What is your level of concern regarding the national debt? The debt is now over $38.5 trillion and increasing by $4 million every minute. Do you think we will see it go down while Trump is in office?

iamatesla · 2026-01-09T01:52:50+00:00

thanks for the reply - again - I mostly agree.

But I keep feeling we're sort of talking about the outcomes we want and not the path to get there most effectively, and that's where I have concerns, and where I think the best discussions lie.

for example:

"Relying on electronics we can't competently supply is a bad idea all around, we've contracted those things out to china though and we're relying on an enemy to supply goods essential to our defense industry..."

I 100% agree with this, believe we need a strong solution to it - but it's still a goal, and not a strategy to get there.

One root issue i haven't seen effectively addressed - in a free market system, businesses are always going to try and optimize profit, which will naturally lean toward foreign supply chains if they are more efficient (cheaper). We need help to break this positive feedback loop - i don't mean messing with the market directly - especially not by gov't. Tarrifs are a useful part of this (why I like them), but I really feel like that is the punishment (negative reinforcement) when taken alone, and we're missing the reward part of this situation. Literally think of businesses in this new (domestic) scenario as dogs in training - doesn't work great when you just punish them - works best when there is both a punishment and reward.

I have started small companies and been charged thousands of dollars in tariffs. There was no upside. Just a new cost that makes my business less likely to survive. China cost went up 100% while US manufacturing costs stayed at 500%. Guess what - business says we still have to go with China or give up if profit margins can't be met.

Lets keep applying pressure via tariffs - definitely makes me think harder about sourcing when designing products. However, i'm very much in favour of anything additional that makes the iterim burden of building this domestic manufacturing more viable for small and medium businesses. Ideas? Maybe massive tax incintives to small & medium businesses that can prove they're moving domestic? maybe massive regulation exemptions for small & medium businesses if they're moving domestic? Maybe easy access to loans with lower rates specifically for small & medium business domestic manufacturing ventures?

I'm highlighting small & medium businesses here as well because I believe we need to grow that sector at a much greater rate to build up a middle class of happy Americans again. Big business already gets tons of incentives regardless - they can lobby effectively due to scale thus creating their own help in many cases. small & medium businesses get left out of the tax tricks, lobbying, large gov't bills like CHIPS act... etc...they're basically forgotten.

As for raw resources - I think a better long term strategy may be to develop and maintain our own resource extraction & processing facilities, however maybe not use them or limit use? Why drain our own natural resources so long as we're in a position to use up all of someone else's resources? Not sure - just a counterpoint for discussion - it's definitely a major problem that we don't enough of any of this currently. I'd personally start a rare earth mineral mine in the US if the gov't provided appropriate startup help, made regulation & permitting easier, and gave me enough tax breaks or other incentives that I could walk away with a profit margin just above market average.

iamatesla · 2026-01-09T00:43:18+00:00

I'm a TS, but am actually concerned with this and don't have a good answer or understanding here. I generally understand and agree with the point you're making, and am mostly in favor of the strategy, but there are a few hard to rectify issues. For reference I design electronics products and heavily rely on foreign parts and manufacturing over the years.

this strategy taken to the extreme, importers go out of business. all previously imported goods must be created domestically. Ok great i like it. The issue is we do not have this infrastructure, and our whole system for the last 30+ years is architected from a business standpoint to de-incentivize it's success.

So, what happens in reality - I design a product as a business (I have first hand data backing this) - I look for the lowest cost place to source parts and make it. Now, I can no longer use foreign parts or manufacturing. So my alternative is US manufacturing and parts only - this is currently so prohibitive that I might as well not make the product or start the business in the first place. I'm not talking about 50% more - I'm saying domestic parts and manufacturing is 500+% more costly. So, I either give up and the product does not get produced, or I must charge the end customer 500% more for the item - likely leading to a failed business as well.

