Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

Over the past few weeks I have noticed some issues with my UPS when the power goes out and our Inverter kicks in. Earlier then the mains power came back when the UPS was on inverter it would loose power for about 1/2 a second which is enough to restart any computer connected to the UPS. So I took it for servicing and the guys over there increased the sensitivity of the UPS and it looked like it worked for a while…

Two days later I noticed that when the system was running off the inverter power it was having trouble, basically it looked like the UPS was cutting to battery and then back to mains ~ two times a second. Spoke to the UPS people and they said that it might be a problem with the inverter voltage/frequency and asked me to reduce the sensitivity or connect it to a socket without the inverter. So I bypassed the inverter and connected it directly to the mains.

Now the problem is that there is one hour loadshedding in the morning and if I am running the computer the UPS drains out in 20 mins and shuts down. Which was a pain. So I installed the UPS control software on my desktop and reset the sensitivity back to medium. Then I was just playing with the various options and I saw that the incoming voltage was 280 Volts (Normal voltage in India is 220 Volts) when the inverter was running.

I thought that it might be a bug in the software and it was probably showing the wrong voltage so I took my digital multimeter out and used that to measure the voltage. Sure enough it was 280 volts. Immediately disconnected the UPS from the inverter line and connected it directly to the mains line.

Spoke to the inverter people today (actually dad spoke to them) and they tried to tell me that the inverter was giving a cosine wave instead of a sine wave so thats why the voltmeter was reading the voltage incorrectly and that its supposed to give 280 volts and if we put more load on it then the voltage would go down to the correct value. Told them to stop BSing and send someone over to look at it. So a tech is coming tomorrow.(Hopefully).

Till then all my equipment is off the inverter line. Hopefully this will get fixed soon.

– Suramya

PS: Incase you are wondering; an inverter is sort of like a UPS but for the whole house. The one we are using is 1400 KVA. You also get ones with larger capacities that can support AC loads etc.

Got my laptop back and its working great so far. 🙂
You have no idea how annoying it is to not have your computer working. I was using other computers but since I had my laptop customized to my needs it got annoying when I tried to do something on the new system and it didn’t work because I hadn’t installed that program or customized that install.

But everything’s working again. Now to reinstall Windows on Dad’s laptop…

– Suramya

The fan on my laptop failed so I decided to get it repaired before it caused trouble due to overheating. I already had a slight accident with the heating while I was in Bangalore. One of the rubber legs under the laptop melted due to the heat.

Anyways so I took the laptop to Nehru place and showed it to one of the shops over there. They replaced the fan and it looked like everything was working. Unfortunately when I got back home I found that I am unable to keep the laptop running for more than 5 mins at a time, it just shuts down. Looks like some sort of trouble with the CPU/heating/power-supply. Will take it back there tomorrow.

Currently using my dad’s laptop to remotely connect to my desktop. Using the desktop because the laptop has some issues with the windows version on it and I don’t want to sit on the desktop as the AC is not installed in the study room yet.

Lets see… Hopefully I can get the stupid laptop fixed.

– Suramya

Finally setup my new home theater system that I had bought about two weeks ago. I got an altec lansing 5.1 speaker set and they sound awesome. I like the new system but have the following issues with it:

1. They didn’t give any means to hang the speakers on the wall. (More on this later)
2. The speaker with the volume control is the front right speaker. It should have been the center speaker as that would usually sit on the TV/Music system.

As they didn’t give me any hooks/tape/screws to put up the speakers I had to figure out a way to have the speakers up on the wall. Initially I wanted to use sticky tape but dad vetoed that idea as the tape tends to come off in time and he didn’t want the speakers to keep dropping off. Then we thought that we could create a platform for each of the speaker but that idea was dropped because it was too much work. Finally dad convinced me to drill holes in my brand new speakers so that we could put nails through them and hang them. I guess my warranty is no longer valid. But on the bright side the speakers stayed up.

The part that took the longest was running the cables as it had to be neat. Took me almost 3 hours to get all the cables neatly put up. Now I can enjoy my new surround sound system.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

Went for a visit to my relatives on Monday morning and it was a lot of fun. We (Me and mom) left home at 6 am and drove to Basera. The problem was that we just had an engine overall done on our car so we weren’t supposed to drive at more than 50 kph. Believe me, driving at that speed was annoying. We got there at almost 1 pm. (This included a 20 min halt for breakfast). Once we got there we picked up my nephew (Shaurya) from school as it was on the way.

