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diy solar

What was your most interesting recent non solar project?

jeff.lankford said:
This was an ambitious project for a software engineer with no construction experience. Two story shop/garage with the parking deck on the upper level and a 6,000 gallon cistern incorporated into the foundation. This is my design, but I did get a local engineer to spec the steel beams and massive footings underneath the poured walls, for the permit. I paid contractors to do the excavation and the concrete & steel work, but the post and beam structure is all mine, no helpers.

View attachment 274095

I refer to this as a "poor man's timberframe" because I used factory trusses, except for the decorative end truss, and all the jointing is just simple lap joints. Figuring out how to erect this structure singlehandedly, without power equipment, was an exercise in problem-solving. In order to lift the 350-lb beams by hand I used the supporting posts to also support a lifting gantry for a manual chain hoist. This was tricky, and the first lift was scary as hell, but the system worked pretty well. Sort of a lift yourself up by your own bootstraps affair.
View attachment 274096 View attachment 274097

I found that lifting the trusses into place with rope-and-pulley was helped a lot by placing a conveyor roller at one end to let the truss swing freely while I raised the other end of the truss with a rope.
View attachment 274098 View attachment 274100

To raise the 400-lb scissor truss I used a trick my neighbor suggested for raising sailing masts - a gin pole. A single 2x6 was more than enough to handle this load - did you know the longitudinal compression strength of a pine 2x6 is over 9,000 lbs? The simplicity of a gin pole is so elegant to me. One 2x6 and a 1/4 inch steel cable.
View attachment 274101 View attachment 274102
View attachment 274104 View attachment 274106

The beam deflection under the dead load of the slab pour, and then the live load of three parked vehicles, was pretty much exactly what the math predicted it would be. So that was cool to see. Adding the 6,000 gal cistern to the design reduced the shop size by about 100 sqft. In one of the photos above you can see the manhole cover set into the slab, and the 4" PVC pipes which will route rainwater into it.
View attachment 274110 View attachment 274112
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Dude... thats sweet! looks like it came out well.
 
Brucey said:
That's where the legend of Daddy "Stumpy" Tanuki was born. Fortunately lbfm didn't mind :)
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we also hiked up in april time frame and snowboarded down a couple of times before they started making it illegal... the big bowl leftover form the blowout makes for a perfect spot to drop in right at the 8th station... take sa bout 45 minutes if the stuff is wet, and about 30 if its dry... gotta stop and rest several times regardless... imagine your thighs on fire and twitching after the first 10 minute run.
 
Daddy Tanuki said:
Dude... thats sweet! looks like it came out well.
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Thanks. Considering I had no idea what the hell I was doing when I started out, I'm fairly happy with the result.

BTW... I miss Japan. I used to travel there 6 ~ 8 times a year when I worked for NEC and later for Panasonic. I miss the people. I miss the food. I particularly miss an all-you-can-eat shabu shabu restaurant in Shin Yokohama...

Regarding your user name... does that have anything to do with the Tom Robbins novel?
 
Dagoth Ur Does Solar said:
Hopefully the electrician told the inspector that HE better suit up, crawl under there, and go tug on the ground wire!
Click to expand...
Typical check box thing. 'Verify' ground at blah, blah. Nobody had been in the box since the buildings were built, just some reg. Bigger dog came to the party with APS engineer and nixed the idea.
 
jeff.lankford said:
This was an ambitious project for a software engineer with no construction experience. Two story shop/garage with the parking deck on the upper level and a 6,000 gallon cistern incorporated into the foundation. This is my design, but I did get a local engineer to spec the steel beams and massive footings underneath the poured walls, for the permit. I paid contractors to do the excavation and the concrete & steel work, but the post and beam structure is all mine, no helpers.

View attachment 274095

I refer to this as a "poor man's timberframe" because I used factory trusses, except for the decorative end truss, and all the jointing is just simple lap joints. Figuring out how to erect this structure singlehandedly, without power equipment, was an exercise in problem-solving. In order to lift the 350-lb beams by hand I used the supporting posts to also support a lifting gantry for a manual chain hoist. This was tricky, and the first lift was scary as hell, but the system worked pretty well. Sort of a lift yourself up by your own bootstraps affair.
View attachment 274096 View attachment 274097

I found that lifting the trusses into place with rope-and-pulley was helped a lot by placing a conveyor roller at one end to let the truss swing freely while I raised the other end of the truss with a rope.
View attachment 274098 View attachment 274100

