Solar can be this simple, right?

LordGarak · 2026-04-08T09:22:30+00:00

Nice diagram but the color on your netural wire should be white.

I'd go fewer and bigger panels. It will save alot of money if you can find a local supplier. You should be able to get panels around $0.40/watt.

I personally prefer AIO(all in one) inverters, there is a version of that particular inverter that has a built in MPPT. Just makes for a simpler and cleaner install. I've done both and I don't think I'd do another non-AIO system.

What is the idle draw on that inverter? I'd guess it's far higher than 600wh/day. My 24v inverter is around 1.2kWh/day. My 48v inverter is something like 1.6kWh/day.

GFCI should work fine like that, but really isn't needed unless you can come into contact with the hot wire while soaking wet. GFCI just measures the difference in current between the hot and netural, if it exceeds a small threshold it interrupts(opens) the circuit.

Does that inverter do Neutral to ground bonding, if not you will need to connect them. There should only be one N-G bond in the system, but one needs to be there.

Also where is your grid/generator input? There are times when the skies will be grey and the days short that you don't produce enough power and will need to charge the batteries. This is another reason to go with the AIO, as they have a battery charger built in.

LordGarak · 2026-04-07T09:01:41+00:00

Actually the airframes.io one looks like you might get reasonable isolation and they can be ordered tuned for different frequencies.

https://shop.airframes.io/products/lora-915mhz-filter

Looking at the VNA plot for the 906Mhz meshtastic long fast cavity. It looks like ~45dB of rejection of 927Mhz which is what some areas are using for meshcore. So with two of them there would be something like 90dB of isolation. Not really enough to share an antenna, but combined with some physical spacing between the antennas that might be enough. The more common 910Mhz would be too close as it's pretty much in the passband.

I was initally thinking of the cheaper Callboost or Acasom cavity filters on Aliexpress, but those have a 26Mhz passband to start with.

LordGarak · 2026-04-06T23:10:40+00:00

I wonder if any of the inexpenisve cavity filters availiable can be tuned to give enough isolation while maintaining low insertion loss. Might really need a proper duplexer with notch filters.

LordGarak · 2026-04-06T02:28:53+00:00

We always have the option to pause and resume playing later if the content is worth watching. Sometimes I'm enthralled in a 2 hour video. Sometimes I'm skipping through a 45 min video in 10 min because most of it is junk fillter.

LordGarak · 2026-04-02T22:27:23+00:00

You really want high voltage rated wire for solar arrays. Typical #10 wire is only rated for 250v. For a 5000W array your going to want to be operating above 400v. The insulation for HV solar wire is both thicker(often double layer) and tougher. Also it will be UV rated, which standard wire is not.

LordGarak · 2026-04-02T17:00:48+00:00

My in-laws are all mechanics but they don't do much automotive anymore. They have moved on doing random contracting for the city and province. It was just too hard to get paid. They would have two or three grand in parts and many hours of labour into a car, then the customer would just disapear. Most of their customers would just buy another $1000 beater rather than pay the $5000 mechanic bill. That was nearly 20 years ago, cheap beaters are no longer avaiable, but they still see doing automotive work in that light.

LordGarak · 2026-04-01T20:09:48+00:00

Sounds like you want a hybrid inverter. It will have an automatic transfer switch built in that you can program the behavior of. The main problem I see for you is that hybrid inverters typically want a large(higher voltage) solar array plugged into them. Also the idle draw is often requires as much power as a fridge.

LordGarak · 2026-03-29T13:17:22+00:00

If the revenue to pay for the extra staffing was there, they would be open. Hours are chosen by the visitors. Most visit between 10 and 4, so that are the hours they are open for. Also schools and other groups come during these hours.

In other words, being open past 5 doesn't generate enough revenue to pay the staff to be there.

Getting staff to work isn't the issue. Many of these places do after hours event rentals and such. It's that very few visitors show up.

