Everyone is an ocean inside. Every individual walking the street. Everyone is a universe of thoughts, and insights, and feelings. But every person is crippled in his or her own way by our inability to truly present ourselves to the world.
Khaled Hosseini
I started the process. I actually started to work on the Starlink mount. I lasted 20 minutes, then my back gave out. So I will rest yet again and get back to it. I was doing good till I looked at my grinder. I didn’t put it away the last time I used it, back way back when I needed the right attachment for cutting wheels. I got worried, it might be in a safe place. Safe from me. The days of a highly organized shop left the same time as my memory.
No dignity in getting older. I just heard a noise downstairs, I gotta check it out.
I found the things I needed to find. I didn’t stop to rest. I actually cut two bars for the mount, there was a lot of measuring before the fabbing.
Did I mention that I went out to the Starlink dishy to make a pattern? Braving mosquitoes in my flamed shorts and sleeveless shirt. Did I also mention that my back was in so much pain, it was begging me to stop? For those of you that didn’t know 2014, I was in a bad car accident that left me with one dead dog. He broke my neck and back as he was ejected out the side window. I did what I was trained to do in the Military. I climbed out of my burning jeep with my cell phone and took charge. Although I did that while laying on the ice and snow. My neck was broken, I had to lie down, but I could still dial 911.
I just needed to cut two more mounts, just two more. One more, I had a piece of scrap left from the first piece. It was perfect. I only needed one 4-foot piece of box tubing.
I needed to spray paint 3 sides now, one later. The color of the day was white because I had white. I was a little concerned. That paint had wintered in a very cold shop. I had no idea if it would even dry after that. I guess we will see.
What was next? A lot of heavy-duty hole drilling. I was also making a new solar panel mount on the same bracket. I needed to drill holes in all the box tubing, and worse, I needed to drill 4 holes for ubolts in the thick metal bracket.
That had to be done before assembly since the ubolts would be under the Starlink mount.
I would need to fire up the drill press. To get to that, I needed to clear a path. Cats had gotten in there and knocked over dirt and stuff all over. My whole shop was a mess.
I just didn’t have the cycles needed to get it all done. Gone are the days I could work 12 hours a day on anything.
The good news, the paint seems to be drying.
Day Two Fabrication July 22
I hauled my 48-pound 24v 100ah lifep04 battery up to the loft and hooked it up. I put the inline fuse I bought yesterday in a safe place. Yup, I am running unfused. I am watching it and watching for warm wires, just in case.
Seems ok so far. 
My Bluetti hasn’t shut down so far. I will try running my Xbox and Starlink to check pass thru charging tomorrow. The worst-case scenario is I will play for an hour, shut down and charge for an hour, rinse, and repeat.
All the research on YouTube by paid and non-paid reviewers has led me to believe that it is overheating. My solution is to purchase a couple of variable-speed USB 80 mm fans.
I will add one to the intake blowing in and one to the exhaust blowing out. I will only lose one USB port. I won’t be using masking tape like one man did to attach his fan.
If the ambient air is 28C, Bluetti problems happen. My setup is in a loft, close to the ceiling where it gets warm in the summer, especially now with the arrival of the climate change heat domes.
The good news, it is also warmer up here in the winter. Although I only have a small propane heater this year. I am out of firewood.
The wildfires are making that harder to get. Speaking of. I just went out unmasked for ten seconds to grab a bunch of tall grass for the cats. They love that.
I coughed hard when I got back inside. Now I am sitting right next to my EB3A-charged USB-C HEPA air purifier. Ten seconds of smoke even caused my eyes to burn.
I’ve got to go check the Bluetti. If my hacks don’t work, I have a bigger hack formulating. That involves ripping the 14 6000 MAH 19.2 WH round blue batteries out of the Bluetti and directly connecting the inverter board with an xt 90 to the Redodo. That might cause some smoke. It will certainly void my warranty. The Bluetti batteries will be turned into another USB power bank, maybe with the balance leads hooked up this time.
UPDATE: The Bluetti directly connected to the redodo battery causes a surge that knocks out the Starlink every time it drops below 100 percent and starts to input PV power. Onetime is fine but repeated surging as it drops to 99 % and back to 100 and ten seconds later it repeats the Starlink doesn’t like it. Somehow those surges are going through the AC.
That is just a theory not proven yet, but enough for me to add a switch inline to the connection to be able to turn it off and then back on when I need charging, I will investigate further. Sure enough, the Starlink is functioning fine now that I disconnected PV input. Another Bluetti problem was discovered. I did find a 24V surge protector for batteries, it was meant to protect truck batteries from welding surges. That might work.
I haven’t even mentioned the paid reviewer that discovered that the cigarette lighter port does not support 12v at 10 amps but drops to 8.8 volts. And there is an Angry Viking Youtuber who tried to use his Bluetti EB3A to power his Diesel heater on the day of a big camping trip. It should have but didn’t. He paid for his. Not a happy camper.