To raise the 400-lb scissor truss I used a trick my neighbor suggested for raising sailing masts - a gin pole. A single 2x6 was more than enough to handle this load - did you know the longitudinal compression strength of a pine 2x6 is over 9,000 lbs? The simplicity of a gin pole is so elegant to me. One 2x6 and a 1/4 inch steel cable.
View attachment 274101 View attachment 274102
View attachment 274104 View attachment 274106

The beam deflection under the dead load of the slab pour, and then the live load of three parked vehicles, was pretty much exactly what the math predicted it would be. So that was cool to see. Adding the 6,000 gal cistern to the design reduced the shop size by about 100 sqft. In one of the photos above you can see the manhole cover set into the slab for access, and the 4" PVC pipes which will route rainwater into the cistern.
View attachment 274110 View attachment 274112
Click to expand...
Jeff,

Nicely done. Did you end up needing to line your cistern with anything? Or just raw concrete? I’m thinking of putting in 5000 gallons myself.

Thanks
 
jeff.lankford said:
Adding the 6,000 gal cistern to the design reduced the shop size by about 100 sqft. In one of the photos above you can see the manhole cover set into the slab for access, and the 4" PVC pipes which will route rainwater into the cistern.
Click to expand...
I used a rainwater collection system for years and it worked well. I rigged up a completely passive system that allowed dirty first-run water to bypass the collector. After enough rain fell to rinse the roof, the system would divert the water to the barrel. It had no moving parts, and it only needed an annual cleanout of the bypass unit to keep it working well.
 
Bluedog225 said:
Jeff,

Nicely done. Did you end up needing to line your cistern with anything? Or just raw concrete? I’m thinking of putting in 5000 gallons myself.

Thanks
Click to expand...
I used a product called Damtite that you paint onto the bare concrete. I applied two coats. The product comes in two colors (white and grey), so I used both colors to get a better visible indication of full coverage on the second coat.

I suppose you could use any type of foundation waterproofing, but Damtite is suitable for potable water storage.
 
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justgary said:
I used a rainwater collection system for years and it worked well. I rigged up a completely passive system that allowed dirty first-run water to bypass the collector. After enough rain fell to rinse the roof, the system would divert the water to the barrel. It had no moving parts, and it only needed an annual cleanout of the bypass unit to keep it working well.
Click to expand...
I've read about using diverters like that. This system just has screens on the house gutters, and then a diagonal leaf deflector on each downspout that diverts any large debris. I covered these deflectors with a very fine mesh screen (mosquito head nets, actually) and these screens are self-cleaning with the same deflection meant to kick out larger debris.
 
jeff.lankford said:
Thanks. Considering I had no idea what the hell I was doing when I started out, I'm fairly happy with the result.

BTW... I miss Japan. I used to travel there 6 ~ 8 times a year when I worked for NEC and later for Panasonic. I miss the people. I miss the food. I particularly miss an all-you-can-eat shabu shabu restaurant in Shin Yokohama...

Regarding your user name... does that have anything to do with the Tom Robbins novel?
Click to expand...

The food was my favorite part of Japan... I still make Katsu to this day and am a sushi-a-holic
 
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jeff.lankford said:
Thanks. Considering I had no idea what the hell I was doing when I started out, I'm fairly happy with the result.

BTW... I miss Japan. I used to travel there 6 ~ 8 times a year when I worked for NEC and later for Panasonic. I miss the people. I miss the food. I particularly miss an all-you-can-eat shabu shabu restaurant in Shin Yokohama...

Regarding your user name... does that have anything to do with the Tom Robbins novel?
Click to expand...
not due to that story but more along the lines of how Japanese see Tanuki as lovable mischievious creatures who are sometimes imbued with magical powers... they tend to be very fierce fighters too I might add protecting the members of their family group.

So in my family Group we have Daddy Tanuki, Mommy Usagi, Kayla Ahiru and Leah Leisue. translated: Me, the Japanese version of a trash panda, His Bunny Rabbit Wife, his oldest daughter who is a Goose, and his youngest daughter who is a Squirrel.

it is more of a pet name for and between us in the family with an animal that best explains that members personality.

so I like tinkering I love jokes and gags (but not the stupid shit you see on tiktok and youtube.) I love my family to death, am fiercely protective of them, and I love a good scrap. so I am Daddy Tanuki, mischievous, loving and loves to tinker and mess with everything surrounding me.. The fact that I spent my time in the Corps and was properly brainwashed to believe that I am invincible leads to the extraordinarily large scrotum and the contents there within...
 
