As promised, here are some pix of my latest work, much of which was accomplished during my hiatus from the board.
I apologize if this doesnt come out right, I shrunk them to fit the guidelines (hopefully) and this is my first attempt at a 'mass upload'.
I'm not going to go into detail with most of these, the pix speak for themselves (and are mostly referenced elsewhere).
Enjoy. Questions welcome.
And No, I am NOT off grid... YET!
This is the comparison of the 8D taken out of service after one of the 12V UPS units took a crap on me. I forked out like 400 bones just for the new batteries alone, and this is what they look like sitting side by side if the camera was a bird about to leave its mark... They are Ray-O-Vac SLIGC115 units, 230AH at the 20 hour rate, 120 minutes @ 75A. I'm good with that.
A closeup of the new batteries for the servers. Yeah, I was proud. This is the first REAL bank I had actually bought, not cobbled together from other things. Sexy aint they?
This is what happened to the UPS that took a dump on me. That will teach it. I told it to tell it's friends. I don't play that...
This is the one that my wife is ready to hang me by the charging cables with, and the unit that as soon as I finish drawing up the final modifications that were made last minute on-the-fly, will be posted up here for anyone who cares to repeat this ridiculously expensive experiment. This thing can do wonders, and for the most part, 'thinks' like me, but damn, did it have to COST SO MUCH?!?!
Elsewhere in the picture you will find things like the completely 12V powered audio section of the 'entertainment center', and one of the nicest offerings wally-world has ever had to offer. For 25 bucks, I picked up those nice little 7W LED fixtures (marked down from 35) and have 5 of them ready to roll. It's amazing how efficient they really are. When it comes to light, if you really want serious light for minimal power, go with upper wattage CFL. If all you want to do is undarken a room, go with the LEDs. These things are AWESOME! I even found a 10W version that works VERY well. Point them at the ceiling and forget the rest. The more you have plugged into even a cheapo inverter like I am using, the higher the efficiency. If you're going to power only one via 12V, tear it apart and make a driver instead. But distributed power like most of the RE crowd has, I can DEFINITELY vouch for these mofos... They are sweet!!!
This is what became of the 8D when I replaced the 12V system with the 24V. I had to do
something with it, didn't I? I wasn't going to let it just sit there and sulfate!
This little chime is what makes some really cool stuff possible. It's an old car -> laptop power adapter that took a dump on me when I told it I wanted one thing and it had another idea. I swapped out a couple parts, and gave it a new heatsink to play with, along with a fan. It doesn't argue with me anymore.
A close up of my revision to a virtually brand new APC 1400 battery pack (RPC7). This is the price my company pays for hiring absolute morons for field techs. Every once and a while, I find a total diamond in the rough. This thing is NASTY when it wants to be. I won't go into the details of exactly how I know this... LOL Let's just say it can perform to what the labels say, and maybe then some
The "Attempt at life after impending death" thread subject. OFW, this thing can still drive an LED. She's not shining to anywhere near her abilities. Dammit, I gotta mount it on a heatsink. Maybe now I have incentive.
Almost done here. Last but not least, comes my current web site layout in terms of hardware. I'm not giving up the address publicly, primarily due to content and bandwidth concerns. Lets just say that uptimes of >180 days are regularly viewable stats. I have learned how to make love to a battery with this system, and would not turn back for anything. The current layout powers not only the 4 servers you see, but the entire network, and 4 other machines that are not even visible.
And there you have it, in a nutshell. I've been hard at work. Just havent been logging in to tell the stories.
I'm going to get there someday guys - the 8D system is teaching me all kinds of things about usage and the like. And yes, I'm well aware that I will either have to have one hell of a Google-like budget, or change to something MUCH more efficient if I ever intend to keep the site up on RE.
That's in the background. I love you all, and have learned so much from each and every one of you. I look forward to more! Keep the RE dream alive!!!
(besides, what ELSE are we gonna do when the grid really DOES go down?)
Steve
