The "Well isn't that Clever" Thread

Steve, be careful with these so called battery watch devices.
They have a current consumption of around 20mA per hour.
It does not sound much, but

20mA = 0.02A
24 hours per day:
20mA x 24h= 480mAh
30 days a month:
480mAh x 30days = 14.4Ah

That sums up real quick. Have in mind that a battery is charged under road condition about 2/3 of it's capacity.
put this together and it can leave your car drained in the driveway if you don't use it permanently.
 

SteveG

Adventurer
Steve, be careful with these so called battery watch devices.
They have a current consumption of around 20mA per hour.
It does not sound much, but

20mA = 0.02A
24 hours per day:
20mA x 24h= 480mAh
30 days a month:
480mAh x 30days = 14.4Ah

That sums up real quick. Have in mind that a battery is charged under road condition about 2/3 of it's capacity.
put this together and it can leave your car drained in the driveway if you don't use it permanently.

Good to know, Weas! I guess a kill switch for the device would be the best fix for the constant draw? And only turn that circuit on when using an accessory on it.
 

theksmith

Explorer
Steve, be careful with these so called battery watch devices.
They have a current consumption of around 20mA per hour.
It does not sound much, but

20mA = 0.02A
24 hours per day:
20mA x 24h= 480mAh
30 days a month:
480mAh x 30days = 14.4Ah

That sums up real quick. Have in mind that a battery is charged under road condition about 2/3 of it's capacity.
put this together and it can leave your car drained in the driveway if you don't use it permanently.

the "Battery Brain" brand claimed less than 4ma standby current draw, but i there was some rumor of them going out of business. they only problem i saw with them was the 250 amp continuous current rating, which could be a problem for those with winches. EDIT - many places still are selling stock, but appears the company website is gone, so no warranty i guess.
 

WSS

Rock Stacker
Water slide decals. in the inkjet flavor. Print your art and clearcoat with rattle cans and then cut out and soak in water until back "slides" off, you have a nice custom sticker or legend

DSCN9337_zpsd14847ca.jpg


DSCN9339_zps514e2d92.jpg


DSCN9344_zps8c5952d7.jpg


DSCN9345_zpsd63f51ba.jpg


DSCN9361_zpsb44c79b9.jpg


DSCN9382_zpsffbe7603.jpg


Got em here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-sheets-CLEAR-INKJET-waterslide-decal-paper-/390766737858
 

mojave joe

Observer
Am I understanding this? Standard black ink on plain paper, coat with clear, soak away the paper and apply as a decal?
 

WSS

Rock Stacker
I posted a link to some at the bottom of my post, sorry, should have been in front of pics. It is a special paper that can be printed in full color on a inkjet printer and then you seal the ink by clear coating the paper. Then you soak in water.
 

mudbutt

Explorer
LoopAlien

Certainly not a new idea, but a very sleek design.

And they come in several different flavors...

Aluminum
Titanium
Polished Titanium
Polished Heat Anodized Titanium

"Proudly designed and manufactured in the USA."

http://www.loopalien.com

la-greycloseup-462x392.jpg

(And yes, I know how to tie a taut-line hitch... But that would be no where as cool as a polished heat anodized titanium guy tensioner thingy :D...)
 
Last edited:

Arclight

SAR guy
I swear someone posted one of those gadgets that open a circuit when your battery gets too low in this thread but I don't see it. Anyone have suggestions for one? It would be a great addition to this thread... Thanks!

EDIT: Something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Voltage-Disco...r=8-5&keywords=Low+Voltage+Battery+Disconnect

The one I use is called the "Priority Start."

http://prioritystart.com/

It has saved me a dead battery a couple of times. It does draw a bit of power, although nowhere near as much as an isolation relay does when on. If you application is long-term storage, I would get a disconnect switch. If you're worried about not being able to start your truck because you parked for 3 days with the fridge and lights running, then it's a good investment.

Arclight
 

DVexile

Adventurer
My proud contribution - a way to make a battery powered reusable glow stick actually *useful*.

I like to leave something lit on my vehicle when hiking near sunset (which I do a lot for photography) so I can find the truck in the dark. Also useful for finding your truck in campgrounds. Ideally this would be one of those LED glow sticks. And of course they are small so you can take a few with you if night hiking to visually mark an important way point for your return.

Unfortunately I've found the "dumb" sticks burn very bright for the first few hours rapidly draining the expensive watch batteries and then burn dim for a total of only maybe 8 hours of useful brightness. This is because these sticks just short the LED to the batteries.

There are "smart" sticks that appear to do a little bit of current regulation and have blinking modes. Sadly these mostly seem to have an "auto-off" battery saver feature as well which defeats the whole purpose of being a marker.

My great insight is using a special battery with "dumb" sticks to dramatically increase burn time.

First the sticks - I used the Life+Gear "Reusable Glow Stick" that is *twist* to turn on. These are "dumb" sticks that the twisting motion just causes a direct contact between LED and batteries. Do not get the "fancier" sticks from the same manufacturer that have blinking modes, flash lights or any other sort of smarts. The "dumb" sticks are sold at Target for like $1.49 or something.

Now these sticks will burn insanely bright for the first hour or so as they rapidly drain their batteries. As the battery drains its voltage lowers and the forward current of the LED also drops reducing brightness and extending the burn time. You might get 15 hours from this if you are lucky. The whole problem is no current regulation for the LED, it is just shorting the battery. Thus the LED current is like 75 to 150 mA initially depending on the color. It really only needs to be about 5 to 10 mA for adequate brightness.

The solution? Use hearing aid batteries instead (called Zinc Air batteries). These naturally current limit as the current is limited by transport of air into the battery case (these batteries have little holes in them covered by a sticker that you remove when you want to use them). They are also much higher energy density than most batteries precisely because they use air from the atmosphere as part of the chemical reaction.

How much better do they work? I get a burn time of 7 to 8 *days* using hearing aid batteries. That's continuous discharge, never turning it off. So around 150 hours of burn time.

The trade off? Once you pull the sticker off of a hearing aid battery it must be used within just a few weeks. So you use one set of batteries per camping trip, but you they are so efficient you could leave them on the whole trip - even during the day.

Here is a link to the glow sticks I use:

http://www.lifegear.com/glow-sticks-1/lg11-60221-mt4

The proper hearing aid batteries to use are 675. That is the same size as the 357 battery except it uses Zinc Air electrolyte.

I'm probably the only one who thinks this is as cool as it is... But seriously, if you want a good cheap and featherweight light marker that will last days and is shelf stable for a long time until you pull the stickers this is the cheapest and most reliable solution I know of.
 

Bergum

Adventurer
DVexile. Try to shop for instrument led, not bright led. I use big led from dx.com with ordinary 2032 button batteries combined with some tape. Last for approx 1 week of continuous use. (24/7)

Winter's coming, Stark
 

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