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6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
17,654
15,196
they were the 45NRTH Cobrafists
Pogies which attach to the end of the bars = pants. I like to rest my hands over the end of the bars too often to even bother trying them.

I've used $25 ATV pogies for years which just clamped in the center and I used an appropriate section of old foam roller around the bars for them to clamp to. So hands were completely unconstrained.

But for extra warmth after clarification on the attachment method from @Jm_ , I just picked up some Dogwood Designs Poagies and used them last Saturday at Fat Bike Worlds in freezing temps wearing just thin summer gloves for 2 1/2 hours.
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
17,654
15,196
If you're driving past anytime in the next dozen days and want to check out cheap ATV with foam roller spacers or fancy ones, LMK.
 
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Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
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an expensive quote from JM Electric. in particular:

- they confirmed the 6-50R circuit is still live, so it's indeed the 2015 Leviton EVSE that's dead

- said circuit w/the 6-50R has 8 ga copper wiring. it should have 6 ga for a 40A continuous load like the EVSE. 8 ga is good for 32A continuous but not 40A given the 125% rule.

- the other 50A circuit has a pre-EV-rated 14-50R... and aluminum wire. (EV-rated modern 14-50Rs need 6 gauge copper.)

- house service turns out to be 150A after all! when I called Xcel's builders line and they said it has 200A that apparently only means it _could_ have 200A.

- upgrading to 200A is not cheap*

* asterisk because quotes differ wildly between companies. I'm getting Current Installations (who did my fabulously cheap subpanel + initially incorrect-but-fixed 50A buried line for the swim spa) to quote out both a 200A service upgrade and outlet work.

interim conclusions::

1) I shouldn't run two 40A EVSE (on 50A circuits if you've been following along) + the 40A swim spa (similarly on a 50A circuit) off of 150A service to the house.

2) I could upgrade the service to 200A, as I'd need to if I went down the heat pump route certainly.

3) or I could drop down to just one EVSE, noting that both circuits have issues: the newer one has aluminum wire and a non-EV-rated 14-50R. The older one has copper wire but of too small a gauge per code. The location of the older one is better to reach both cars so it'd be the preferable choice if I'm dropping to one again.

putting this allllllll together:

If the 200A service upgrade quote comes back extremely reasonable from Current Installations then:

- new circuit gets copper wire + EV-rated 14-50R
- pop an EV-rated 14-50R on the old circuit, downrate a new EVSE on that to 32A output +/- replace breaker with 40A

If the 200A service upgrade is not reasonable imo (and it was $7,450 per today's electrician's quote) then:

- new circuit gets turned off
- old circuit gets that same new EV-rated 14-50R, and current Autel MaxiCharger gets moved to it, downrated to 32A, again +/- 40A breaker replacement

whew. It's tiring being in my head eh
 

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
so part of the reason of getting these electrical work quotes was because I figured I'd need to involve him to get this Xcel credit, as it's titled the "Electric Vehicle Home Wiring Rebate" after all.

but as per a Redditor and my own reading of the terms and conditions it can be used directly towards a new <= 50A EVSE purchase, too! just needs to be Energy Star rated.

Screenshot 2025-01-31 192945.png


stipulation 1) enroll in Xcel's Optimize Your Charge Program, check. just did that tonight. the Buzz isn't listed but the Busy Forks is, so I don't need a qualifying EVSE (like the ChargePoint Home Flex which I don't have/would have had to buy and then get hardwired at non-negligible expense as per above). enrollment is waiting on them to check some boxes and me to enable them to peer in at when I charge said Busy Forks at home.