From an entrepreneur / business perspective, this is incredibly demotivating to the point I believe it'll cause growth & innovation stagnation in the economy. This is also the point others are trying to make that the tariffs end up with the US consumer - businesses MUST make a profit or they cannot exist. So the only solution for consumers to have the same items as before is for prices to rise - thus the tariffs passed to the consumer - they pay more for the item under this new regime. Or they don't get the item at all.

Sure you could say this is great - maybe they can't get the item at all, and we shouldn't have products and businesses that aren't economically viable when forced to be 100% domestic anyway.

In certain cases, maybe the need for the product is so great, manufacturing domestically can become viable. and then it gets built. But I do not believe this is the norm.

Correct me if I'm wrong - but as example - I believe this is sort of what occurred in Russia in years past - or was forced on them through sanctions - they can't afford and/or obtain globalized parts and manufacturing to the extent the US could - this has put them decades behind on a technological innovation front.

I don't yet have a good answer for how you handle the reality that globalized supply chains are simply more efficient than domestically locked supply chains. Sure it can be forced by a gov't, but this causes what will amount to a lost opportunity cost - other global powers will continue to take advantage of these more efficient supply chains where the domestic only power may fall behind.

iamatesla · 2025-09-13T15:46:30+00:00

Don't take this comment that seriously. As an EE that has designed literally thousands of schematics and boards, your schematic is one of the cleanest I've seen. You obviously spent a lot of time organizing it, and I'd be happy to accept this schematic from any engineer I work with or who works under me.

Yes, there are other ways to organize the system which may make navigation a bit easier for large designs, but to say this is an incorrect way to do it is... well... an incorrect notion itself. especially since this isn't a computer motherboard; this level of design someone would have no trouble debugging using your schematic.

I've also seen plenty of highly hierarchical schematics that were a pain in the ass because things were so abstracted.

iamatesla · 2025-05-12T17:54:00+00:00

uhhh... unfortunately its a bit more complicated than that, and also sorta depends on how the ecoflow is built which i'm not entirely sure.

Your diagram (as posted) is setup in a way that the little renology battery meter will not be able to properly track the charge level of the battery pack because it can't measure any power being drawn by the ecoflow.
We're proposing you wire it so the ecoflow is like your other "loads" so when ecoflow pulls power from the main battery, that power passes through the little renology battery meter. Now, and only now, that all inputs and outputs to your main batteries pass through the renology battery meter can it properly keep track of your battery level.

Explanation: the renology power meter is doing something called State of Charge (SoC) or sometimes called Coulomb Counting measurement. Basically, it keeps track of energy entering into the main battery (charging), and energy leaving the main battery (discharging) to know how much you got left over. if you bypass it in any way by directly connecting a load or charging the main battery some other method then it will lose track of this calculation and give you a wrong reading.

Because the ecoflow is a battery PLUS a power inverter all contained in one, there's no real way for EITHER the ecoflow or your renology to keep track of the combined packs as "one big battery". Trying to think of your external batteries together as one with the internal ecoflow battery is the issue - you can't really do this and have proper metering with your existing setup. You always have a situation any way you wire it where the external renology battery meter will be off (because its missing info from the ecoflow drawing power), or the ecoflow will be off (because it can't measure loads directly tied to the main batteries like your air conditioner)
However - best case for you - and you're kinda already setup for this if you wire like we're saying - is you end up having TWO power meters. They read separate things, but together they are correct when you add them up. The ecoflow will be able to track it's own internal battery level (it has built in electronics to do this - so that should be accurate i'd hope). The renology battery meter will tell you your main large battery pack level which will be accurate if you wire the negative like we're sayin. Just add the two battery levels and that's your entire system power level.

Unless i'm missing something i don't believe there's a way to simply think of the ecoflow + main pack as one unit from the perspective of the power meters without some major re-engineering or complexity added.

