So interesting. Very much more scientific, but you _can_ recover optical glass and indium-tin oxide and use other bits for a different kind of solar cell you can make yourself. NOT making it directly from just the panel, some real processing and chemistry to go into it, to make your own solar cells....

Alternatively, you can flag down a pump truck and pay them to pump out. That's what my camp does with our grey water. I think it's $1.50/gal, at least it was last year. Cash only.

So, bringing this conversation back up. Appropriate (low end) hardware for this. I'm seeing conflicting information from around saying the Baofeng UV-5R only does 420-450MHz in UHF, and the ESD is 451.9MHz. And elsewhere, it says it does 400-520MHz. And some places the UV-5R is discontinued and any ...

Hm...the problem is they don't seem to have much hold when pulled mostly upwards. Which with just about any shade, especially tarps or 80+% shade cloth, you'll have a pretty good amount of upwards pull and will probably rip these right out. Get 1/2" x 18" or longer lags and ratchet straps. If you wa...

I'd also post & look at https://spark.burningman.org/category/rideshare/

Please make sure to follow up with this after the Burn, let us know how it all went. I'm pretty curious myself. Unfortunately, I will not actually be at 2022 burning man. I am largely recovered from an accident last year, but not completely confident enough to be in that environment just yet. Also ...

Please make sure to follow up with this after the Burn, let us know how it all went. I'm pretty curious myself.

They only do ordering once a year, but the No Bake Tent is pretty great. Packs down relatively small, probably about the size of a Kodiak or so, and is basically a double tent. Exterior silvered shell, with a top vent and cover, and inner tent with small rear vestibule and large front vestibule. Spa...

My big task from this past weekend was getting my bearings on my trailer repacked. The last owner apparently hadn't, and the guy doing it said I was headed for a catastrophic failure in the next few hundred miles

Yeah, 12" lags are too short for a big tarp like that. I say minimum for any smallish structure IMO is 3/8"-14" for shade cloth stuff, maybe a small tarp, and tents and such. A single big tarp? Need a lot bigger. For my camp 30x30 EMT conduit structure (using 10x20 tarps) I got 1/2"-18". For a full ...

For attaching to a pole (carport, EMT shade, etc) I recommend 2 or 3 pipe clamps. Screws. Down to form a very tight high clamping force, and it'd take massive force to break. At least 2, with at least 9" between them. More I'd you have a taller pole, so when the wind picks up or gusts, the pole acti...

The whole “corrosive Playa” narrative is touched by hysteria and urban legend. Yeah, you can use a pH strip and prove its alkaline ~ 9-10 … just like soapy water. Yes, it can degrade fine electronics and such but cars … Taken many, none ruined or dissolved, corroded or otherwise. What Sham said is ...

PSA: Trailers or RVs, if you can't lookup or remember when the last time your bearings were repacked, it probably needs it. I just got a small travel trailer this past winter, last owner had a new axle/springs/etc out in, about 8ish years ago now. A week ago I realized she probably hadn't ever had t...

So....why JSON? Binary protocols like TPM2 or DMX will be a lot more bandwidth efficient. Although I'll grant you that just straight Websockets would be simpler from straight up browser JS. But yeah, 10K LEDs is a ton of data, per frame to keep the animation at least 30fps. ESP32 might be able to ha...

WLED does 2D patterns as well, and does support DMX/Art-Net for externally derived patterns. Would definitely need to decode some of the mp4 patterns first and pre-can then, and given the # of LEDs it'd have to compute for, algorithmic probably would need to be offloaded to something like the Beagle...

I'm referring to "normal people", not big camp/art car folks. Which presumably have enough know-how or know people to get how to set it up/what to buy, and enough money to buy something like that (I know, it's like $40-50) that they'll use for once a year. The vast, VAST majority of attendees don't ...

Noise canceling requires active electronics, so would need recharging. That's not to say you can't easily last the week+ with that and a large USB battery bank or two you bring with you, I expect that'd work fine. The thing you won't be able to get away from, depending on how close to the source, is...

As I understood the announcement of the new UHF channel it said "anyone" can use it to report an emergency. No mention of licensed amateur radio operators. I guess that goes along with the general consensus that states: "Anyone, licensed or not, can use your radio equipment in an emergency to call ...

Maybe I'll try this for some meals this year. Hm. Could actually sous vide stuff, stop it a bit early, and then cool water for a few minutes and then freezer. Then as part of re-heating they'll finish cooking. Easy to do both meats and veggies this way. Plus I actually will have one of those chest 1...

The strength of dry ice is also its weakness. It is COLD. Heat transfer is a function of the difference between two temperatures. If you have a 100F ambient and a -40 cooler temp, a lot more heat will be transferred than if you had a 100F ambient and a 33F cooler. So yeah, you can super-freeze your...

What's your methods for re-heating? Just put in a pot of water and heat on medium, well below boiling but still hot?

I thought FRS was the real shitshow, although I can believe MURS is as well. How's GMRS? I'd believe the same as MURS, even with more channels.

Yeah, I was thinking of guying pretty close to in-line with the walls (the crisscross I mentioned), although I'm a little worried that there won't enough support against the wind when it comes across the long edge, since the middle and 1 side won't have any direct internal guying against the wind. M...

Those boards have always been awesome, every time I've seen them here and there. Obviously you have your own super awesome system/setup, but I've just discovered WLED , runs on ESP8266/ESP32 and includes effects syncing. The WLED-SR (sound reactive) branch does sound reactive effects, as well as a m...

That sort of device should still work fine I'd expect, even being in low (not very low like Starlink) orbits. Even with that, it's still a very wide beam, and given the general prices on sat-phones and data/minutes, it's unlikely that there are many more users except for low volume stuff like the SM...

I'd be interested in hearing the why the move to not listen in on one of the MURS channels, that seemed like a great way to let advanced, but not Ham level, regular folks still be able to call for ESD out and about. Or was there just too many invalid calls or were people stomping on that channel too...

So I can't recommend this little thing, it seems ridiculous, and LOTS of power usage, (10A@24v!!!), but came across this cute little air conditioner just now. It's basically a pre-order, and looks like they basically are using a Danfoss style compressor meant for fridge/freezer rather than air condi...

What's generally the preference/better for guying down (1/2"x14") for a small (12x20x8) EMT style shade structure with tarp top, and 70% aluminet walls except for 1 of the short sides as the front? Guy out ~3-4' from the base with the ratchets? Or crisscross X along the sides and back, leaving the o...

For my camp we use some of the blue barrels for grey water collection and have USS come and pump them out. In past years it's been about $1/gal, is that still the same this year? Has that gone up?

With the more DIY side of things, WLED on an ESP8266/ESP32 is quite powerful, and talks/receives DMX and E1.31(DMX)/Art-Net protocols. Also LedFx apparently, and there's a fork with FFT/music reactive built in for ESP32. I'm going to be giving that a try for my own small scale stuff. Primarily my Pl...