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div

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Everything posted by div

  1. Deprime using universal die SS wet tumble Trim, lube, then size Tumble in lizard litter to remove lube Load Shoot Repeat Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
  2. Anything with ingredients I cannot pronounce. Seafood. Most vegetables. Anything containing gluten (allergic). Most forms of sugar. I am a total PITA to cook for, try to get to go out to eat with, and work has given up in trying to career anything in that I can/will eat. I'm a carnivore. I get my vegetables by eating vegetarians. Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
  3. I'm using a OnePlus One with cyanogenmod currently, but I have several nexus devices as well. Will be installing L on them next week. Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
  4. Thanks for the replies and advise guys. The problem here is that I don't want a truck - I want a diesel 4x4 SUV capable of towing 10k. There's no option but an Excursion. 7.3 Excursions are pretty scarce and when you can find them they have 300k+ and while the motor may still be strong the rest of the vehicle is beat to hell. And since it's a magical 7.3, they think it's still worth 20+ thousand. I can get a 6.0 for a lot less in a lot better shape. I'm not opposed to the idea of dropping a 12v into it at some point down the road, but I simply don't have the time anymore to do it myself, and I don't want to have to do it first thing. All of which brings me back to the original questions. Is there a good diesel mechanic on the board, or one used by members of the board, in west tn (preferably near Memphis) who knows these motors who could talk costs, options, and things to look for when buying? Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
  5. I will be pulling the trigger in the next few weeks on a diesel excursion. I'm looking at several and there are a few nearby that have the options I'm looking for. I know a lot of people bad mouth the 6.0 but from what I understand if you are willing to put the money into them to bulletproof them they can be excellent engines. So my questions are, is there anything I should look out for when inspecting them, and are there any good mechanics on the board in west tn that can go over what all needs to be done and talk costs with me? The one I'm leaning towards right now is a bone stock '04 4x4 3.73 with 100k on it. I know I'll need to do some mods. If my research is right, I'd only have to worry about the head studs if the engine already has a problem - coolant leaks being the biggest symptom. Are there any experts here that can help me out?
  6. div