Once we got home we had lunch and talked for a while after which mom showed everyone Surabhi’s wedding photos while I played with Shaurya and Lakshya. Once the sun went down me and Ashok bhaiya went for a drive where I saw the damage that was caused by the recent hailstorm. This was the worst hailstorm in living memory (as per my grandfather). Hail whose size ranged from golf balls to baseballs completely destroyed crops. There was a 100% destruction of crops in most villages. The hail killed a lot of animals and I heard unconfirmed reports that 4 men died because of it.

The evening/late night was spent talking. On the next day Shaurya woke me up pretty early and that was annoying but once I was up it wasn’t that bad. We spent the day playing catch and tagging along with Ashok Bhaiya as he went along with his work.

On the way back we stopped at Goon for a couple of hours and I had a great time over there also with Shipra, Chavi and Badal. We looked at the photos again (I am getting tired of looking at them…) and talked. Actually Rajkumar mama and mom talked while I listened. We left from there and stopped for a glass of Fresh lime soda which was awesome. I love that shop, I have been their customer ever since I can remember and hardly any visits to Basera go by without me stopping at their place.

Over all it was a fun trip and I came back very relaxed even though my back hurts from Shaurya and Lakshya jumping all over me.

This is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

This weekend me and Richa visited Rakhi Didi again. Richa came over in the morning and we both drove over to Rakhi didi’s place. We had lunch and then didi told us that her car had a flat tire so we all went down to the car and I showed them how to change a car’s tire. Once we changed the tire we went to a shop to get the flat repaired. Over there we found a 1 inch nail embedded in the tire which had destroyed the tube so we had to get a new one.

Then we drove to Ria’s school in Greater Noida where we picked up her books for the new academic year. By the time we got home it was 5 pm and the swimming pool had opened so all of us went to the pool where I tried to teach Ria how to swim. I say tried because Ria is scared of the water and clung to me like a limpet most of time. Though after a while she actually started swimming and did it pretty well.

While I was teaching her a couple of ladies came up to me and asked me if I was the new coach. Had to disappoint them by saying no. During the lessons one of the girls who was watching us said “Uncle, take her to the middle of the pool and let her come back on her own” It took a few seconds for me to process that the uncle she was calling was me. It was a bit of a surprise but I guess we are getting old.

Then we went back home and talked till almost 1 am. Then we went to sleep and got up at 7 am so that we could be at home to receive Padmini Buaji and kids who were in town for a day. We spent the entire day looking at Surabhi’s wedding photos, watching the wedding video and talking. It was a lot of fun.

In the evening we had to attend a dinner and she had to catch a train at 10:30pm so I dropped them off at the station. The rest of the night was uneventful. The weather is starting to get warmer. Now I have to keep the fan on because otherwise my room gets super hot.

Well this is all for now. Will write more later.

– Suramya

This weekend was fun, I went over to my cousin Rakhi Didi’s place for the weekend so that I could attend my Niece’s (Ria) annual day celebration at school where she was performing a dance.

The show started at 4:30 pm but the kids were supposed to be there by 2 pm to practice and get ready so we saw Ria off in the school bus and then me and Rakhi didi talked and caught up with each other’s lives. Jijaji is in the US right now on a project so it was just the two of us. Then at 3:30 we left home to be at the school (Ryan International School) by 4.

The performance was awesome. I mean you don’t expect kids from LKG – 5th class to be so talented. The kids did everything from announcing the next item to performing some really cute dances. The whole thing brought back a lot of memories. A long time ago I had also taken part in the school Annual day functions and used to have a blast.

We got back home by 9 pm and once Ria went off to sleep me and didi talked some more. We were up till pretty late. Then didi looked tired so we went to sleep.

The next day also I played with Ria and didi and in the evening Didi drove me back to our place. She is just learning how to drive so she was a bit nervous but she drives pretty well. All she needs is practice.

Overall a fun weekend.

– Suramya