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I am writing this post from Sydney, Australia. Visa restrictions have brought me back to Sydney briefly (I flew out of SFO, Sunday 3rd August), in which I have an appointment with the US Consulate tomorrow morning to arrange for a six month US Visitor Visa to complete the PIEQF project. Thanks for the support letters from the USGS, The Long Now Foundation and UNSW. I am booked to fly back to San Francisco next Tuesday the 12th August. I aim to be back in Parkfield around the 13 or 14th August to test the final phase of software then switch the PIEQF system onto live mode.

Three months ago when I booked this return flight back to Australia I certainly had figured that the PIEQF would have have been operational. I did consider postponing the flight but it was complicated as it required changing two flights and the expenses associated, I am still working with limited and literally NO funds. It is hoped that the PIEQF system will be switched onto live mode around the 14-16th August.

In retrospect and such is the learning curve and scale of this project I wish I had not been so public in specifying specific dates in which I had intended to run the PIEQF. It has been discussed with the land owner John Varian, and the PIEQF will now run until mid/ late October or early November. The completion date of the PIEQF has now become very open ended.

Wildblue Bandwidth Restriction Lifted

The post I made on the 27th July about my Wildblue Bandwidth Restrictions generated interest within Wildblue Corp itself as a Wildblue marketing and product manger contacted me early last week as a result of this post. I have just had contact this morning (6th August) and the system bandwidth limit has now been reset. This is great news as the Wildblue Internet Satellite system is now set to ready to go live again with the PIEQF web cam and video streaming. What I have too now be aware of is that the web cam will now only post refreshed images every 60-90 seconds to avoid maxing out my 5gb p/mnth upload limit. This is not ideal but it is the constraints the project has to work with.

Thankyou Wildblue for considering my request in having my bandwidth restriction limit lifted. Your support in this unusual circumstance is appreciated.

Chassis Rack Retrofit

Between August 26th and 29th I stripped down the chassis control rack located inside the wooden control bunker at the rear of the trench. Both the SEIS control box and STREAM video streaming box were cleaned as well as SIPS (pull down resistors) were soldered onto the MCC I/O card. (mentioned in previous post) The 24vdc and 5vdc power supplies were tested and mounted. The Vernier Amplifiers were installed. These amplifiers boost the input signal from the Geophones placed in the field around the PIEQF installation which trigger the vertical motion of the table.

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Onsite Software Testing

Geo Homsy arrived onsite in Parkfield on Wednesday 30th August and stayed until Friday 1st August. It was great to have Geo onsite with the PIEQF testing output software.

Geo has written a series of physic based output algorythms which drive the shake table. Essentially the principal behind these algorythms is based on the idea of dropping a stone in a pond and watching the waves propagate outwards from the centre. This is similar to how waves travel through the earth from the point of rupture on a faultline when an earthquake occurs. (Epicentre) The work Geo has done here interfaces with the input software that Stock from the V2 Institute for the Unstable Media has written which interpret the QDDS seismic input feed and the interface between the shake table and the Geophones installed in the field around the installation.

The Geophones are very responsive to the point when the pump valve is open and supplying full delivery to the shake table, feedback between the table and the geophones occur. The geophones are extremely sensitive and are placed approximately 25 - 30ft away from the table. This makes things interesting and is very cool the idea that the mechanical vibration of the table through the excavation is causing this to occur. When the PIEQF is switched onto autonomous mode the local sensing of the table (geophones) will only be triggered with the hydraulic pump supplying minimal delivery to the shake table. This stops feedback occurring.

When an actual seismic event is reported via the QDDS system (Californian Earthquakes) the table will run at full operational delivery. When this occurs software will isolate the DAS08 input card which will Stop feedback occuring between the site and the shake table.Final software testing will take place in Parkfield around the 14th and 15th August. It is envisaged that the PIEQF will go live around the 16th August.

Vertical Motion Stabilization

Just before leaving Parkfield to fly back to Sydney I spent all Saturday 2nd August(and part of the night) and early Sunday morning fabricating a vertical motion stabilization frame underneath the shake table.What was happening was when attaching steel rods to the table the floor pieces were tilting over around 15 degrees as the vertical motion hydraulic actuators have two degrees of movement in how they are connected to the vertical lifting floor pieces.The photographs below detail the solution;

Parkfield Quotes

Since being in Parkfield installing the PIEQF a couple of great quotes come to mind that have been put to me while onsite.

“Can you weld?”, was John Varians answer when I asked him several weeks ago if I could borrow his Miller mobile welder generator unit.

“Why didn’t you make the trench 20ft deep?”, was a question posed by a visitor to the site who lives in Fresno. Could question, maybe next time if the possibility arises in the future.

