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T
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
I hope I am not trespassing but I'm more interested in "re-purposing" some old satellite stuff to make a couple of solar trackers. I live off grid in Oregon. Closest neighbor is 2.5 miles away. Surrounded by USFS property. Love it.
I placed an ad in a free local sale/swap paper for anyone who wanted to have an old dish removed. Looked at several in various states of decay when I came across a Paraclipse horizon to horizon dish. Perfect, almost. In the solar world, 12vdc, 24vdc and 48vdc are common. The motor on this puppy is 36vdc!!! Now it's head scratching time. SMPS, inverter, replace. Anyway, that's why I joined. Glad to hear from anyone who's been down this road. If you see a good idea, make it your own.
12 Replies · 2155 views
Inno
I'm interested in similar things and have been looking at possibly converting some of my old C-band stuff. I've built a small solar space heater which is currently on the south side of my garage. Back to your issue, if you're just looking to track the sun you don't need much speed so you would easily be able to run the actuator from 24 or even 12V DC, it would just run slower and possibly use a little more current. Any thoughts about a control circuit? I've seen many simple ones I'll just have to find a link.
Here's one Red Rock Energy Heliostats which actually sells a very simple tracker controller and has links to an abundance of very informative sites!

Good luck and keep us posted. I'd be interested to see what you come up with!
vegassatellite
Why not rig up some kind of hydraulic arm to the dish on each side of the dish and use a large metal cylinder that is highly pressurized on each side of the home. Western side and Eastern side. The cylinder on the East side of the home will get warmed in the sun and the gas inside will expand, turning the dish towards the sun. Then, as the sun passes overhead and warms the Western cylinder, pressure in that cylinder will counteract the pressure in the other cylinder to track the midday sun. Then, as the Eastern cylinder is shaded by the home, the pressure will drop and the dish will track West. No electricity used. Haven't tried this myself, but should work as long as the gas expansion is high enough.
Inno
My guess would be that a hydraulic system would be quite expensive. I can also think of a few problems. One, every climate is a bit different summer to winter, in some areas you have drastic changes in the amount of sun available. You'd have to make adjustments for the season. Two, if you have a day that starts out cloudy and ends up sunny then the dish wouldn't be in the right location once the sun hits the cylinder. Three, it would be very hard to adjust just the right amount of pressure to track the sun accurately.

If you used an electric based unit you could have a solar tracker unit controlling an actuator (or two if you wanted dual axis control) connected to a battery which could be charged by a solar panel. No outside electricity used. Given that the actuators will only need very small adjustments intermittently you wouldn't use up too much of the battery and a small panel should keep it topped up.
T
Well after much "googling" and searching the postings here, I have determined the actuator that the Paraclipse dish was mounted to is an Ajak. The guy I got it from is a real tinkerer so I imagine he pieced it together. I have seen the Red Rok website and that is what I intend to use. Using the 24vdc input seems to be the easiest solution. Obviously it only needs to move as fast as the sun across the sky. The mounting bracket is all welded steel and I know what I have to do to bolt it to my Uni-rack that my panels mount to. Think I will eventually get a linear actuator arm for vertical adjustment with another Red Rok sensor. Right now, I'm just waiting for the rain to stop. Maybe June, July?? One of the many joys of living in Oregon. Thanks for all the suggestions. Will check back soon.
dfergie
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU!
Last reply · posted in What's Cooking?
We have a Breakfast and Dinner thread so... :)
Continuing from the Breakfast thread, found Cornbread mix so ...
Yellow Cornbread Mix
2 Hatch Green Chiles -diced
1 Egg
2/3 cup of milk
add to greased pan
Bake for 400f 20-25 minutes(From instructions)
now to put together and try... this to go with pinto beans...
5449 Replies · 336086 views
TRG
TRG
Club sandwich and corn chowder. Iced tea.
dfergie
Chili dog bowl, water… (homemade chili)
TRG
TRG
Leftover wanton soup and pork fried rice. Water.
dfergie
IMG_5955.webp

Sweet tea…
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TRG
TRG
Tuna salad sandwich on toasted honey whole wheat bread with a handful of kettle chips. Water.
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Scott Greczkowski
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne


Get it?


