Category: DIY

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Tac Sat

Here’s one of the crazy stories about what I did in Bosnia:

My Army Staff Sergeant partner was showing me around the MIB compound shortly after arrival for my first day’s work at Butmir. There was a storage area in the top floor of the main building containing among other things, ten brand new high-gain Tac Sat antennas, unopened in the shipping crates. Asked what was up with them, he simply replied: “They don’t work.” More in-briefing included plans for the upcoming week and a road trip ferrying floppy disks around the country by Land Rover, and I already knew what my 1st challenge was going to be.

Inter-service coordination has always been a challenge, but the U.S. sets the example to follow in that military regard, at least as long as I’m the one on the phone. The only reason Tac Sat was not up and running in Bosnia was nobody seemed to be able to figure out how to get crypto and point the antennas. The Army is great at shooting people and blowing stuff up, but satcom was a different story at this location. Their idea of secure comm was us driving floppy disks around with M-16s to protect them. It certainly was one of the more egregious government foibles I’ve disagreed with over the years. Only took about a week to locate the bird (Navy) and get crypto issued out of HQ for the radios.

We spent another week playing around, doing a little training. Started by taking one over behind the gym on the other side of the base and setup one day. I had the Lieutenant transmit a file, making sure not to tell me what was on it and read it back to her ten seconds later over the phone. She said “So you can take those anywhere and do that?” We started taking those antennas with us to the COYS, thankful to leave them and the radios behind, departing with hopefully the last of those HUMINT reports on floppy disks.

Here’s a guy who did some of the real work there before my arrival.

U.S. Air Force communications Airmen assigned to the 23rd Air Expeditionary Wing set up radio equipment during contingency location operations at the Rafael Hernández International Airport, Puerto Rico, Feb. 25, 2023. The Airmen were supporting Operation Forward Tiger, an Air Forces Southern exercise designed to increase combat readiness alongside humanitarian assistance and disaster response capabilities with U.S. partners and allies throughout the Caribbean. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Courtney Sebastianelli)
Used to be the world’s biggest collection of deployed landmines, back in my day.
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Voltage!

The title of this post should probably be Webasto Heater Update. But the real topic is voltage. Anybody out there ever feel like they are cursed to learn things the hard way? I must be, because I learned about the wrong way to run a float charger last winter. You can’t just leave them connected and expect the battery to stay up in use – they don’t work that way. The circuit needs broken every discharge cycle to re-start the top-up. If not, the charge indicator just stays green while they discharge! This behavior is confirmed with a 2nd charger employed in exactly the same wrong way.

So the Webasto implication is simple: Like most forms of portable electronics, they work much better on strong, charged batteries. A green LED indicator means good one time only, in actual practice – use a voltmeter, if in doubt! Problem solved with a plug switch on the charger. Run the heaters, reset the charger. Duh.

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Last Summer’s Big Project

Cleaning the garage. It took all summer. It’s been due for almost 4 years, but alot of the higher activity-type Stuff around here had to be postponed or scaled back due to health issues recently. These pics show only the final stage of the project, where a buttload of car and truck parts, accessories and supplies got properly sorted and stored.

The floor was getting swept from time-to-time, but things eventually got to the point of piling up going unattended for too long. I actually forgot what all was stashed around that engine and shelving in the NE corner. The other side where Michelle parks was similarly gone through, and all the tools were re-organized with new, bigger toolboxes.

Getting the speaker, shelves, engine and toolbox to fit around that corner was a challenge. Pretty sure I tried every possible positioning combination all morning one day, before finding the one that fit – only just. At least the car goes up and down off the lift without having to double-check everything is moved out of the way first. I still have alot of work to do on the Chrysler, but it’s gonna need to be broken down into many smaller projects.

That 440 was running great with around 90k miles on it when pulled IIRC. It’s gonna get rebuilt into an old-school Mopar torque monster someday.

It’s on the far north side of the runway, so that’s true minimum clearance.
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Lazy Tomcat

I was terrified those kittens were gonna destroy the grill on that subwoofer, but fortunately the scratching post I made with some sisal rope did the trick.