    Republican Wave

    I don't see much difference between either party. They are all bought and paid for by the same corporate interests and are more interested in lining their pockets and promoting their image than in improving the lives of their constituents. There are individuals on both sides that may have good intentions, but.... I have little faith in any of them as a group to act in the best interest of the people. Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
  7. This. My sinuses used to lock up tight during allergy season. I could count on weeks of misery every year. In the three years since we went low carb and gluten free I might get a little stuffy for a couple of days, but nothing even worth taking OTC meds for.
  8. My next project. A while back I picked up a '60s era Kohler generator rated for 6.5kva. It was in pretty bad shape when I got it and sitting in my shed for a few years didn't help it any I'm sure, but I've decided I want to see what I can do with it. Interesting things about the L600 inline 4-cylinder for use as a generator are that it runs at 1800rpm and it's liquid cooled. In theory this should mean that it can run quieter than a more modern (non-inverter) generator. It also uses the generator has itself as a starter motor. If I can get it running I'm probably going to use it as a backup power source for my home - I need to see how practical it is. Right now it has no spark and the fuel pump is missing pieces so it has no fuel either. When hooked to a battery it turned over freely, had compression, and showed good oil pressure on the gauge. Current state: degreasing and getting years of crud and funk cleaned up so that I can begin working on it. I didn't think to take pics before I started cleaning - these are after an hour of spraying engine degreaser and scrubbing.
  9. Vacuum sealed with a -10 degree deep freeze here. Found a 3 year old pack of ground venison and a 4 year old hunk of tenderloin (I know, I know)... Both were fine. No freezer burn. No odd taste. Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
  10. Honestly, if you're wanting land, and will be working mostly from home and occasionally out of the wolfchase area, I'd look north along i40. Brownsville is just under an hour, and you'll get a lot more for your money out that way. Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
  11. Will you be working in the Wolfchase area? Or are you just looking to live near there? I live in Bartlett and work in south Memphis and my commute is 30-45 minutes on average with traffic. I'm looking out east towards Somerville/Fayette county and north up i40 for land currently. It'll push my commute out to over an hour each way, but... You cannot hunt or shoot in most of the incorporated parts Shelby county - which is most of Shelby county. Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
  12. I drive past this solar farm quite frequently. It and the one at Shelby Farms are on the TVA program for green power. The program is almost impossible to get into, but if you do manage the TVA pays something like 20+ cents per kilowatt hour during peak usage. At that rate you can turn a profit in under 5 years with the size arrays they are running. Solar currently has a bad ROI for homeowner/small business scale operations, but if you have the cash to go big it can be very profitable in addition to being one of the greenest ways to generate electricity, period. In this case they are not throwing our tax dollars away - this is a sound investment in our future imho.
  13.   I did a feasibility study for installing solar where I work earlier this year. The ROI was 27 years assuming no panel degradation over time - and the panels only have a lifespan of 25 years. Just didn't work. Now, if you can get in on one of the TVA programs where they pay you more than the going rate to put solar power back onto the grid that's a different story.   It really depends on what your goal is. For a small cabin that doesn't already have mains power or some type of vacation/bug-out setup I think it's completely feasible. You're not going to be able to run an air conditioner or traditional water heater off of solar, but it seems you can do pretty much anything else.   At this point my install is done. I'll probably post up how everything faired over the winter come spring. If anyone wants more info, or help figuring out a system for them let me know. I spent close to a year researching this setup and figuring out what I needed to accomplish my goals - I'll be happy to share what i've learned so far.   -div
  14. Thanks. ;) it was originally bought as sort of a joke, but I've actually become pretty fond of it.
  15. Well, a silly mistake made getting real world data take a bit longer than I wanted. Laptop fell asleep when it was supposed to be logging and I lost an entire days worth of data. Tuesday evening at dusk I had a fully charged battery bank. I applied a constant load of 5.5 amps to the system to simulate worst case unattended scenario, and started logging. 12 hours later I had pulled 15% off of the battery bank - 66 amp hours. I left the load on and went to work to see how well the solar would cope with recharging the bank while still handling the load. At 7pm when i checked, the batteries showed 100%. Where the camper is now, the array is in the shade from an oak until noon and has full sun exposure from then until sunset. The meter shows the array put 130 amp hours into the batteries, or approximately 1900 watt hours. Peak current flowing into the batteries was 25.8 amps. That's 63% of the theoretical max, so I lost 7% more than the original assumption of 30% for having the panels flat. As the sun shifts lower in the sky as winter progresses that number will get worse, but as temps decrease panel efficiency increases so I'm hoping they will cancel out. I'll also have the trailer located for maximum sun exposure and minimal shading.
  16. Updates: 3x5 aluminum angle cut to 6inch lengths for mounting feet. Drilling holes in the feet for bolting to the solar frame rail (2x2 aluminum angle) and for screwing into the rv roof. Completed frame rail with mounts. Everything bolted up, screwed down (4 #10 screws per mount, 8 mounts. RV ProFlex under and around each mount, as well as in each screw hole. Will go back with Dicor lap sealant in 48 hours and seal all edges with it as well) Everything is plugged up and wired in now. Didn't get finished wiring until after dark so no testing yesterday. Battery bank was down to 75% so I should get a good test across the day today. I'll post up logged data in the next day or so to show real world performance.
