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@jorgen74,
...and is that an old Lee Enfield 303?
(I was a military weapons tech in a previous life).@Ethiopia:
Seriously? I grew up in Venice, about a mile from the beach. What a trip.303? Yes it is. My dad gave it to me when I was 12, had it ever since, had to ditch the original stock unfortunately, it was too bubba'ed up to use. Replaced the firing pin, re-blued the whole thing, got it back in shape.
I was a crypto (electronics) tech in a previous life.
@jorgen74,
He's an interesting character. He was a high powered programmer for Apple and a HUGE bike nut. He too kbike trips all over the world and even peddled through Chernobyl once. One day he threw it all away, peddled up north and worked on a farm for a while in Oregon(?), crossed into Canada and worked in an orchard for a while while building a tiny home (100 sq ft!). He bought a truck and dragged it (the tiny home, not the truck) all the way to New Brunswick, Canada near Moncton where he met a lady, married her and together they started an organic farm. They eventually split up and he moved (with the tiny home) to Fredericton where he worked at a greenhouse. I met him through a friend of mine who also worked there in the summer and we started riding together. He's a bit nuts but a good guy. He finally retired (we're both hitting 70) and went on lo-o-o-o-o-o-ng multi week rides around the maritimes. Every winter he'd ride out to California to spend the winter with his Mom. He's very much into the environment and minimalist living. His place is 100 sq ft (I think I mentioned that?), 140 if you add the loft where he sleeps. Two years ago he took a tumble and cracked his pelvis. He spent the fall and early winter as a cripple in his place. Can you imagine living in that kinda space through a Canadian winter? It's a good thing that one of his neighbours is a nurse (he's in a very nice trailer park). Several friends took turns doing his shopping and visiting him to help.
I've been trying to beat some sense into him and believe I've finally succeeded. When he returns after his Mom passes on he'll have money and we've been looking at plans for much bigger tiny homes. I told him that he can build it at my place then tow it to the park. I volunteered to do his wiring.@jorgen74, My father left me an FN (Fabrique Nationelle) 22 calibre pump(Wow!) rifle. It's beautiful. I also got a Remingtom pump 12 gauge from him. I don't shoot anymore and am going to send them both out west to my son. The 22 makes a nice varmint rifle on the farm. During my time in I shot EVERYTHING....a lot, and guns bore me now. However, 'Ramp surfing' in the back of a CH46 with a GAU-21 (.50 calibre) never got boring.
@Ethiopia
That's a hell of a story, sounds like he's going to do just fine if you guys are just hitting 70 and his mom is still up and running at 90-ish, makes me think maybe I've got another ten years or so.Yeah, you should definitely build the house, you can rope it and set up the wiring to IEEE specs so it doesn't burn down with that questionable park power (keep in mind, 240 in a park, means two 120V circuits on one plug, not 'real' 240V as in residential wiring).
Had to go through that with my kids when they had a 5th wheel, after their 'other' fiver and the do-it yourself truck camper, jeeze...those RVs kept me in the shop more than I was at work.
I did Autocad work for MEs, you guys should draw it up, probably in solidworks nowadays, then do some sims on the proposed structure to see it it'll hold together under stress, just for fun.
@jorgen, He's favouring a set of plans from some builder in BC (British Columbia). It's much longer than his and the layout is brilliant. The rear of the frame drops down and the wooden beams are on level with the bottom of the steel frame. Using the maximum height allowed, he cleverly builds a pseudo two stories in the bathroom and bedroom at the back. It has a cozy living room, a decent kitchen and even a 'loft' for storage or an office (sitting only). The plan uses a woodstove but I'd put in a heat pump. There's a video of it somewhere if you're interested.
I'll look into the wiring code (CSA here) but I'm sure that parks are no different here.I have a friend here who works in an RV center now that he's retired and he's always telling us how crappy they are. If you just parked it, it would be fine but bouncing down the road beats the stink out of them.
I guess a part of it is also a lack of confidence in that too. Many years ago I was eager to solder stuff like wires for a car stereo speaker, but traces, caps, and small components are a bit scary for me unless they are not super tiny. I also have had a bad tendency in the past to be a bit adventurous with tech. That worked out great with building my own PC, but not so great when it came to buying a 3d printer, learning how to use it, needing to replace/upgrade parts, and finding out I wasn't as good at upgrading as I thought. So now I have a useless 3d printer collecting dust instead of replacing the parts I bought to replace to get it running. I really don't want to repeat doing something like that. I also have much more pressing things to worry about, such as getting new glasses, and related to something like soldering, I'd probably be more comfortable with some kind of magnification. I also want to try my hand at a few junk motherboards I have first before working on anything critical. Even if all I get out of it is removing parts I can use for other stuff.
I have the monitor set aside in case I ever do get a chance to repair it, but I also have another 24" monitor that (I think) only needs a power supply, which is external unlike the newer monitors. However, those seem to be more expensive as time passes. It's also a risk because I'm assuming the power supply is broken, but it could also be something wrong with the monitor internals too. I have no clue. So instead of buying a new power supply, I opted to buy a new monitor. If it is the power supply, that could be cheaper than a new monitor, but I could also hit a dead end that means I have to buy a new monitor anyway, and then I have two 24" monitors to fix.🤷
@Ethiopia:
Heat pumps are great, depending on the climate you use them in (I have one). Just keep in mind they use the refrigeration cycle, so they only extract heat down to about 35-40 deg, then have to switch to auxiliary heat strips. They also freeze when the climate is humid/rainy/snowy because the outside evaporator coil is at about 20 degrees lower than the outside ambient temp (like you're cooling the outdoor air).Where I'm at, they work great. But here, the humidity is typically about 10-15%, dry except during storms and doesn't normally get much below 32 deg, even in winter and then, just at night.
