just checking for a pulse

[mobile_bob]

hope everyone had a good 4th, (for those of us in the USA)
for others i hope you all had a good weekend.

it looks as though this forum is all but dead for the better part of a month or maybe more.

i will keep this place open and online as long as i can,  but would like some input as to how we can make
the forum more relevant.

having lived long enough to see the cyclic nature of offgrid power production, it is no real surprise to me
that we are in the doldrums, 

it will probably continue to be so, up until things in the world take a turn in a direction that makes folks start to
think again of alternatives.

with oil prices down as they have been for some time, it might be a while before we see an upswing in interest
and then i guess if this place is still around, we pick up the pieces, dust them off and see what we can build out of them?

thoughts?

[mike90045]

I'm here and check daily.

no idea how to make "more relevant" .  I think interest is cyclic - as soon as the statues are gone, and the Grid becomes unstable, traffic will pick up

[LowGear]

I believe solar and batteries are taking over alternative or backup power scenarios.  And then there's YouTube U.

If I could turn this site around I'd buy Sears stock.  Sorry.  I've lost a couple of precious projects as well.

[sailawayrb]

I think microcogen is an obscure subject with very small community interest at best.  If one could find this site by Googling "Off Grid Solutions" for example,  you might get more visitors and generate more interest.  Of course, you might find these visitors to be less interesting, capable and helpful than the small band you have now.  I see the Lister Engine forum is still going strong.  However, nothing very interesting going on there unless you know nothing about engines...just the same old stuff getting regurgitated year after year.  So maybe be careful for what you wish for...

[mobile_bob]

Good point Rob!



bob g

[glort]

I often look for info on different Ideas I have on google  and find links going back 10 years or more to this site. The amount of knowledge here is incredible .  I'd love to be able to just download the entire site.

As to the fall off over the last couple of years, I have no suggestions how to get things going again. I see that things are falling off on the lister site as well.
I have been documenting things like my latest oil burner there even though it is more up the alley of this site but there is simply no one here to read it..... even if someone was interested.

That said, this isn't the only site I have seen fall over significantly in the last few years. I used to frequent a photo site that had so many new posts a day you struggled to get few a few sub forums in several hours. Now, it's a virtual ghost site as well. Same with electronics sites, foundry forums and other things that were once thriving.

People put a lot of it down to Facebook pages. I wouldn't know. can't stand the whole stupidity of that place but I believe it's experienced a huge user fall off itself.

I think Caseys comment about solar is spot on.
I have a shed full of engines and I don't think I have fired one of them this year.  Spent a LOT of time playing with solar and 10X as much time talking online about it. Engines have well and truly gone  from providing daily power needs to nothing more than backup in inclement weather for those off  grid.  I was setting up a big 3 phase motor for grid back feeding  to lower my power bills in winter. I have now got enough panels that I am covering the 70+ Kwh a day we use just on solar even in winter.  I really have no need for the IMAG now and it takes up a lot of space and is noisy to run.

The majority on these sites probably always used engines as toys not workhorses but I think the opportunity to do that is diminishing these days as well.  Property's are getting smaller, people are getting more candy arsed and whiney and the ability to run engines is getting harder without some clown complaining about the noise when you fart let alone fire up an engine. 

[glort]

Post edited by moderator, some content deleted.

I really would like to see this place become active again and would be happy to pus some time into helping it but I'm afraid I have no Idea as to what I could contribute or skills I could provide to make that happen. I think I'm half a chance at marketing, sales and advertising and have done well in business even well against the odds because of it but I have no idea how I could leverage those things to help get things going here.  I just don't know how much of an audience exists nor where to find them any more.

One thing I could think of would be members doing YT vids and mentioning and linking to this place.  Might reach some people with an interest.

The other thing may be to look at moving with the times and trying to promote this place to the solar crowd.  
I can't find anything that specifically says what this site is supposedly about but I'd suggest power generation of any type would fall within the charter.
Surprisingly, I find there are not a lot of DIY solar sites. Most seem to be about what commercial install is best and discussing problems with that.
Something that was more about making ones own power I think would attract an audience.

