What was your most interesting recent non solar project?

[Checkthisout]

Funny about that kit. I literally learned everything I know from that radio shack kit.

Xmas present from my dad when I was in 2nd grade.

Funny how that kit provided such a strong foundation for repair and design basics of electronics and tinkering. So much real-world usefulness or a solid foundation for a future electronics engineer.

 

[Brett V]

It doesn't really qualify as recent but I built and operated an amateur 70 cm repeater in the Pittsburgh area. It had an ERP of over 1000 watts and 3 voted receivers, one of which was on the roof of USX Tower. With a normal 35 watt mobile radio, it had good coverage over 20+ counties in Southwest PA, Western Ohio, and Northern West Virginia. It had 2 meter linking capabilities and an APRS digipeater on site.

 

[gotbeans]

Been killing all my grass and planting native flowers & clover to take it over for months. Grass this spring is almost gone it seems, I would guess maybe 10-20% left in spots.

Just moved 4 cubic yards / 3 cubic meters of compost for the garden (not that interesting)

 

[OM617YOTA]

Been killing all my grass and planting native flowers & clover to take it over for months. Grass this spring is almost gone it seems, I would guess maybe 10-20% left in spots.

Just moved 4 cubic yards / 3 cubic meters of compost for the garden (not that interesting)

Love it, something like this is on my "round-tuit" list. Convert the landscaping into something I don't have to think about, ever, if possible.

I love a forest, meadow, or rolling farm fields, but the typical useless American lawn and landscaping isn't my jam at all. Maintaining these things are one of the very few parts of homeownership I absolutely hate. Hate. HATE. There is zero ROI, every cent, second, and thought spent on it is 100% waste.

Started paying a neighbor girl to mow, and while I still hate spending any $$$ at all on freaking grass, it's good to help out a teen in the community, and so very worth not having to deal with it myself.

 

[Q-Dog]

Parts is parts! Resin and fiberglass pieces.



UtahRaptor, Ready for Paint.

 

[Checkthisout]

Parts is parts! Resin and fiberglass pieces.

View attachment 203289

UtahRaptor, Ready for Paint.
View attachment 203291

Would love to see a Youtube chiropractor take on this.

 

[Andrewr05]

One of my favorite things I got when I was growing up was a 150 in 1 electronics kit, which had basic parts like resistors, capacitors, transistors, coils, etc laid out on a large board with springs on each end of the part with wires to make the connections. So, armed with a schematic you could rig up all kinds of cool circuits. That gave me a head start when I actually went to a tech college.

I just bought one of these recently and my kids and I (mostly me! ) had a blast playing with it for a little bit.
They're 7 and 10 and admittedly lost interest after about 30 minutes, but its a start!

Back when Radio Shack actually sold components. Towards the end it was definitely "Radio Shack, you've got questions, we've got cellphones."

Yeah that's pretty sad, they definitely went down hill quickly.

But even towards then end they still had some small electronics stuff and were one of the only local places that had a home theater speaker setup where you could try out different models.

 

[JayArr]

In the last year I, with the help of youtube and some manuals, taught myself how to rebuild automatic transmissions. One of the only things on a car I hadn't done, I've rebuilt engines, brakes, steering etc.

I started with the GM 4L60E transmission which is common as all get out. Used in all the trucks, SUVs, corvettes, full size sedans etc.

I didn't save a dime on the first one because of all the special tools I had to buy but this second one will be less than $500 for a full rebuild so now I'm saving $$

 

[Sparks-n-Splinters]

Parts is parts! Resin and fiberglass pieces.

View attachment 203289

UtahRaptor, Ready for Paint.
View attachment 203291

That looks like fun!

We just returned from a 3 week adventure exploring the Appalachians from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Found our slice of heaven on earth and waiting for the closing date. Now back in Iowa to prep the Condo for sale and pack.

 

[Dagoth Ur Does Solar]

In the last year I, with the help of youtube and some manuals, taught myself how to rebuild automatic transmissions.

Now THIS is the craziest thing I've seen in this thread.

People that can build automatic transmissions are like gods to me. Those things are arcane boxes of lost technology and magic.

 

[gotbeans]

Love it, something like this is on my "round-tuit" list. Convert the landscaping into something I don't have to think about, ever, if possible.

I love a forest, meadow, or rolling farm fields, but the typical useless American lawn and landscaping isn't my jam at all. Maintaining these things are one of the very few parts of homeownership I absolutely hate. Hate. HATE. There is zero ROI, every cent, second, and thought spent on it is 100% waste.

Started paying a neighbor girl to mow, and while I still hate spending any $$$ at all on freaking grass, it's good to help out a teen in the community, and so very worth not having to deal with it myself.

