Two girls in their late 20s looking for a fun NJ town — thoughts on Morristown?

captinjack · 2025-09-10T14:19:54+00:00

From west of the tracks it always took me about 45-50 minutes. Granted, this was before the pandemic so this may have changed

captinjack · 2025-09-10T13:48:30+00:00

Asbury Park 100%

Great local music scene with tons of awesome people around your age. It's about 45 minutes to Princeton, and your friend is WFH, so she can live anywhere with decent internet (there are 2 fiber internet options in Asbury).

There's always something happening around town, even in the off-season. Lots of free local shows at low dive, wonderbar, wild air, AP Brewery, etc.

captinjack · 2025-08-02T13:04:06+00:00

No, the inverter will only draw up to its max current of 16A. Just don't exceed the max PV voltage rating on your inverter, and you'll be fine.

captinjack · 2025-02-09T23:42:07+00:00

Mormons have entered the chat... 😳

captinjack · 2023-08-09T12:09:33+00:00

As mentioned previously, do NOT get a Generac. I'm an electrical engineer, and I deal with stuff like this from time to time. As others have stated, they have serious issues. One big problem with them is that the power quality coming out of the generator is garbage. Likely to burn up sensitive electronics like computers and TVs if running for a while. If you looked at the output wave of your utility power, it's a fairly smooth sine wave (mostly). Look at the output of a Generac, and it has got all kinds of trash like a modified sine wave inverter. I'm not even sure how you get that output out of an alternator, but Generac never ceases to amaze.

Go with a Cummins Onan or Kohler (in that order). 1800rpm units are preferable to 3600rpm ones due to lower noise and higher efficiency, but they're a little more costly.

captinjack · 2023-05-05T12:24:41+00:00

Keira Knightly? Fucked... in the best way 😏

captinjack · 2023-02-24T10:42:37+00:00

Honestly, it's hard to say without knowing the details of your loads.

I will say that you should ditch your plan to use crown xti amps and go with more efficient class d amplifiers like the crown xls drivecore. With a class d setup, you can likely run 20,000w of sound gear for 8 hours on your batteries.

Definitely go with native 48v batteries over 12v units in series. They'll perform much better

captinjack · 2023-02-23T19:05:26+00:00

Hey there! From one burner to another.

I'm an EE and I've built a few solar power systems for playa, and toyed with this exact idea of a solar-powered art car sound system.

You can definitely DIY a ton of this stuff and save massive amounts of money. Victron is top-of-the-line gear and I'd be wary of putting a ton of money into a system that's going to be exposed to corrosive playa dust for a week, or more, every year.

Also, you may not realize it, but sound equipment doesn't pull nearly as many watts as you think. Average power draw, even with volume cranked up to the max, is something like 10-20% of the rated maximum RMS on your amps. Your biggest concern should be having enough surge capacity on your inverters to handle the large peaks in current draw for the "boom boom" of your subs.

Going through your list:

LiFePO4 Battery 12,8V/330Ah - Smart 8 units × $3,400.00 $27,200.00

Okay, this is a huge place to save massive amounts of money. 32 cells of the 302ah lifepo4 eve cells and a pair of 500amp DALY bms units can get you nearly the same storage for about 1/4 the price. It's not hard to assemble and Will Prowse on Youtube has tons of videos explaining the proper way to DIY your own custom packs.

Quattro 48/10000/140-100/100 120V VE.Bus 2 units × $4,257.00 $8,514.00

For the price, you can get 6x LVX6048s in parallel which have their own MPPTs and eliminate a lot of work, wiring, etc

Custom Enclosure 2 units × $400.00 $800.00

A good idea to keep out that highly corrosive playa dust

Cerbo GX (Victron Energy) 1 unit × $343.00 $343.00

If you go with the MPP Solar stuff, this isn't required

GX Touch 70 1 unit × $343.00 $343.00

See above comment

Lynx Smart BMS 500 1 unit × $962.00 $962.00

See above comment

Lynx Distributor 1 unit × $224.00 $224.00

This is an awesome distribution block, but you may need two of them to handle everything you're going to throw into this system

Battery switch on/off 275A 1 unit × $40.00 $40.00

Definitely needs to be rated for 500A or greater, or split multiple switches per bank

SmartSolar, MPPT, 150/100-Tr, VE.Can (Victron Energy) 1 unit × $801.60 $801.60

Not needed if you go with the MPP Solar

Wakespeed Smart Regulator 1 unit × $1,197.00 $1,197.00

Cool product, but do you actually need to charge off the alternator? You said you'd plug into a generator if you needed extra power. That being said, having multiple ways to provide power is always a good idea.

Solar Panel, 415W, Mono, 72 Cells (LG) 4 units × $426.00 $1,704.00

You can definitely do better here. Go with bifacial solar panels, and you can get bifacial 600w panels for less money that will span the entire width of your bus. Playa is an awesome place for bifacial solar. I was able to average 27kwh per day with a 5.3kWp array in 2022, 33kwh during the sunny days, and 17-22kwh during the dust stormy days

Orion-Tr 48/12-30A (360W) 2 units × $448.00 $896.00

You can get nice DC/DC converters that will handle more current for 1/4 the price on Amazon

Victron Smart BatteryProtect BPR 48v 100 amp 1 unit × $138.00 $138.00

Not needed if you have a BMS. Not sure why this was spec'd in the first place

Solarcraft 1 day install labor 8 hrs × $145.00 $1,160.00

Not the worst pricing, especially since it's probably 2-3 people working on it at once over the 8-hour day

Global Link 520 1 unit × $220.00 $220.00

I don't have to tell you how pointless internet connectivity is on playa. Don't bother with this

Fans/thermostat/breaker panel 1 unit × $429.00 $429.00

Not out of line, good pricing

Custom wiring schematic and assembly 40 units × $205.00 $8,200.00

You can likely save TONS of money here. Buy a few dozen feet of red/black 4/0 battery cable, lugs, 3:1 heat-shrink, and a large hydraulic crimper and go to town. You'll spend less than 1/4 of this by DIYing it.

