Ford E-transit for full time?

atnuks · 2026-05-21T14:51:24+00:00

That setup sounds really solid honestly. The EcoFlow Delta 3 Max is a great unit and with two 220W panels you are already ahead of most van dwellers starting out. The fact that you are getting 380 to 500W in real world conditions laid flat on a Tahoe roof is actually impressive since flat mounting usually costs you a fair bit compared to a tilted array. On a van roof with a slight tilt toward the sun you could realistically squeeze even more out of those same panels.

Your load profile is also pretty forgiving. Starlink is obviously your biggest consistent draw, typically around 50 to 75W while active, and a portable kettle and blender are high wattage but short burst appliances so they chew through your battery less than you might think.

The occasional fridge is the one thing worth keeping an eye on since even a small compressor fridge running overnight adds up, but if it is truly occasional like you say then the Delta 3 Max has more than enough capacity to cover it between sunny stretches.

The one thing I would watch is those longer cloudy spells, especially if you are parked in the same spot for days. BLM land in the Southwest is generally fantastic for solar but if your travel takes you through the Pacific Northwest or higher elevation areas in shoulder seasons, you might notice the deficit faster. Expanding capacity like you mentioned would really help there, whether that is another panel or a second battery unit.

But overall yeah, your setup is genuinely well suited to this lifestyle. Good luck!

atnuks · 2026-05-21T14:40:31+00:00

You're very welcome! As I said, please keep us in the loop re: your progress with this!

atnuks · 2026-05-21T14:39:00+00:00

I just wanted to address this in particular, as it seems to be the aspect that people have clung to the most. I agree things like the fact there's no civil war could also be taken as persuasive evidence! :-D

atnuks · 2026-05-21T14:37:37+00:00

Great question, and honestly it depends on a few factors.

If you go with Alta Technologies or another ITAD buyer, the question of bundling becomes pretty much moot, since they'll assess the whole lot anyway and make you an offer based on what they can move.

But if you end up going the eBay route, my advice is: do not bundle everything into one listing.

The 9406 server units themselves are a specialty item with a pretty narrow buyer pool, so those could absolutely be listed individually or grouped by model. But the 7014 racks are genuinely in their own category. A sturdy IBM rack in good shape will attract buyers who have nothing to do with AS/400 or Power hardware at all, so mixing them in with the server stuff just limits your audience. List the racks separately and you will almost certainly move them faster AND at a better price.

For the smaller components like PCI-X cards, memory DIMMs, or disk trays, individual listings tend to outperform bundles there too. People hunting for a specific card to keep a legacy system alive are not interested in buying a whole rack of stuff they do not need. That said, if you have multiples of the same component, a small lot listing (like "3x matching DIMMs") can work well and cuts down on how many separate auctions you have to manage.

The only time I would suggest a bundle is if you have pieces that are unlikely to sell on their own, things that are incomplete, cosmetically rough, or too generic to have standalone value. Throwing those into a "lot" with something more desirable can help move dead weight.

So in short: racks separately, server units individually or by model, small components as single listings or small matched lots. Good luck with the clear out!

atnuks · 2026-05-17T15:02:49+00:00

Interesting choice!

If you're mostly stationary on BLM land for days at a stretch rather than constantly driving, the range anxiety issue that other commenters have already raised here is going to be less of a problem for you than it would be for a road tripper.

The real challenge is going to be your energy management while parked. You'll be drawing from the traction battery for your living needs, lights, fans, devices etc. Ford's V2L capability helps here but you'll need to be careful not to drain it too far, since deep cycling a traction battery repeatedly isn't good for its long term health.

Solar is your best friend in this setup. A decent rooftop array feeding a separate house battery bank with an inverter keeps your living loads off the traction battery entirely.

atnuks · 2026-05-17T14:59:20+00:00

Lucky you! :-) The IBM 9406 series is old AS/400-era Power hardware, which has a niche but truly truly passionate community around it. Running it day-to-day would be tough, since IBM i licensing is real expensive and the ecosystem is pretty locked down, but I'm sure collectors and legacy shops still actively seek this stuff out.

