Feeder Tank
Friend of mine at work sold me an aquarium at a really sweet price I couldn't refuse. I spent a few more dollars at Amazon and Petsmart. I modified the filter intake with a little air powered standalone filter. The idea is to reduce regularity of breaking down the bigger pump for clean out. So the order goes pre-filter foam -> ceramic to -> big pump carbon -> ceramic -> bio balls -> back to the tank. Floss between all except the pre-filter. To those that knew me growing up I am not doing the massive aquariums everywhere in the house like on Newton street. I am going to get one more 100 to 150 gallon tank to do salt water and the small tank here is going to be for feeders. I am going to do living plants in this tank and living rock in the saltwater tank when I build it. I haven't decided if I'm going to build the next tank or just buy. Last time I did go a bit overboard with the 250's. The childrens museum did make good use of them when I donated them.
Yaesu (any radio) Fan
I finally found the time to try the PC power supply fan idea. It could stand to be a bit more narrow, but given the cost of nothing it's a fair comprimise. You could put the original bracket on the top and it would act as a spacer to look better. The most work was drilling the four holes. I'll need to find a 5v wart to power it. I think 12v would be too loud.
Battery Box (Part 2)
Part 1 can be found here.
There should be some parts in between one and two, but it was mostly just a screw here, some paint there. a couple of breakers. The meat and potatoes was this morning when every one was asleep. My main power supply died yesterday and since I couldn't do much on 20a I figured I could do something else until my new power supplies get here. Mostly what I did this morning was wire up all the BMS's and tidy everything up. But don't you just hate when you get down to the last connection and you're short two 10ga 3/8 ring terminals. <facepalm> Anyhow here's where I'm at with the box.
The left side breaker and batteries are running only a 3500w(might be 2500 or even less. who knows it was spray painted black) No idea the run time as I can't do the math without the specs of the invertor. It will be running mainly my laptop and anything else 110 needed. It went a long time running my big screen TV when the power crapped out a few months back. Kat and Duncan went shopping and Goob and I watched the last two Avengers movies without even a hiccup. It seems to work on demand so power should last a long time with just a laptop.
The right side is going to two anderson power poles and to a 3.4A USB outlet.
With my portable rig going at 100% duty cycle should run for 4.3 hours before shutdown. Using FT8 at full bore non-stop should be 8.6. That won't happen as I like to fish too and since I only run 5w in the wild I'm betting it might go a little longer. So whenever I get out to get two more ring terminals this project will be finished.
I have another battery project but that won't happen until I get the IC705 in my hands. I have some fine ash and alder put aside for the project and the antique wood working tools get pulled out. No hack and slash and throw it together for that project.
Parts list at the end of the article.
RTTY Round Up (My first time)
I tried my hand at the RTTY Round Up contest using FT4. Mostly because FT8 was kind of dead and I saw a ton on activity just beside it on the screen of the 7300. I had to look at see what it was and then I remembered what day it was. So here we go head first.
Ham Shack (Update 1)
I can see the floor! It's been a long time since I've been able to do that. I still have more drywall to mess with and butter boards to put up, but it's getting closer to done. All the boxes that were in there got moved to the shed. Unfortunately the lawn tractor got kicked out to live in a tent.