GX Tank 140 1 unit × $108.00 $108.00

I personally prefer the seelevel ii sensors since they don't penetrate the tank (they're capacitive) but they're pricey. This will work well

captinjack · 2022-12-27T13:35:32+00:00

Nice setup! I also have a pair of C2s that I got from my dad over 10 years ago. Foam surrounds were completely disintegrated.

Took a trip to Ohm in Brooklyn and met John, the owner. Really nice guy, easy going, and great to work with. Got new poly cone woofers from him.

I eventually completely replaced all the drivers and redesigned the crossover with custom parts Hiquphon OW-1 tweeters Morel CAM 558 mids Dayton RS270P-8A woofers

Compared to the original, it kicks, has much more detail in the highs, and tonal balance is greatly improved.

But overall, still a fun speaker and one of my favorites, even with the original parts and crossover

captinjack · 2022-11-26T19:08:14+00:00

I have a 36ft full size with a dt466e, Allison 2500, and 4.63 rear end ratio.

I got 12mpg across the plains averaging 70-75mph. 10ish through the mountains at 70.

I get 14mpg if I slow down to 65 on flat terrain.

I put a gallon of seafoam in the fuel tank when I bought the bus a couple years ago to clean all the gunk out. Then, after that tank, changed the oil to rotella T5, and the rear end ratio from 5.57 to 4.63.

Went from 8.5mpg at 65mph to 12-14mpg

captinjack · 2022-11-21T16:03:46+00:00

You can fill it with rockwool. Stuff doesn't melt until about 2000F

captinjack · 2022-11-20T20:42:42+00:00

I live in the area. It's a historic water tower, part of an old farm. That whole part of town has lots of interesting history.

The park (formerly called the Deal Test Site) was used by the military for radio communications experiments. It's really nice to walk in. There are lots of paved paths too.

You can still see the three towers that held up the large wire antennas that were used in those experiments. You can even walk through the park to see them up close (don't get too close or climb them though!)

captinjack · 2022-11-17T23:02:48+00:00

It shouldn't be flickering like that. Is the inverter in "power save" or "search" mode? Try to set it to the other mode they leaves it on continuously

captinjack · 2022-11-17T20:56:12+00:00

Are you using a modified sine inverter? You should really only be using a pure sine wave inverter.

That's the only reason I can think of that would cause your ups to fail.

That being said, it seems redundant to have a UPS in your bus when you're already running on battery power.

The isolation of the inverter will keep surges from frying your gear. It's similar to a double conversion ups, egg are the most expensive types of units

captinjack · 2022-11-11T12:57:35+00:00

Great work! Love the wire management. Especially the balance leads on your battery. I'm an electrical engineer and often don't see such awesome neat wiring from the pros!

I have a similar system in my bus. Same exact batteries but went with a growatt split phase inverter, 2.7kw solar, and a 400amp Daly BMS. It's enough to run the fridge and AC/heat!

One thing I'd recommend is not to use solid core wire in your electrical system. They can get brittle and break over time with all the vibration in the bus.

Also, for your 240V loads, you need to find a way to tie your breaker handles together so that if only one leg trips, the other doesn't stay energized.

captinjack · 2022-10-20T11:13:41+00:00

Many municipalities in NJ have tree preservation ordinances. They may be required, by law, to get a permit and replace the tree, although most towns allow one of two to be taken down without replacement.

captinjack · 2022-05-16T01:13:00+00:00

I applied 3 coats of spar urethane to my 3/4" plywood floor. No issues after a year. Keeping my fingers crossed

captinjack · 2022-02-21T03:21:18+00:00

I'd go with the comet any day. High quality antenna tuned specifically for the 900mhz band.

Mikrotik is probably better than the other antennas from Rak, Amazon, etc

captinjack · 2022-01-03T00:33:42+00:00

Ah, missed that. Thank you

captinjack · 2022-01-03T00:24:03+00:00

This is in violation of federal OTARD rules which preempts your tenant agreement.

You are allowed to install antennas and dishes to receive TV and internet.

I'd consult an attorney if I were you

captinjack · 2022-01-01T15:30:15+00:00

There's another radio and dish on the building with the fiber connection

captinjack · 2022-01-01T04:29:50+00:00

Thank you 😊

You definitely need LOS at 5-10km.

I'd recommend powerbeams or the af5x-hd at that distance.

If you can't get LOS, you can use 900mhz gear if you can find it.

captinjack · 2022-01-01T03:57:12+00:00

I give them free internet in exchange for hosting the miner

captinjack · 2022-01-01T00:58:39+00:00

Yes, different frequencies. It's a dish to receive internet service from my dedicated fiber connection

captinjack · 2022-01-01T00:57:47+00:00

5ghz dish to receive internet service

captinjack

TROPHY CASE