Yea there are some people that buy a bunch of rock and take over their whole yard with that.. it's pretty silly though (unless you're actually in a desert area then it makes sense)
I found buying enough white dwarf clover for 5x my lot size worked well to be able to hit pieces of grass with my weed whacker until it's barren soil and dig into it killing the grass, then throw out some seed on top of it lmao

There are a lot of cute flowers that are native to me, like this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houstonia_micrantha it only gets like 2 inches tall so perfect for not mowing
I got a lot of these already growing just by not mowing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamium_purpureum they get a bit taller, seems the tallest ones are about 7 inches
Got a lot of these too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscari_armeniacum they aren't native but neither is clover.. I didn't plant them though someone else must have. But I have probably like 300 of them growing lmao

I have 2 electric lawn mowers here (I got broken from people) I converted one half way to remote control but I decided last year that killing all the grass was maybe easier than mowing so I decided to do that and it seems to work so far.

I might complete the mower project though, I already wrote most of the code for it but I was going to put a camera on it so I can sit inside and control it. I have to put an antenna on the pole in my backyard

Parts is parts! Resin and fiberglass pieces.

View attachment 203289

UtahRaptor, Ready for Paint.
View attachment 203291

Do you add the rib cage and arms after paint?

 

[OzSolar]

Been killing all my grass and planting native flowers & clover to take it over for months. Grass this spring is almost gone it seems, I would guess maybe 10-20% left in spots.

Just moved 4 cubic yards / 3 cubic meters of compost for the garden (not that interesting)

In CO or AR? I'm interested to follow this because we are looking at doing the same in SW MO.

 

[Lt.Dan]

I have a few and they're all expensive.
First is my 96' F350. I've had it over 10 years now, and i have put waayyyyy too much work into it.


Right now I'm working on resealing a bunch of leaks, and replacing quite a few parts. Yesterday I finally got the engine back in the truck:



My other hobby, my 2020 Polaris RZR Turbo 4 seater. Lots of desert and dune riding. The kids absolutely love it.

 

[TwoFeathers]

I built the redneck hot tub at our off grid camp. It’s 180 gallon livestock watering tank. I use a propane instant hot water heater and a 12 V pump.

 

[gotbeans]

In CO or AR? I'm interested to follow this because we are looking at doing the same in SW MO.

NW AR, so you're my neighbor! but it'll work in CO as well lol, works anywhere

here's another good native one for us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlox_subulata
There are several "phlox" make sure to get the "creeping phlox" which stays very short, several colors of it exist
I choose flowers because people are less likely to complain seeing a shitload of flowers all over.
Milkweeds are good too, we have like 20 different ones but they all grow tall. I have a dedicated area for a few for the butterflies etc

I built the redneck hot tub at our off grid camp. It’s 180 gallon livestock watering tank. I use a propane instant hot water heater and a 12 V pump.

nice lol. I got a stock tank tub too.
I am going to add a well UV filter to it so I don't have to chlorinate it anymore. It should make the galvanized steel last forever too.

 

[Hedges]

Designing state of the art microprocessor chipsets (3 generations of HP-PA, every one booted the OS at first silicon).
<OK, not recent; I'm reaching back 40 years here>
Solving EMI susceptibility issue for a famous-name blood glucose meter.
Playing Rocket Scientist (a.k.a Aerospace Engineer)
Designing RF and DC drive electronics for a quadrupole atomic mass spectrometer (residual gas analyzer); those are electron and ion optics devices.
Implementing test of X-ray photocathodes (electron optics)
Working on SEM electronics (electron optics)

And fixing cars, trucks, motorcycles, tractors. Even tore apart and overhauled a Ford/Mercury AX4N transmission (downloaded and printed color step-by-step manual.) If there had only been a low fluid pressure alarm that wouldn't have been necessary.

I never stuck with any one specialty long enough to really become an expert, but I did have fun telling the experts when they were wrong.

 

[seneysolar]

My day job is aircraft maintenance.
My favorite part is still capacity testing batteries because when they fail I take them home for experiments

 

[Jason.Blier]

I love snowmobiling and Sleds.

I recently hopped up (larger displacement, ported, high performance head, etc) a new engine for my custom-built sled. We had a crap winter, so there will be a few more modifications for next season - but I’m back to solar projects, so the sled is parked

 

[Hedges]

My day job is aircraft maintenance.
My favorite part is still capacity testing batteries because when they fail I take them home for experiments
View attachment 203370

So do you imbalance the cells if you've got your eye on a pretty battery?
(Sort of like putting your finger on the dipstick so it will register low.)

 

[seneysolar]

So do you imbalance the cells if you've got your eye on a pretty battery?
(Sort of like putting your finger on the dipstick so it will register low.)

I do get excited when a Hawker battery comes in. Its what i made my portable power station from.
They have very stringent parameters to meet and they cost about $4k. They fail criteria all the time but are still good for any other non-aircraft purpose.