I just built a frame for a 30W panel for our camp's playa art project. I used 1x2s to make two flat pallets, with bolt hinges on one (ground) side and support struts on the other (tall) side. Overkill, but effective. The big 75 AH battery rests on the lower pallet to keep the assembly from blowing a...

If you don't locate it through normal means, try walking down the streets of the city at night, looking for camps with really interesting lighting. Inquire within.
Oh, and I'll have my soldering iron and stuff on hand, as will a thousand other burner engineers.

Hi, I recently inherited a "bell ringer" slot machine top, which is mighty phallic in shape and about 5 feet tall. It has 150 light bulbs on it, and a bell at the top. I am retrofitting it to be a "high striker" midway attraction, wherein you hit the plate with a mallet in an attempt to ring the bel...

I didn't get a ticket this year (two seconds late clicking the magic button), but it never occurred to me to write a beggy post on the forum.

I just figured that it's a sign that one has to volunteer to do something for the event to be assured of a ticket these days.

I clicked the link on the ticket page at about 12:00:03 or :04. It took me a moment to find where on the page the magic button was and scroll to it. I waited an hour and a half and it told me "sold out" at 22 minutes left in the queue. So it looks like the tickets sold out in about 3 seconds. Good t...

[quote="alatare"][img]http://i.imgur.com/rvzAjH9.png[/img] Would anyone happen to know how can I go about jumping back into queue if, say, I need to run back to work? Is it as easy as sending myself the URL? Or copying the 'Queue ID' at the bottom of the page? Wouldn't want to risk it if I don't kno...

Let's all just pretend that we're in the 2014 Will Call line.

At least everyone got queued up properly, I hope. Ticketfly ought to be experienced enough at this to sort it out quickly.

Elliot, Hi. I've been fixing bikes at various camps for the last five years. I would be happy to give yours a go this year. I sometimes dress as the Bike Repair Fairy. I have built a variety of solar-powered bike sound systems. The smallest one is perfect for your needs of quiet background music. I ...

Your question is missing a very important number: the number of pounds of stuff you want to haul with that trailer.

I'm quite happy with the new 13" wheels and radial tires on my popup trailer, which also has a new 3500 lb axle. the trailer loaded is about 1800 lbs. Safety factor FTW!

No undercovers seen, but the sheriff of Pershing County stopped to chat with us while driving in front of our camp. He's a nice guy. He said he will retire soon, so he can come to BM without having to work it.

I've been home for three weeks, but can't seem to get back into the spirit of working at my home business.

I must need a vacation.

My wife tells me that when they walked the trash fence, three $100 bills were found. My theory is that they were using it as T.P. in Billionaire Camp, and a dust devil tore through when Moneybags was taking a dump.

Some time about when the Man was burning down, my wife and I decided that she maybe oughta spend a couple weeks with DPW dismantling the city this year, for a change of scenery. I took off at 7AM the next morning with a campmate and two suitcases, leaving her with the car and trailer and shade struc...

I don't see a reason to get mad about these camps. They exist because there's a market for them. If you don't like them, then visit the parts of the city that you like. I took a few enjoyable bike trips through the lovely suburbs in the 3-6:00 and G-J area. The folks there were very down-to-earth. H...

I found a block of ice for sale near the freeway. Icebox is cooling down. Greywater evaporator is built and tested. Solar water heater plumbing tested, data points taken, starting to do the electronics work. Big Excel spreadsheets of stuff nearly all checked off. Looking forward to a day of oil chan...

I built an ice tray for the icebox in my 1977 popup trailer. The original one was missing. It took me WEEKS to realize that a 13x9 cake pan with 1x2s on the sides would be a perfect fit. And I delivered the nutating secondary mirror I've been working on ALL YEAR to the radio telescope on Kitt Peak, ...

Did someone say "overengineered"? Because yes.

Building a deluxe shower is my Burning Man art project.

The solar heater is nicer than propane mainly because it's much less invasive and licensed-contractor requiring... no gas to worry about exploding the trailer. If my popup was originally plumbed with hot water, my decision may have been different. My shower sprayer setup is a Oxygenics X-stream low-...

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm already pretty far along in the build and the water tank is part of the trailer, so I don't see a reason to change the basic setup. I forgot to mention that the purpose of the water heater is to make delightful showers available to my camp mates and myself. I've been ...

I hope that plumbing and electricity are closely enough related hat this thread makes sense in this forum. I'm modifying my 1977 Starcraft popup trailer for use at Burning Man. So far, I've installed a 12V solar power system with a couple 18AH sealed lead acid batteries, and three pumps to move wate...

For what it's worth. I hooked him up with a spare 300 watt Pioneer Class D car trunk stereo. We'll see how it works.

If you are going to tilt it towards the sun, just make a simple 45 degree stand, with equal length pieces for upright and base segments. I use four aluminum angle pieces cut to ~3/4 the width of the panel.

The result is 50% more power!

Don't forget to do the same for your bikes!

I have one of those 300W Pioneer amps on hand, if you want to go that route.

My other bike stereo is the 30 watt rear rack mount unit called the Bike Boom Box. I sell a lot of those to RAGBRAI riders in Iowa. It has a class D amp board that I designed and build.

I have built a 300 watt sound system for my bike. It uses a Class D car trunk amplifier, and it runs for 8 hours on about 20 amp hours of 12V power. Details here: http://www.cathodecorner.com/loudbike/ I highly recommend this Pioneer amplifier. Of course, it's discontinued, so you will need the mode...

I need to get our two furry bikes to the playa again this year, but now I have a popup trailer to hang them on. I had used a tent trailer in previous years, with a folding plywood top. This one has a thin metal sheet over some sort of frame, and I don't want the bikes' pokey bits going through the m...

Installed a 350 CI engine in my 1958 Chevy station wagon today, to make towing the popup trailer easier. My brother did most of the important underneath work, while our sons helped out a lot with the details.

I'm doing some work on that this year. I think the sump pump is a fine idea. I have used small bilge pumps with good results. They are the same thing but without the fancy level switch. I made a timer circuit board that I use to run my pumps either for a low duty cycle (e.g. for solar water heater) ...

Solar is not too hard to figure out. The solar panel wants to be tilted toward the noonday sun (about 45 degrees at Burning Man) on some cheesy wood brackets for trouble-free charging at maximum power. Otherwise you're wasting about 30% of its output by laying it flat. Which may not be a problem if ...