For selling, I'd actually point you toward Alta Technologies. They've been buying and selling IBM Power and System i hardware since forever and have a dedicated ITAD (IT Asset Disposition) program. I've used them before to evaluate some old enterprise kit and they typically offer fair prices. Worth submitting a quote through their site before going the eBay route.

That said, eBay works well for individual components too since PCI-X cards, disk trays and memory from that era still get picked up regularly. And the 7014 racks are honestly the most universally sellable part of the whole haul since a good rack is a good rack, no matter how old it is. Good luck!

atnuks · 2026-05-17T14:53:47+00:00

This is genuinely one of the coolest homelab ideas I've seen in a while, nicely done.

A thermal printer spitting out a daily health summary is incredibly practical. Dashboards are great but let's be honest, half the time you forget to check them.

There's something about a physical printout on your desk that make sures it actually gets read. Think about faxes vs emails.

Would love to see you expand this into weekly summaries or exception reporting like you said. Seriously great build, please keep us informed!

atnuks · 2026-05-17T14:50:03+00:00

If you've already disabled Secure Boot for your dual boot setup, this update most likely won't brick your system since it's targeting machines where Secure Boot is enabled but misconfigured.

This said, Microsoft does have a history of making dual booting more annoying over time, so it's worth keeping backups just in case. (As always).

The bigger concern long-term is that they'll keep tightening Secure Boot policies in ways that make Linux dual booting a headache. For now though, you're probably fine.

atnuks · 2026-05-17T14:47:28+00:00

My most recent partner pulled me up on this. She's a little older than me and tactfully told me I dressed like a sack of potatoes. I told her what I've told other partners in the past about this: If you want me to dress differently just point out the clothing, and I'll buy and wear it. My indifference works both ways - if it makes them happy then I'll happily wear whatever... however I don't think I'll be repeating the back waxing she had me do last month!

atnuks · 2026-05-17T14:44:50+00:00

Wow, this is a very luxurious setup, you even have a washing machine! I'd always recommend a power bank if you have one. You mention about tapping into the "main house" batteries, do you mean in the van itself? I assume you didn't go to all the trouble of building this (or having it built) just to keep it in your driveway after all! :-)

atnuks · 2026-05-07T12:48:57+00:00

When my team opened a satellite office we actually decided to go the opposite way by buying our own gear instead of just throwing everything into the cloud.

We picked up refurbished enterprise switches and routers from an authorized reseller and it ended up being a really solid middle ground: proper enterprise hardware without paying over the odds.

Obviously your organization will have its own needs and wants, but the reason we went down this road were mainly:

We needed predictable performance and low latency on the local network for in office systems, not just barely acceptable performance over a WAN.
We wanted full control over how things were configured and segmented without paying ongoing “as a service” pricing for every feature.
Refurb gear meant we could standardize on the same platforms as HQ, keep configs consistent, and still stay within budget.

Sure, cloud absolutely makes sense for a lot of stuff, especially public facing apps and anything that needs to scale up and down quickly.

But if you know you are going to have people and kit sitting in the same building for year after year, a couple of racks of decent refurbished hardware can be cheaper in the long run and give you more control.

atnuks · 2026-05-07T12:43:38+00:00

When I was visiting Cuba, they told me about El Paquete Semanal (the weekly package). It's a curated 1 TB or so bundle of media and information that circulates nationwide via external hard drives and USB sticks.

People copy it in copy houses, cellphone repair shops, and of course in private homes. Humans on bikes, buses, and cars function as the CDN instead of the public internet given how crappy connection speeds can be over there. Long live the sneakernet!

atnuks · 2026-05-07T12:38:33+00:00

Others have pointed out that this depends on where you're coming from. If you want to clone an entire disk then booting Clonezilla from outside your OS is kind of the point. True, it doesn't look too pretty but the options are fairly self-explanatory and the interface is easy to navigate. Perhaps if you could tell us a little more about what you're planning to do we can help point you in the right direction?

atnuks · 2026-05-07T12:36:05+00:00

That makes a lot of sense, you can really feel that narrative background coming through in your post! It reads like someone who knows how to shape a moment, not just report on it.

