John Weiland

M Ljin wrote: .......video on a tool called a wire clamper for installing wire clamps.

Loved this!   The self-made catamaran was very impressive.... :-)

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

John Weiland wrote:[ On a lark, I had angled grinder in use that day and ground off the rust on the fork to reveal the problem.  There indeed was a pin through the head, but the pin heads had been fused so cleanly with the fork head metal (welded?) that planning a removal procedure looked daunting.  I was able to drill out one side of the pin, but the non-drilled side is well afixed....even after pounding the drilled side with a punch.  Any suggestions for completing this job would be welcomed....Thanks!

The first option is to heat the rivet head with a small propane torch (a plumber's torch) to try to break the rust weld by expansion and contraction.

The other option is to turn the rivet head into a crude bolt head that you can grab with a big vise-grip. I'd use an angle grinder and cold chisel. Then you can twist and pull on the rivet head.

Finally getting back to this after the priorities of the garden were first addressed....

I was a bit concerned about how much damage I might do to the metal handle tube with an angle grinder, so opted instead for adding a new, more hardened drill bit to the collection ..... and used it to drill out the other head of the pin.  That worked a lot better with the proper bit and soon the pin was removed from the assembly.  With pin removed, re-drilling a hole into the wood that remained and screwing in a large storage hook proved to work fine--with hook hanging on the edge of the workbench, a few strikes on fork shoulder popped the fork right off of the remaining wooden plug.

I may just purchase a new handle this time around as other seasonal factors are conspiring to limit time on the project, but also to ask with regard to older handles around the property:  What method do you use to produce the taper at the end of the handle to fit into a fork tube like the one I'm working with?  I don't have a lathe and maybe next best thing is wood rasp or a  spoke shave??  This would also pertain to ash poles that I could cut on the property.  Thanks!

Ryan,     For a fun comparison you might do your berries and then also do a set with red beet extract.  Beets and its relatives have betacyanin-based pigment compounds versus the anthocyanins in most other plants.  The pH effects on the juice are shown below.  Photo from   https://rosieresearch.com/shop/learning-ph-homeschool/

Allen Jackson wrote:....... If you have the wattage already, you can skip that first step and just divide by the voltage.

Divide that by the system efficiency to get the real-world current draw. That should give you a better idea of whether you're really needing to go to a 24 Vdc system, in terms of current requirements, and the duty cycle will determine how many (more?) Ah of capacity you might need.

Yeah, I was using the "kW" column to estimate a *running* power requirement of 370W, but this does not factor in any efficiency fudge-factor or start-up surge.  Here's my terrible math:  I'm estimating that at 32 ft of height from pump to delivery point I could end up getting ~ 4 gal/min flow rate based on their chart.  If I had one 24V battery at 100 Ah capacity then assuming *ideal* numbers, this might deliver 2400W for 1 hr or 800W over 3 hr, so that is triple the amount of time that I usually water and the power estimate is double the running watt needs of the pump. Most irrigation pumps I know are 'continuous duty' so the pump would be expected to run full time for the 1-1.5 hr of use...watering usually 2-3 nights per week. I'm using the GPH column value of 238 at a pumping head height of 32 ft....likely double the actual height from pump to delivery point.  And then there is the 3/4" hose.....  

So several factors, but is this estimate approach at least in the ball park?  Thanks!

Wow....that is a nice, snug and well-organized build, Allen!

I agree that I was a bit taken aback by the M4-size terminals, but am dealing mostly with 100A or much less juice for my intended needs.  I think my cells will do 2C discharge for a bit, but I don't anticipate using this first attempt assembly for much but powering light-duty loads.  Also, unlike your box, the one I bought did not allow for upright orientation of the cells....they are laying on their side in order to allow for the BMS laying across the cells.  That said, I was at the store over the weekend looking at new ammo box offerings and saw a 'next-size-up' version (Plano) that may allow for a 24V build in that box.  I'm looking at pumps like the one below for the summer garden irrigation efforts.  

The specs are a bit below what my gas pump offers, but I'm realizing as well, as I do tests with a yard hydrant vs. exterior house spigot vs indoor sink tap just how much a role here is played by the conduit size shuttling the water from point A to point B.  Thus, our home well pump at between 40 - 60 psi delivers about 10 gal/min. of water flow out the yard hydrant, but a much lower rate out of an indoor sink tap.  It makes sense when you think about the 3/8" fittings on the indoor sinks versus the ~1-1.25" pipe and couplers running from the ballast tank and well pump directly to that hydrant. I'm hoping that the pump or one similar will serve my needs with the battery and a solar charging system set up near the water source.

