| |
Subject |
Author |
Date Posted |
Forum
|
 |
RE: What tool to measure ampere load?
I use a Craftsman 82369 multimeter which has a DC Ammeter clampon. It is one of the few clampons that will measure DC amps, most only measure AC amps, because it's cheaper. IIRC a Fluke DC clampon ammeter costs about $250, whereas the 82369 is about $70 at Sears (about half that on eBay, if you get lucky).
You don't need to interrupt the circuit, but you must be able to clampon to ONE of the DC leads, not 2, because the two will cancel out. To use it, you must either have the power off when you clampon, zero the meter, then apply power, OR you must zero the meter away from the wire then approach and clampon. You may also find the 'hold' button useful.
If it's difficult to separate the two leads because they are bound in a cable or behind a wall, then try to turn everything else off and apply the clampon to the battery lead.
|
Fezziwig
|
03/09/10 04:53pm |
Tech Issues
|
|
RE: Work Camp compensation--
For a campsite and hookups (water, 110vac and sani dump) I've never worked more than 5 to 10 hours a week. Also, I don't like to handle park money because of the problems that can cause. I am not bonded.
Also, I'm not a policeman nor an EMT. I have no special emergency training, and I tell campers that upon meeting them. I'm basically just eyes and ears and in case of trouble I can call someone. If campers are out of line I tell them the rules and if they persist I make a call. Last summer I had two occasions of campers illicitly gathering firewood and starting woodfires and after I told them the rules and that the rangers would fine them and they still persisted I called the ranger and the deputy and let those properly trained professionals handle it.
Most campsites are overvalued by management. Private camps prices include margin and profit which should be deducted to calculate value to you as WorkCamper. A "$600" campsite is probably just a $300 cost to the owner and that's your cost basis. Public campsites are chronically under-utilized because the high price scares away campers. So they end up only being used on popular summer holiday weekends. I tell public park management they've got to reduce fees so as to encourage the public to USE the park and that way recruit public support, which is becoming essential in these days of budget cuts. People who don't use parks will be glad to vote them out of existence.
So, if a campsite is worth $300 a month and I do 20 hours work a MONTH that makes the equivalent wage about $15/hr. which is about what a maintenance guy gets and less than a ranger (I know that many make $35-$40/hr). That's for actual lifting and hauling work. The hours I spend onsite keeping my eyes and ears (and nose, too, in fire sensitive areas such as this) open are worth something, too.
Don't discount your own value.
|
Fezziwig
|
01/30/10 05:13pm |
Workamping Forum
|
|
RE: Work Camp compensation--
It depends on what you and the boss call work. Sometimes work is only the time you spend lifting and hauling. Other times just being present to help campers is work.
I like public parks over private parks because they have maintenance workers and I like to make clear to those guys that I don't want to take hours away from guys who have a family to support. That gets them on my side and they don't complain to the boss that I should do more. Private parks are more variable.
I make light use of facilities so I don't like to become a slave.
Easy does it.
|
Fezziwig
|
01/29/10 10:27pm |
Workamping Forum
|
|
Hose colors: white, gray, black
Near as I can tell, white hoses are for fresh potable water, gray for non-potable, and black for waste water. Is that right? Are there conventions for other hose colors, like green?
|
Fezziwig
|
01/29/10 10:08pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
As a matter of fact I DID read your link, which went to Human Events which proudly announces that it is in the Conservative Underground, so it is partisan.
They cited another report (Human Events does NO original research), which doesn't cite it's sources, but makes two cavils: (1) they have to guess at coal equivalents to oil, (2) they don't really know foreign oil resources.
The thing that makes US resources look huge are the US coal reserves. Note: there is no way for coal to substitute directly for oil.
We have enough oil reserves for STRATEGIC use, but it would be stupid to fritter that oil away at todays cheap prices and have no reserves for the future when prices will rise and oil will be more scarce.
|
Fezziwig
|
01/29/10 01:40pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
Pumping and depleting US oil will quickly make the USA dependent on foreign oil sources. How stupid. Or is it stupid? Maybe that's the plan of the anti-americans. It's un-american to propose foolishly burning up our own resources. Better that we should use OPO, Other Peoples Oil.