D.V.Rogers

Sydney

6th August 2008

Wildblue

Last weekend I lost connectivity to PIEQF via the Wildblue Satellite Internet Service. In affect what has happened is that the system exceeded the Wildblue fair usage policy. The PIEQF account with Wildblue has a Download limit of 17gb p/mth and Upload limit of 5gb p/mth. What was not pointed out to me is that the usage is capped and slowed down when usage reaches 70%. OK!

In effect this means that the PIEQF account has a Download limit of 11.9gb and an Upload limit of 3.5gb. Is that fair trading and misleading advertising? Basically what happened is that the PIEQF web cam used up the 70% of the outgoing bandwidth limit. Wildblue then restricted and capped the service.

What was reliably running at Download Speeds between 1000kbps to 1500kbps and Upload Speeds between 100kbps to 250kbps has now been extremely restricted. Most recent speed tests on the 24th July reported Download Speed of 104 kbps and Upload Speed of 19 kbps. Hard to work with that!

I spoke with Wildblue Customer service on two occasions during the week. This didn’t get me anywhere. In fact it was very unhelpful customer service. I explained the situation and what the PIEQF Wildblue service was being used for, this achieved nothing! Tough! In fact the words ‘You Are Being Punished for Exceeding Your Bandwidth Limits’, was given by customer support.

OK. What has baffled me is that the whole time the Wildblue service has been installed I have been unable to access the Wildblue bandwidth meter. I sent an email off to Wildblue weeks ago about this. No reply!

What surprised me was that Wildblue indicated I had used up 14gb of my Download Limit and 4.6gb of my Upload limit. I dont understand how it is possible to even download that much data from the 3rd July of which the roll over month starts.

Now I just have to wait for the month to rollover before the PIEQF Wildblue bandwidth is restrictions are lifted. I have tried speaking with Ed Knudsen, Sales and Marketing Manager of Wildblue in Colorado. At this point without success.

Wildblue is Wild! No PIEQF webcam or video streaming for the time being.

A 56k sonic.net dialup connection will be in place shortly.

PIEQF Bunker

The 6ft L x 4ft W x 6ft H wooden control bunker at the rear of the trench is now the focus of work. I have spent the past two days tidying it up, wiring in the 24vdc and 5vdc power supplies. I have just soldered in a bunch of resistors on the I/O card to prevent the I/O card from floating high on start up. The bunker itself and cable runs are being tidied up. It is small air conditioned room and rather confined to move about and work in. The idea is to get the Control Bunker as comfortable and workable as possible.

One of the video cameras has gone down, 100ft cable run is broken so need to replace it. Next time the PIEQF cameras go back on line the cameras positions will have changed.

Prior setting up camp behind the Parkfield Inn in the Pace Arrow RV I was literally living and working in the dirt. Losing tools in the trench was a daily battle, this made working slow go besides the heat. The new camp which will be home for several months now is pretty comfortable. Now I lose tools in the straw! No internet access though, thats what the control bunker is for.

The RV is rather cool with a big fan running, no air conditioning though which is OK, keeps the power costs down. My 12 inch OSX powerbook does not like the heat so much and it gets Hot, need to source a cooling pad at some point.

PIEQF Project Status

Finishing off the final stages of getting the control bunker and Advantech industrial chassis racks ready. 56K Dial Up connection needs to be configured. Next step is mechanical testing. With all things be equal this shoudn’t take too long, but you never know!. This should happen over the next day or so. Thats the theory anyway.

I have 37 Steel Rod Mounts fabricated and ready to fixed to the table. Still undecided as how many steel rods to mount to start with. At this point considering around 20-20 5/8 steel rods around 12-16ft in length. Mechanical testing will determine what length and thickness of material I use to start with.

A liquid level sensor needs to be installed in the Hydraulic Tank. This is a back up in case a hydraulic line blows which in affect would bleed the hydraulic pump dry.

Then software testing during this week coming. Stock’s work with all the incoming seismic feed and Geophone interface is all ready to be tested. Mr Snows video streaming development is all tried and tested, just a few changes to be made so bandwidth is not chewed up when the Wildblue comes back up to the desired Download and Upload Speeds. Last step Geo Homsy’s output software development is the final phase.

Time has just vanished. Originally the system was planned to be operational from the 28th June, that is almost a month ago and the PIEQF system is still not operational. Not overly concerned, this is the first project I have worked on where I have missed the deadline. I knew this by mid-June this would be the case. There has been very little I can do about this. Its a massive project but starting to look very good if not running a late from my original intention.

John Varian the land owner has agreed for the PIEQF to continue running through until mid/late October, possibly early November if the rains keep away. Which by all accounts is a possiibility that the Califonian drought will continue until December.

