remote-controlled electrical sockets

as useful technical aid. I am using these things for years to switch my

Christmas Tree lighting

on and off. Since a couple of weeks my living room lamp gets switched on by a ghostly hand. I think it’s quite funny, a neighbour is probably using the same frequency!

Translator BL

When I was still “footer” I got up depending on my shift at 04:30 h. It is clear that it is quite dark at this time if you are going around the bed and the bedside lamp has been switched off before. My shinbone every now and then bumped into the edge of the bed frame and lost.

For this reason I acquired at that time a battery-operated

LED night light with motion detector

which I used quasi as under-bed illumination. These things are meanwhile quite low-priced purchasable in the do-it-yourself store or sometimes at the discounter for less than 10 €.

Now I have the LED light standing on my bedside table. So I just have to wave with my hand to turn on the light.
This is great because due to the paralysis of the legs/hips I am lying literally like a beetle on the back and can’t reach the switch of the normal bedside lamp without greater difficulties. The lamps also make sense on the floor of the flat, so you don’t have to switch on and off all lights when rolling from room to room.

Equipped with rechargeable batteries I see daylight at night for around 3 months.

LED = light-emitting diode

Translator BL

It is always a little difficult to switch on and off electric devices sitting in a wheelchair.

There are always missing the commonly known 2 cm.
Not 1 cm, or 5 cm?
There are always 2 cm.

I have the theory that this results from mass inertia, momentum and black holes.

Here is the solution:

remote-controlled electrical sockets!!!

A remote-controlled Christmas Tree lighting is quite nice.

(see other blogpost)

Radio coverage allegedly until 25 m. (Probably only at full moon on April 1st).

You can get regularly special offers for a pack of 4!
(15 €, not much more.)

If you buy the pack of 4 twice from the same manufacturer, you should change the radio frequency with the little DIP switches, (in German) also known as

mice piano

.

It might happen otherwise that the toilet light is switched on together with the coffee machine.

Well, maybe not so bad after all… let’s think about it again…

It is not complicated to change the switches.
Every quadriplegic who manages it should get a piece of cake or two from his occupational therapist.

Serious safety instruction:
Please always consider the max. switching power, around 1000 watt.
Never connect an electric heater, around 2000 watt!!!
The switches get hot and might start burning.
I have experimentally connected an electric heater, the electrical socket didn’t survive!!!

Should there be any difficulties with playing the keys (setting the switches) I am at your disposal as professional ”piano tutor” .

Have fun with the piano lesson.

Translator BL

As wheeler out in the wild you are not really noticed by the pedestrians.
This is getting extreme in bigger crowds like sports events or festivals.
It is quite funny if at a street fair the girls take a seat on your lap because you have been again overlooked. But the whole thing gradually gets a little irritating when the number of “hitchhikers” increases towards evening in the dark.

My tip is a

head light

Ideally a blinking one.
These things are simply great.
The pedestrians see the light between their legs, are totally confused, and a gap is formed as if Moses had parted the sea.

Because H4 spotlights on a wheelchair are quite rare such a head light is very recommendable for nightly excursions.
With it each pothole is seen and can now be driven around, depending on the condition of the wheeler.

Not only alcohol but also the taking of pills can reduce the fitness to drive. Opium for the people. Drive slooooowly!!

Translator BL

For each ambitious frequent traveller a

bicycle tachometer with mileage counter

on the wheelchair is a must.

It does make sense to let the Automobile Association know the kilometre on the highway in case of a defect on the wheelchair

I guess the pills are already working.

Never, no, no, never ever

you should have the idea like me to install a bicycle tachometer on your wheelchair which is working

radio-based

(at least supposedly) unless you are under psychological counselling at that time.

This device has almost converted me to

believe in Voodoo.

I won’t comment on the fact why the part is sold as solar driven and two batteries are enclosed.

This tachometer had an integrated

So-what-or-I-am-annoying-you mechanism. .

After a couple of hours the tachometer was fixed on the wheelchair, adjusted, programmed, and finally seemed to

work.

The next morning I was sitting on my dining table and had breakfast.

Now check it out:
The display started to

“run wild”

Believe it or not, I have covered a distance of

21 Kilometres (a half marathon)

while consuming

two pieces of toast.

Unimaginable what would have happened if there would have been an egg on top.
When I moved away from my dining table

one meter

everything was OK again!
When I turned out the

dining room light

I could move to my table again without any bugging of the tachometer.

I am a professional electronic technician and felt the inner desire to return my craft certificate to the chamber of commerce when it wasn’t possible for me to get a bicycle tachometer

working.

Four possibilities remained:

1. In future have breakfast in the dark or not at all.
2. Ignore the tachometer, or dispense it at a recycling site.
3. Contact the supplier and explain the issue.
4. Register myself at the Paralympics, it could be true?!

I discovered that the electronic transformer with its phase angle modulated power (even I have learnt something once during my apprenticeship) of the

dining room halogen lamps

was disturbing the wireless transmission of the tachometer.

Something like this should not effect the wireless transmission over 60 cm.
The mistake is not caused by my lamp.
But who would drive his bike in his apartment around his dining table?
Probably nobody has noticed it yet.

I think the technician of the supplier, whom I had on the phone, is still

laughing/crying.

Now I have a tachometer without wireless LAN which is working well.

For the truth of the story I stake with my right front wheel.

Translator BL