If only I got paid for every time I used the word Bluetti.
I met a man at a car show once, he broke the world record for circumnavigating the globe in a truck. He said GMC paid him $500 American every time he said GMC truck in an interview,
We became good friends, and somehow he recognized me for a driver. I grew up in the muscle car era, my first car was a 69 Camaro. I did lots of off road and always seemed to own a 4×4. I won’t mention the high-speed chases during the 70’s. My song of the day should be glory days. 😎
He wanted me to break his records, I asked him why? He said so we could get paid for beating each other’s records. I actually started down that path for a while. I built a race truck and entered into the first Trans Amazon Race. The race was cancelled, and the organizers disappeared with all our entry fee money. I pulled out and found out later that some of the richer racers reorganized and ran the race themselves. A couple of them died on the first day out. I wonder what my life would be like now if I had stayed the course. Now I drive a rusty but trusty 92 safari van. Oh, and there is Lucille, my 1955 1st series Chevy pickup resto-mod 4×4 conversion. It is sitting on a 1999 Yukon frame, But not done yet. I guess if you are a gearhead, you are one forever. Oops, I wandered off-topic again.
Day Two Fabrication July 22
I managed to drill most of the holes with hand tools. They weren’t perfect, but it got done.
U bolts mounted for the future Solar panel mount. Bolts get tightened on final assembly, in case you were wondering.
While I was collecting more tools for this job, I tripped and took a bad fall. My fault, my shop is messy and needs a good clean-up. It never used to be like that.
Miracles do happen, but somehow I managed to not get hurt badly. It was a very hard fall. I hit my jaw on the table saw cabinet, scraped my legs on some rusty angle iron, cut my hand and tweaked my back. No broken bones, no fractures, a little blood, and a few scrapes. There was a loud yahoo later when I poured peroxide on the scrape.
I will be sore later. I kept working and felt that I got something accomplished. I went out to the Starlink and retrieved the mount. I got it in position to mark the final holes. One leg was short by a half inch. I could fix that by redrilling and moving that leg further out.
I was sure I measured everything correctly. I thought I did. Looking at the pictures. One leg was too long, one was too short. Did I have the legs on one side reversed? I was using existing holes in the mount meant for a BUD, they may not have been evenly drilled. See the picture for an explanation.
I might not finish today. I was starting to feel a little pain. I returned the Mount to the Starlink and came back inside. I went up and had breakfast. It was nearly 1 PM, it was time. Besides, I needed a tall Ice cold brew coffee with Oatmilk. I know that sounds a little froo froo, but it tastes really fawking good. Oops did I almost swear, my bad. That reminded me of a Bruce Campbell commercial, for him Old Spice, for me coffee.
so close
Looking at the pictures, it occurred to me that one leg was too short and one was too long. Could it be as simple as switching the two?
Done
This is the pole where the Starlink dish would sit. It was meant for a BUD (big ugly dish, that used to supply internet)
Unless we get seven feet of snow, it’s good.
I just slipped the EMT in the ubolts. Not tightened.
So why did I need to mount this on a pole? The dish has a snow melter function. It melts snow that turns to long icicles and can freeze the dish solid, not allowing it to move. This will mean fewer trips outside in the cold to remove those. Besides, I also needed a better way to mount my Solar panels. Yes, I know some ice will get on the solar panels, but with 4 hours of sunlight a day in Winter, it is really not an issue. I haven’t finished the details for that yet. I mean besides the u bolts and the EMT that I have already purchased. EMT is a metal electrical conduit.
Update:
So exciting, I got to watch my Starlink search for a satellite from my bedroom window.
Yes, I did go back to work. Switching the legs worked. I drilled the last few holes that needed drilling. Put bolts through, tightened everything down, and moved the pole to a better spot. Put the new mount up on the pole, and put the Dishy in the mount. Tightened 3 of the pole mounting bolts. I lost a nut in the tall grass.
I forgot to take a picture, I will do that tomorrow. I still need to tie down the cable.
I still need to find a way to secure it all from the wind. I have a few ideas but nothing solid yet. My mind works on these problems in the background, then suddenly I get an answer.
My next big problem? Figuring out how I am going to get my ass off the floor. I think I am sitting on a roll of wire. I am still sitting by the window watching my handiwork. The truth is I just wanted to see the dish move again.
On the great news front. My 24V 100AH REDODO Lifepo4 battery is fully charged. That took 3 days of charging with Gen. All I had to do now, is haul it back upstairs. Not today. I hurt.
It didn’t matter, my Bluetti blew through the tiny 200 wh in a few hours. I had to drag up the big battery and hook it up.
The second song is a lie, time is not on my side. That starts at about 3:15
You must be logged in to post a comment.