Good morning

[Rodburner]

Lumber,etc, up here is still a little rich for my blood, but it’s come down quite a bit from last year. I’ve taken to recycling previous projects to make any new ones. I did have to buy some new roofing for the utility trailer shed I built, but that was still semi reasonable, and I was able to shrink the size of the shed by tilting the trailer upright. Just dug a hole a little wider than than the trailer, lined it with scrap treated lumber and done. Everything behind the axle drops into the hole, the tires never leave the ground. I reused two other little storage sheds to make this one. Only had to buy the metal roofing and two 2x6s…

 

[Scoop]

View attachment 27041 ...Just dug a hole a little wider than than the trailer, lined it with scrap treated lumber and done. Everything behind the axle drops into the hole, the tires never leave the ground.

I like what you did there. Pretty clever. For me, the problem would be I'd pack the ground level w/ so much material I'd have a major moving project every time I wanted to hook up the trailer.

 

[Rodburner]

I like what you did there. Pretty clever. For me, the problem would be I'd pack the ground level w/ so much material I'd have a major moving project every time I wanted to hook up the trailer.

I have that tendency too. But now that I got the sides enclosed, I’ve hung all my garden tools and stuff on the sides, so the trailer is unobstructed for the most part.

 

[John A.]

Got an early start on supper.

4 lbs of boston butt, marinated overnight in the fridge with seasoning on it.

Simmering and smoking about 275*.

Using some mesquite charcoal briquettes for some extra lip smacks and finger lickin'.

After about 4 hours, will be wrapping it in aluminum foil for a couple more hours so it can steep in its' own juices. Hoping it'll be ready around 4 or 5pm this evening.

Will be pulling it and my wife is going to make my Grandmothers cole slaw recipe. Gonna be hard to sit still and eat it.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Good afternoon Leadslingers….
I had to go to the doctor today. This is my first check up in five years with my regular doctor.

I’ve been in pretty good shape except that I’ve been having some swelling in my glands recently which may or may not just be related to allergies. After all I do live on the Blossom Trail.

We recently spent about $600 On paint, screws, and fence lumber. And not all that much lumber. But I did buy the highest grade of paint.

About $13.50 for 1x6x8 “top choice white wood” LOL

Redwood is about 50% higher and cedar is not much less than Redwood. Painted Whitewood will last as long as the rest of the fence (which is old and been repaired.)
I tore down this shelf and rebuilt it, and my wife just painted it.



By the way, worms are $3.45 a tub. It’s amazing but the price of worms has not yet doubled here. Probably not enough people going fishing due to low water and high cost.

Garden snails are free, But Felix likes me to crack them first.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Less than four years old, hasn’t been used very often, and dead already.



I’ve had this one almost 30 years and I have used it a lot. It’s still charging.



Just another indication how Chicago has gone to hell (and Schumacher has gone to Mexico.)

 

[meanstreak]

Good morning to all of yous. We are going to have a high this afternoon close to 70 and windy.

Have a great day.

 

[John A.]

I had a shumacher charger go bad out of the blue.

I got one of those cheap harbor freight chargers with an analog needle on it. So far, it charges good.

Hate that it won't have voltage until it's physically hooked to the battery post though. Sometimes I like to use my chargers for electro-etching and stuff, but you won't with one of these newfangled contraptions.

 

[Bobster]

Just another indication how Chicago has gone to hell (and Schumacher has gone to Mexico.)

I've had pretty good luck with this guy the past couple years, bought at Lowe's for $65 and still the same price. LINK My neighbor has one and was happy with it and at the time I had an AGM battery. The AGM DieHard still shit the bed after 3 years...



I've had this old guy (stock photo) for over 35 years...

 

[CaddmannQ]

I had a shumacher charger go bad out of the blue.

I got one of those cheap harbor freight chargers with an analog needle on it. So far, it charges good.

