This is an excellent video that explains mil-dot scopes. He does it all in yards and later in inches. You can use a mil dots scope for ranging using simple math in your head. The problem is our English units based on 3’s, 8’s and 12’s make that formula impossible to do in your head. Bite the bullet and start figuring out the size of objects in cm and meters. For example, an American license plate is 12” wide and that’s 30cm. A deer is 90cm at the shoulder. Metric makes the shooter’s life so much easier.

https://youtu.be/S5AGsHSIsVo

An excellent ballistics program for the iPhone.

Selecting a vehicle for off road needs/ shtf.

First, you must evaluate your needs. Do you need towing capability? What environment are you in? What type of off-road use will this vehicle see? What are parts availability and is this a common enough vehicle that parts can
be scavenged?

Second, evalaute what is your mechanical knowledge? This may come as a surprise but newer vehicles actually require much more extensive knowledge to fix and repair. You need specialized scan tools, expensive specialty dealer equipment, and access to dealer software to fix fragile and expensive computer modules. This affects ALL makes and models, even those hyped for "reliability".

If you anticipate encountering a lot of sand or mud, weight is a huge factor as well as equipment such as locking front and rear differentials.

On the flip side, if you anticipate encountering lots of rocks and hill climbing, solid axles, a powerful engine, low gearing, and a strong frame are A MUST.

Then there's the factor of modifications. You can whip up some nigger rigged crap and make a vehicle somewhat trailworthy.

However, hacked up modifications have it's consequences. Steering geometry was set from the factory with specific angles in mind. Affecting these (i.e. a suspension lift) without providing adequate counterbalance in the proper sections has dire consequences, which may include catastrophic suspension damage or simply a very harsh ride and lessened performance.

Before you perform any modifications to your off road vehicle, study suspension and steering geometry so you are familiar with it and know what components must be modified and replaced along with any type of suspension lift. This is not to dissuade anyone, but doing a lift properly requires a lot of money and man hours. Doing it cheaply doesn't but you will regret it.

Examples of inexpensive, simple, reliable models (that can be modified for performance)

- early 2000s Silverado/Sierra 4x4
- 1990s-early 2000s 4runner/Tacoma
- any year ford ranger (except new body style 2000 teens)
- 1990s jeep Cherokee XJ
- Suzuki vehicross (very underrated probably the best off roader ever made)
- 1989-2007 cummins 5.9 4x4 (if you need big towing)

A dear fren just had his channel device banned. You can find his backup at @campfireintel

Go sub

Crowned Pulleys and steam engines came up today.

For those of you who don’t know... if you use lithium batteries you need to take care that the individual cells in a battery aren’t overcharged or under charged. So you need a Battery Management System (BMS) to keep tabs on each individual and shut off the battery if there’s something wrong. The topic for discussion tonight is about the huge contactor (relay) that will disconnect the battery from your inverters if something is wrong.

I’m making a set of three 14.3kwh LiFePO4 batteries to run my house. So far I’m having a hell of a time getting a contactor that’ll do 300 amps. You see I’m designing three batteries instead of one huge battery so if there’s a problem I can take one of the three off line to figure it out. But in doing that I need each pack to be able to run the house on it’s own and that means sometimes pulling 250amps at 48v.

I bought Chargery DCC bidirectional 300amp contactors. These are able to selectively shut off charging and discharging. But they use IGBT’s (souped up transistors) that fail shorted out (fail stuck on). This means that there’s no guarantee that they will actually shut off. I’ve managed to screw up three of the 4 I bought and folks ,these aren’t cheap.... they are $120/each. We’re at the point where the manufacturer has asked me to ship them back to china and get repaired... but even if they are repaired their soft start circuit does not work as advertised and I fear they’ll just blow up again.

So I’m moving on... I have ordered some Gigavac 400amp contactors. These are actually $85/each direct from the manufacturer. They are electro mechanical and have two sets of coils to pull in the contactor. One coil pulls in the contactor and the other one holds it using low power... like 2watts. I think 2watts to keep a 14,340wh battery connected is worth it. The disadvantage is that they are not bidirectional controlable. If your battery gets out of spec such as voltage too high or too low, this contactor will shut off. That means if the battery is too low, you may have to manually override the relay to charge it again. I can live with that. GV241FAX is the part number.

