And I’m back with links from way back (in blogging time)
Keeping it below the fold for the weak of heart and/or mind.
(You’re not weak, are you?)
First, in the “News You Can Use� category, take a looksee at this,
If you’re in construction, you need power. And if you’re working at a remote job site, you need mobile power. Until now, you’ve been limited to two options: an expensive, environmentally unfriendly portable generator that takes up precious room in your truck bed (some even require a trailer); or an inverter-based power-generation system that can cause serious damage to various components in your truck (such as batteries, alternators, electronics, etc.).
Fortunately, there’s a new option: Real Power. Real Power is the world’s first true AC generator designed to work off your truck’s existing power take off (PTO) gear.
A co-worker of mine sent me this in the possibility that it would work in my truck. It won’t, yet. But you should take a look.
Next up, The Reasonable Nut received his DCM Springfield 03-A3 a few weeks back. It seemed to have been bathed in even more cosmoline than is usually the case. But after a few days of cleaning and with the father of The Nut doing one hell of a job on the stock, it is looking better than the day it rolled out of the factory.
The before pic is here, the after story is here and the after pics are here, here and here.
A few days ago The Poor Schmuck finds an article basically stating that the only way for the salmon to live is for you and I to die.
“There has been no track record on the planet where you have had high numbers of people and sustainable wild runs of salmon,” he said, citing the near complete loss of Atlantic salmon through the southern half of Europe and the eastern United States. The story is much the same for Pacific salmon in densely populated regions of Japan, Korea and China.
To save the wittle fishies I’d promise to give up eating salmon, but I can barely stand the damn oily things. Give me a healthy rainbow trout and I’m a happy guy though.
Michelle Malkin finds CNN doing what I talked about ABC doing yesterday; Only giving us half of the facts and not even the most pertinent ones.
The Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group, CNN tells us, is a major corporate client of Joe Allbaugh, President Bush’s former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Among its Katrina-related contracts are this one valued up to $100 million from FEMA; and this one also valued up to $100 million from the Army Corps of Engineers.
But in their zeal to embarrass the Bush administration, CNN overlooks one very fat and inconvenient fact–and embarrasses only itself.
The Shaw Group, a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate, is headed by Jim Bernhard, the current chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party. Bernhard worked tirelessly for Democrat Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s runoff campaign and served as co-chair of her transition team. Another Shaw executive was Blanco’s campaign manager. Bernhard is back-scratching chums with Blanco, whom he has lent/offered the Shaw Group’s corporate jets to on numerous occasions.
Head over to her place for the many links.
And last, but certainly not least, Kevin at The Smallest Minority has two letters at his place with very apt titles:
This Letter Makes This All Worthwhile
And
Click, read, enjoy.
OK, now I’m up to the most recent links, so stop by tomorrow for ‘Bride of Menage a Blog’.
I remember these gizmos from 25 or 30 years ago. They were called “tool power” then.
It works like this: your vehicle has an alternator. Alternators produce AC power, but not at 120 volts. They produce it somewhere near 12 volts, then rectify it into DC with the diodes that are the usual things to go wrong on an alternator.
Tool Power or Real Power takes that voltage off the alternator as AC, and TRANSFORMS it up to 120 volts.
The problems involved are that your vehicle alternator doesn’t produce a steady frequency, which must be 60 hz plus or minus 2 hz to not damage stuff. Transforming the voltage doesn’t change the frequency, which only remains steady with a steady engine rpm. As the rpm varies, so does the frequency.
So, you can’t use this AC power to do ANYTHING electronic, you can only use it to power tools with UNIVERSAL motors, those that have a wide renge of voltage and frequency tolerance. Any motor that is a HYSTERESIS motor, one that requires regulated voltage and frequency, won’t work and may burn out.
The real solution is to take the DC, stuff it into a storage battery (an aux battery, at least a Group 27), and then run an AC inverter off the battery to get clean, regulated AC.
Another solution, but VERY EXPENSIVE, is called Marine Power. It is a 5 KW alternator with a CONSTANT-SPEED DRIVE attached. The CSD makes sure that the alternator spins at a regulated speed regardless of the engine speed, so regulated AC is produced. These beauties are over $5,000 without installation on your engine.
Or, for a few hundred to a couple of thou, depending on the quality you want, buy a gas-driven portable genset and lug THAT around. If a hurricane or disaster hits your area, be prepared to defend that genset with accurate gunfire, because they seem to increase in value 10 or 20 times with the failure of the power grid.