Archive for April, 2011

The house project continues! I got some baby chickens last Saturday. I got 10 of them — various kinds. Baby chicken: I’m working on running water to the old barn, which will become the chicken coop: The new apricot tree (planted last year) got pummeled by the rain this year. The heaviest storm hit right after it blossomed. It has two apricots on it right now, and I’m not sure they’ll last till they are ripe as they tend to disappear. Running water up to the deck:

Eka Boo Erika

I’m ditching my IOTA DLS-55 DC-DC converter. The inrush limiter I use (which replaced the AC bridge rectifier) eventually dries out and cracks, and then stops working. I got ~1000 miles on my last modification (I’m at ~1700 miles right now). So, I’m doing research on what is out there to hopefully make the right choice. I’m only listing ones that I could actually use (ie: rated > 25amps, ideally higher, and have an input voltage appropriate for my pack at 154v nominal). Belktronix – $300 675W ( up to 55 amps) 120V-350V (based on application) Great support from the... [read more]

I never knew much about how I paid for electricity. I didn't know if we had certain hours that were peak or not. So, I called PG&E last week and they explained to me I was on the E1 rate. I told them I had an EV, and they suggested I go to E9 A or E9 B. They are listed here: http://pge.com/tariffs/ERS.SHTML#ERS

Like any good programmer, I decided to do my homework before blindly switching. It turns out that after I did the math, a PG&E representative told me they have a comparison spread sheet on their Plug-In Electric Vehicles page (here's a direct link to the excel spreadsheet). That page seems to lump a bunch of assumptions together about energy use, but I found that page to be quite accurate in its rough estimates.

The loudest part of my car when I turned it on was two fans for the water cooling setup on the controller. Ideally, the controller should turn the fans on and off and that will be a nice feature once Netgain Controls adds it in. For now, I needed a solution. Wayne, a fellow bug EV’er in Gilroy, suggested the a little CanaKit thermostat. I bought it and assembled it, which was pretty fun since I haven’t ever built any electronic kits before. I then made a little box to surround it out of Lexan. Sorry…no pictures, but basically I... [read more]

A picture I took from the Dream Box show. Amazing! Tickets are still available for Friday (April 8th, 2011) and Sunday (April 10th – two shows, one early and another later).

I got something I had been dying to get. The bug now has DMV approval to use the carpool lane.

Fuzzy Protea Taken at the UCSC Arboretum, Feb 20th, 2011.

Obama hate-mail has been scouring the internet for years. People frequently resend emails that they simply don’t understand. My dad sent me one with the title “After two years of Obama—here’s your change!!!”. Here’s an image of it below: The first and easiest thing to fact check is to see if this person can do math. The answer is no. Why? Well, look at the last line: If you are driving in the right lane doing 65MPH and a car goes past you at 27 times faster, then how fast is it going? The claim is 7,555 MPH. Man that... [read more]