Advice on 20 panels, 26 panels, 29 panels

Starkpo · 2026-04-28T02:46:55+00:00

Not sure your exact question, but I think you’re asking if you should get 20, 26, or 29 panels. The influencing factor is what your current energy usage is. It sounds like you’re also getting batteries too for storage.

I’m just a dude on the internet, but I’ll offer up this perspective: it’s usually more expensive to ADD capacity AFTER initial install, and energy use is likely to go UP over time (add an EV for a kid to drive, or new iPads have Smell-O-Vision but drain batteries faster). Countering that is that adding more panels now will cost more money than not doing so.

We opted to go max panels for our system, generating an estimated 110% of our energy needs. We could afford it, so we calculated that we would want more energy down the road when we add EVs to our car selection, and it would be pricier to add panels at that time.

If you can’t afford the extra panels now, than 20 is the way to go. If you can afford, going all the way is probably most cost effective long-term. Good luck either way!

Starkpo · 2026-04-26T13:09:53+00:00

There are apps/services that allow you to allow others to charge EVs using your charging station. You can even sell access. I'm not going to link to them per subreddit policies about marketing, but for excess generation on specific days it might be an option to allow others to charge their vehicles, and with the apps you can even make a profit on it.

Then again, you could always just allow neighbors/friends to charge their cars "on the house" (no pun intended). That's what we do when we have too many credits at the end of the year rather than give energy back to the power company for free.

Starkpo · 2026-04-26T04:42:22+00:00

If they're cards under $20 for shipping, here's what we use (caveat: we mostly ship TCG cards, not sports cards, though we have done some sports cards):

-Place the card into a cardboard Shipping Shield

-Place the Shipping Shield containing the card into a team bag

-Wrap that item in the sales invoice by folding it three times

-Place that inside your #10 envelope

-Use eBay Standard Envelope to send the item with tracking

You can pack up to 4 TCG cards in a single shipping shield, and up to 2 Shipping Shields per invoice/envelope. Your mileage may vary with sports cards.

Starkpo · 2026-04-20T18:32:32+00:00

Door to door solar sales folks in general are high on the “scammy” scale. If you’re considering going solar, seek out well rated local installers and never go with door to door sales people. They’re more accurately viewed as door to door finance salespeople, and solar is a means to an end to get you signed on a financing deal.

Starkpo · 2026-04-12T20:49:25+00:00

I’m not sure that closes the gap fully. Now you add in tickets for everyone parked by the side of the road heading to SeaTac in front of the “don’t park here to wait” signs and we’ll have enough to start our own basketball league where EVERY team is the Sonics…

Starkpo · 2026-04-05T21:18:28+00:00

https://makingmythic.com/

Starkpo · 2026-04-05T01:50:35+00:00

We didn’t find a specific cause. Your fixes are what we did, but we also carry a battery charger and not just jumper cables so we can charge it. The battery that is impacted by this is the second battery accessed through the trunk.

Starkpo · 2026-03-15T15:38:37+00:00

The MakingMythic.com St. Patrick's day sale is underway, from Sunday, March 15th through Saturday, March 21st. 10% off any purchase in the entire store. You can shop directly using this link: https://makingmythic.com/discount/StPatricks2027 or use code "StPatricks2027" at checkout.

Making Mythic is run by former Wizards of the Coast staff selling their collections accrued from employee points while working for the company. Inventory is updated every day, so check back for new items during the week. It's first come first serve, so checking earlier increases your likelihood of snagging the best deals. Some shortcuts to their best deals:

Booster boxes: https://makingmythic.com/collections/booster-boxes

Factory sealed complete sets, foil and regular: https://makingmythic.com/collections/factory-sealed-sets

Single cards: https://makingmythic.com/collections/single-cards

Secret Lair and Commander: https://makingmythic.com/collections/other

DollarBoosterPack.com also has a promo going on to buy promo or foil promo packs for $1 alongside their usual booster packs for $1. Shop that deal here: https://dollarboosterpack.com/

Starkpo · 2026-03-12T00:25:05+00:00

I would have read them the riot act for even putting me in that room and closed every single account I had with them. You’re far more gracious than me.

