The IP has decent insulation and doesn't have to vent pressure to regulate temperature. I think there would be a measurable difference. I don't have an induction-friendly pressure cooker to test the idea, but it's interesting to think about.
I don't have numbers for brown rice, but when I cook 1c of dry white rice I see
- rice cooker: 226Wh
- 3qt instant pot: 90Wh
The IP also requires less water. Both the energy and water consumption are important in my case because I live in a campervan offgrid.
I do not think that toaster ovens are very practical in vans. But I had a 20% off coupon which brought the Black and Decker down to $8.79. It was smaller than most and only 1,000w so I bought it.1 It seems to be the model in the inset image except the newer ones are rated 1,150w. {edit: it’s thi...
In the bread machine post I promised more foolish experiments. Here ya go, I run a toaster oven offgrid with solar so you don't have to!
Bonus content: I derated the oven's wattage using a harbor freight triac.
I must be rough with my single-burner stoves. A couple years ago I knocked all the pan support fingers/flanges off my original Coleman. I replaced it with a $20 Ozark Trail, the Walmart house brand.
My first time doing a pop rivet and it worked perfectly. Woot!
Whilst effective at blasting heat into the space it was often a case of being too cold or overwhelmingly hot.
The thermostats on the newer ones are supposed to be better at regulating temperature.
I also couldn’t use it at night as the pump was disgustingly loud.
Yeah. Last winter a dude pulled up next to me on BLM land and cranked the heater. Sounded like a jet engine all night. I put in earplugs.
but propane lines like to freeze
I'll have to watch for that.
and you have the condensation and co issues.
I boondock in the desert southwest with vicously dry air and have constant ventilation -- the buddy doesn't push the hygrometer reading up at all. I imagine it'd be different in Florida or something...
My stove and Buddy have never caused the CO meter to go above 0ppm. Other things have but not those.
Will be putting an espar in as soon as I can find the time and motivation to install it.
If I won the lottery I'd use something plumbed into whatever the camper's fuel tank holds. I had a 1973 VW van in [the former West] Germany that had a gas heater. That heater was epic!
My approach to heating the van has evolved over the six years I’ve lived in it. My use case hasn’t changed: I follow mild weather and only rarely/accidentally get caught in hard freezes. Dipping slightly below freezing at night is about the limit of my tolerance.
Each winter brings a flurry (ha!) of first-timers wondering how to keep warm. Not giving advice in the above post, but explaining how I do it.
/old man voice
when I was a boy we had to browse uphill both ways with NCSA Mosaic. The web was gray and we liked it.
Fair enough. :-)
I figured if I didn't specify folks would ask "wtf are you getting it that cheap?" I get veggies, spices, etc from the local (ahem) Mexican grocery because those items are srsly cheap.
is there a legal risk to having alcohol in the van?
Yes. I don't drink often (can't afford it) but when I do it's usually sharing some whiskey around a campfire in the boonies. I've had a beer with dinner nearer to civilization but hangovers are less fun after the beard gets gray....
{Edit: it was based on my usual dried beans recipe}
This was enough for dinner that night and lunch the next day. So divide these costs in half to get the per-meal cost:
- 170Wh of energy
- $1.11, if my math is right:
- ~$0.24 for onion, $0.49/lb at the local mercado.
- 180g of small red beans. These were free because someone had them but couldn't/wouldn't cook them in their rig...
- ~$0.01 5g of salt
- ~$0.03 dried chili pepper from a bulk bag, again from the mercado
- $0.83 1/2lb of louisiana smoked sausages (hot) from the manager's discount bin
Pressed the Beans button on the 3qt Instant Pot and forgot about it until it was done. Served with cold beer....
> I am fully aware most folks won’t have the interest, space, or power to run a bread machine. But for me it’s cheap fun.
Did I burn down the van? Did I kill my my batteries? Did it make actual bread?
Another silly experiment in a week or so.
The number of Black campers in America has doubled in less than a decade, with some community groups teaming up to share resources about safe spaces in the outdoors.
The article talk about camping but also describes full-timers. There is also a kind of Green Book angle that might be useful.
I maintain a list of all the vehicle-dwelling laws I can find primary or secondary sources for. Just added Belleville. Yay.
