Random Nuclear Strikes

I was catching up after the great Firefux link flush over at Mike’s BeerComputersandBeer blog and noticed he linked to our By Ourselves, For Ourselves series of posts in these two “What If” posts: This stunted one, and this Part Two in which he links a post by the Kitsap Road Warrior in which Doug Bear, a Kitsap County public Works employee, discusses road plowing priorities during last month’s “Polar Onslaught”.

One of the reasons I decided to make my commuter vehicle a 4WD w/Bonus Height was because of my strong belief that the only place I want to be when the SHTF is home. Washington is nearly as earthquake prone as SoCal and just as prone to incompetent government. I’m not trusting them as far as I can spit to keep the roads clear.

In a related tie-in, I have finally gotten around to unpacking The Darrells from the move(for those not familiar w/The Darrells, please see the bottom of this post). What wasn’t updated in the BOFO series of posts is that I was actually able to grab another pair of them, for a total of four.

However, not too long ago I was helping a friend get his truck started when I accidentally killed Darrell#4. The friend ran into his shop to get some starting fluid whilst I cranked the motor over. It finally caught, but then died when I stepped out to disconnect D#4. So I got back into the cab, and instead of doing the smart thing and waiting for my friend to return, I assumed that he’d heard the truck start and would be out in a second or two, and fired the engine up again.

And let it run with D#4 attached while I waited. And waited. And waited.

Needless to say, 45 seconds of incoming 12V current from the battery back into D#4 dun went and kilt him.

So now I’m down to just three Darrells, which I’m finding is plenty. I parted out D#4 and gave him a proper burial at the battery recycling center.

I was running a test on D#3 before I moved which basically consisted of me not charging him once a month like I did to D#1 & 2. For 14 months D#3 never saw the right side of an extension chord. I then didn’t charge any of them for two months while I moved.

And I am happy to say that all is well in my SHTF shelves.

The Darrells hold a charge of 14.2V when fully charged. In 60 days of sitting in a box in my exterior storage shed in the cold of “Polar Onslaught 2008/9”, D#1 & 2 had only dropped to 13.9V.

After the 14 months of no charging, sitting in an unheated garage through a winter and a summer, plus two more months of no charging during “PO 8/9”, D#3 had only dropped to 13.1V. Still good enough to jump start 95% of vehicles out there and plenty left to run lamps, charge mobile phones/flashlight batteries and even a small heater.

I cannot find these particular jump boxes any longer. Hell, I’m pretty sure that they were being discontinued during my first post on them. But whatever else you do for your home SHTF supplies, include at least one 12V jump boxe with 110V converters. As you probably read in my first post on them, I found them indispensable during nearly a week of no electricity/phone/cable.

Our good man Rivrdog has even written up a DC to AC home made battery storage post, but he is in the midst of diddling around his site and I can’t link to it at this time. I will when he gets back up and running full time. I’m “hoping” to “change” a Radio Flyer little red wagon into a mobile 12V battery platform w/110V outlets.

Never can tell what you might need in the Obamanation in the future.