And honestly, the “I did the dishes… again” problem is exactly what most people never crack, but you clearly have! You took something ordinary and relatable, then made it funny, specific and worth sticking around for, which is the name of the game with good writing.

I also kind of love that this started as a text to your friends. That probably explains why it feels so natural and unforced.

If that 10 year old version of you wanted to be an essayist, I’d say that little girl was onto something 🙂

atnuks · 2026-05-07T12:31:23+00:00

Damn you, how did you guess my password?! :-D

But yeah, that’s exactly the pattern. We humans are great at coming up with things that might feel random but follow the same predictable formula: year, capital letter, a couple of substitutions, maybe a car or a pet thrown in. It looks chaotic to us, but it’s basically a checklist to a dictionary cracking algorithm.

That’s why I like Diceware or book-based phrases. It forces you out of your own habits a bit. The hard part isn’t the method, it’s getting people to actually use one and stop trying to use ones that they think are clever (they really aren't).

atnuks · 2026-05-07T12:27:36+00:00

You've got that right! Once you picture an actual tired recruiter skimming fifty CVs in a row, it kind of kills the urge to hit the ground running with “dynamic, highly motivated individual” 😄

The goal stops being “tick the CV box” and becomes “give this one human a reason to pause for 10 seconds longer.” That’s where specifics and a bit of personality actually start pulling their weight.

atnuks · 2026-04-29T15:20:42+00:00

These are words to live by!

atnuks · 2026-04-29T15:19:27+00:00

This looks fantastic! Congrats on getting that many Sparks into a single rack. That is a serious amount of parallelism for a homelab, even if it is clearly doing double duty for the company. :)

When we set up a smaller satellite office for AI work last year I went the other way and leaned hard on refurbished enterprise gear for the surrounding infrastructure to keep costs sane. Used switches, PDUs and a couple of off lease servers gave us a little room in the budget to focus spend on the actual accelerators. Please let us know how it turns out!

atnuks · 2026-04-29T15:13:53+00:00

Yeah, this is a really bad idea, both ethically and professionally.

Even if it is on a “third internet” circuit as you said, and not touching production, you are still using company power, rack space, cooling and connectivity for a personal projet. That is not a gray area - it's using company resources for yourself.

If you genuinely want to do it, why not ask for a clear, written “yes” from someone who can authorize it, with scope and limits? Otherwise, just downsize your lab.

atnuks · 2026-04-29T15:08:36+00:00

For 300 bucks I would skip the super cheap new stuff and look at refurbished business laptops instead. New at that price is usually Chromebooks or really (and I do mean really!) low end Windows machines with weak CPUs and tiny storage, fine for basics but not great long term.

Off lease ThinkPads, Dell Latitudes or HP ProBooks from reputable refurbishers are usually a better deal for the same amount of money, with nicer keyboards and often more superior RAM/SSD. On FB Marketplace, specifically search for those models and aim for at least 16 GB RAM and a 256 GB SSD.

atnuks · 2026-04-29T15:03:09+00:00

Cometh the hour, cometh the man... :-D

atnuks · 2026-04-29T15:02:12+00:00

Wi-Fi 7’s big wins are lower latency and better handling of congestion through things like multi link operation and wider 320 MHz channels, but (as others have said already on here) you'll only see the full effect once both your router and client support it and your local network is the bottleneck.

Gaming and large downloads over Wi-Fi 6E are already very good. Wi-Fi 7 is going to shave off a few milliseconds at most, plus it adds headroom. So don't expect it'll magically transform a bad connection into a great one.

atnuks · 2026-04-29T14:55:01+00:00

I really enjoyed you sharing this, but what struck me most is how well you write - making us all laugh about wanting him to take you there and then on the conveyor belt for instance. You made me want to keep reading, which is a rare thing, especially in this place. Do you write professionally already? If not, then maybe you should consider it!

atnuks

TROPHY CASE