@jorgen, We're four hours out of sync, it's my beddy-bye right now. I've got a warm wife waiting and the cat is busy wiping boogers on my pillow (oh boy....).
My heat pump story tomorrow.
Nyte!@Josie:
OK, I have lens implants in both eyes (bionic vision), but still use magnification to solder. I have a setup with five lenses of varying strength that gets me by with even surface mount stuff (if it isn't too microscopic). My grandson, who has 20-20 vision uses the same magnifiers when he solders, most people I know use magnifiers when working on electronics.And like in welding, where you have to get comfortable before you strike an arc, whether stick, mig or tig, so soldering is the same thing, you have to be comfortable to be in control of what you're doing, so your focus is on your work, not distracted by awkward posture or discomfort from anything your sitting on the wrong way.
The next thing is to know why solder flows. Solder will 'follow the heat'. It will 'bond' to a metal surface that is clean and is heated to about the same temp as the soldering iron you are using, else it will just 'ball up' and not stick to where you want it to.
Even when it 'looks' clean, the surface and wires your soldering together will have a layer of oxidation on them that can frustrate your attempts to solder them together, that's what 'flux' is for, it removes the oxidation layer that keeps you from bonding and lets the metal accept the solder and bond with it.
Practice is always a requirement until what you're doing becomes 'muscle memory', 'automatic', so you don't even think about your technique because it's ingrained in you from doing it over and over.
Most of the problems I've seen people have is from not fluxing the metal (even though solder has a rosin core) and not staying long enough to heat up a joint. Play around with it, try different things until you don't have to think about it.
I'm somewhat familiar with the concept because years ago I messed around with a little brazing, so I know how important flux is, but I haven't soldered anything in several years. The last time was in the mid 90s when my brother showed me how to do it because he needed my help installing his car stereo. Basically hold this, hand me that wrench, plug this in, turn the car on. It seemed less intimidating after I got to help out. I learned a lot doing that and even got comfortable enough to install my own stereo years later. Personally I think welding is a lot easier. For a while I even had my own wire welder until someone stole it mid move from a storage unit I was renting. Not sure exactly who did it, but they made off with $6k worth of my property, and they had to be a locksmith because there was not one sign of a breakin. Just missing things, empty boxes, and what wasn't taken had been rummaged through, like clothes that were folded all tossed around inside their totes. I guess they didn't want those. I filed a report with the sheriff but nothing ever came of it, even with a detailed itemized list and receipts.
@Josie:
Sucks that your stuff got boosted like that. We've all had our turn getting robbed. I lost a Dodge Ram pickup about four years ago, right out of my driveway while everybody was asleep.They did find the truck about three days later, totally trashed. They also found the guy that did it, but the courts were so backed up that they couldn't give him a 'speedy trial', so his lawyer got him cut loose on those grounds.
Anyway, yeah, I still have a mig and a stick setup and bottles w/torches. I'd like to get a tig setup someday down the road.
Meanwhile, stick with the soldering practice. Mess it up all you can just to see what 'not' to do, some smart guy back in the annals of time said "We learn more from our failures than we do from our successes", I'm inclined to agree.
@Ethiopia:
Not to 'beat a dead horse', but...With gas heating, sizing is easy because you just figure the heat you need to offset the building losses at an average outdoor temp then let the thermostat cycle the heater longer or shorter to maintain a set indoor temp. Gas heating has a 'constant' BTU output.
Heat pumps are a different animal because, unlike gas, heat pumps put out fewer BTUs as the temperature drops. That means you have to figure-in that BTU drop to come up with an appropriate size that will maintain an indoor temp as the outside temperature falls.
If you want to go heat pump, get something like a Cooper-Hunter system:
But first, do a manual-J to see how many BTUs the building needs to offset heat loss:
https://everycalculators.com/manual-j-calculation-spreadsheet.html
Once you know the BTUs you need, just go over to Home Depot:
https://www.homedepot.com/b/COOPER%C2%A0-%C2%A0HUNTER/N-5yc1vZrmq
Keep in mind that the manual-J figured the heat you need from a 'constant' BTU heater, you might want to adjust the size of heat pump 'up' from those BTU figures to account for the fact that even 'cold-climate' heat pumps like Cooper-Hunter will lose up to half their BTU output as the temperature drops.
Disclaimer: the last time I looked at heat pumps was around 2009, I didn't know about 'cold-climate' heat pumps back then, I don't think there was any!
@jorgen74, I messaged you about heat pumps. Ours doesn't use the resistive heater until ~-24C.
Our place is very well insulated and we keep a cool house (~20C) so the cost is reasonable.
We're near the Atlantic too so the temperature tends to be a bit milder than further inland.
I'd like to get another one, a small one for the attached garage. Still looking.Whoa, -24C - that's crazy! Like I said, I didn't know anything about cold-climate heat pumps before this thread. Out here, we insulate against the 'heat'. Like, it was about 90F today, but that's because we had cloud cover, we won't see 80F again until Oct.
Good luck with the search for a small one, looks like there's a lot of them out there. It also looks like a lot of these websites are 'shilling' for one brand or another too, so have to see if you can get a consensus from several sites to nail it down.
Most of the stuff I've seen goes down to around 12k BTU, but that's about it in the sites I've looked at.
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