[sailawayrb]

For DIY solar stuff, this is likely the only place you need to visit:

https://www.builditsolar.com/

I think some people have a need to endlessly ramble on about something someplace to generate their self-worth.  I personally prefer places where you can just get a correct and concise answer to your question or request for guidance.  So I would be personnaly disappointed if this site became anything like the Lister Engine Forum site.  Or as my mother would repeatedly tell me as a child, if you can't say something nice, intelligent and useful, please don't say anything at all...

[mobile_bob]

Rob

sounds like you were fortunate to have been brought up by such an intelligent woman!



bob g

[sailawayrb]

Yes she was Bob.  She was even Valedictorian of her HS back when that wasn't very common.  She and dad are now 90 and have been married for nearly 70 years which is not common these days either.

[LowGear]

I'm afraid The Mother of Rob would leave many of us speechless.

I want to thank the three of you for a very nice laugh this morning.  There are few things more welcome than a good out loud laugh early in the morning.

Aloha

[glort]

For DIY solar stuff, this is likely the only place you need to visit:

https://www.builditsolar.com/

The info on that site is largely well past it's use by date and long since irrelevant. You would want to visit a much better site than that if you wanted to really learn anything useful.
Not all that much to do with solar anyway. Might be OK for very raw begginers but that's about it.  Does not have a forum either which re affirms my suggestion that this place could gain some activity from that interest group.

There is a LOT of Cutting edge stuff being discussed on some electronics forums I am on and a few of us are developing and testing new Controllers and Techniques.
I'm setting up a back to back test Myself atm to test  the benefit of a Pulsed switched capacitor bank over a set of ohm matched panels to a mains water heater element to see which one yields the greatest heating capacity.  The advent of Cheap used panels has created a lot of interest in solar and it would be a good market for a forum to cash in on especially when it is fundamentally the target audience of this forum.

The ability of people to be able to document such tests, people to ask questions and share Ideas would leave a site full of outdated and irrelevant articles for dead in it's value and potential to attract an audience.

[Henry W]

Rob,

Your mother gave you good sound advice. The world would be a better place if others would practice such advice as your mother gave you. When you see your mother please give her a great big hug and thank her for everything she has done. She's is a wonderful woman.

Henry W

[sailawayrb]

LowGear, always happy to entertain and create a laugh...  Hope this finds you on island time and not on Seattle time.  My youngest son was recently involved with this:

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/police-find-rescue-shoreline-man-trapped-in-edmonds-ravine/

Henry, thank you and I will certainly do that!

Glort, I doubt there is anything exciting going on in any forum about control systems that would keep me remotely interested.  While I still read the quarterly MIT control articles, other than some neat stuff going on with AI (largely because of the availability of increasing faster computational power), there's not much cutting edge stuff happening with control systems.  JPL and SpaceX have only recently started using the phase space techniques that I developed back in the 80s to land vehicles on mars and recover space launch system hardware:

https://www.borstengineeringconstruction.com/Bobs_Previous_Boeing_Career_Highlights.pdf

Of course, if you are ignorant about some subject and you then discover some info about it so as become very interested about this subject to the extent that you want to start applying your newly acquired knowledge to try and advance it further, that is a very good thing and how progress is made.  Just be aware that what might seem like cutting edge stuff to some looks like a clown dance to others...  I also think that there is a profound difference between buying used or new stuff and lashing it together for some purpose versus creating something from nothing.  I have always been and I continue to be impressed with the Build It Solar website projects that some folks have created from scratch and tested thoroughly before and without rambling on how wonderful they are.  And solar photovoltaic is a very small subset of useful solar projects too.  Personally, I prefer green hydro power over solar photovoltaic anyhow, but that's just my personal preference.  There is already too much non-biodegradable plastic and heavy metal pollution killing the planet and anything that creates more of it only makes the situation worse.  

Giving this forum issue a little more thought and the more I think about it...and perhaps digressing and rambling more than my mom would prefer...I am not really too surprised to see how web forums have declined in popularity in recent years.  It would seem most humans prefer activities that provide a quick jolt of joy or satisfaction with minimal effort and thought. Sort of like eating junk food instead of taking the time to prepare and eat healthy food. I think Facebook, Twitter and YouTube target this human desire and are almost a systematic approach to mentally retard the population and ultimately to control it. In some ways taking up those habits isn't all that much different than taking up cocaine.