Many of the articles specifically mention that stricter laws on this kind of thing are a direct result of the SCOTUS Grants Pass decision.
There are a couple main pivot points in my snowbirding life: running from the heat, then running from freezing weather. I made the transition today.
Including some data on charging the LiFePO4 bank underway.
Trigger warning: reddit link follows :-) I've been trying to give away a 50Ah Chins LFP to a cardweller, but no luck so far. The batt is now with me in Alamogordo, NM. After this it will be in El Paso for the winter.
Traditionally I've been running lighter desktops like opebox, xfce, or lmde. Last couple of years I've been using MATE with good results.
In my country that would cost me 20 dollars
The first RAM I bought (SIPP for a 386-16 IIRC) was $50/MB. Jay-sus.
Kaylee may be best known for her ability to live very frugally in a van and experiments cooking with what is available. She documents it all for the benefit of others.
In this post she describes using one of Zatarain's cajun-style mixes as the base for a crockpot meal.
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I usually keep a box of their Jambalaya mix in the pantry, waiting for the chance to pick up some smoked sausage on sale/closeout. The local grocery store had a sale on Andouille so I got 1lb of it for $3. Will cook it up today or tomorrow.
My kitchen situation is a bit different, because during the build I had sufficient salary and time to build a robust power system. This allows running a fridge and the smallest Instant Pot. In practice this means I typically cook in full batches and store the leftovers in the fridge for another meal.
I adapt the Zat for Instant Pot by reducing water from 2.5c to 1.25c and cook at pressure for 13 minutes instead of simmering for 25. If I'm at elevation (like 8k-10k') I will bump the time to 14-15 minutes. Natural release in all cases, mainly because it reduces foamy messes that requires lots of water to clean up.
Related RVwiki article: cooking with excess power
My guess is this reaction is what happens when community posts show up in All. Communities really need an option to keep posts in house.
part of Lincoln National Forest closed due to the the fires near Ruidoso.
I saw that on the news. Now the burn scars are causing runoff flooding. :-(
The closure notice described the designated area for closure in such a way it was very hard to understand and visualize
The NF districts really could do a better job of it. At least have an English major read the GIS wonk's writeup before publishing.
We moved from Fort Stanton/Snowy River Cave NCA
That site is a gem; I try to hit it in spring/fall when I pass through. Too bad the cave is closed because of white nose.
BTW, water fills are free at the nearby paid campsite if one asks the host. Used to be a day use fee for it but they removed that spigot a couple years ago.
This draft business plan establishes future management goals and priorities for the Long-Term Visitor Area Program within the Yuma Field Office.
>> the Business Plan proposes to increase current fees from $180 to $600 per long-term permit, and from $40 to $200 per short-term permit. It would also modify the short-term permit length from 14 days to 30 days
There is a comment period for the public.
I subscribe to the RSS feeds of all the NF/BLM districts I boondock in while snowbirding. So I knew that a small section of NF land outside Santa Fe, NM where I was headed next was closed for a year.
I picked a spot at least a mile outside the "designated area" that was closed.
A friendly ranger pulled up this morning and asked how long I'd been here (4 days). He started to gently/professionally inform me the area was closed. I pointed out this spot was outside the designated area. He was skeptical and rechecked the map on his phone.
I think he was embarrassed (and thinking of others he might have punted) because he wanted to show me how hard the map was to read on his phone. He also said I was the first person he talked to that had actually read the closure notice. We commiserated a while about the misuse that caused the closure.
He was a good guy and I assume he will go back and clarify the situation for anyone else he misinformed.
#takeaways
- reading the district's announcements can be both directly and indirectly useful
- bringing up the NF's official language ("designated area", "dispersed camping") seems help establish rapport
Details are on reddit. Hopefully going back there won't give anyone PTSD. :-)
from this article in the Lexington Herald Leader:
nowadays Mint is Ubuntu with sane default settings that will run out of the box
There's also an official version of Mint based on Debian (LMDE)
What's on your "Everyday Carry" USB stick?
- scans of my DL and other licenses
- scan of my DD214
- system rescue ISO
- a TEMP dir with random things I need in the short term
- portable apps versions of putty, WinSCP, etc.
