Yup !
You read that right.
Man, it’s been a very busy August, September and October…I mean really busy. It started earlier in the summer when we ran out of water a couple times while irrigating. Yeah, trouble with the dang wireless float switch and the well simply not pumping enough water. A one-two punch to the budget.
During the hottest and driest months we have to irrigate every day. The 14-tree fruit orchard, two berry patches, the melon patch, two vegetable gardens, and fifteen 2 – 4 year-old pine trees have to get water every day. And then there is the yard. It takes water to keep it all alive.
I’ve literally been battling a water supply issue for seven years. First the wrong type of pump…a pump that required AC electricity when we just didn’t have that available. Then buying an undersized solar pump. Then multiple lightning strikes taking out multiple pump controller units. This past summer finally just pushed us past the breaking point. Dang it!!
Starting in August came very early mornings and long days trying to figure it all out. We knew we had to buy a new pump…ouch! But the control box I built last year wasn’t doing the job either. And neither was the wireless float switch…it was failing…till it completely failed.
All of it was failing!
Now a three way punch to the budget.
So I spent weeks clearly identifying the problems. Then another couple of weeks trying to find the right solutions. The wireless float switch took about 3 days of troubleshooting with the vendor. Problem solved! They shipped a warranty-covered replacement system. Yea!
The next problem got solved almost accidentally. I got an email from the pump company advertising a sale on pumps for Labor Day. And yup…the right pump was on sale for a killer deal. Pump problem solved overnight. Yea!
That left the control box that I built last year that wasn’t working right. I looked around again for a couple weeks and found nothing that would do what we needed it to do. So…rebuild time!
For a couple weeks I went over every component, every wire, every connection till I found not just the problem(s) but the solution…the right solution. So I bought the right parts, (re)built it, tested it, and installed it. Bingo!!! It worked perfectly…as designed none the less. Yea!
Friends came over and we had a well party swapping the pump. All went well (pun intended) and it worked great. Then came the idea…did I just invent something that could be patented?
Short answer…yes!
Then came several weeks of formal design process, documenting, drawings, etc. Then an agonizing day of filing a provisional patent. Federal government bureaucracy at its absolute worst!
But it got done…party time! Wife started shopping for a G550 Gulfstream jet. Yeah, I kinda told her she might want to hold off for a while…like forever. Wife not happy. Bummer!
And that brought me to two weeks ago…another well pump controller concept. And two more weeks of design, drawings, yada, yada, yada. And another patent filing next week…two in the same month!
Now dear wife is shopping for the jet again…and a new Denali. Yikes!
Why the heck am I sharing all this? It’s been a very long three months and not nearly as much writing and posting as I would like.
Now, as I start wrapping a lot of this patent stuff up and the is garden going to sleep till spring I will have more time. And I have some news…my outlook has changed a bit more. And my writing focus will follow that lead. So you better stand-by for different articles and more stories. And a subject I am still refining is looming on the horizon.
Wish me well on finding the right company to partner with on the two “Patent Pending” well controller products. I am doing it right though…I have one prototype built, installed, and working every single day for weeks without any issues. Tuesday I am starting on building the latest prototype that is even better. That build should take me about 10 days. It’s exciting!
And on top of that…I hope you enjoy the slight change in direction that is coming to the website.
Cool story coming on Wednesday! Look for it.