Things I've learned the hard way . . .(Part 2)

[Monocrom]

Glad you're alive. This is why women live longer than men.

 

[pnwoutdoors]

Glad you're alive. This is why women live longer than men.

Of course, there are two sides to that coin -- They might live longer, not often finding themselves in such situations, but that stress-induced gray hair problem sure gets a "boost" from watching (even merely hearing of) their guys do their thing.

'Course, bein' a guy, one has to wonder why it's Mother Nature flinging all this stuff at us guys. Right? (That's one dog that don't hunt, obviously. Is what it is. As is our nature. I've learned to live with it. I'll get over it ... but hopefully not too soon. )

 

[Monocrom]

Ironically, Mother Nature has no motherly instincts for men.

 

[pnwoutdoors]

Ironically, Mother Nature has no motherly instincts for men.

Mother Nature* can be a witch.

* Though, we pronounced it differently, in my neck o' the woods. Prolly why she and her minion "Murphy" has apparently good intel on where I am, all this life. Don't figure I'll figure that out anytime soon, bein' a guy.

 

[pnwoutdoors]

Ironically, Mother Nature has no motherly instincts for men.

Likely, She was officially charged with giving us (humans) life wisdom based on our experiences. She did her part.

That day? It was Mother Nature's way of telling me: "Pay attention ... focus ... learn from this." Yup.

Samuel Clemens reminded us: "Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions." My guess is that ol' Mark Twain understood Mother Nature rather well, as a teacher.

I wonder how many times Clemens fell from the top branch, or got sucked under after the winter melt, or stayed out too long as the hailstorm barrelled down on him. Once or twice, I suspect, wise as he ended up being.

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

Mother Nature does her best to clean the gene pool of lesser mortals. Use mosquito repellent, use tick countermeasures, go inside when it storms, stay off of questionable ice, listen to your elders, etc. Those who don't learn from the past, die early. Pompeii taught us it is not generally a good idea to live anywhere near an active volcano. We have learned that when the sea rapidly goes out, you better get to high ground. If you live in tornado ally, have a tornado shelter.

Maglite pushed this out today, and I think it is a pretty good read for the general public (muggles).

https://maglite.com/blogs/maglife/g...our-grandparents-had-a-plan-we-have-a-charger

Most of us regulars on this forum are probably a bit more extreme in our prepping, but I suppose that is to be expected. If you aren't, then the Maglite blog posting will no doubt be helpful, as would investigating ready.gov.

 

[Candleometry]

I think there’s common sense and then there’s a marketing machine selling us products to make them rich. Prepping is a perfect example. Own a flashlight in case the lights go out? Sure. Own 20 plus $10,000 more stuff they want to sell you? Nope.

 

[Jean-Luc Descarte]

If you leave a pot with prepared food out of the fridge overnight, heat it up to boil the next morning.

Lost almost half a kilogram of beef and green beans stew this week for failing to do that. Left it in the pressure cooker overnight because there was no room in the fridge, completely ignored it for the day, and as soon as I took the lid off to heat it up for dinner, I was hit by that "recently gone rancid" smell and the look of disgusting biofilm on top, almost as thick as paper. Had to toss EVERYTHING. Still mad as hell at myself for that.

Didn't make the same mistake twice with an okra and chicken casserole we had that day, though. We cooked a generously sized pot of it, and not one spoonful of it got spoiled.

 

[Galane]

If you leave a pot with prepared food out of the fridge overnight, heat it up to boil the next morning.

Sometimes that doesn't work.

 

[TPA]

I think there’s common sense and then there’s a marketing machine selling us products to make them rich. Prepping is a perfect example. Own a flashlight in case the lights go out? Sure. Own 20 plus $10,000 more stuff they want to sell you? Nope.

Worse, the items usually aimed at novices prepping are usually garbage severely marked up.

In a waiting room a nice older woman was next to me with her phone and dead, garbage USB battery pack. One of those with a built-in solar cell and ridiculously fake capacity ratings. I believe she said she paid $45 for it. I let her use my little $19 INIU pack and she was amazed how much faster it was and that it still had plenty of charge left after filling up her phone. Her expensive "prepper" pack barely worked. I don't know the specs, but I'm pretty sure the solar panel wouldn't ever be able to fill the battery pack in any reasonable amount of time, if ever.

 

[Monocrom]

Folks don't realize that Solar is still in its infancy.
Those tiny solar panels are a ridiculous gimmick!
You'd need 3 solar panels about 4-feet by 4-feet in size each, attached to each other, that fold into each other. And, an extremely bright sunny day that stays very sunny for several hours upon hours.... to get a proper charge using solar technology.

Remember the very first Mag-Chargers that Maglite released decades back? 16 hours of charging to get 1 hour of use. Most folks just left the darn thing on the charger 24/7 unless they actually needed to use the light. THAT technology looks downright shocking efficient and sophisticated, compared to modern-day Solar.

 

[Candleometry]

Folks don't realize that Solar is still in its infancy.
Those tiny solar panels are a ridiculous gimmick!
You'd need 3 solar panels about 4-feet by 4-feet in size each, attached to each other, that fold into each other. And, an extremely bright sunny day that stays very sunny for several hours upon hours.... to get a proper charge using solar technology.