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Pond Summer 2022

It’s almost finished. The old wooden finch feeder housed it’s last hornet right before being upgraded to a new, powder-coated steel model. Only the stonework on the wall and flowerbeds remains to be done. The sunflowers grow wild from birdseed. They come up everywhere, so I just let them grow where they aren’t in the way and get plenty of water. Every few weeks one of the smallest Goldies manages to squeeze out behind the overflow grate.
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Clean Power

After the dust from a failed UPS battery settled with a spare installed, I learned 1500Va is only enough to run the pond with both pumps and the UV light for around 15 minutes – not enough in my estimation. So I snagged a re-furb’d Smart-UPS 3000 off eBay for about half price new. With any luck, they just put a new battery in it. Only problem was getting it installed. The damn things weigh almost 100lbs with that much battery in them. I was able to get it done by suspending it under the shelf on a rope and cinching it up a few inches at a time until it was in place to bolt in.

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Weed Tree Re-Invented

I did a little project last spring to clean up a climate-killed tree, transforming it into a pole light for the driveway. The other half of that tree went the same route again this year, but turned out to be considerably more difficult. We needed a new, longer ladder and somebody to watch me attempt suicide by gravity. So I waited until the Town guys were hanging out before their regularly scheduled landscaping activities, and invited them to watch with their flashing yellow light truck while I dropped branches onto the street.

Only issue with the taller side now is it sorta becomes a street light at this point. Maybe I can do a deal with the Town to get that going. These solar pole lights start getting expensive up into the +400-watt range. I had to replace the original unit installed a year ago, due to a failed battery. I haven’t checked it yet, but it was getting drained every night over the winter, so that is probably what went wrong with it. It was a 300-watt model and the new one shown below is an upgrade to 400-watts.

One cool thing about the tree is it isn’t actually dead. The main trunks died off, but it’s now sprouting new branches out of a few spots, so maybe it won’t eventually fail after the roots rot out! It really is a big ‘ol hardwood weed.

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Chrysler 440

Sitting around going through the alerts this morning, my favorite version of Green Onions came on the Klipsch’s. It felt sorta allegorical today, with Red Betsy sitting waiting for my attention. It’s taking awhile to get the carb sorted because I can only stay under the hood in that position for a few minutes at a time.

Shitstain McAssface plead the 5th 440 times in the NY tax case deposition.
Green Onions -The Blues Brothers
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Pond v9 – Spring 2022

The goldfish moved out yesterday. Took awhile for water temperature to come up with many cold nights so far this spring. The UV light was upgraded to a proper pond-type unit this year, replacing the aquarium model we’ve been using the past few years. It was integrated with the fountain pump on a new intake/filter. Liner is fully watertight. Looking forward to getting a good growth of java moss going in the sump this year. That stuff might be one of the best components of the overall filter system.

First crisis was averted after I walked out mid morning to find a goldfish in the yard! He must’ve decided to make a jump for it right before I came out, because he was still alive and laid on the bottom for awhile gasping for water after I threw him back in, but apparently got over it.

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At-Home Covid Test

Had a little sore throat past couple days and decided to try one of the at-home Covid tests. This what you get – five pieces and nine steps of instructions.

I’m just gonna wait until I get sick and go to urgent care. It’s their job, after all.

OBTW, one of the first things it talks about is installing an app. PUHLEEZ. The government spent many $millions developing and distributing these things. Maybe if they’d got started at the outset instead of bragging about how well the pandemic was going we’d have something useful by now.

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Petro Dump North

Finally completed a long-running prepper job on the north side of the garage. I got the barrels from an eBay seller down in Commerce City 17 years ago. Fuel storage is a high priority due to cold winter temps and related aquatic life support issues around here. Reliance on the power grid and natural gas makes home heating a single point of failure without a backup heat source. Old school wick-style kerosene oil burners are great, and their fuel supply was properly established a couple years ago.

Then I heard about these diesel heaters and decided to give them a go. We already had the hardest part of that project completed by the people who built the house. The second barrel sat unused all these years, while the first gradually filled with waste motor oil (WMO). I put a hand pump on the 2nd after getting it filled for the first time yesterday, now holding up to 55 gallons of diesel for the Webastos.

Not sure why I decided to do a tap-and-drain on the first one, but the hand pump seems to work quite well. Probably a cost saving measure at the time. It should be enough hydrocarbons to get us through any winter utility interruption, regardless of how long it lasts, if (big if) I can get the Webastos running on a decent WMO/diesel blend. The diesel alone would keep them running for up to a month, depending on their batteries.