You see people sitting with each other at a table and they are all reading or typing into their smart phones. As a consequence, you don't experience much intellectual conversation anymore. This only feeds the deeply divisive polarization happening in our Country. These days most people just get their emotions set by the info they are carefully fed and they no longer have face-to-face conversations with people of opposing views to allow debate and consideration.

As an aside, I used Facebook several years ago as a means to share photos. However, I soon realized its addictive nature and how intrusive and disruptive it can be to living and enjoying ones life. So I stopped using it completely...cold turkey...and it was really very hard at first. These days I use Google Photos for sharing photos. You just place them in a shared folder and then they are displayed on dedicated devices that stay someplace in your home or in the homes of people you share your photos. Way better than Facebook. A couple years ago I even went so far as getting rid of my smartphone and its ridiculous expense, especially given that there is zero cell coverage where we live. These days I use the Google Voice app on my Samsung pad for sending free text messages and for making free phone calls. While you need WiFi for it to work, that is actually nice in that you are not always chained to that addictive form of communication which helps break the habit and leads to better use of your short time on earth.  Furthermore, I think the days of cell phones are numbered anyhow.  With the massive constellations of LOE satellites soon to be in place (e.g., SpaceX Starlink), hyper-speed low latency WiFi will be available mostly everywhere.  The bride and I are definitely looking forward to beta testing Starlink in October and finally having the best Internet available anywhere in our remote location.

[glort]

   Personally, I prefer green hydro power over solar photovoltaic anyhow, but that's just my personal preference.  There is already too much non-biodegradable plastic and heavy metal pollution killing the planet and anything that creates more of it only makes the situation worse.  

I certainly agree with that.  I am working on a waste oil burner for home heating ATM as I am interested in all self sufficent DIY ideas but really don't care if they are Green or not like many forums want to berate anyone for if they don't meet their ideals. I would love to do a hydro system and I even look  for suitable land from time to time to build a getaway on powered by hydro but they are very far and very rare here.

I agree solar is is a small part of Diy energy as well as PV being a small part of solar but in Civilisation", I think they are the most practical.  I live in a very upmarket area and it's just not possible to do a lot of these things you could do offgrid without detracting from the look and ultimately the value of ones property and also space can be a big concern for those trapped in suburbia which needs to be considered.

I think Facebook, Twitter and YouTube target this human desire and are almost a systematic approach to mentally retard the population and ultimately to control it. In some ways taking up those habits isn't all that much different than taking up cocaine.

Could not agree more!  I see all these social media platforms as poisoning peoples brains and truly Dumbing the population down into gullible, brain dead morons.

You see people sitting with each other at a table and they are all reading or typing into their smart phones. As a consequence, you don't experience much intellectual conversation anymore. This only feeds the deeply divisive polarization happening in our Country. These days most people just get their emotions set by the info they are carefully fed and they no longer have face-to-face conversations with people of opposing views to allow debate and consideration.

Yep! Never ceases to amaze and piss me off how even in decent restaurants you can always look around and find someone on their phones.  Friends know they do that when I'm with them and I won't be there soon after and I refuse to go into restaurants that have TV's.  Bad enough in pubs and clubs but is RESTAURANTS?? What the hell?

As an aside, I used Facebook several years ago as a means to share photos.

I use face waste a couple of times a year to contact people ( mainly the younger generation) about  an annual memorial get together.
The rest of the year I constantly hear " Did you see XXX on facewaste?"   No, it's not in any way unusual  for me to not go near it 3-4 months at a time.  It's poison to the brain far as I'm concerned  and I look at people whom are regular uses as probably being of low IQ.
The fact so many believe any damn crock  of BS they read on it and take it as gospel no matter how illogical I find very disturbing and it's getting worse all the time.

People are fast loosing the ability to think and reason for themselves let alone do anything for themselves.
I think that is a big reason sites like this are in decline. That and the Safety zealot mentality that the safety industry has brainwashed people with in order to inflate the profits of their industry.

They have most people so damn scared of their own shadows now that the social mentality and advise will soon be one needs to wear proper PPE or hire a licenced professional to tie their shoelaces.
And I bet my arse if I started posting that on facewaste and gave some BS " safety" reasons, I could get the brainless sheeple repeating it so it was like a law within a month and they would be telling other social media addicts to do the same. 

Sometimes I think the more stupid these ideas are, the easier it is to get idiots to accept them and always without question.