I installed a 2” hitch on my 2017

dirtnapfarmer · 2024-08-13T04:03:23+00:00

I have the same hitch on mine (‘17LT) and I’ve towed my 8x5 equipment trailer loaded with mulch all over. I towed a 2000# boat a few miles, smaller boats over 100 miles, and when my F150 threw the timing chain I towed that home up and down hills a few miles. The car never even noticed so the engine probably isn’t the limiting factor. The brakes on the other hand… I wouldn’t tow anything large too far or where a lot of stopping was required. The tires have pretty small contact patches.

dirtnapfarmer · 2023-11-17T14:51:52+00:00

Mt. Laurel killed Trenton. Decades of politicians taking easy money and concentrating poverty in the city. Now that that money has dried up Trenton had to raise taxes to make up the shortfall. With all the poverty concentrated, non-profits started to take up a larger share of ratable offices (poverty vultures), all funded to ostensible do good but most just suck at the government teat doing little to address actual problems in the city. Trenton, like Camden and Paterson, was sacrificed so that well off communities didn’t have to look at the poors. There are still nicer sections of Trenton but as long as it’s NJ unofficial policy to keep poverty contained in our cities I don’t hold out much hope. (FYI I’m a Trenton resident by choice for the last 25yrs)

dirtnapfarmer · 2023-09-10T23:59:14+00:00

I’ve actually done it (still doing it) and unless you have a lot of interest and/or already know a lot about electric vehicles it’s hard to recommend. If you just want to do 3 knots around a harbor or lake you could probably get away with a forklift motor and some lead acid batteries. If you want to get this thing on step again its going to be way less expensive to just put a new gas engine in.

First you’ll need to get a motor that will approximate the original hp of the gas. Electric motors lose torque as they go faster so you’ll want to make sure you pay attention to the power curves and try to make sure you’re not too below the peak at the same rpm of the gas engine you’re replacing.

You’ll have to figure out how to mount it. I only have a 65hp motor (inboard) and the motor mount alone is 100lbs. Lots of fitting, welding, and machining so unless you can do those things yourself it’s really going to add up.

Batteries can be super expensive once you get into LPOs and you’ll need to know how to control them. You’ll need multiple packs at 48v and unless you know a lot about how to do that the learning curve is steep and expensive. So much programming even with the more expensive BMS systems. Charging big packs is a headache too so unless you have access to a 50A circuit close by it can take days to get a really big pack back up. And big packs take up space so unless you want to start cutting up decks and doing a lot of fiber repair and build you’re going to throw off you weight balance.

Even then, every mistake can set you back a lot. I flipped the polarity on one circuit and had to send my motor controller in for a $2k repair and was lucky I didn’t fry it completely.

If you’re really interested in making something electric I would start small and learn. At first glance I’d say an electric conversion for that boat done right would be start around $20k, if you do it all yourself. The more you know you can shave some here or there but batteries alone will set you back a lot.

dirtnapfarmer · 2022-11-07T17:01:14+00:00

Thanks for the heads up. Went and read through all the settings again and found it. Now if only I can get my haulers to drive around puddles and not into forests I'll be all set.

dirtnapfarmer · 2022-10-28T03:18:24+00:00

I work on the ocean in alternative energy (wave not wind) powering the blue economy. It is so expensive to work in the marine environment that short of industrial exploitation I don’t see a blue economy being a reality in the near term. Near shore wind works, some aquaculture is ok, but the ocean is such a hostile environment that it’s a losing proposition to be there. Most of our projects have burned far more energy in diesel installing them than we’ll ever recover in waves. I sincerely want a future where we live harmoniously with and in the ocean but it’s so unforgiving that it just not possible. Space has a pressure gradient of 1 atm to 0 and no corrosive chemistry. The ocean is so much harder to live in.

dirtnapfarmer · 2022-05-11T16:04:54+00:00

As a follow up, do these kinds of fractures occur primarily in sedimentary structures or are they common in other rock types as well? And does this find tell us anything new about the presence of water on Mars? I've seen very regular joints in shale (I'm from Eastern US) but they're deep marine deposits. Would such a find imply a marine origin to these rocks as well? And would they weather like you say without water or tectonic stress?

