Replies

I'm an Eagle. (I wish!)

July: Eagle

Eagles are regal birds. They’re fierce in flight and stunning to see, with hooked beaks and wide wingspans. In the United States especially, a bald eagle is a prized sight. Watch for white feathers on the head and brown plumage on the rest of the body, as well as yellow talons.

“It was a drizzly fall day on the Potomac Eagle train ride in Romney, West Virginia. I didn’t have high hopes for good photos, but I got lucky,” says Robin Bell.

In the early days when I wasn't even spending much money on gardening people would say; You can't compare what you're growing to grocery store food. You're growing varieties not available at the local store and growing it organically. Just think of the health benefits. You can't put a price on that. ($5k)

Everything but the poly film is going to last many years. The controller I'm using for my irrigation timer is the same thing they're had running for 15-20 years at work and they run 24/7. Can't buy that in your local store either. The electrical connectors I'm using get used in city busses, 18 wheelers etc. Linear actuators, not so much but are swapped out with two pins for easy replacement. If they don't last long, I'll start swapping those out for industrial versions.

My rocketbombplane(wind speed/direction sensor) is sitting at the UPS distro center in the college town 10 miles North of work and has been all day. I'll get it Monday.

I'll be able to test it a little at home by spinning with a cordless drill and taking an AC voltage measurement. I pulled a 90 VDC motor and DC motor controller off the shelf at work today so I can test the wind speed part of it. With the setup at work, I can dial in the RPMs, double check it with a testing tachometer, and take a frequency reading in Hz(hertz) and do the math to make sure it's what it's supposed to be as translated to MPH. A calibration check basically. I can do a second check at a different RPM, do the same math and know it's good throughout a range of speeds.

Wind direction is a piece of cake. Three wires; put 5 VDC to one and read the voltage across the other two. Rotate unit to lowest reading and call that North. Highest reading is South. With a number called Slope, it will work out to 0 being North and 180 being South, just like a compass.

I'm a wee bit nervous/hopeful that both will work. If so, OMG a $1200 commercial unit for $130. They use these things at small airports, AG ext research stations, Forest Service for fire weather data - forest fire fighting etc. It's a bad mamajamma rocketbomblane.