How to Make Millet Starch at Home

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Millet . two types of grains shown
Millet

Millet starch is produced from millet. It is a very cheap good food for children, particularly toddlers. You can make it at home if you have a blender.

Items you need prepare millet starch;

  1. Millet ( at least 1kg)
  2. Blender
  3. Clean buckets, bowls or container. (large enough to store and soak the millet grains)
  4. Water
  5. Sieving cloth bag

Processing;

  1. Soak the millet with water inside a container for about 4 days. This is to soften the grains and make it easier to blend.
  2. Blend the millet grains. Using water, blend grains into a smooth paste as much as possible.
  3. Get ready clean water in a bucket or container up to half its capacity, and while holding the sieving cloth bag inside the bucket, pour the blended millet paste into it.
  4. You can use your left hand to seal the top of the sieve bag, and with the filled bottom part of the bag in water, wash and squeeze out the starch content into the water.
  5. Remove the shaft residue in the sieve bag.

You should sieve the blended millet paste little by little. You can even blend and then sieve, and repeat process until all millet grains is processed.

  • Wait a day for the starch to settle
  • Your millet starch is ready.
millet starch

How to make Palm Kernel Seed Oil at home

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Palm kernel seed oil
Palm Kernel Seed Oil

Items you will need to make palm kernel seed oil

  1. Palm kernel seeds. To extract substantial quantity you will need up to 1 congo or seeds weighting about 1.5kg
  2. An old cooking pot
  3. A metal cooking spoon for stirring
  4. A cooking device, for example a camp gas or an electric cooker

Caution

This process generates a lot of white smoke, its safest doing this out doors at the backyard of your home.

Processing of palm seed oil

  1. The first step is to crush the palm kernel shells to remove the seeds. To extract a substantial amount of oil you will need up to 1.5kg of seeds.
  2. Put the seeds into a clean dry cooking pot and place on your activated cooking device. The process will generate a lot of smoke so put on your nose marks if necessary.
  3. Start stirring the seeds with a metal spoon. This is to distribute the cooking heat evenly across the seeds. Stirring should be done intermittently say every 30sec to 1min intervals.
  4. Keep stirring intermittently until. Smoke begin to form. This indicates oil is beginning to extract from the heated seeds.
  5. Keep on stirring, After substantial amount of oil is extracted you can pour into a metal bowl
  6. Continue the previous process until all oil in the seeds is extracted.
  7. When all oil in the seeds have been extracted the seed will look burnt inside out
  8. Finally let the oil cool down and pour into a clean plastic Bottle.
  9. You can extract over 250ml of oil from 1.5kg of seeds.

Understanding the Wire Colours connected to Electrical Appliances

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Wire Colours connected to Electrical Appliances
wire colours

All electronic appliances comes attached with a power cable for connecting to electricity outlet in your house.The power cable may contain 2 or 3 wires. A power cable with 2 wire colours are in RED and BLUE. A power cable with 3 wires have the colours GREEN, RED and BLUE.

Meaning of the wire colours

The Wire colours have their meanings and It is briefly explained below;

Red colour : Live wire

Brown or Black colour : Live wire

Blue or White colour: Neural wire

Green or Yellow colour: Earth wire

In some places, the live wire is black in colour and the neutral wire is white.

The red or brown wire is “LIVE” as the name implies, electric current flows through this wire. The live wire supplies electric current to the appliance. You should take care when you handle this kind of wire. It can cause an electric shock

The blue wire is “NEUTRAL” . This wire do not give a shock upon touching it or show a red light through a tester. In reality it carries electric current back to the power source. It is the neutral wire that allows the current to alternate. Neutral wire is an integral component of an AC power system.

The green wire is “EARTH” . The purpose of this wire is to remove excess electric charges that might be on the connected appliance and drive them into the earth. It is good practice to earthen electrical appliances to prevent any form of electric shock upon contact. The Earth wire is usually connected to a metal rod driven into the ground.

Some electrical appliance come with just the live and neutral wire. This is Ok. But you are always at a risk of receiving electric shock from contact with the appliance when connected to electricity. This usually happens when the electrical appliance is faulty.

The live wire supplies current to the appliance, the neutral wire carries it back and the earth wire is to serve as protection from electric shock.

How to estimate the number of Blocks required for wall construction

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On a construction site it may become necessary to estimate the number of blocks required for the construction of a wall. To do it correctly you will need to read the construction plan or building plan and section drawing. From the building plan you will need to know;

  1. The length of the wall
  2. The height of the wall
  3. The thickness of the wall
  4. Window or door spaces within the wall unit.

In most cases, the thickness of the wall is not required unless the wall thickness is greater than the width or thickness of the block.

How to estimate the number of blocks using AREA METHOD

This method requires that you know the number of blocks required to construct 1m2 of wall. For a normal block size of length 450mm, height 225mm, and width 225mm, with thickness of wall the same as the block, there is approximately 8 blocks per 1m2. Simply put; 8 blocks per m2 

The above result was obtained practically, however other calculations report a value of between 8-10 blocks per m2 .

How to practically obtain the number of blocks per unit area

calculating the no of blocks per square meter

You can obtain the result practically, look for an already constructed wall of similar type you want to build. The wall should still show the exposed block work, or is not yet rendered. Then with a builders square or builder’s level, draw a square of 1m dimension on the wall using a chalk or erasable material. The square you draw should have an area of 1m2 .Next, count the number of blocks that fall within the square. The result you get is the number of blocks per square meter. This method works for any size of block or brick.