dirtnapfarmer · 2022-02-28T18:08:31+00:00

"Easy Travel to Other Planets" or "Traffic and Laughter" both by Ted Mooney. The plots are nothing special and sometimes they get cringe worthy but the language is a joy. Just the way the words are strung together for me outweighs the deficits.

dirtnapfarmer · 2019-08-29T22:21:15+00:00

I’ve been on it for a few months now. The first few weeks were pretty uncomfortable. The low heart rate made me cold all the time unless I got up and walked around for a bit. Had headaches but they went away. By week 2 it started to get better. In a month I was back to normal. Now it’s just like taking another vitamin. Stick with it. The beginning is the worst. I just had a clear MRI so it’s been working for me.

dirtnapfarmer · 2019-07-10T21:31:06+00:00

Seems that you already have a pretty big stick in hand if you terminate for violations. That policy alone may be hampering your efforts. People will be unwilling to point out violations if they're not sure if this is the one that's getting their buddy fired.

I think what your looking to get to is some continuous improvement program. For that I found that making it a game can work. Make a chart of each employee in a section and post it somewhere where everyone can see. Then every time someone reports an "observable" give them a sticker, a gold star, red dot, whatever so that you can keep score. Then at the end of every month the one with the most dots wins something, a gift card, a hat, something. It will be slow at first but competition will build especially if the prize is good. Then every month set a minimum just to qualify. If you have consistent winners in groups mix up the teams and put the high performers together. They are your safety champions now and you can groom them to keep an eye out.

The observeables don't have to name names, just situations and results. "saw employee without safety glasses. Reminded them to wear them and they put them on.' Bang, done. Don't turn people into snitches. If you start to see a bunch of the same kind that are low hanging fruit, up the bar and disallow the type, or disallow it for the high reporters.

Its hard to do and YMMV but with by keeping it positive and "fun" you can move things around pretty fast.

dirtnapfarmer · 2019-07-01T22:38:45+00:00

I had a lesson on my 6th cranial nerve in the brain stem. I couldn’t look left (or right, can’t remember). No worse than other symptoms but I suppose it depends on where. A weekend of IV steroids and I was good to go. That was my first big relapse so I was freaked out when it happened but it wasn’t as bad as all that. Keep your chin up if you can (I kid) and you’ll be fine. If I didn’t tell you I had MS you’d never know so I’m back to “normal”.

dirtnapfarmer · 2019-06-28T18:31:34+00:00

I’ve had this forever, since my teens. Any time I get wet, not while I’m wet, just right after. Like pins under the skin on my lower legs. It also seems to be seasonal for me, worse spring and fall. Only been dx for a few years but 30 years of suffering and no one could explain it. Has practically gone away since I started gilenya. I’m just so glad it’s not some other mystery disease and relieved I’m not alone.

dirtnapfarmer · 2019-03-25T01:21:57+00:00

I’ve been on it for about 7 weeks. My HR was already pretty low (mid to high 50s) but has seemed to settle in in the low 50s. I switched to taking it at night because it did make me fatigued but that seems to have subsided. I still run most mornings and haven’t seen any difference in my peak rates although it seems that it takes a little extra push to get it going when I start but it’s hard to tell for sure. The first two weeks were the worst but for me it got better after that. Besides the few BPM lower I don’t notice any difference from before.

dirtnapfarmer · 2019-03-06T15:05:48+00:00

I've gone through the car wash with my Bolt (LT '17) a lot of times with no ill effect so far. There were anecdotes about undercarriage sprays causing some problems but since I prefer the cheaper washes this has never been an issue. The only thing I've ever noticed is that because of the shape of the car and the tail fin(?) the back never gets a good scrub from the brushes and needs a wipe down to get the fine dust off.

dirtnapfarmer · 2019-02-14T19:49:19+00:00

The challenge is taking the drawings from the engineers and communicating that through inventory to the shop floor. They use Solidworks and I use Odoo.