The Chargery BMS has two outputs for two contactors (one charging and one discharging). Since I want to use one, I found a $3 solid state DC relay on ebay that allows me to combine those two control outputs into one. Connect ground from BMS to the DC- pin, connect either of the 12v BMS control outputs to DC+ and the other BMS control output to IN. It only activates with -both- BMS outputs are on. Used with the 48v gigavac contactor above that runs directly off 48v and you’ve got a winner. https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-32V-DC-1-Channel-SSR-Solid-State-Relay-High-low-Trigger-5A-5v-12v-For-Arduino-/322209858572?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286

There’s another BMS found on Ali express called 200amp QUCC. It uses a relay that looks similar to the gigavac and could be replaced with GV241CAX model. Word on the street is the contactor that comes with that one does not really do 200amps and tends to melt. But I’ve got one on the way to test. At least it has a soft start unlike the chargery. This BMS is interesting because it is in a fairly compact package that contains the current sensing shut, real soft start circuitry and the contactor. It also speaks bluetooth so you can control / monitor it in the basement from the living room.

That’s the update for tonight.... and me spending money on things that don’t work so you don’t have to.

Learning welding is not as difficult or intimidating as one would assume. Working with metal is a great hobby and can be very useful, both as a skill for future use and to fabricate items you may need on the homestead or for your own personal hobbies as well as essential repairs to equipment.

My recommendation to learn welding cheaply and efficiently is to begin with flux core. Flux core is super easy and requires no gas or really any skill in starting/maintaining an arc like stick.

Here are the basics you'll need to get started:

1) flux core wire welder
This can be a cheap model as you're just learning and don't need huge power or a big duty cycle (which means the usage vs cooldown period) However I recommend you get one with adjustable settings as knowing how to mess with these is a vital skill in any welding method. 240v power is also a great thing to have, not 100% necessary but recommended.

2) Gloves/hood
Starting out you can get a really shifty pair of MIG gloves and a full time darkening hood. That's perfectly fine, however an auto darkening hood is pretty nice to have and worth the investment as well as a somewhat decent pair of gloves.

3) angle grinder
You can get the cheapest shittiest one you an find and it will work, however my personal recommendation is one of be big three brands in a "rat tail" style. Reasons being are better comfort, control, and lessened vibration.

4) consumables
You'll need cutting, grinding, and wire wheels for your angle grinder, some spools of the appropriate flux core wire, and electrodes.

5) welding table and clamps
Just get a cheap shitty fold up model to start with some Chinese C-clamps. If you're not fabricating complicated shit, this will work fine.

All in all, if you're a real cheap ass with this you'll be out maybe $300 but probably less if you find things on sale. Don't be afraid or intimidated. Watch some YouTube videos. Study angle grinder and welding safety. Get a general idea of how the welding process works.

I am by no means an expert, but I've slapped shit together with wire welding, stick, and TIG with a few months practice. The welds did not look amazing but they were probably better than what's on 99% of shit we import from china and held up to some major abuse.

The main takeaway here is to just not be a little bitch because you're scared and just try it out. It's fun, and very useful.

Also, wear boots, jeans, and a thick cotton shirt and a cotton bandanna on your neck. Dont try to weld in full nylon clothes like a dumb ass or in short sleeves, because you'll regret it. Don't be stupid.

More news on my LiFePO4 battery. I got a gigavac contactor for $95 that will do 400amps, 1000 amps for short times. The most my inverters can draw is 250amps @ 48v, so we aren't even near the limit of this contactor. I placed a 10ohm 100W resistor across the contacts to charge the capacitors on my inverters without a spark. It's just wired there permanently. It's enough resistance that if the BMS opens the relay it will cause the inverters to shut down and enter a standby mode. The serious upside is that without arcing in the contactor contacts the darned thing should last forever. The Gigavac contactor also has an economizer on the coil. This means that when the coil first powers up, it draws about 2amps but within less than a second, it switches to much lower power. The thing draws 11mA when it's on. That's on par with may solid state relays. The part number I used was GV241FAX for 48v coil power directly from gigavac. For 24v applications use GV241CAX. Note these should be installed so that