more bot's

[mobile_bob]

having been trying to be more active and vigilant with the new member applications, i have found it to be such that we get one new sign up from .ru every day, or at least 5-6 times per week.

because of the high density of problems originating from .ru part of the world i have been simply denying all applicants from this part of the world...

for those applicants that are legit my apologies, i just don't have the time to have to go in and weed out bad apples as they come up with lots of applicants from .ru parts of the world.

our forum has been plugging along for the last year or two, struggling along if you like, however i think as time goes along we will have more opportunities to get things going again. the fact we did as well as we have given the epa's clamping down on all diesel engine emissions and cutting off imports back in '05 (has it been that long?).

personally i am hoping that perhaps we get a new regime in DC later this year, one more in line with the thinking that just maybe the "epa" needs to be reigned in just a bit?  probably a pipe dream that anything happening that might change the reg's on small engine's for our uses, but hey we gotta have a little hope.

so basically i am trying to hold the group and the forum together for as long as we can, and not letting applicants from known area's of the world where bots and other problems are known to exist seems like a reasonable position at this point.

bob g

[LowGear]

Aloha Bob,

Thank you for keeping the boat afloat.  It's part of my morning coffee and an important escape from the nasty news.

My idea is that we figure out some way that we (your loyal warriors) give you a hand in the more robot kind of tasks which could be covered in a 5 to 10 step procedure guideline.  Please don't write us off without experimenting with your shared resources.

Casey

[glort]

I have a YT channel with 15K subscribers.  I am endlessly bemused how nearly every day now I get someone posting a Comment..... In Russian. My descriptions are in English, clearly I am speaking english so I wonder why russians, And pretty much only Russians ask questions in their language and expect a response?

I think it's the same here, it's an english lanuage forum.  The amount of Russians that could speak English and therefore be able to participate here I Imagine would be about the same as those people from english speaking countries that can speak Russian.
I also notice the majority of spammers that want to try and post crap links in the comments section are of Russian Origin.  Bit surprising really, I thought the main spammers these days were Nigerian but maybe that's  sCammers  rather than sPammers.  Then again, if left up to me I WOULD line them all up and shoot them along with  the low life filth that write and infect peoples machines with Viruses.

Given an exception to eliminate these scumbags, I'd even pay for and supply my own ammo..... although somehow I think I could probably buy an ammo factory with the donations I'd get from one of those crowd funding things If I started one.....

It would be good if we could get more people into the forum but I have no clue how to do that.  I think in reality it's bit of an old mans interest/ subject.
Hands on types that enjoy getting their hands dirty are becoming a scarce breed these days. Really, it's not a wonder.
My wife and I have been looking to sell up and find new Digs.  They way they have built places for 30 years here, there is barely room for the mower and a brushcutter let alone any space for a workshop or to have a decent amount of tools. Its no wonder people can't do anything for themselves, there is no space for what you need to change a tap washer in a lot of these places and there are a LOT of places like this.

In Sydney now, the main type of residences going up are Duplexes which are really just 2 units flats.  They keep packing more and more people in to tighter spaces and dumbing them down and making them more useless and incapable of doing anything for themselves.
Having the space to do anything like what this forum covers is fast declining let alone those left with an interest in it if they could.

[vdubnut62]

  Bob, I too would "donate" an hour or two to vet a few membership candidates a month, given a guide to follow.

I agree, Glort. The situation is nearly the same here. People can hear the neighbors toilet flush .
The days of rugged individuality are very near gone.
Ron.

[SteveU.]

I've been reluctant to chime in here as feeding the perception that the MicroCoGen "consists of only four people".
Anyhow . . . Ron, Casey you'all'ld make that SIX folks active.

The Russia situation has some uniqueness. Their current powers-in-place seem to want illegal Net activities to harrass any, and all Western activity. "We are dong what we can to find, and contain any criminals", plausible deniability.
I sponsored thru AdminBob a Ukrainian woodgas friend AleskyA. here who had a blocked .ru address.
Haven't heard from him in 18 months or so.
I figure he got ate-up in the ongoing Ukraine/Russia dust-up.
I do not see new menbers as the be-all, do-all solution to adding to MicroCoGen info exchanging.
Solution is for any, and all here to up-ass, start DOing/producing daily, and exchanging about it.
Use/proofing is intersting. Bla-bla, speculating/idealizing "I hear'd's" i-s the b-o-r-i-n-g.

Regards
Steve unruh

[Tom Reed]

Ahh...make that 7? Being over a mile away from my nearest neighbor in one direction and 8 miles in the other, I don't hear to much from my neighbors.