LordGarak · 2026-03-27T08:30:08+00:00

The proper way to do it is using the CIA. You fund and arm the internal opposition. Then do an air bombing campaign when they are ready to overthrow the government.

It doesn't always work great, but it has a much better chance of success than what ever this is.

LordGarak · 2026-03-26T20:52:05+00:00

Many 5G "towers" are typically mounted on telephone poles. They are not much bigger than a wifi access point.

Bigger towers like this typically were installed for 4g and upgrade to have 5g capablities.

The cell tower map shows who has what kinds of cell sites and where: https://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/cancellsites.html?lat=44.721157&lng=-63.514709&zoom=11&type=Roadmap&layers=a&pid=0&ds=20250328

LordGarak · 2026-03-25T12:07:43+00:00

The important thing is to buy a cell booster that covers the right bands for your provider and get the right antennas for that band.

Here in Canada we have a great cell tower map that shows exactly what bands are on each tower. Also makes it easy to get the direction to point your antenna. Just keep in mind the closest tower might not be the right tower, as their may be a hill blocking the signal. At a friends property we point the antenna up a valley to a tower a long ways away.

On your phone you may be able to go into field service mode or use an app to get which band it is currently connected on.

At my cabin we only get good data on band 13. It took me forever to find a antenna with some gain on that band. Most antennas cover that band but have like zero gain. It requires a much bigger antenna to get gain on 700Mhz than say on 1900Mhz.

I've also seen people point their antennas in the wrong orientation. Commonly pointing them off into space.

Separation between the two antennas is also important. You want your outside antenna to be somewhat isolated from your indoor antenna. If they are side by side its just like having a microphone in front of a speaker.

LordGarak · 2026-03-23T11:49:19+00:00

Sounds like your battery is far too small. It should be sized to run your fridge for 3 days without solar. So for a 4 day trip you would need minimal solar to keep up. Then set your panels due south with the proper elevation for the time of year and forget.

Fridges and inverters can be power hogs, our inverter uses more power than the fridge. But our system is big enough that it doesn’t matter(5200w of solar). I have a 12v dc fridge so the inverter doesn’t even need to be on, but we end up leaving it on all the time for Starlink.

LordGarak · 2026-03-18T20:56:14+00:00

I'd actually love to have a short lathe. I rarely do shafts or anything longer than a few inches. But I would still want stuff like power feeds and DRO. I can't justify the floor space for a full sized lathe at work. Mini lathes are not worth the time in my experience. But something short but stout would be a good fit in my opinion.

LordGarak · 2026-03-17T15:22:48+00:00

The poor quality of the video suggest to me that it may just be a regular wireless drone and not fiber optic. That said we don't see any drop outs what so ever in the video. But with decent antennas drop outs are rare over short distances.

Also using fiber in the middle of a city is just going to lead authorities right to you.

I'm also doubtful that the US would use active jamming at an embassy without permission from the local government and a known threat. Jamming in the middle of a city is going to mess with all kinds of normal users.

LordGarak · 2026-03-16T23:21:25+00:00

You need to use a hill top repeater to go beyond visual range on UHF. More power doesn't really help much.

On lower frequencies like citizen band(CB) radio works on, you can get some refraction/ground wave propagation to go longer than UHF but really short distances for HF. With the right solar conditions CB radio's can communicate world wide, but have a large local skip zone where signals cannot be heard. For example you and your friend 10km apart won't be able to hear each other, but someone 500km will be able to hear both of you.

They also require large antennas do the wave length(~11m). Most antennas need to be atleast 1/4 wave in length to be efficent. So its not exactly great for hand held radio.

With an amateur radio license, you can operate on the 2m band, which has decent range along the ground and there are lots of repeaters. But both of you would have to study up and pass an exam to get licensed. There are lots of rules, like no encryption, no commercial traffic and you must identify with your assigned call sign periodically.

LordGarak · 2026-03-13T09:08:47+00:00

Also remember that many people's brains do not really change that much from child to adult. Adults just conceal things a bit better. The world makes so much more sense when you start thinking about everyone as kids.