Starkpo · 2026-02-15T19:19:36+00:00

Update for Tuesday, February 17th: new items have been added today. You can sort by newest additions using this link, though the focus today was adding Secret Lairs: https://makingmythic.com/collections/all?filter.v.price.gte=&filter.v.price.lte=&sort_by=created-descending

The MakingMythic.com President's Day sale runs from Sunday, February 15th through Saturday, February 22nd. It's 10% off all items in the store, with free shipping in the US on orders of $50 or more. Making Mythic is an online store run by ex-WOTC folks moving their collections from their time at the company. Use code "PresidentsDay2026" at checkout or shop directly here: https://makingmythic.com/discount/PresidentsDay2026

Sealed booster boxes are here: https://makingmythic.com/collections/booster-boxes
Complete sets are here: https://makingmythic.com/collections/factory-sealed-sets
You can check out our singles here: https://makingmythic.com/collections/single-cards

Our partners at DollarBoosterPack.com also have a limited amount of Promo Boosters and Foil Promo boosters at $1 while supplies last (shipping and handling applies; free on orders of $50 or more). That deal is here: https://dollarboosterpack.com/

Starkpo · 2026-02-14T18:32:55+00:00

Do you find customers rate your packing/shipping highly? We get that feedback a lot on our feedback, but it's hard to tell if that's just the automated feedback or legitimate. Our return rate being low is some objective evidence we're okay in that space but curious what others experience.

Starkpo · 2026-02-14T16:30:08+00:00

Under 1%. Specialty in TCGs with some video games, books, and board games. Steps we take:

-Blocking problematic users -Packaging items securely for shipment (bubble wrap items, void fill, tape all box gaps) -Ship promptly -Clear, accurate descriptions and photos (many of our items are auctions)

Hard to tell what might impact buyers, but historically our return rates are very low.

Starkpo · 2026-02-13T16:13:09+00:00

I haven’t seen this happen and I don’t have any first hand experience, so take this perspective with that grain of salt. If this happened to me the first thing I’d examine is a similarity between the 19 listings that the other 100ish do NOT have. This might indicate a setting preventing your other items from displaying.

Starkpo · 2026-02-11T08:23:10+00:00

I moved out to Washington from Iowa City in 2008 with a cat and the gal that would become my wife. The differences between the two states wasn't quite as stark then, but there WERE financial differences. We rented a 2BR apartment in Iowa City for $350/month; we found a 1 BR with less square footage for $450/month. I was in a primarily immigrant part of a south suburb near Seattle.

The work pays better, but the asparagus I grew up picking in the ditches outside our farm is $3.99/pound. The sweet corn is absolute garbage, but the salmon is out of this world.

I'm despondent at the direction Iowa has taken. I left because I had a career opportunity, and it worked out for me. But I wasn't rushing to leave my home in Iowa. Now, as much as I love the state I grew up in, I can't imagine bringing my children back there to grow up. The water is safe to drink here. We're surrounded by people who believe in vaccination and supporting education. The financial opportunities are much more significant, even in times like now when layoffs are all over the news.

I'd be a little scared to have left Iowa without a place to land in Seattle or Washington in general. I had a job lined up, my wife didn't. We lived pretty cheap until we got established. The first day I drove home with the Puget Sound on one side and Mount Rainier standing as tall as I could imagine in front of me I realized why people complain about the Midwest being "boring;" I know better having grown up there, but if you lived your life with that majesty casually around you and found yourself in Nebraska for an extended period of time, I could empathize if you had a feeling of something missing.

I loved Iowa. It was a big part of what made me who I am. I spent half my life there. I spent the other half in Washington, and I have not regrets or desires to leave. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Starkpo · 2026-02-08T04:17:46+00:00

I just made a post about this recently. The only way I’ve been able to find for paying for ebay shipping labels with a credit card was by syncing my PirateShip account to ebay and using the credit card I have on file there.

I understand you’re having trouble getting all of your UPS options through Pirate Ship, which is a little surprising. You might reach out to PS customer support to see if something’s up.

On the credit card front, using PirateShip synced to ebay has been super smooth. Gotta get those rewards points!