All the same, based on the specs below for the top two pumps (12V vs 24V), I may be able to get by with the 12V system.....still need to crunch numbers, ponder wants vs needs, and finalize the plans. But I need to shake a leg since we're fast approaching summer heat:  After a touch of 32F last Wednesday, we are over 90F today!

Marisa Lee wrote:Swedish pancakes with pea soup on Thursdays - it's a thing! It needs a name though. Thick Thursday?!!

I tend to go with "Thespian Thursday"....wherein I regale the role of master chef in the kitchen and end up producing mid-week, mediocre meals.  Ha!....

Now 'Thick Thursday' would describe my American midwestern version of chicken curry...... :-?

Jay Angler wrote:

John Weiland wrote: Now I want to try Jay's method of driving a large screw into the wood to see if I can pull it out by force.  I mean, what can go wrong!??   Don't answer that.... ;-)  

You might want to have vice grips handy to pull on the screw, or even a bench vice? (Then again, I have very wimpy hands.)

Take pictures?

Can't recall the origin of this quote: "If at first you don't succeed, try at least 3 more times so that your ultimate failure is statistically significant..." ..   :-)

Some photos below to go with the sentiment.  The head was pretty rusted, yet I could discern no pin going through the assembly to hold the head onto the handle.  So I inserted a #10 screw into the broken face of the handle, then placed the screw head in a vise.  By tapping downward on the shoulders of the fork blade, I had hoped to pop free the head from the broken wood piece inside.  Alas, after a few taps, the screw snapped in half with no movement of the wood out of the receptacle.  Undeterred and knowing that sometimes bigger is better, I used a broom-hanging hook-screw which was longer and with deeper threads.  This time, I did NOT break the screw......but as I was using the hook to hang it from a sturdy tree branch, the hook bent straight ..... and the wood *still* hadn't budged.  This began to seem quite strange, this hold that the fork head had on the wooden handle.  On a lark, I had angled grinder in use that day and ground off the rust on the fork to reveal the problem.  There indeed was a pin through the head, but the pin heads had been fused so cleanly with the fork head metal (welded?) that planning a removal procedure looked daunting.  I was able to drill out one side of the pin, but the non-drilled side is well afixed....even after pounding the drilled side with a punch.  Any suggestions for completing this job would be welcomed....Thanks!

I'm sure I posted it in another thread some years back....  Not for improved growth, but as a slug bait.  Yeast + sugar + water, mixed, poured into empty cat-food cans that are sunk into the ground so that the can lip is at ground level.  Slugs are very attracted to the 'bouquet' and crawl in and drown.  

....only we had one more variable.  After the concoction had fermented, our pot-bellied pig got into the garden and drank all of the brew.  In the aftermath, wife and I concluded that the pig leaned more towards the 'mean drunk' side of inebriation.   We switched to diatomaceous earth for slug control after that episode.... ;-/

Allen Jackson wrote:Do you have the specs of the pump?

Mine didn't come with any bus bars or terminal screws, or separator sheets, but I'll sort it out. (I think they're M4 holes?)

I will track down pump specs for a next post.

Do your cells look like the ones I recently bought (below).....mine also did not come with bolts or bus-bars or separator sheets, so I purchased those separately.  And yes, M4 bolt size for the terminals.

Also adding in here a belated apology, Eric, if this has been too much take-over of your original thread.  In my defense, I was inspired by your build and am always grateful to do a new project alongside of others.....bouncing ideas back and forth with others seems more productive to me and this thread has delivered and hopefully will induce others interested to give it a try.

Now to chip in with another question:  Victron sells a battery balancer for monitoring and controlling two 12V batteries, serially connected for 24V.  As I look across some of the DC-based irrigation pumps, certainly 12V alone do exist, but 24V starts to get you into more serious gallons-per-minute territory.  My current gas-powered pump with 2" ports delivers optimally ~9500 gallons per hour (~150 gal/minute), but with my head height and garden hose step-down assembly, I'm probably putting out ~15-20 gal/minute.   I could tolerate a reduction for watering the garden but feel I need to get close to those pump specs, otherwise I may end up spending good $$$ on an system with inadequate flow.  From the surface of the river to ground-level in the garden is no more than 30 ft of height, even adding the additional 3-4 feet for the end of the hose being in held during watering.

Anyway, if I go 24V, I would be interested in either (A) recharging each 12V battery separately, then reconnecting them to run the pump, or (B) using the Victron balancer and a charge controller that can do 24V and just solar-charge the serial-connected battery duo.  Even during dry periods, we can go 2-3 days between watering since the clay soil holds water quite well....and would allow a few days for recharging the batteries.  Note, I'm not so interested in direct PV panel to pumps set-ups since I prefer watering at dusk to reduce water evaporation immediately after watering.  Thoughts?  Thanks!...