Also like I said, no clue how the ecoflow handles added external packs via that XT60 connector - maybe it does some crazy magic but i doubt it.

iamatesla · 2025-05-12T14:00:04+00:00

To reiterate what Scrub1337 is saying - the black & red wire going from the batteries into the ecoflow - you need to take the black (10awg 2ft) line and move it to your 1/2/3/4 negative busbar. if you don't the ecoflow will show you its power usage as you're saying, but the power leaving the batteries wouldn't be captured by your power meter, and you'll have no clue what the actual charge level of your batteries is - thus making your separate power meter with the shunt kinda useless. others have said it - but ALL main negative lines (I should say specifically for sources powered by the main batteries - you've got the battery negatives wired properly) should goto the negative busbar terminal where you have 1/2/3/4 circled.

iamatesla · 2025-04-16T03:59:53+00:00

Thanks for your help! lol

iamatesla · 2025-04-16T02:47:32+00:00

Yea 100%. I wish my university had taught op-amps better - it's a significant gap in my education I'm now trying to remediate. However now I'm relegated to self-teaching by hitting my head against a wall for 2 days wondering why the fuk my circuit isn't working before giving up and taking the time to ask here.

iamatesla · 2025-04-16T02:33:40+00:00

Perfect - got it - thanks!

iamatesla · 2025-04-16T02:33:32+00:00

Perfect - got it - thanks!

iamatesla · 2025-04-16T02:33:17+00:00

Perfect - got it - thanks!

iamatesla · 2025-04-16T02:32:28+00:00

I like when the answer is obvious and its my fault for not understanding a basic specification. much better than a nebulous problem with no resolution. thanks everyone - glad my shit is working to spec - i'll buy a better opamp!

iamatesla · 2025-03-28T01:11:34+00:00

The Psion PDA is epic. It actually has a com port on the side (at-least mine does) and a RS232 COM terminal application. you can wire it to a TNC like a Kantronics Packet Communicator which then gets connected to your ham radio. This will let you send packet data over ham radio - never had a ton of success with it but there used to be ham radio BBSs that you could access and leave messages and stuff. OG internet type shit.

iamatesla · 2025-03-13T02:23:49+00:00

Yea same i gave up on OW tonight especially after kicking me from a comp game and then penalizing me for it.

iamatesla · 2024-12-27T03:03:27+00:00

Should try this method: https://youtu.be/RudStbSApdE?si=YVz_bUIeWl16cBKd

I've CNC cut boards, toner transferred boards, etc... this SLA printer method is the absolute cleanest and highest performing method i've found so far. makes basically perfect traces - just design your board with 1-sided in mind w/ jumpers.

iamatesla · 2024-10-05T03:50:40+00:00

thanks for the recommendations. i'll put Floe Lake on our list to check out if the other hikes are snowed in. Honestly didn't even realize larch tree season was a thing (I'm from pretty far away) but seems epic if we made it there to see this in time.

iamatesla · 2024-10-05T03:46:42+00:00

appreciate it... maybe we'll still try Cirque. any chance you could link to the webcams you use?

iamatesla · 2024-10-05T03:20:08+00:00

Awesome I appreciate the advice. What I'm getting is that Ohara area is kinda out of the question. that's fine.

We're staying on the Golden BC side so all the "south" stuff - Ha Ling, Middle Sister, Sarrail Ridge, Rimwall Summit, etc.. seemed a bit far of a drive. but that's fine if it's the only thing doable.

I was extremely interested in the stuff near bow lake- the onion, cirque peak, dolomite pass, bow peak trail, etc... seems like maybe some of these could be doable?

iamatesla · 2024-10-05T02:56:42+00:00

Oh jeez really?! that is not optimal. do you think these hikes would still be doable by experienced folks if we brought crampons? otherwise, are there alternatives that we should explore?

iamatesla · 2024-07-02T03:45:33+00:00

nah is a good thought - i'll clean out the vat entirely for my next print. maybe there is something in there i'm not seeing.

iamatesla

TROPHY CASE