The color of the test sample is much easier to match. I ran this by Taylor's tech support and it was panned. They said "no good." But I do it anyway and it works for me (and Marty).

im going to try this today dirk. Cool. Thanks man.

 

[riley00dog]

I don't have any color-reading trouble normally (I do it for a living), but I did struggle with the pH test, too, for some reason. Marty (TFP Expert) suggested I use four drops instead of five (basically the same idea as yours, diluting), and bam! The color of the test sample is much easier to match. I ran this by Taylor's tech support and it was panned. They said "no good." But I do it anyway and it works for me (and Marty).

Glad I’m not alone. I don’t usually have trouble with colour matching either. My ccl test is only two drops so not sure I could get away with one drop. The pbs test I have though sounds the same at 5 drops. Might see how I go with 4 drops on that test. Have just had some useful info on my ccl ph testing on my thread. Hopefully between all this good info I can start to feel a little more comfortable. It doesn’t help that my ph probe was not holding calibration and now I don’t trust its reading (whereas before it matched my testing and I felt at ease). Not even sure anymore if what it is telling me is correct since I have nothing reliable to compare it to.

 

[riley00dog]

thanks!

i bought a digital stick. I think it stinks. It has to be calibrated at same temp of pool water to be accurate and even then it isn’t. I used a standard solution to calibrate. Tested water I knew was 7.5 and it said it was 8. It’s in the garbage. Let me know if u find a good one. I bought the yellow one from here.


The tube tube uses a 44 mk sample. It’s in .2 vs .4 readings so now u know if u are at 8.0. Vs the other which is 7.8 to 8.2. I add when I hit 8.0. Cause I can’t sit at 7.8 it seems. I like it so far. Right now I’m testing with both and I agree with each with my subjective reading. It uses a diff red dye.

- - - Updated - - -



im going to try this today dirk. Cool. Thanks man.

Yup, heard all the ph meters suck. Oh well.

Would much prefer the .2 increments over .4. To me that’s a big jump. Will have a look and see if I can get something shipped here.

 

[ctrav]

No to pH meter here as well. The larger tube requires more water and a different regent as well (R-0004). The 4 drop method does seem to work better for me when using the smaller tube but I have not tried on the larger one.

 

[jimim]

I still owe cliff for the money he wasted in the ph meter. Lol

cliff I like the bigger tube.

I wish the color diff were like red vs green vs purple vs blue. Lol. Then no argument with colors.

 

[Dirk]

Slight hijack...

This is why I went with IntellipH to solve my high pH. The pH test result was often higher than the deepest color, so I was left each time wondering "Is that 8.0, or 8.2 or 8.6?!?" With the acid injector, my pH is now always 7.6 (which is great by itself), but that means I can always know the number, instead of wondering, because it's no longer ever literally "off the charts."

I'd love to make use of Pentair's IntelliChem system, which dispenses acid and chlorine based on its own digital measuring of each. All automatic. But all the posts above confirm what I've read about measuring pH digitally: it's flakey, it needs to be calibrated, and it doesn't work all that great. Not at the level of pH probe quality (expense) we're dealing with here, anyway. Maybe Pentair's pH reader is of better quality, and maybe it isn't! But I couldn't bring myself to trust a machine to read pH, not when that same machine is allowed to pour in the acid, too! I think John Connor had some trouble with a similar problem when the military turned over all the nuclear weapons to Skynet!!

Titration, on the other hand, is pretty tried and true. Something comforting about the Taylor tests, knowing, at least within 10% or so, what's going on in the water. Temperature independent, calibration free! My pH color bars are in 0.2 increments, and since using the four drop trick, and a little practice, I can now see in-between the colors, so I can now get 0.1 increment results.

 

[ctrav]

Love automation but the price tag on this is a little steep for the IntelliChem at $500+

 

[Dirk]

Love automation but the price tag on this is a little steep for the IntelliChem at $500+

Did you mean "IntellipH at $500+"? The IntelliChem is four figures, and that's for just one pump (acid or chlorine). For both it's even more!

Yes $500 was steep (mine was a little less), but I was literally a hostage to my pool, I couldn't leave my house!! I suppose there was some cheaper alternative, but I had to add acid everyday, and I just can't ask my daughter or my neighbor to do that. Maybe once or twice, every once is a great while, but not every day for weeks at a time several times a year. Most of the $500 will hopefully be a one-time expense (the all-plastic container). The motor will go out eventually. That's $150. Maybe I'll get five years out of that? There are maintenance parts to be replaced annually, I think in the $50 range, so deferred over decades, the total cost is quite reasonable when compared to the cost of some knucklehead pool guy coming in once a week to do a much worse job of it. Even if I only hired one for the two-week stretches.

Yah, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!!

 

[ctrav]

Good story and at least you are no longer hostage I can go 2 weeks without adding MA if I lower to say 7.4 and don't aerate.

 

[Dirk]

Good story and at least you are no longer hostage I can go 2 weeks without adding MA if I lower to say 7.4 and don't aerate.

Wait, I just remembered. I'm still not talking to you, you dirty post stealer!!

 

[ctrav]

I thought if I kept talking to you that you would forget

 

[riley00dog]

Slight hijack...

This is why I went with IntellipH to solve my high pH. The pH test result was often higher than the deepest color, so I was left each time wondering "Is that 8.0, or 8.2 or 8.6?!?" With the acid injector, my pH is now always 7.6 (which is great by itself), but that means I can always know the number, instead of wondering, because it's no longer ever literally "off the charts."

Yeah you just need to keep an eye on on you intelliph to make sure it stays calibrated.

 

[Dirk]

Yeah you just need to keep an eye on on you intelliph to make sure it stays calibrated.

True. But you're kinda making my point for me. I don't think tech is there yet to turn a pool's chemistry over to it. I've solved for dosing, but not testing. And I'm not sure I would if I could. Keeping an eye on everything with titration testing seems prudent, and reassuring, at least until "they" come up with a very reliable alternative.

 

[jimim]

Skynet. Lol. Nice.

Dirk you still bummed cliff stole ur thunder. Lol

dirk here is no such thing as hijacking in this thread. Did u ever see the tangents I do off on about fishing or other random voices in my head. Lol

anyway. I’m deff going to look into the intelchem if my ph doesn’t stabilize this season. My plaster is still not 1 ur old even. I’ll make a descision next season. My buddy had it and loves it.

Right now i test my ph everyday and I’m adding 16-23 oz every 3 days. As soon as it hits 8 I take it down to 7.5 so I don’t wreck my csi.

Even if I took it down to 7.2 it still climbs back quickly. I don’t have a comfort spot yet.