Now that you have the amount of blocks per m2 , look at the building and section plan then calculate the area of the wall using the area formula of length x height .  From this wall area, deduct any area of door and window spaces. Finally multiply the wall area by number of blocks per unit area or per m2 . (note the unit)

Formula for number of blocks required = (Area of wall) X (no. of blocks per unit area)

Simple example;

length and height of wall to calculate area

A wall of length 5m and height 3m will have an area of

5m X 3m = 15m2

Therefore number of blocks = 15m2 X 8 = 120 Blocks.

How to estimate the number of blocks using DIMENSION METHOD

This method involve using the block dimensions to estimate the number of blocks required for a wall construction.

Lets assume you are required to estimate the number of blocks in foundation required to fence a plot of land. Block will be laid in stretcher bond. The height of wall in foundation being about 450mm. and we are to use block size of length 450mm, height 225mm, and width 225mm. The dimensions of the plot of land being 30m by 15m. Here is what you do;

Perimeter of plot of land;

2 X (30+15)m = 90m

Since the wall will be constructed in stretcher bond, you will just divide the perimeter of the plot of land by the length of the block;

90m / 0.45m = 200 blocks          ( note; 450mm is converted to m by dividing it by 1000)

This 200 blocks is the approximate number of blocks required for the 1st layer in foundation.

Since the height of wall in foundation is 450mm, it means we will have 2 layers of blocks in foundation i.e. 450mm / 225mm (height of block) = 2

Hence total blocks required for foundation is 200 blocks X 2 = 400 blocks

Engine Smoke

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Black smoke:  when an engine smoke is black, it means there is too much fuel and less oxygen in the combustion space. Too much fuel in the combustion space also means flooding of the engine. Cars with fuel injectors don’t usually flood the engine.

car emitting black smoke

White smoke: when an engine emits white smoke, it means too much air in the engine and not enough fuel in the combustion space.

Blue smoke:  when an engine emits blue smoke, its means combustion of lubrication oil in the combustion space.

Life Support Systems of an Engine

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The life support system of an engine are;

Air and Exhaust

Lubrication oil

Fuel

Water

Electrical

Air and Exhaust System:

Oxygen is needed for internal combustion to occur. This is why engines are fitted with an air intake system. Air intake systems delivers filtered and cooled air into the combustion space.

Burnt air from the combustion chamber, is taken out through the exhaust system. Sound produced from internal combustion is very loud. The exhaust system also reduces this sound into acceptable levels.

Lubrication System;

Lubrication oil does two things for the engine; lubricate and cool the engine.

Lubrication system consists of mainly of, oil pump, oil filter, lubricating oil, and lubricating paths. Lubrication of engine parts is necessary to maintain optimum performance and prevent overheating.

Note that in smaller engines, a water radiator cooling system is not necessary. This is because the amount of heat generated  can be cool by the lubricating oil.

For two stroke engines or small engines, cooling and lubrication is achieved by mixing one part lubricating oil with 100 parts of fuel.

For bigger engines such as the 4 stroke engines, much heat is generated and so in addition to cooling and lubrication water is used to cool the engine.

Fuel System:

Fuel is needed to provide the energy needed for the engine to work. The 3 major fuel types are; petrol, diesel and gas. Modern day engines deliver fuel into the combustion space using fuel injectors. Fuel is delivered to the combustion space from the fuel tank with the aid of fuel pump through the fuel injectors. The injectors then delivers the fuel into the combustion space.

Cooling water system:

Water is used primarily to cool the engine. For smaller engines, it is optional. But bigger engines must be fitted with a water cooling system.

The main components of water cooling system consists of Radiator, fan, water pump, cooling water pipes and channels within the engine.

The main area of the engine that cooling water is required is the combustion chambers also known as cylinders. This is where combustion takes place, and consequently a lot of heat generated. Water is required to cool these areas so engine will not overheat and cause damage.

Cooling water passes through channels surrounding the combustion chambers to cool the engine.

The function of the radiator and fan is to cool down hot water generated when it initially passed around the hot combustion chambers before it recirculates.

Cooling water system thereby keeps the engine running at its optimum temperature.

Electrical System:

Engines are usually fitted with an electrical system to control the way the engine works. Among other functions, electricity is needed to control fuel injection into the combustion chambers. Modern day fuel injectors are electrically controlled.

The two main parts of and engine electrical system is a battery and an alternator. The major function of the battery is to start the engine. For smaller engines, a battery may not be required, a starter cord can be used to start the engine.

In a car engine for instance, battery supplies electricity to a starter motor for it to start. The starter motor drives a flywheel. The flywheel in turn rotates the crankshaft which make the piston move up and down for internal combustion to take place. The internal combustion produces the energy required to make the engine run on its own.  Once the engine starts to run on its own, the starter coil disengages to prevent itself from damage.

For a car, other battery loads include; interior and exterior lights, alarms, and very importantly, the engine control unit.

The engine control unit controls the timing and other operations of the engine. An example of a function of the engine control unit is the timing of the fuel injectors.

The alternator is powered by the engine. The function of the alternator is to charge the battery and supply electricity for other functions. For a car, the electricity supplied can be used to on headlamps,   interior lights, horns, radio, air conditioner etc., when the car engine is running.