[mike90045]

My closest neighbors are hobos living in the creek, next to the RR tracks.   outside the city, so the police wont do anything, in the county, the sheriff way too much serious stuff happening to deal with "low level" stuff.   I'll start training skunks to spray them.
Raining the last 3 days, had to run the generator this morning to keep the batteries up.

[Tom T]

Make that 8 trying to get out of  Oregon and back to Montana for a while need an attitude adjustment in a big way need to get  back to the Mt. Top and look at the stars for a while closest  neighbor about 10 miles.  Tom T

[glort]

I guess where all this DIY power thing comes from for me is pretty different to most.
I live in suburbia on a good size and above average block. I have all utilities connected. I'm not greenwashed or save the planet fixated. I don't live off grid.
I do have this thing about being independent even though I can recall one black out a few months ago that lasted an hour and that's the only one that comes to mind in 10 years.
I like playing with engines and generators and making my own power but also now looking into DIY Solar.

Panels can be bought so cheap where I am. Not hard to get 3-4 YO 250W used panels for under $50 ea. Also not hard to put more power generation on your roof than the ubiquitous 6Hp lister can generate and there is NO maintenance, fuel or anything else to think about once they are there.  Being on grid putting in batteries does not make sense YET, but given the low cost of generation, the cost of storage I think will fall similarly.
One day I'd like to get some land and go off grid in a weekender just to put my DIY generation skills to the real test of reliance. Ideally that place would have a water supply suitable for a micro Hydro which I'd also like to play with. That said, not easy to find too many places close enough to where I live that would have such a water supply and who knows if time will beat me and I'll be too old to be bothered before I get around to it.
The last year however has made me real aware of the need to do things now because time and life gets away far too quick.

My next " experiment" is too hook some solar panels to a Standard electric water heater and put that in front of the regular heater so it is fed warmed or preheated water. If the solar brings it up to temp, the regular heater will never kick in and if it isn't how enough, the regular heater will bring the water up to temp but be working on water that is above mains temp and therefore save power.
I think I should be able to hook up some panels and get their rated output of heat input to the water even if the voltage and wattage is short from the panels to the capacity of the element.  Some things I have read and been told tell me it won't work. I can't see why not so I'll just try my idea and see what happens. If it fails, no biggie, I'll learn something long the way and if it works, then I'll have still learned something and feel pleased with my efforts.

The next thing will be to look at building a Hybrid water heater. Something like a gas heater I can put one of my waste oil burners under to rapid and constant how water and with an electric element to work off the solar.
I wonder about something like an IBC container surrounded with household batt insulation and encased in something like cool room panel and heated externally and fed with a circulation pump. Might be able to fire it up with the oil burner once a week or so and have the solar electric keep it at a useable level.  I have a tiny water heater atm so I would really enjoy some Loooong hot showers!

There will never be anything like the living breathing presence of an IC engine but there are lots of complimentary things a DIYer who likes the feeling of independence can do to spread the eggs between more than one basket and learn more about self sufficiency along the way.

[LowGear]

My closest neighbors are hobos living in the creek, next to the RR tracks.

Whew!  I wondered what happen to Aunt Pearl and Uncle Eddie.  I can feel your pain.

Casey

[Jens]

My next " experiment" is too hook some solar panels to a Standard electric water heater and put that in front of the regular heater so it is fed warmed or preheated water. If the solar brings it up to temp, the regular heater will never kick in and if it isn't how enough, the regular heater will bring the water up to temp but be working on water that is above mains temp and therefore save power.

I wonder about something like an IBC container surrounded with household batt insulation and encased in something like cool room panel and heated externally and fed with a circulation pump. Might be able to fire it up with the oil burner once a week or so and have the solar electric keep it at a useable level.  I have a tiny water heater atm so I would really enjoy some Loooong hot showers!

It is MUCH more efficient to heat the water directly through solar and if you go with vacuum solar panels the hot water generation keeps going through the depest winter. Hot water can also be produced (amazing as it sounds) on overcast days!

For water heat storage you might want to think about building your own tank, EDPM (?) lined. An IBC container is not enough capacity for anything useful and is only good to something like 65C (that's off the top of my head and likely wrong but it's well below boiling). There are good write-ups on the web for tank construction and it is surprisingly simple and straight forward.

Sorry for the thread drift .... now back to our regular scheduled programming of bashing bots ....

[mike90045]

re water heating
Winter, I use a Masonry Heater, and I have a water coil in it, that thermosiphons to a 80 gal SS insulated tank.   Average firing of the heater, gets that tank to 80-90F
That preheated water feeds a tankless propane water heater.  Summer, a rooftop solar heater feeds the tankless preheated water, sometimes that gets to 140F  A mixer valve keeps the inlet to the tankless to 110F