Hate that it won't have voltage until it's physically hooked to the battery post though. Sometimes I like to use my chargers for electro-etching and stuff, but you won't with one of these newfangled contraptions.

I used the old one to remove rust with car parts in a 55 gal barrel of weak sodium carbonate solution. The new ones will need a parallel battery in the circuit to do that stuff.

My Schumacher Ship & Shore charger has died as well. I'm going to figure out how to convert them to manual operation. The transformers are still fine. They never smoked the transformers. Maybe just cheap diodes.

 

[John A.]

I hope you're able to salvage it.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Well the one working charger is on my boat right now, plus I have a trickle charger on the little battery, but with four batteries to charge it is a tedious exercise.

But we had a wonderful day fishing yesterday and that makes it all worth it. I only brought home two bass, but they were nice ones, and once the haze burned off the weather was just glorious.





The smaller fish had a big gash in it side where someone had snagged it and it got away.

Big balls of shad were swimming under our boat and both of these fish had shad in their stomachs. They were taken on rubber worms. I guess they were just looking for dessert.

 

[meanstreak]

Good morning. That looks like a nice place to fish. Very tranquil.

Ya'll have a great day.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Thanks Meanie.
The fish were good too.
unfortunately, the Schumacher does not look too good. I took it apart and looked inside it and don’t find any evidence of damaged components. But the main circuit board on the power regulator is severely warped.

It’s a multi level board with four different layers of connections so if it’s cracked inside there’s nothing I can do with that.

Perhaps if the diodes are good I can make it function manually, and I have some extra meters for monitoring the charge rate.

I need to get a dedicated 36 volt charger though.

EDIT… The reason that board was so warped was that they screwed it down to the stamped aluminum heat sink, and that piece was stamped out poorly. It wasn’t even close to flat.

 

[Bobster]

EDIT… The reason that board was so warped was that they screwed it down to the stamped aluminum heat sink, and that piece was stamped out poorly. It wasn’t even close to flat.

That's what I was thinking looking at it. I'm sure you are aware of this but to find failure I look for scorching and/or bulged capacitors... Kind of hard to tell but those caps next to the blue cable are bulged. That spelled the end of the proprietary Dell motherboard pictured...

 

[CaddmannQ]

The capacitors on the power regulator board were both starting to bulge, but they hadn’t blown out yet.

I took all the electronics out of it and wired the transformer & diodes to the output, and put a switch in the ac line.

So when I turned it on I got 17 Vdc out, and it was drawing 4.5A off the mains.

I clamped it to a battery showing 12.67Vdc and turned it on. It still drew 4.5a. Output went to 12.67Vdc…same as the battery.

It should pop up to almost 15Vdc, but it doesn’t.

The diodes check ok. But there are only two of them. This does not have a full wave rectifier.

Pbbbbbbsst!

 

[CaddmannQ]

That's what I was thinking looking at it. I'm sure you are aware of this but to find failure I look for scorching and/or bulged capacitors... Kind of hard to tell but those caps next to the blue cable are bulged. That spelled the end of the proprietary Dell motherboard pictured...

View attachment 27058

my boss bought a Dell Pentium 150, and the case was so warped that it caused the motherboard to bend and the video card to pop out of the slot, unless you unscrewed it from the back of the case and let it rest crooked.

Back in the pentium 60 and 90 days we had two Gateway 2000 machines with the Pentium floating point bug. Those chips were exchanged no questions asked.

But when I called about my Dell they told me that I was out of luck.

 

[meanstreak]

Good morning to all of yous. We are still having chilly mornings although the days are pleasant. That should be changing shortly.

Ya'll have a great day.

 

[John A.]

It's a little warmer this morning, but light rain. Ironically, we're under a snow warning for tomorrow. Anywhere from 1/2 inch to 5 inches projected in the higher elevations according to the national weather service.

 

[CaddmannQ]

I had to go to the tax preparer today. I took my wife out to the root beer place and went grocery shopping. A pretty boring day.