Who are these "drill baby drill" people? Commies? Al Queda?
|
Fezziwig
|
01/28/10 10:12am |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
...Shale oil in three Western states contains more oil that the world has used since the industrial revolution began. It is held political prisoner.
Shale oil is too expensive. It's not a political prisoner, it's an economics prisoner.
When we start ANWR, we can ship it right down to our refineries and stop buying that much foreign oil. No treaty stops this.
Who do you mean by "we"?
The USA owns and operates NO oil companies. Oil companies are totally international, and about 60% of the ownership of oil companies is foreign. Do you propose that "we" just commandeer the oil? That we send troops into the offices and force the oil to go to the USA? That's what some socialist countries have done. And what happened? The international oil operators simply divert the same amount of international oil away from those commie bastards that they would normally have gotten from the international pool.
Do you get it? That's the consequence of oil fungibility.
And, ironically, the international oil system that exists was setup BY THE USA! We did it so that we could use foreign oil while reserving our own. Had the USA NOT done that we would have used our native resources up decades ago and we would now be beggars in the oil markets.
|
Fezziwig
|
01/27/10 08:04pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
We are sitting on huge supplies of oil, natural gas, and coal. Enough for decades ...
Oh, really? Can you back this claim with figures and citations? My understanding is that all the oil under the US would just get us through a few months.
Natural gas demand has escalated tremendously as electric companies bring more natural gas turbines online. Every homeowner has watched the price of natural gas climb to where it's as expensive as electricity for heating and cooking.
Coal is a loser: it's dirty to mine, dirty to burn, and you end up with a horrid mess from end to end of the process. And there is NO such thing as "Clean Coal".
...and the politicians keep us from using them. If we were selfsufficient in energy, America would be a very different place today.
We are signatories to international business treaties that we would have to violate (at risk of war) to extract ourselves from those. As it is, oil is fungible and liquid, so 75-89% of all oil pumped anywhere goes to foreigners. That includes any oil from the USA. So we would only get about 20-25% of the oil drawn from US wells. We would have to seize the wells and oil companies (the US owns NO oil pumping companies) to keep all the oil, which would violate international private property laws. That's what socialist countries do when they nationalize oil companies.
We created the international oil pool 60 years ago so as to use foreign oil instead of burning up our own.
The only way to get energy independence is to RADICALLY reduce consumption, and to develop new energy sources.
|
Fezziwig
|
01/27/10 04:44pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
Good citation, Gale. The Telegraph and other free foreign pubs are usually much better than USA pubs, which seem content to play follow-the-leader with any administration. That's why Americans are so ignorant (in addition, of course, to our propensity to believe that partisanship is more important than knowledge).
The only way to solve the unemployment problem is to reduce the workweek. We should have been doing this systematically for the past 30 years, but puritanism has damned us to long workweeks and no social programs. With unemployment at a true 17% we should cut down to a 35 hour workweek to spread the work around. With decreasing personal discretionary income we will never again see the growth in purchasing markets that characterized the last 50 years.
|
Fezziwig
|
01/12/10 02:34pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
We have no good plan for getting out of the recession. Unfortunately, oil and gas prices are set by international markets (which make up 80% of consumption) so as their consumption increases the price will go up, whether we like it or not.
We need to promote conservation, which has two effects: reducing net cost immediately, and having some effect on world demand in the long run.
|
Fezziwig
|
01/11/10 01:19pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
So Fezz, how did you address the customer in those days?
There is only one correct answer. :)
By the name he preferred, since they were all regulars. Bill, Ed, one guy who was always Mr. Dreyling. The boss was Clarence.
Noone was called "Sir". WW2 was recent and everybody was heartily sick of war and the exaggerated privileges of Military officers. I suppose that their abuses of power and privilege alienated mere enlisted men to the term.
|
Fezziwig
|
01/07/10 04:32pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Solar below $1.00 per watt
Looks worth investigating.
