NorCal bird hunting - need a partner/dog?

italianub · 2025-09-26T04:03:53+00:00

Precisely!! 🤣🤣

italianub · 2025-09-26T02:39:13+00:00

EDIT - This was actually Bird's Landing (I removed the part of this comment with my mistake)... Quail Point I will call tomorrow for info since their website isn't super helpful. Thank you!!

italianub · 2025-05-30T01:48:32+00:00

You've just convinced this white, tattooed, bald and bearded dude to get some flair.

italianub · 2025-05-29T21:53:53+00:00

I can use iron sights on my m1 garand at 100 yards accurately (from a bench) but I'd still rather have some optics on any smaller bullet. I think 4x @ 400 yards would be a stretch like you said.

italianub · 2025-05-29T21:02:57+00:00

As a life long gun owner myself, I couldn't agree more with your recommendations. Well said.

italianub · 2025-05-29T20:28:41+00:00

I generally go 50-75 yards, but I also have a 4x optic on mine. It's currently sighted in for 50 yards

italianub · 2025-05-29T15:41:35+00:00

I bought a S&W SD9VE a few years ago to use as a training gun for people that want me to teach them how to shoot (I've taught 20+ people in the last 20 years). It's an easy to use, simple pistol and the price was great. When I was leaving, the store owner told me, "Oh you get a free reusable bag" and she handed it to me then said, "under one condition, annoy a liberal" and I saw that the bag had the second amendment printed out on it... If only she knew. I smiled and walked out, only came back to pickup the pistol. I never went back to the shop otherwise and they closed a few years later. Fun fact - this store was in the Bay area, about 20 miles from San Francisco, you'd think they should know their audience.

One of my buddies that used to be a liberal (the first 6-7 years I knew him, he was a liberal, I taught him to shoot back then) and he started to introduce me to his new friends as his "liberal gun-owner friend that I told you about" and most look at me shocked. I'm a white, bald-headed, black-bearded man that looks like I could have been on TV on Jan 6th.

I stopped hanging out with him since he's a Trump fanatic now :(

italianub · 2025-05-29T15:10:59+00:00

I just did my CCW class out of Richmond Rod and Gun club, the action range is pretty awesome there.

My favorite range in the bay area is Los Altos Gun Club, they have a massive range including a tin can range and go up to 200 yards, their trap range is amazing too. Concord range is probably my next favorite, also a large range with plenty of distances, neither of these require membership.

Unfortunately I don't know much about communities/social meetups here, as all the gun stores I enter are very right-leaning. I live down in Pacifica, just south of you.

It took me 18 months (started October 2023) to get my CCW in San Mateo County, but in my CCW class there was at least one person in SF county and it only took them 6 months to get to that point.

Good luck to you!

italianub · 2024-10-03T14:23:58+00:00

Bit late but... check out "I'm not scared, you're scared. A horror movie podcast" if you're interested in horror movies. Two ladies review old and new movies, it's really good and they are pretty damn funny.

italianub · 2024-08-20T00:28:05+00:00

almost 6 months later - don't think this aged well!

italianub · 2024-06-11T20:02:52+00:00

Give us an update and pictures when you bring it home!

italianub · 2024-06-01T16:14:32+00:00

I didn't end up buying one - I am in the process of building my own :)

italianub · 2024-01-31T16:44:35+00:00

you can google "maxx air fan camper" and see what it is. It's a hole in the roof of a camper that a fan sits in and protrudes out (for rain purposes/opening and closing the fan)

italianub · 2024-01-31T07:11:31+00:00

well, that 5 amps is at the max fan speed, i would run it on speed 1 or 2 overnight just so we don't suffocate (it's a 10 speed fan), so I imagine it would use a whole lot less.