Remember the very first Mag-Chargers that Maglite released decades back? 16 hours of charging to get 1 hour of use. Most folks just left the darn thing on the charger 24/7 unless they actually needed to use the light. THAT technology looks downright shocking efficient and sophisticated, compared to modern-day Solar.

All depends on what you’re trying to run or recharge. It’s coming along it’s just not where it has to be yet.

I have a Citizen Eco-drive watch which runs on a full charge for 6 months. Any light will do though sun is the fastest. Battery should last for 20 years. Yes a tiny mechanism but huge results.

 

[Monocrom]

I love my Citizen BM7080-03E.
But in fairness, folks relying on Solar aren't doing so to power something tiny, like a watch.

 

[raggie33]

My fridge and window ac are runing off solar but not sure it will in full summer

 

[Galane]

Folks don't realize that Solar is still in its infancy.
Those tiny solar panels are a ridiculous gimmick!
You'd need 3 solar panels about 4-feet by 4-feet in size each, attached to each other, that fold into each other. And, an extremely bright sunny day that stays very sunny for several hours upon hours.... to get a proper charge using solar technology.

Remember the very first Mag-Chargers that Maglite released decades back? 16 hours of charging to get 1 hour of use. Most folks just left the darn thing on the charger 24/7 unless they actually needed to use the light. THAT technology looks downright shocking efficient and sophisticated, compared to modern-day Solar.

One of these small "30 watt" (not actually anywhere near that) solar panels with a USB port is effective at charging a cell phone or small battery.

That's pretty much the minimum area of solar panel needed to collect enough power to charge a phone. For a bit more oomph use two in parallel with a USB Y cable.

None of those power banks with solar panel built in has a large enough panel to do any more than slightly extend the amount of charging they can do. But the worse problem is having to roast the battery and electronics in full sunlight to get that small amount of power. With the larger panel on its own you can keep the phone in shade while the panel sits in the sun.

Something I found with the two panels I have is they put out more power when elevated above the surface they're on. Apparently some light can filter through the white back. One test I did, they put out the most power *upside down* with the dark side aimed downward at a light-ish surface with the white back side getting full sun.

But however they're aimed, two of them in parallel with a clear sky will put a usable amount of charge into a phone in an hour or so.

I also have a couple of those multi-section fold up small panels. IIRC one with 4 and one with 5 sections. I don't know where I put them, never got around to testing with the Ampere app or an inline USB power meter.

Those USB power meters are nifty gadgets, but some of them only allow through up to 1 amp (or don't allow all the ways phones communicate with wall chargers to determine power draw/supply) so they're not useful for testing which wall charger will work best with phones that are capable of drawing over one amp. These meters store some data in NVRAM so you can see the total milliwatt-hours, milliamp-hours that went through, how long it was running etc.

 

[dc38]

One of these small "30 watt" (not actually anywhere near that) solar panels with a USB port is effective at charging a cell phone or small battery.

That's pretty much the minimum area of solar panel needed to collect enough power to charge a phone. For a bit more oomph use two in parallel with a USB Y cable.

None of those power banks with solar panel built in has a large enough panel to do any more than slightly extend the amount of charging they can do. But the worse problem is having to roast the battery and electronics in full sunlight to get that small amount of power. With the larger panel on its own you can keep the phone in shade while the panel sits in the sun.

Something I found with the two panels I have is they put out more power when elevated above the surface they're on. Apparently some light can filter through the white back. One test I did, they put out the most power *upside down* with the dark side aimed downward at a light-ish surface with the white back side getting full sun.

But however they're aimed, two of them in parallel with a clear sky will put a usable amount of charge into a phone in an hour or so.

I also have a couple of those multi-section fold up small panels. IIRC one with 4 and one with 5 sections. I don't know where I put them, never got around to testing with the Ampere app or an inline USB power meter.

Those USB power meters are nifty gadgets, but some of them only allow through up to 1 amp (or don't allow all the ways phones communicate with wall chargers to determine power draw/supply) so they're not useful for testing which wall charger will work best with phones that are capable of drawing over one amp. These meters store some data in NVRAM so you can see the total milliwatt-hours, milliamp-hours that went through, how long it was running etc.

I've got an older folding 3 panel array from SUAOKI, It has since been discontinued, but with a few minutes sun "priming", it can fully charge my phone in a few (under 3) hours. Best to lay it flat though, as it can warp significantly while charging.

For what it's worth, THIS looks just like the SUAOKI, but branded by Ryobi.

 

[Monocrom]

Phones and watches are fine, but how about a full-sized fridge, or any other large appliance? Becomes a different story then.

 

[raggie33]

Im pretty sure ill run my window ac with solar all summer. I may have to stop useing solar for fridge.so far i make more power then either needs

 

[Candleometry]

Phones and watches are fine, but how about a full-sized fridge, or any other large appliance? Becomes a different story then.

Not if you have a large array of panels. You can’t expected to run a full sized fridge on a small panel. It not just panels though it’s battery storage also.

 

[Monocrom]

Not if you have a large array of panels. You can’t expected to run a full sized fridge on a small panel. It not just panels though it’s battery storage also.

Yes, exactly. Especially regarding panel size.