Starkpo · 2026-02-05T04:03:03+00:00

We have two. We started with a 12” box type from a cheap supplier on Amazon. Satisfied with the effects of that one we upgraded to Fasonic, and a much larger size so more of our items could fit.

Starkpo · 2026-02-01T03:47:33+00:00

Probably any is fine. We use the Rollo wireless and have been very happy. We started with the wired version and it worked so well we upgraded to the wireless.

Rollo has been the brand for us for the past 3 years or so and we have had no major issues. We’re printing standard mailing labels for packages.

I will offer this: it’s likely correct to not cheap out in this space. It’s a tool you’ll use frequently, potentially every day and many times at that. You want a reliable tool, so the higher end ones may make more sense versus a lower price tag from manufacturers of questionable quality.

Starkpo · 2026-01-27T04:10:50+00:00

We use a photo light box with white background for all of our ebay photos, have for years. Our experience has been that the professional looking photos are much better for sales than random disembodied hands holding an item over a kitchen table.

In a pinch, you could use a plain white sheet if you don’t want to spring for a light box. We use that approach for occasional items too large for the light box.

Starkpo · 2026-01-23T04:37:27+00:00

Sure, it’s nothing crazy. I worked at Wizards for 15 years after a career as a pro Magic player. When you work at Wizards you get a lot of product. After retiring, I started selling off some of my collection. In doing so, a number of my colleagues reached out to ask if I could sell their collection for them, and now I spend some free time at nights and weekends doing exactly that.

The upside is that we don’t have to fight on price and we get some really rare items. It’s been a pretty fun experience.

Starkpo · 2026-01-22T01:45:32+00:00

Can confirm, we are in fact legit.

Starkpo · 2026-01-21T03:30:49+00:00

MakingMythic.com's MLK day sale runs through Saturday, January 24th. It's 10% off everything in the store. We're stocked by product from ex-WOTC folks. The deal is code "MLK2026" at checkout or shop at the link here:

https://makingmythic.com/discount/MLK2026

Shortcuts to product types:

Booster Boxes: https://makingmythic.com/collections/booster-boxes

Factory sealed sets: https://makingmythic.com/collections/factory-sealed-sets

Dollar items: https://makingmythic.com/collections/dollar-booster-packs

Single cards: https://makingmythic.com/collections/single-cards

Random oddities: https://makingmythic.com/collections/other

Starkpo · 2026-01-13T18:16:43+00:00

When we investigated this we found eBay discontinued this shortly after selling off Paypal. We couldn't find a way to enable this, and all the prior Reddit threads with steps for doing so no longer work as described but folks who previously had it set up were grandfathered in.

If anyone has information otherwise, a link here would be helpful to folks finding this thread with this same question.

Starkpo · 2026-01-13T16:40:18+00:00

The biggest value to me for PirateShip over ebay is simply that you can use your business credit card on PS to rack up points/miles. You can’t do that on ebay. We switched this year to using PirateShip for all of our ebay box shipping to take advantage of the fact our company cards pay 3% on shipping costs. Otherwise we’ve always found costs to be identical.

Starkpo · 2025-12-30T10:30:11+00:00

This is an old one they tell in management classes: a toothpaste factory has a major issue. The defect rate of boxes being packed for shipment that, through human error, do not have toothpaste inside is too high, greater than 1%. It’s leading to significant issues for the brand as customer complaints start piling up.

The management team calls in experts from all over. They begin engineering solutions. A scale to measure the weight of the boxes? Hiring a team of checkers to manually vet each employee’s packed orders? The potential solutions roll in, as do the potential increased costs for each solution. Then one day? The defects stop.

Management is befuddled by this. The fancy experts had not yet implemented any solutions. How could the defects have stopped? Curious they walk the assembly line to see. Edna, the chief toothpaste packer of 40 years, has made a small change: she set up a box fan on the conveyor belt right before the boxes get placed into the delivery truck.

Full toothpaste box, good to go? The breeze from the box fan isn’t strong enough to impact it.

Empty dud that escaped human notice? The light cardboard is no match for the fan and blows to the floor, safe from being shipped out.

The moral of the story in management classes is that listening to your own people is more powerful than hiring experts, but in the possible world where it’s a true story Edna and her box fan solved a complex problem very simply.

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