How about these new flexible panels? They may be pricey at $588, and maybe the shape is awkward at 17 ft by just over a foot.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270398438891&fromMakeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:en
|
Fezziwig
|
12/28/09 11:25am |
Tech Issues
|
|
What about these 132w flexible solar panels?
They're about 17 ft. long and just over a foot wide, but maybe that's a good thing.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270398438891&fromMakeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:en
At $588 for 132w the price is at least interesting.
Has anybody tried them?
|
Fezziwig
|
12/28/09 11:13am |
Tech Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
Back when I was a teenager pumping gas at Clarences 66 station (2 pumps!) the independent mom/pops would start "gas wars". They'd cut their prices radically and then when everybody followed suit and the suppliers had to cut the wholesale price they'd fill up their tanks with cheap gas and go back to regular prices. They knew exactly how to play it. A tipoff would be if an independent got a big new tank installed.
Here in S.E. Id. you pull into a fuel station for diesel, usually where commercial vehicles fuel and prices range from 2.81 to 2.89 a gallon. Then you go by the mom and pop stations and diesel prices there range 2.71 to 2.76 a gallon. What gives with that??? ...
|
Fezziwig
|
12/28/09 11:02am |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
The way to get alternatives is to get government out of it and let the private sector free without all of the hindrances and lawsuits have at it.
Isn't that what lead to the collapse of Wall Street, the trillion dollar bailouts, and the widespread failure of mortgages?
The US has spent over $75 billion on trying to prove human induced global warming and still hasn’t.
Huh? How did they hide that? Where can I read about it?
That's pretty sensational stuff, so you must have good sources.
|
Fezziwig
|
11/13/09 07:04pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
How can you say:
Any research or actual production of shale oil is now under a congressional ban...
and then say:
I have read all I can on this and the beauty of this is the latest test plants utilized a system of utilizing steam...
How can there be test plants if all research is under congressional ban?
It just doesn't make sense.
|
Fezziwig
|
11/13/09 06:58pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
If the USA had followed the "drill baby drill" idea for the last 60 years we'd be busted! All our US oil reserves would be depleted, all our current oil would be imported, and we'd be at the mercy of foreigners!
And hooray for the treehuggers! They saved many of the hunting fields and fishing streams of my youth from destruction, and am I GLAD! I know that my favorite fishing river would be choked in paper mill waste if it weren't for treehuggers stopping it.
I guess Lindsay was deprived of hunting and fishing trips with Dad when he was a kid. How sad. Hunting and fishing is a lot more fun than driving a ten ton truck with 8 foot tires down the freeway.
|
Fezziwig
|
11/09/09 09:39am |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
Character is action. The policy we have actively pursued since 1945 is to go all over the world seeking oil and exploiting foreign oil fields. We did it with commerce rather than with armies, like the old-time colonialists.
QED.
|
Fezziwig
|
11/08/09 03:13pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
Nevertheless, that has obviously been US policy since 1945. Otherwise we would have exhausted our own oil before looking abroad for oil. And we would be in a worse position, by far, than we are today. We would have to pay extortionate prices or go to war for oil.
So it's been our policy, and it has served us well.
|
Fezziwig
|
11/08/09 10:52am |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
In the San Jose area gas prices are wobbling around the $2.85 - $3.05 area for some time now. Seems pretty stable. Looking at EIA (DOE) figures it looks like the last 30 years have been priced about the same, adjusted for inflation.
How do people account for this stability? Perhaps the Chinese, while demanding more of the world supply of oil, also will not pay above an affordable price (inflexible demand price), which stabilizes world oil prices since oil is fungible. Thus, oil producers while seeing increased demand have to pump it out at the low price because they'd rather make some profit at high yield rather than try to squeeze markets for higher profits.
So, as a consumer the USA benefits. That accords with colonial history: one is much better off being a consumer of raw materials than a producer. In fact, that has been the main principle of US oil policy since WW2. That's why we shifted our consumption to foreign oil: we consume cheap foreign oil while holding our own supply in reserve.
|
Fezziwig
|
11/07/09 05:22pm |
General RVing Issues
|