Next time constraint I am dealing with is I have to fly back to Sydney, Australia on the Sunday 3rd August, returning to Parkfield on the 13th August. This flight was booked several months ago and back then when the flight was booked I thought I would have had ample time to get this ambitious project up and running. Not the case, large scale earthwork machine performances need more time. Most earthworks are permanent, not this one! Hopefully system will be up before I depart next Sunday week. Seven full days of work to get the final stages complete. If this is the case I will be leaving the system unattended. In theory that should work, thats the theory anyway…

PIEQF is an Open project, with an Open start date, and an Open finish date!

D.V.Rogers
26th July 2008

PIEQF Stills / 23rd July 2008

I left the PIEQF site in Parkfield for the first time since the excavation took place on the 9th June. Besides the odd night at Christina McPhee’s bed and breakfast in Atascerdero, which is always a treat with a hot shower to boot.

Friday 18th June I drove out of Parkfield late in the afternoon collecting some steel 4″ x 3″ rod mounts from PRW Steel in Paso Robles before heading onto Mark Lottor’s house in Menlo Park, stayed the night…

Connectivity to the site in Parkfield went down at 10.46am Saturday morning. Bummer. Strange how, first time I leave site for any length of time and the Wildblue service goes down.

Into San Francisco for Saturday night and evening at the Box Shop with the Flaming Lotus Girls as they demonstrated three pods of their “Mutopia” project which will be seen at Burning Man this August.

Sunday afternoon / evening was spent on the East Bay at the Todd Blair Gear Wall Fundraiser. Todd Blair suffered a serious brain trauma while packing up the most recent SRL show in Amsterdam last September. Please donate and help out Todd Blair with his extensive recovery program. There are various ways to donate, please check out toddnow.org on how to do so.

Early Monday morning 21st July was spent at the Box Shop fabricating 30 rod mounts for the installation here in Parkfield. Thanks Charlie Gadeken.

Left San Francisco around 7pm, headed for Atascadero and Christina McPhees house for a final hot shower for a while. Had a tire blow out 20 miles south of San Miguel. That was fun, had no wheel brace (tire iron) but improvised with a few tools I had with me. Late meal with Christina, Terry and Karl who was visiting from Kansas City.

Lazy morning, arrived back in Parkfield mid afternoon to work out why connectivity has gone down. It looks like I have exceeded my bandwidth limit.. Ah shit. The trials and tribulation of working with minimal resources….

Check out another great video edits Christina McPhee has posted on youtube.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qauV3rXiQOI

The Babelfish @ yahoo translation of the word “Exhausted” came up with “Agotado” in Spanish. Thats how I feel, tired and almost burnt out. The conditions here in Parkfield have begun to take its toll. Though happy the PIEQF is nearly ready. The site and the installation of the shake table is starting to look very good.

It was not my intention to use this blog as some kind of personal document that covers and describes the hardship and endurance required to install 8000lbs of machine inside a 50ft long, 25ft wide and 6ft in depth excavated trench in stifling conditions that average out between 95-110 F during the day.

Michael Heizer has been working on his “City” project for almost thirty years and is due for completion sometime before 2010. Chris Burden had himself shot in the right arm by a friend in the name of art in the late 1960’s. I heard not so long ago that Mr Burden was attacked by Coyotes and suffered nerve damage to his right arm. Robert Smithson lost his life in 1972 in a light plane crash while surveying a potential site.

The only risk to life and limb here with the PIEQF is the potential of the rear walls of trench caving in and enclosing the wooden control bunker in which this post is being written from. Its cool, its Air conditioned. Though it is confined and measures 6ft x 6ft x 4ft. Just enough room for a chassis rack and small table and chair. The other risks are exhaustion and heat stroke. As yet I have not seen any rattlesnakes!

It is now the 14th July and the 28th June was the intended switch on date for the PIEQF. Realistically this will not happen until next week sometime which means the project will be running almost 3-4 weeks late before the shake table switches over to auto mode and will be triggered by near real-time Californian seismic events.

As a result the PIEQF will continue into October sometime and hopefully avoid any heavy rain that does not normally arrive until November / December. But it happens!

The site is almost complete, the shake table is 90% mechanically finished with a fabrication job required underneath the table to stop the vertical motion floor pieces from tilting over which as a result means the 1/2 inch and 5/8 steel rods will lean over. Thirty mounts are currently being fabricated at PRW Steel in Paso Robles.

Final phase is to finish off the chassis rack, wire in the Solid State Relay rack and 24vdc and 5vdc power supplies. Then software testing and installation of the Geophone vertical displacement sensors around the shake table here in Parkfield.

The video streaming and web cam software has been finalised, tested and working really well, thankyou Mr Snow of laudanum.net. Stock at V2 in Rotterdam, Holland has developed all the input side of the system creating a Python parsing script which interprets the USGS QDDS near realtime seismic event reporting list. Thanks for your patience Stock before we can test the software. Looking forward to having Geo Homsy on board soon to finalise the output of Stock’s input code which drives the shake table. Andy Michael of the USGS hopes to be onsite here in Parkfield mid August to fine tune the Geophone interface.