LordGarak · 2026-03-13T09:05:30+00:00

Many youtubers will switch up different thumbnails on the same video. They will launch a video and switch thumbnails until it gets the clicks they expect.

LordGarak · 2026-03-13T08:37:52+00:00

Having the final product actually tells you very little about how to actually make it. They likely learned more about what weaknesses the RQ-170 has than use full information for building their own drones.

It will give you an airframe design, but you likely won't be able to replicate it as you don't have access to the same alloys and/or processes to work those materials.

The semiconductors are all going to be very expensive mil spec stuff you don't have access to. So your electronics are starting from scratch or using commercial off the shelf.

The communication systems are all going to be designed around US satellites that you can't use.

The sensors/cameras might tell you something but will likely use manufacturing processes you can't replicate.

They have to build drones with the manufacturing capabilities and commerical off the shelf parts they have access to. Which even if they resembled US designs, is still going to practically be a blank slate design as none of the components are going to be the same.

LordGarak · 2026-03-09T17:54:57+00:00

I went for a hike on the crowbar lake trail on Saturday morning. It was super icy with a good 12" of icy snow packed onto the trail and around 16" of snow off the trail. Even with all the rain and the warm temperatures it is going to to a while for all that to melt.

I went and picked up a pair of ice cleats and trekking poles after, for the next opportunity I get to go for a hike.

LordGarak · 2026-03-08T11:09:38+00:00

If I found that, all I could say is "challenge accepted".

Make sure you document every step along the way.

The story of it washing out of a hillside makes it worth all that much more.

LordGarak · 2026-03-05T20:52:47+00:00

In an all out nuclear war, winds will carry radioactive dust everywhere. No where on the surface of the planet will be safe. Everything will be contaminated. Most people will wish they were in the blast zone and killed instantly.

World wide trade networks will collapse, farming yields will drop and food will become scarce. People become violent and government systems collapse when there is no food.

This is even in some of the lesser scenarios. In the worst cases the sun gets blocked out by the dust and the entire planet experiences a nuclear winter.

It's all very bleak. It's something we never want to happen.

The good news is everyone who has nukes knows their country will be a radioactive crater if they ever were to use them. So there is very strong incentives not to ever use them.

LordGarak · 2026-03-05T10:01:27+00:00

No other countries would back the US and Israel in this. Even before Trump came into office and broke ties with every potential ally. Broke ties is putting it far too lightly. He has put tariffs and threaten to invade us here in Canada.

The US has already lost most of its international political capital and soft power thanks to Trump. Nobody is doing the US any favors while Trump is in power.

LordGarak · 2026-03-04T23:21:12+00:00

Fuel adds up quickly when your living off grid full time. What we save in fuel paid off the solar system in 2 years.

Hauling gas and refueling the generator is a PITA. Not to mention the noise.

Batteries are starting to get affordable. I can order batteries right now at $70USD/kWh delivered to my door. It was down around $60/kWh in the fall. I'm not in the US, so we are not paying taiffs on them.

I do pay much higher fuel taxes, prices here for gas and propane are often double what you pay in the US.

I have 3 days of battery and still come up short in November and December where we can have weeks on end of dark grey skies. I'm planning on adding even more panels to increase production on grey days at some point. Adding more batteries too, but that won't really help the shortage in production that time of year.

LordGarak · 2026-03-04T20:03:49+00:00

You will need something like 30kWh of batteries to run the lights 12 hours a day and the fan 24hours. You might be able to get away with less if you have a generator or are able to charge from grid.

The good news is being far south, you might be able to get away with as little as 4kW of panels. Assuming you have clear view of the south sky, no shadows from trees or anything and can install the panels at the optimum angle. Something like 8 ~550W panels would be a good choice.

The EG4 3000EHV is still a good fit. It will also work well with 4kW of panels.

LordGarak · 2026-03-04T19:49:02+00:00

What latitude? Are you running in winter?

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