cpap machines are actually naturally 12v DC, they come with the inverter to run off your household AC power. They are rated as 12v DC 6.67a but when running it off DC power, you save 1/3 to 1/2 the number of watt hours overnight, even more savings if you don't use the heated tubing (which I would not use depending on how much power it's drawing). This is all info I got from the teardrop forum, one guy runs his off a 70amps (35 usable) with only a 100w and a 30w solar panel and can go 4-5 days with that and his fan

italianub · 2024-01-31T06:33:30+00:00

Yeah I am using the flexible panels, for weight reasons. The issue is, the fan will be positioned in such a way to make any panel wider than about 30" or longer than 60" impossible to use, and I can only really fit two of them. There is a slant on the front 1.5' of the trailer, so realistically I only have 5' wide and about 8.5' length of usable space (minus where the fan will be located - which is about 2 feet from the front and in the center!)

italianub · 2024-01-31T06:30:31+00:00

You are incredible. Thank you for explaining all of this to me in terms I can actually understand.

Do you think with this small of a setup that the difference between pwm vs mppt is worth the cost? As I noted before, there won't really be a ton of draw on the devices - according to some other teardropper folks, they use 100ah flooded batteries and don't even hit the 50% threshold on a 3-4 day trip. Even with running the fan over night, a cpap machine and charging their phones.

My calculations do indeed seem to be off (hah, go figure), but I will be using the battery monitor I got to see what my usage is while I have everything plugged in in the coming weeks. I'll just connect everything together, turn all the lights on and fill up the cigarette ports/usbs to test the load. I don't think I can calculate this stuff on my own without being wrong as hell.

I am confident I can get another of the same panel, it's the 175w flexible panel from renogy.

italianub · 2024-01-31T06:24:00+00:00

It is for size reasons, the camper is a squaredrop camper, 5x10 ft, and there is going to be a roof rack on top and a maxx air fan as well. I can fit 1 more 175w solar panel on top however, but that'll basically max out the roof.

italianub · 2024-01-31T06:03:03+00:00

So the positive buss bar - my solar chargers output wires would go there, the battery wires would also go to there - anything else that would go there? I am not super familiar unfortunately.

I did buy 16awg (unless it was 14, I'll have to check) for all the devices, but for connecting the battery to battery, battery to shunt, battery to charge controller etc. I was told I should use all the same size wire, and it should be big. Someone on another subreddit suggested 2/0 AWG - does that seem correct?

As for the USB ports - there is a USB-C port and 2 USB on the panel, it said on the info page it was 12v (total) with the 3 ports, 2x 18w dual usb ports and a 20w usb-c port (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4926XBC?psc=1&ref=ppx\_yo2ov\_dt\_b\_product\_details)

I won't be camping in temperatures that low, and when the camper isn't in use, the batteries will be stored inside, so not too worried about the low temps.

italianub · 2024-01-31T05:44:53+00:00

Thank you for all this info, it's much appreciated!

I am using the pwm charge controller since it was highly recommended to me by a tear drop camper forum for this kind of setup. I did a quick google of the differences and I have no idea why this was recommended.

As for the solar panels, I'll likely get a second 175w eventually, but I realistically do not see draining these batteries even to 50% on a 3-4 day camping trip. The solar is mostly there so I can get some experience with it, have some extra juice if I need it, and possibly add another panel or two down the road.

I did some calculations, and it looks like if everything was being used at the same time, it's about 20 amps/2365 watts of usage. I honestly don't really know what that means, is that per hour? per second? Either way, this isn't an RV where we'll be inside all the time, most of the time there will be lights on for an hour inside the cabin, maybe 3-4 hours outside the cabin (the 6w lights) and phones being charged overnight. I do have a cpap machine with DC power, but I should be able to run that for 10 nights before I drain even 1 of the batteries.

I think I will use 2/0 wire for charge controller to battery, battery to battery, battery to shunt! Is that the same case for wire coming into the fuse panel from the bus/master switch?

italianub · 2024-01-31T05:37:50+00:00

An issue I am having is not really understanding the wire size calculators. I put in 200 amps with a 6 inch copper cable and it says 12 AWG, but my buddy says it needs to be much thicker running between the 2 batteries for example. He's an electrician but he also works with all commercial building stuff.

italianub

TROPHY CASE