455dan said:
Don't know about Sushi but some nice warm / hot Sake sure hits the spot :)
Click to expand...
Second worst hangover of my life was from Sake..... the worst of my life was from Jose Quervo Gold.... my roommate said after I passed out drinking shots I would wake up every once in a while and slurr "giiimeee another shkzt" .. he would give me an empty glass and I would shoot it and go back to sleep for a while. And to add insult to injury I smokes a nasty cigar.

I woke up laying spread eagle at dawn on the front lawn in my skivies (underwear for you land lubbers).... all I could manage to do was crawl back inside and kick the door shut...it was standing open all night...8 hrs or so later I woke long enough to smell the stench of puke everywhere, the bypass shower doors knocked off into the tub and the toilet tank lid broken from being dropped.

It took a day to clean the house up and a week or more before I fet human again. To this day if you open a bottle of tequila and sit it on the cabinet it makes me queasy from the smell.
 
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Dagoth Ur Does Solar said:
Man, about a year ago I was working on a Nissan with a V6 in it that was having random misfires on a single cylinder and running badly.

The fact that it was one cylinder led me down the route of swapping plugs, swapping coil packs, even going as far as to swap fuel injectors just to try to isolate the issue, but it seemed to make zero difference and- I swear- I was seeing the same cylinder having misfires. I have a bidirectional scan tool and was able to shut down spark to each cylinder via the tool and I confirmed it was the same cylinder.

I did swap in fresh NGK spark plugs on all cylinders since it was cheap, no dice. I held off on coil packs and fuel injectors because it was way more expensive and I wanted to isolate the issue.

I did pull my fuel injectors, clean them, run them through my ultrasonic cleaner, and then reinstalled them. No change. I think reman'd fuel injectors were going to be something crazy like $500 for the full set. I did opt to buy one reman'd fuel injector and swap it into the affected cylinder, no change.

I thought that maybe I had compression issues (was praying that wasn't the case), and so I ran a compression test, and despite the engine being over 100k miles and ~18ish years old, my numbers looked pretty good; or at the very least they were practically the same across all six cylinders. Used my endoscope to get down into the cylinders as best I could and I didn't see what looked like an abnormal amount of carbon buildup or wear or anything.

Nearing wits end, I went down the path of replacing the heated O2 sensors (nightmare to get to on that car). While it was a good thing to do maintenance-wise given the age of the sensors, it didn't resolve the misfiring/fuel trim issues.

So what was it? Somehow, the dang coil packs. I have no explanation for why a single cylinder was the only one having issues, and swapping coils around made absolutely no difference. I was in full parts-cannon mode and just bought a set of aftermarket coil packs and swapped them in. Instantly started running great, never missed a beat. I am still bothered why I wasn't able to diagnose the issue properly, but I'm also glad I don't do this for a living.
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did it have coil on plug? and was the coil on plug using a short rubber "boot" with a coil spring inside of it to reach from the coil to the plug?

if so change all of the boots with new ones, spray electrical contact cleaner ofn the springs, then shoot them up with with electrical grease that protects and keeps water out.

I had (since sold after 13 years) a F150 with the 5.4 engine, once of the biggest issues for the entire community of those trucks on line initially were misfire codes that would often pop up. people would initially swap plugs, then eventually swap out coils to fix the issue.

I found out when dissembling mine that the coils all tested god with a meter yet new spark plugs and it still set codes. I pulled it all back apart again and started looking at the boot with the coil spring in it. it ended up the coil springs were rusting giving bad contact but being hidden inside the boot you could not see this unless you purposely pulled the coil spring out. a visit to the hardware store and 5 bucks worth of cheap springs later and it fixed the issue.
 
Daddy Tanuki said:
did it have coil on plug? and was the coil on plug using a short rubber "boot" with a coil spring inside of it to reach from the coil to the plug?

if so change all of the boots with new ones, spray electrical contact cleaner ofn the springs, then shoot them up with with electrical grease that protects and keeps water out.

I had (since sold after 13 years) a F150 with the 5.4 engine, once of the biggest issues for the entire community of those trucks on line initially were misfire codes that would often pop up. people would initially swap plugs, then eventually swap out coils to fix the issue.

