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MacGyvering Avian Surveillance

WYZE Cam Pan v3There’s a well-worn bird feeder that hangs just outside of our kitchen window. It was made by Stella’s late brother Robert. It hangs on a rope, well above head height. There was a time when we put seed in it. More recently, we feed the birds at a stand in the back yard that’s easier to reach. So this particular feeder has been empty a long while.

In March a Wren appeared to be renovating the kitchen bird feeder. For a week or more he appeared to be diligently filling it with nesting material. We could see the stuffing being amassed between the plastic sides of the feeder. Now and then the female would show up to inspect his handiwork.

I was impressed. So much so that I thought I should capture this activity on the part of our latest tenants. I happened to have a few Wyze Pan Cams 3’s in my collection of techno-junk. They had been purchased for a transient project, but were now idle.

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Well, hello there big boy! Duromax offers a 28 kW portable Inverter

DuroMax 28,000 Watt Tri Fuel Portable Inverter GeneratorDuromax continues to lead the market for large, portable inverters. After launching a 16 kW model last year, they have recently introduced a portable inverter that delivers a whopping 28 kW (starting Watts) when running on gasoline. The XP28000 is available in two versions, supporting (iH) dual-fuel or (iHT) tri-fuel configurations.

It’s plainly a mighty beast, capable of delivering 16 – 22 kW of continuous power, depending upon fuel type. That puts it up there with the typical Cummins, Generac or Kohler permanently installed standby generators.

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Monday Morning: Snakes In A Drain

Snakes in a drain

This week started in a most inauspicious manner. Monday morning, as we were getting ready for the day, we discovered that the kitchen drain was clogged. Thinking that I had to get to work, Stella suggested that I could leave it until the evening. But I thought, there was nothing pressing on my desk, so might as well address the problem straight away.

The bathroom sink was draining freely, so it wasn’t a main line clog. We’ve had some experience with those in the past. The water in the sink smelled faintly of bacon grease, which implied the clog was close to the kitchen sink.

There was a time when we had quite a lot of recurring drain trouble. I had different plumbers out to snake the drain line at several times over a few years.

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Ruminations on a toothbrush

The other day, we were coming back from taking Julio to the vet. Stella wanted me to stop at a pharmacy to pick something up. There was a CVS on the route home, so I pulled in. She waited with Julio in the car while went in to pickup what she needed.

Once in the store I found what she wanted quite easily. Then it occurred to me that I needed something myself, but what? Scanning the store I finally remembered that I needed a new toothbrush.

paw-patrol-kids-toothbrush-03

For many years I’ve used the battery operated “Spin Brush” electric toothbrushes. I’ve had a number of these. The heads are replaceable, but the mechanism itself doesn’t last forever.

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Instrumentation Options for a Portable Generator

In various online forums, people are routinely asking for help when faced with a generator that’s being overloaded. This may be in the context of a food truck, mobile pet salon or delivering whole house backup power.

It’s believed that management guru Peter Drucker once said, “You cannot manage what you cannot measure.” I have been making a lot of use of that quote when offering answers to such questions. If you are placing a significant load on the generator, you need to monitor the load to know when you are nearing overload. Allowing it to overload is disruptive, time consuming and potentially dangerous. Without hard data to inform your decisions, you’re only guessing about how to address the problem.

Option #1: Built-in Load Monitoring

If you don’t yet have a generator, you might well consider instrumentation in making that choice. For example, my Harbor Freight Predator 9500 was one of the first of a new crop of high-power inverter models that became available in 2021. It does not have any built-in instrumentation. So, it was incumbent upon me to provide such capability externally.

In contrast, a bit over a year or two later a neighbor bought a Pulsar PGD95BISCO from Home Depot. This Pulsar if effectively a cousin to my Predator. They’re both made in China by Chongqing DK power machinery Co.,LTD. The Pulsar model was introduced later in February of 2023. To be competitive it has a few more features that the Predator. One of the nicer features is a built-in load meter.

The built-in LCD shows the output voltage, frequency and aggregate load on the generator in real-time. This is very handy. I wish my Predator had this feature.

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Oh, bother. Where art thou? Base Power

I first wrote about Base Powerback in May 2024. Inspired by Doug Lewin’s Energy Capital podcast, I signed up for the companies mailing list, in the hope of learning when they Austin-based company would be offering service in Houston. In fact, I’ve signed up twice!

We’ve received literally nothing from the company. Putting our address into a page on their web site they report “Great news! Base is coming to Houston soon! We’ll be installing in your area later this year.”

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