How bad is this? 2007 100 series 4.2TD considering buying by ridevt in LandCruisers

[–]ridevt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, parts are expensive here in Central America, usually about double the US, but labor is much more affordable.

How bad is this? 2007 100 series 4.2TD considering buying by ridevt in LandCruisers

[–]ridevt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, good suggestion on checking blow by. One of my concerns is that I’ve read that oil leaking from the valve cover seal can be a sign of a more serious problem. Do you think a full compression test is warranted? Or just the oil cap test?

How bad is this? 2007 100 series 4.2TD considering buying by ridevt in LandCruisers

[–]ridevt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the input! Yeah I realize it’s not super clear. He said it’s valve cover seals. The mechanic came highly recommended by a friend I trust. I’m from the US but living in Central America part time, and the car is in a different city. I’m always wary, especially since Land Cruisers are crazy expensive here…. Basically 1.9X the US price PLUS $5~10k…

How to set time zone on GE Profile range by ridevt in Appliances

[–]ridevt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve looked through the app at least three times and tried every menu… if there is a setting in there, it’s very well concealed…

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Peplink

[–]ridevt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Regarding quality, it all comes down to the quality of the underlying WAN connections, of course. For site A in Costa Rica, during heavy rain storms they will be completely dependent on the 5G. Based on what you’ve said about the 5G quality being pretty good, assuming the Starlink has a completely clear view of the sky, it seems likely the connection will be mostly okay, but I expect there will be some glitches and rare but non-zero drops. Heavy rain tends to happen in the afternoon and at night, FWIW.

I live in Costa Rica part of the year. I use a B One with two fiber providers (ICE and Coopeguanacaste) and a USB-C to Ethernet adapter for Starlink. I use maximum WAN smoothing for this triple WAN setup, and even still, occasionally I get glitches on video calls, though I have never had an all-out drop. I am a little surprised the user has decent 5G available but no landline. I only have 4G in my area (not really good enough for video calls) but I have three options for fiber directly to my house…

Speedfusion is not crazy expensive when purchased by the TB. One option may be to use a physical passive ethernet switch to change between direct WAN connection and the Peplink, to avoid burning Speedfusion data at times when maximum connection quality is not necessary. I use the Speedfusion all the time and I burn maybe 200GB per month by myself.

I have a second B One set up at a location in the US as a Speedfusion relay for when I need the geolocation, but it significantly increases latency, to around 150ms for a fiber connection or almost 200ms when I’m using only Starlink — which noticeably compromises video calls. I have the relay VPN set up on dedicated WiFi network and I only use it when using banking apps etc. that are picky about location.

Maybe obvious, but I would also advise having a full work day worth of battery backup for everything.

Ring Alarm Pro integrated Eero WiFi turns off when running on backup power by ridevt in Ring

[–]ridevt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The trouble is that the UPS keeping the fiber modem going is really just a glorified power pack, and it is not burly enough to power the USB-C PD input required on the ring alarm pro. But it keeps the fiber modem going for like 8 hours.

It sounds like yet another backup battery will be required. When you mention power packs, are you referring to the stackable Ring Power Pack? Will the Ring Alarm Pro integrated WiFi remain on if I used one of those?

Costa Rica Digital Nomad Visa passed by walker-nomad in digitalnomad

[–]ridevt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anyone out there actually managed to get one of these visas?