An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
68658 Replies · 2680224 views
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dishstaller
I Wanna Talk About Me - Toby Keith
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Bobby
98.6 - Keith
harshness
I'm Easy - Keith Carridine
gms49ers
It's Easy - Boston
RaiderPower
Take It Easy On Me - Little River Band
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R
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
Lately my eight year old Dell laptop has been shutting off even when I have a full battery. I have had to keep it plugged up all the time to keep this from happening. Any idea what is causing this? I replaced the battery about three years ago.
2 Replies · 46 views
arlo
A recalibration might be needed. Even if it shows full, the individual cells may have become unbalaced. And the BMS chip in the battery reports false information to the pc.
Try this. Start it up in the bios/uefi and leave it there until the battery dies and it shuts off.
It might just keep running longer than in Windows. Or run for a short while and shut off.
If it's the first case. Probably just needs a balancing. If the latter, the pack might just be dead.
Not throwing stones but perhaps just a cheaply constructed battery with substandard cells. Could be.

Patience. Keep restarting it in bios/uefi until it won't fire up anymore.
Then plug the charger in and let it complete a full charge. And see what happens. If it's better.
Do the same thing one more time. Run it until it dies dead-dead. Then just let it charge, pc shut off.
When charged, it might be better. It might not be.

There are bench jigs that read the actual BMS and override it to let a tech manually monitor and charge the separate packs. They can also reset any "time bombs" in it that cause an otherwise good pack to show bad.
Maybe Santa will be good to me some year.

You might just need a new battery. Maybe the PC power management chip is going. A Dell common thing.
Leaving a laptop plugged in with a full battery is known to reduce the life. Asus for one recommends that you don't leave the charger plugged in all of the time even when shut down. And setting Windows to charge the battery to 85% instead of 100% increases life.
That's all I got.
dishstaller
That's all I got.
That was quite enough....I definitely learned something from your post. Thanks
TRG
TRG
Pub Member / Supporter
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
5 Replies · 285 views
b4pjoe
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
If you can't get into the router to reserve an IP address just don't use DHCP on the device that needs connected and assign it to a specific IP address in the network settings.
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HipKat
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
They are not. Your best bet is to set up a third-party router, attached to the Starlink for your server, that you can get into, like a Linksys, etc
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Foxbat
…it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
The Starlink V5 Install Kit I just got comes with the Mini Router. It is pretty limited in what it can do. For example, it can provide only one IP subnet at a time, no Guest Network, but it does support the pass-thru to a third-party Router. You can also split the Wi-Fi into separate 5 GHz & 2.4 GHz SSIDs to help some IoT devices that don't support 5 GHz bands to work.

The larger Starlink Router that still comes with the V4 Kit does support a Guest Network with separate IPv4 Subnet, but it's $120 from Starlink. And it still won't do DHCP Reservations.
harshness
If you can restrict the DHCP address space to assign addresses to one end of the subnet (i.e. x.x.x.50+), you can manually assign the IP address on pretty much any operating system. This is a default behavior on several popular routers. As the Router Mini only supports 235 devices, I expect that's already done.

Another option is to use a router that supports PoE to power the antenna. This article discusses that option (under PoE Power heading):

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Foxbat
Now that I've had the v5 kit with the Mini Router, it's not as bad as I first thought. Yes, no DHCP reservations, but you can set up multiple SSIDs that have separate IPv4 subnets, and like the big brother, you can select from 192.168.x.0/24 or 10.x.0.0/16 (where "x" is 1-4).

You can also split a subnet and have different SSIDs for the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz channels to handle some IoT devices. I haven't discovered what subnet the 2nd NIC on the router assigns, I'm guessing it's the first subnet.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
2 Replies · 51 views
dishstaller
Sorry for posting the wrong link. Just corrected it.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

2 Replies · 55 views
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Jimbo
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

They will have to look at the switching sections to determine WHY 2 trains were on the same track ... at the same time.
dishstaller
Thought this article might be of interest to some of you who might travel via train.