It has been quite a performance in getting this far as difficult as it has been and testing as the conditions are. The heat, the dirt, the thirst and drive to keep going. So close yet so far.

D.V.Rogers

Monday 14th July 2008

Babalou’s Flickr Library of the PIEQF from the 4th July Weekend 2008

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22004144@N00/

Around 4.45pm on Sunday 6th of July I was sitting in the control bunker which is an air conditioned shack made from rustic old doors found here in Parkfield. When the temporary cover above the rear of the trench began to flap violently. The next thing I heard was the sound of falling gravel and stones. My first thought was that the walls at the rear of the trench were collapsing.

I opened the doors of the control bunker to check out the situation, and so far so good the walls of the trench were not giving way. (Admittedly it is something I may need to address later as the trench begins to dry out even more) I climbed out of the rear of the trench up the old wooden ladder I have placed for rear access to the installation. Hovering around the field of the PIEQF was a dust devil (mini tornado) around 20ft in height spinning violently before heading west into the dry creek directly behind the installation then dissapating.

Glancing over at the shake table I observed the 3/4 inch 20ft steel rod I had installed on the 4th July with a “Star Spangled Banner” hanging from it had been caught inside the Dust Devil and bent over at right angles at the point where the rod mount is fixed to the shake table. Wow!

I spoke with some folk who had been on the verandah of the Parkfield Cafe at the time and they were just as amazed as I was. They said the Dust Devil literally sat on top of the shake table and had the 20ft rod and USA Flag spinning on the spot for about 5 seconds before the rod collapsed.

A dust devil hot spot has been created as a result of the excavation in which the PIEQF has been installed. A couple of weeks ago when Scott Cotner was in Parkfield assisting with the assembly of the shake table next to the container, another dust devil came through the site and lifted the huge white cover and poles we were working under throwing a support pole 10-15 ft in the air. Then proceeded to literally drive down the road next to the installation and out the Parkfield Cafe Coral gates.

PIEQF has the potential to become a mini Tacoma Bridge in which wind shear caused it to collapse in 1940. It is quite possible that another Dust Devil could come through the PIEQF site and twist all the the steel rods once they are installed! Nothing like other natural elements to deal with let alone earthquakes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge

Dust Devil Flag Fall

Peter Luka & Babalou from San Francisco arrived late on Thursday night the 3rd July. The morning of the 4th was spent moving the communications and power into the bunker at the rear of the trench. Final position of the the four CCTV cameras being used was installed.

Around 5pm, 4th July a little ceremony was held when the US Flag was raised on top of the shake table as a symbolic gesture towards the fact it was 4th July, Independence Day. Ironic how a Dust Devil brought it down 4 days later and not hydraulic testing of the EQ Shake Table.

4th July Flag Raising

The evening was spent at the V6 Ranch celebrating the 4th July with the Varian Family with friends and fireworks.

The morning of the 5th July Peter Luka and I ran the main hydraulic lines to the powerpack and adjusted the taps of the step up transformer. Incoming is 240 volts and secondary outgoing is 460V and the hydraulic powerpack appears to be running nicely. Thanks Mike Oneil from Paso Robles who assisted with wiring in the transformer and Independant Electrical Supply of Paso Robles for supplying sub panel, fused disconnect switches and related hardware.

Babalou and Peter headed back to San Franciso late afternoon of the 5th and I continued working until late around 1am plumbing the hydraulics to the solenoid valve banks. I was entertained by the 80’s greatest hits from a wedding reception that was held outside the Parkfield Cafe that night.

Sunday 6th July was somewhat of recovery day!

Morning of Monday the 7th July I was up early mounting the roller bearings and horizontal motion actuators. The actuators need re-aligining to the table and I also have a semi-major mechanical modification do to with welding in place a series of steel fingers to keep the floor panels from rocking from side to side. Because the vertical motion actuators are mounted with alignment couplings there is approximately 20-30 degrees of movement which will result in the rods leaning over which is not ideal. I had my suspicions this may happen before leaving Australia…

One of many tasks to be completed before the PIEQF system is completely operational. I hope to be testing by the end of the week.

I need some rest, I’m exhausted and the weather is heating up again. 100 F in the shade today. I have AC in the wooden bunker at the rear of the trench which is giving some respite. It still needs to be dust proofed.

El Fonzo and family were on site for a couple of hours filling in the telephone and power trenches tonight. The teared sides of the excavation was rake off and tidied up.

PIEQF is almost ready. I am moving my camp away from the installation this Wednesday morning to behind the Parkfield Inn under a couple of large oak trees.

Rest soon.

D.V.Rogers

7th July 2008