I found out when dissembling mine that the coils all tested god with a meter yet new spark plugs and it still set codes. I pulled it all back apart again and started looking at the boot with the coil spring in it. it ended up the coil springs were rusting giving bad contact but being hidden inside the boot you could not see this unless you purposely pulled the coil spring out. a visit to the hardware store and 5 bucks worth of cheap springs later and it fixed the issue.
Click to expand...
Ran into the same thing on my excursion except the coil springs weren't just rusty they had dissolved into a rusty goo.

The passenger side last two cylinders were the worse. I got away with replacing just the rubber boot and springs on all but two of the cylinders. I guess the water shorted the coil packs out so I had to replace those.

The wildest thing I had happen to the excursion was the first cylinder on the passenger side's injector stuck open. I had cranked the truck and it looked like a crack in the head leaking water. I was like crap a new head which made no sense so it was summer time. Turned out the injector was pouring out fuel wide open. Its a miracle it didn't hydro lock.

I bet that thing would be illegal in japan as big as it is. Largest production suv ever made. I thought the suburban we had before it was big but its a ton smaller vs the excursion.
 
seneysolar said:
Finding electrical problems in vintage aircraft. Someone replaced this relay recently but didn't bother to fix the wiring... the crimps are terrible as well. Guessing this was glowing hot when in use

View attachment 274308
Click to expand...


That would be an awesome job... I loved working on planes in the Navy.... when I got out DalFort aviation offered to get my my A&P license if I would work for them for 3 years at full pay.... hard choice but I went to college and then the airlines started laying off folks... Dalforth Aviation did upgrades the airlines didn't want to like gut, update, reset the passenger layout... and they would do whatever updates were not safety related and had accumulated... they would do the safety ones as well.

They also did cargo conversions.

I am glad how things ended up, but the path not taken calls my name at times.
 
seneysolar said:
Finding electrical problems in vintage aircraft. Someone replaced this relay recently but didn't bother to fix the wiring... the crimps are terrible as well. Guessing this was glowing hot when in use

View attachment 274308
Click to expand...
dayum some folks seem to forget that this is not a car a simple engine misfire (or a fire in the engine) is a much bigger deal at any height above a meter at sea level... we are not going to think about that same problem at say 3000 feet.
 
robbob2112 said:
Second worst hangover of my life was from Sake..... the worst of my life was from Jose Quervo Gold.... my roommate said after I passed out drinking shots I would wake up every once in a while and slurr "giiimeee another shkzt" .. he would give me an empty glass and I would shoot it and go back to sleep for a while. And to add insult to injury I smokes a nasty cigar.

I woke up laying spread eagle at dawn on the front lawn in my skivies (underwater for you land lubbers).... all I could manage to do was crawl back inside and kick the door shut...it was standing open all night...8 hrs or so later I woke long enough to smell the stench of puke everywhere, the bypass shower doors knocked off into the tub and the toilet tank lid broken from being dropped.

It took a day to clean the house up and a week or more before I fet human again. To this day if you open a bottle of tequila and sit it on the cabinet it makes me queasy from the smell.
Click to expand...
its stories like that that stick with us most of the times... ;)
 
Daddy Tanuki said:
dayum some folks seem to forget that this is not a car a simple engine misfire (or a fire in the engine) is a much bigger deal at any height above a meter at sea level... we are not going to think about that same problem at say 3000 feet.
Click to expand...
Plane manufacturers never intended this stuff to still be flying today. I regularly work on stuff from the 50's and 60's. The older stuff just has more time for bone heads to half ass it. Much like an old house.
20170810_181410.jpg20170615_091856.jpg
 
robbob2112 said:
Second worst hangover of my life was from Sake..... the worst of my life was from Jose Quervo Gold.... my roommate said after I passed out drinking shots I would wake up every once in a while and slurr "giiimeee another shkzt" .. he would give me an empty glass and I would shoot it and go back to sleep for a while. And to add insult to injury I smokes a nasty cigar.

I woke up laying spread eagle at dawn on the front lawn in my skivies (underwear for you land lubbers).... all I could manage to do was crawl back inside and kick the door shut...it was standing open all night...8 hrs or so later I woke long enough to smell the stench of puke everywhere, the bypass shower doors knocked off into the tub and the toilet tank lid broken from being dropped.

It took a day to clean the house up and a week or more before I fet human again. To this day if you open a bottle of tequila and sit it on the cabinet it makes me queasy from the smell.
Click to expand...
OMG you too on the Quervo Gold. The " 1800" did me in, Was sick for over three days. Never ever again. Same, can't even be around the smell of te kill ya.


The Sake didn't give me a bad hang over.
 
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