  17.   Parts list in my second post. Let me know if you want more detail/specifics of what and why.   Total cost, including batteries, wire, etc... I think I'm probably in for close to $2500. My system is overkill for most folks though - mostly due to the tank heaters in the camper and my desire to leave them on. Last year i didn't make it out one weekend, during the cold snap when we got ice, due to work and the tank heaters killed the battery bank entirely. Got back after being gone 2 weeks and the water lines had frozen. I was lucky that there was minimal damage.   The first step to doing this is really figuring out ust how much power you actually use and need.   I looked at the harbor freight / northern tool panels. The two Renogy panels I bought were $750 after shipping (freight - they are 7'x3.5' and weigh 50lbs each). That's $1.25 a watt. The controller was another $500, which pushes the combo to ~$2 a watt. The harbor freight kits run $200 for a 45 watt kit - $4.44 a watt. You can do a lot better - you can get a cheap renogy kit with a 100w panel and a (not very good quality) controller with mounts, cabling, and free shipping off amazon for $190.
  18.   The controller has built in temp-monitoring. If the heatsink temp gets too high it tapers back the current until the temp is back within range. Having said that the controller is rated for 800 watts on a 12v battery system and 3200 watts on a 48v system (~60 amps, either way) - at my theoretical max of 40 amps i've got some overhead.   And I think i covered the solar efficiency above in my second post. But both points are very valid concerns and things anyone thinking about setting up a system should consider.
  19. OK, let me back up a bit and see if I can answer some of the questions while outlining the rest of the system. The battery bank, four 220ah 6v golf cart batteries wired series-parallel to provide 440ah @12v. Mounted in an aluminum treadplate box on the tongue of the trailer. Wired with 1/0g wire. Battery monitor. Tri-metric 2025. Mounted inside the camper. This is vital to monitoring the system and is how I determined what my needs were off actual usage over the last year. (This pic was right after I connected the panels for a test and is showing 25.8 amps going into the batteries at the time.) Power Center (clockwise from top left in the original post photo): 60amp ANL fuse going to the solar+ Marine on/off switch for solar Morningstar TriStar MPPT 60 Charge Controller Marine on/off switch for battery bank 250amp ANL fuse to battery bank 60amp ANL fuse to camper power center 500v Shunt (left side is to the battery -, right side is to the frame ground, Tristar ground, and solar -) The panels are two 300w Renogy Polycrystaline panels. The system is capable (on paper) of putting out 40+ amps. The panels are ~36v nominal @ ~8amps max each, so a MPPT controller is required to lower the volatage while increasing the amp output. You can see from the test screenshot that they were putting out 30v @ 10a during the test laying in my driveway. When I sized the system, based off my real world usage of 40-60ah per day while below freezing outside running the furnace, lights (all converted to LED), and tank heaters I needed ~720 watt hours to recharge the batteries on a daily basis. In the winter the general consensus is that you can only get ~4 solar hours per day on average in this part of the country (4 total hours of usable solar energy) which meant i needed 180w minimum of solar output. However, on rainy/cloudy days my output will be lower, and if i only had 180w i would never be able to make up for those days. So i doubled the output and said I needed 400w. As has already been mentioned, if you lay the panels flat instead of tilting them towards the sun you can lose ~30% of your output. 600w * 70% = 420w. These will be mounted flat on the roof of the camper (hopefully this weekend). I will be mounting them so that they can tilt, but i didn't want to count on it. I guess i'll find out how well i planned this winter.
  20. I have a stainless PT92. Very happy with it. One of these days I'll get around to modifying a couple of mags to see if I can get them to swap back and forth in my cx4 storm.
  21. Just thought some of you might be interested. My current project is installing 600 watts of soar panels on my travel trailer. I boondock pretty heavily during deer season with the camper and last year I installed 4 6v golf cart batteries to keep it running without using the generator all the time. This year I'm going to try to leave the generator at home. 600w should be enough to keep the 440ah battery bank topped off while using the ducted furnace and tank heaters even in freezing weather. The battery bank would last right at a week from actual usage last year - with the solar I should be good indefinitely (or until I run out of propane) Pics so far: power center installed Panel testing
  22. 65g Gamekings here. I've no hesitation in shooting deer out to about 150 yards with it. At that range it's right at 1000lbs/ft and over 2kft/sec... As long as you are taking shots you are comfortable with I think you're good to go. Know your gun and ammo. Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
  23. AT&T with a OnePlus One. Had to switch off of a grandfathered unlimited data Verizon plan to use the One, but the phone is outstanding. I'm a heavy data user, 8-12gb per month and AT&T so far is outperforming my old 4g Verizon plan, but costing a bit more. Sent from my One using Tapatalk
  24. Currently I have factory ammo in my handguns and hand loads in my 9mm carbine next to the bed. I don't have any issue carrying hand loads, just shooting all the factory up first. In the carbine I can shoot 1 inch groups at 25 yards with a hand load, or 5 inch groups with factory. I prefer to know where my bullet is going. Sent from my One using Tapatalk
  25. I've been thinking about picking one of these up since last spring. I've got a spot near one of my deer stands that would make a great food plot, but it's got some really hard and rocky soil and I don't know how well it would work there. If anyone picks up one of these i'd love to hear a first hand review.

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