short-but-strenuous hike

It’s gorgeous outside, 70deg F with a slight breeze.    Skies are mostly clear with some high, wispy cover at times.  After several days of medium overcast the lead batteries are soaking up sun like cold lizards on a rock.  Muffin and I took off for an overland hike.  I didn’t know how far we’d

backchannel: How do you size a VSR?

How do you size up the ampage for a VSR? Reminder: a VSR is a Voltage-Sensing Relay is a type of isolator that uses sensed voltage to decide when to open/close.   The benefits are:

giving up on /r/vandwellers

I’ve mentioned a couple of times that the /r/vandwellers subreddit has bloated beyond recognition, and beyond usability. This is largely a function of youtube and instagram influencers <spit> pushing hashtag-#vanlife. Here are the immediate problems as I see them:

backchannel: why aren’t tilted panel daily harvests higher?

Tilting panel is advantageous when the sun is relatively low in the sky (winter, higher latitudes, morning/afternoon, etc).  The question is how advantageous? Grand Canyon example A fellow excitably posted about his increased yield when tilting: 100w panel will be at least 4 times as efficient That’s clearly not true, panel efficiency is a function

portable panels: what worked and what didn’t

I picked up the wiring and panels from Home Depot this morning.  While I was in town I dropped off Xmas cards for kids in the family.  I’ll be here another 12 days which would make it too late to mail them later. The panels are fine, no better or worse than any other I’ve

“urgent recall”

There is a known recall on the fan module on the PM (and PM City, IIRC). Recall: VB2 – 2015-2018 PROMASTER ENGINE COOLING FAN RAM sends emails with URGENT RECALL in the subject line with this kind of graphic: … which would be useful if any dealers actually had the part. But they don’t; none

logistics: Quartzsite to Lake Havasu City

I didn’t have to leave until the 8th, but I had two packages in the Amazon Locker in Havasu and I knew the lockers were full.    I gathered up the campsite (60 seconds) and headed south.  Havasu is north on 95 but I had some stuff to do.  trash I had two plastic grocery

/r/vandwellers hits 1 million

I wrote in Sept 2019 that the vandwellers subreddit had ballooned to a half-million readers.    It recently went over 1 million: 1,009,721 readers Yay. This might be a Good Thing if the readers of vandwellers were, you know, van dwellers.   The overwhelming majority are not.    from frontpagemetrics:   When I started there were about

November, according to Google

ships of the desert, literal and figurative

Saudi nomads referred to their camels as “ships of the desert”, and there’s even a Quartzsite connection.  Hi Jolly (ie, “hajj Ali”,  hajj indicating one who has undertaken the pilgrimage to Mecca) is a local historical figure. [Hi Jolly] was an Ottoman subject of Syrian and Greek parentage,  and in 1856 became one of the first camel drivers ever hired