40-gallon auxiliary tank under the truck toolbox makes re-supply fairly trivial. It’s a fully-independent dual-tank setup. Electric pump offloads the aux tank with a valve flip.

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Jerry Cans

After starting to haul diesel for the Webastos, I finally got fed up with the EPA-compliant fuel cans found at most outlets these days. I’ve modified a few of those plastic junk can spouts and vents over the years, but decided those were going to be the last. They can sit out back in the shed after the Armageddon Vehicle got an upgrade – real NATO-spec jerry cans.

The hold-down bracket folds up out of the way lashed to the headache rack for hauling dirt and gravel. Padding where it hits the handles puts a little tension down to hold the cans firmly in place. At an average 20MPG, the old Dodge now has around 1,700 miles range with a full load of fuel: 30 gallons in the stock tank under the bed, 40 under the toolbox and another 15 in the cans.

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Pond Liner Complete

It took nine years from groundbreaking, to get it right, after Francie said we needed a pond. As a pro in the industry, my friend Joe will attest to the challenging aspects of stone masonry, but that was not the most difficult part of creating this little hole-in-the-ground ecosystem. Keeping the water inside of it was always the biggest problem forming a uniquely shaped liner like this. Search “pond” for all the details from years past if you’re interested. The final word is a product called “Pond Armor™,” It’s a 2-part epoxy paint, designed specifically for this purpose.

Downtime in the off-season over the past four years involved re-coating the liner with numerous layers of truck bed liner to build a sufficiently stable base for supporting the final Pond Armor top coat. I tried the stuff at one point five years ago before it was ready, and failed miserably. The epoxy forms a hard plastic-like surface. But it cracked and leaked badly that first time because the base was not solid enough yet. Time will tell if we have it right for the long term. It hasn’t leaked much the past couple years, as the liner improved. It’s looking really water-tight prior to this year’s fill-up.

The biggest Pond Armor issue is the difficulty in working with it. I spent the entire day yesterday making quite the mess, resting in-between mixing six separate batches to apply in the 20-30 minutes it takes to start setting. It’s thick and difficult to brush on. $350 for enough to do a proper double-coat on this particular project is a not insignificant expense, to me. After coming this far over the years, I may do it again next spring, just for insurance.
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Webasto OAT

It’s starting to look like the diesel heaters have a maximum exhaust pipe length somewhere between 5 and 10 feet. They seem to be doing fine now with good air filters after cleaning and running without the exhaust extensions and WMO for a couple weeks. I’ll get back to the WMO at some point if they stay good until spring like this. We’ll call this the (O)perational (A)cceptace (T)est phase.

Overall tho, I cannot recommend these things. The Chinese build quality is just horrible, resulting in numerous pitfalls. They can be installed and run safely and reliably by a competent handyman. But the potential safety issues overrule this system for most people, IMHO.

The are a few different ways these things can kill you with carbon monoxide, fuel leaks and resultant asphyxiation and fire. The worst problem I found was a loose plug in the injector chamber. Don’t know where it went or exactly when it fell out, probably the 1st time I cleaned it. You could easily have a fire on your hands if that let go running.

Under the best conditions, like other portable heaters or anything of this nature, they should never be run un-attended. Long-term longevity seems doable, being the simple device it is. Fan and pump are the only moving parts. If you can get them setup and running right and follow some simple safety precautions, they should be good. That setup part is going to be a challenge for many people – it was, for me.

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Webasto IOT&E

The Webastos got off to a great start, then failed in different ways after only a couple weeks. Was it due to the stock air filters, or the WMO? That fuel concentration was pretty minimal to start with. The air filter supplied with the units is actually no filter at all, so I added some foam media to at least keep the bugs out. Considering we’re in the middle of winter, I probably should have just left them alone.

Only the #1 unit was sooted up, so my preferred theory is intake restriction. The other one looked fairly good for the 20-some hours of runtime it had on it. Still not sure what’s wrong with it. The injector sleeve gasket was missing, so maybe that let it run lean. Ironically, they were beginning to get hard to start just a couple days before the good air filters showed up.

Unit #1 is running on max for a couple hours this morning, after cleaning and re-installation. Extended (I)nitial (O)perational (T)est and (E)valuation periods usually spelled doom for the new systems I worked in the Air Force. Fortunately I have the flexibility to manage this one however I see fit, and it’s kinda fun to tinker with.

Intakes finally finished.