... in which I relate my first wild bear sighting (with crappy pic) & and double the size of my LiFePO4 house battery bank .
If employee vehicles are in danger perhaps the employer (or property owner) could hire a security detail? Might present this as a benefit to them to keep customers from getting scared off by crime?
I worked at a place in a ratty part of time once. Literal crackheads and prostitutes wandering through our lot. After a couple break-ins the company put up a fence.
people are starting to catch onto my patterns and hover around my vehicle like vultures. Please tell me the best security system you know of.
A free first step would be to have no observable pattern. And/or leaving that general area if possible.
I would think about the actual threat model and what I could do about it. If someone steals your doodad with an airtag on it are you going to find it and take it back from them?
Do normal people who don’t do this stuff for a living use Linux now, outside handheld gaming devices?
I run into folks using linux fairly often in tech hobbies. Ham operators, DIY solar folk, people dorking around with a RasPi, etc. And some Normals who want a lighter experience than Win.
Last dedicated windows box I ran at home was Windows NT 4, IIRC. Last time I had to use it at work was Win7 (?) before I retired. I do have a Win7 virtual somewhere around here I spin up every couple years to run something obscure I can't get to run in WINE.
Was it mainly a hobbyist thing at the time
Yes, I'd say so. Lots of tech geeks were playing with it but no Normals. Getting audio running was not always pleasant....
I picked up a solar garden light from walmart. I pop the hood and trap the light in the lid so the light is under the hood and the minipanel outside it. I haven't had a problem since then, but it it could be coincidence, or my being more careful scouting for mouseholes before pitching camp.
The domain name is up for purchase ($9999.99 according to my registrar), so it looks like it's lost rather than just temporarily parked for a slightly overdue bill.
Luckily the site was recently backed up by the Internet Archive and the archived All, gpx, and csv links seem to work.
This spring I was in a walmart somewhere and saw a Pelonis 1 gallon humidifier on clearance for $6. Walmart usually has the worst clearance prices so I was surprised to see it for 75% off.
>> a swamp cooler and humidifier of this design are doing the same thing: blowing air through a wetted, porous medium. The goals are different (humidification vs cooling) but the mechanism is the same.
TL:DR: I saw a set of cheap panels with weird specs at Home Depot. I bought some to experiment on and to use as portables to augment my mounted solar.
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Home Depot is selling 200w of panel for $114. That's $0.57/Watt. Not amazing compared to used panels (typically $0.33/Watt) but HD is all over the place and has free ship-to-store.
It also comes with mounting brackets and one of those single-stage PWM controllers. I'm not bagging on that kind of controller, but it's not a great fit for this particular set of panels.
#THE CATCH
The panels are a weird design, apparently 24 cells in series. Normal "12v nominal" panels have 36 in series for ~18Vmp. These have a Vmp of 12.0v, so I think we would call them "8v nominal".
This makes them practically unusable in parallel for charging lead or LiFePO4.
You could run the panels in series on the PWM controller since it has a 50v input max and the series Voc would be 30v. But, due to the way PWM works the panels would be running at in the 14v range at the most. This is way, way off the 24.0Vmp of the series array. I'd expect a max harvest of ~120w with that kind of setup. If these were normal panels in parallel and on PWM I'd expect a max of ~160w. We can go into the math on that if anyone wants.
The best case scenario IMO would be to run the panels in series with an MPPT controller. This would get us closer to ~170w max harvest.
some other thoughts:
- The panels might work well enough in parallel for 3S Li-NMC because of that chemistry's lower voltage
- HD has a 10% discount program for veterans if you provide them with a bit of documentation.
... in which I camped in a spot infested by mule deer, picked up spent brass, and trusted the local forecast enough to do my cooking off solar....
in which I bumblefsck through figuring out why my solar setup no worky
I was outside the zone of totality, so was still making some power.
Notice that panel voltage did not decrease like many think, it does. Vpanel is stable above ~10%-15% insolation, depending on the panel
Frater Mus @lemmy.sdf.org Living offgrid in a campervan since 2018 w/ pibble+boxer Muffin.
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