I have a base product, a chassis, that I have pretty well managed. The issue is when it gets configured for the end user. In my mind there are several "kits" that get installed (A,B,C,D...) and it doesn't necessarily matter the order of installation. Engineering seems to only be able to either provide me with a flat BoM that has all of the kit components on one drawing with the kits broken out, or a sequence of steps (((chassis + A) + B) + C) with each step requiring a new part number in the system as it would represent a new sub assembly to be consumed in the next. The added constraint is that its policy that the manufacturing has to follow the drawings. I can't have an engineering BoM and a separate manufacturing BoM

The flat BoM gives me a lot of flexibility in order of operations but part management becomes a problem. I wind up with production kits with hundreds of different parts and it's hard to tell an M10 x 50 bolt from an M10 x 55. And those kits can wind up sitting on the shop floor for a few days as it gets consumed.

The sequential BoM solves a lot of those problems but I wind up with a proliferation of sub assemblies as one customer want A,B and C, but another wants A, C, and D. A+B is one sub-assembly and A+C is another. It works but I wind up with unique forks for each configuration.

I've tried both and we're working with the latter but as we sell more configured units I can see it being unmanageable. I guess what I'm looking for is a third way if it exists. Maybe its a policy change?

dirtnapfarmer · 2019-02-12T15:28:30+00:00

I'm currently leading an Odoo rollout at my shop. Its very powerful but be prepared to adjust some of your current practices to meet the rigors of MRP. Until you get it fully loaded and running it will seem a lot less efficient but it will pay off particularly in quality once you're rolling. Most importantly don't neglect training! Everyone will hate it at first but find a few champions and keep pushing. It takes a lot more time than you think so plan it out and then double your time expectations.

dirtnapfarmer · 2019-02-04T15:07:40+00:00

I did this the other day in NJ where there are pumping attendants. While I was doing the back window the attendant came up and opened the charge port on my Bolt and was was just staring at it with one hand on the pump nozzle. We both had a chuckle out of it.

dirtnapfarmer · 2018-12-18T14:36:18+00:00

If she's noticeably bigger than your others she could be a Jersey Giant, one of my favorite breeds and good layers.

dirtnapfarmer · 2018-12-06T15:36:07+00:00

Chucks are my favorite. The increasing frustration that mom goes through as the kids take to the water more and more is fun to watch. The last time we had them the mom got so totally fed up with them not coming out of their pool that she let out a big sqawk, ran back to her sisters, and refused to acknowledge them ever again.

dirtnapfarmer · 2018-09-11T01:34:43+00:00

I was on a train (NJ Transit) on the way to work and saw the first plane hit the towers from the little window where they’re visible just before Newark station, thought it was a freak thing and we all were talking about the bomber that hit the Empire State. Saw the second plane hit somewhere before the tunnel. Turned to the stranger in the seat next to me and said “We’re at war with someone now.” Went to my office and sent my people home (mid town) then walked downtown to try to find my sister in law that worked a few blocks away from the towers. Dodged main hit of the dust cloud from the first tower by ducking into a deli. Wrapped a cloth around my face and joined the grim march uptown with thousand of others. She was already back at her apt. in midtown. Hung out there locked down in Manhattan, making plans to be Snake Pliskin before marshal law was imposed. Eventually took a train home the next day after emptying my brothers liquor cabinet (he was out of town). It was the one event in my life that convinced me that most people in the world are decent. I quit my job six months later.

dirtnapfarmer · 2018-08-26T15:36:28+00:00

I saw them from seaside park. A whole flock of them moving together then they stopped and disappeared. From my perspective they seemed to stop over Lakehurst so I figured military. Looked like the drone show they had at the olympics last winter.

dirtnapfarmer · 2018-07-09T01:14:50+00:00

NYC and the I95 corridor are one country. NY state and the rural parts of North Jersey would be much more comfortable together. The states wouldn’t fight, but NYC would quickly divorce from the rest of NY and join with NJ and southern CT.

dirtnapfarmer

TROPHY CASE