I agreed to a window of 9 PM- 6 AM, which is fine by me. I set the window on the car side to be 10 PM-6 AM so as to not conflict with the 5-10 PM MPEI peak hours at the mountain house, not that the Juicebox should let me charge then anyway. but I digress: point is, I signed up for it.

stipulation 2) either purchase an "Eligible EV Charger[sic]" and/or have a licensed electrician install Premises Wiring. distinct from what EVSE are needed to be qualifying for Optimize Your Charge if one's vehicle isn't qualifying, eligible EVSE for the purposes of this separate Home Wiring Rebate are those that are Energy Star rated and have output power of 50A or less, which is a fairly good subset of the whole market, including my still-working Autel.

so I ordered up a new, Energy Star compliant Autel EVSE identical to that which I already have, to generate an invoice and purchase date for Xcel's paperwork purchases. that in and of itself + Optimize Your Charge enrollment + filling out a form should net me $500 from Xcel.

and Optimize Your Charge in and of itself will pay out $50 per year, which is not rolling in the riches but is better than a sharp stick in the eye.

(the truly astute reader will note that if I don't go to 200A service I won't actually need this second EVSE. so I may or may not be engaging in a bit of fraud. just a teensy bit. the purchase part is legit! just maybe not the implied delivery part)
 

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
had a dream that I was president after the dotard

I didn’t do any president things in this dream really, although in one scene I was in a Beast, headed up a dark ridgeline to a far off lit up building probably modeled in my head off that observatory in town in LA

said Beast was an old one because the dotard had been vindictive and somehow limited use of new vehicles. anyway, this one was based off of a Lincoln Continental in my imagination, but not of Matrix suicide door or 90s stagnation Ford vanilla varieties

this one had a tan leather long limo interior all around, with a sagging, similarly tan leather headliner

anyway, in another part of my dream that’s very hazy there was apparently some internal uprising in my house (which wasn’t the White House proper!) by my staff, and the secret service had to shut it down and whisk me away. they shot some people but my dream-brain didn’t focus on that or the aftermath. they were touched because I remembered my two agents’ names (which I can’t remember when awake and sane)

then me and those two agents were somehow hiking in a desert bowl. a gang of jogging youths was coming over a ridge and the paths over the opposite range were afar

one of the last things I remember was discussing with my two agents whether we should play as tourists and hope the gang didn’t recognize my bearded face as president, or whether we should dig down and hide

apparently in this world we had no option for helicopters to bail us out or the like. the dotard must have stripped the budget to the bone in my dreamworld eh

then I awoke
 

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
A morning project shall be to install this beefy EV-rated Leviton 14-50R in place of the 2015-era 6-50R on Garage EVSE Circuit 1. I shall check and recheck and recheck once more for good measure that there’s no voltage differential across the pins before unscrewing leads on the first eh

and if my torque wrench actually covers 75 in-lb I'll bust that out as well

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Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
yesterday morning happenings:

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bought A Wood at Home Depot like a regular Ben Shapiro

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used said wood to mount up my remaining 3 Gravity Grabbers. room for another Rocker mount if I so desire at the end there

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mounted up two e-bike rated Steadyrack bike mounts. was going to put them on a 2 x 4' piece of wood that'd in turn be screwed into studs a la the ski mounts but these each span precisely 2' vertically and need to be at different heights due to different wheelbases. and my studs are similarly precisely 24" on center.

so instead I returned said 2 x 4' woods and mounted these Steadyracks directly to the studs

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related: while cleaning off some stuff from that shelf in the corner found a previously unopened box containing Pivot 12s. had totally forgotten about these/don't precisely remember which ski idea these were supposed to be for. but I'm prepared for when said inspiration strikes!

:D

/life of me
 

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
the Steadyracks are a nice design, for the record. construction very solid (again these are the heavy duty ones so I'd hope so!), hardware very beefy (pro tip: use a socket and an impact wrench, not the weak-sauce Philips threads), and the pivoting design is slick.

somehow I screwed up the measurements for the kid's city bike's mount placement twice despite having actually measured. maybe the fenders messed with things? in any case, they work now and my corner is less cluttered.

:)
 
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Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
and if my torque wrench actually covers 75 in-lb I'll bust that out as well
It does! But somehow I didn’t have 3/8” drive Allens. Remedied that. And saw a long boi Tundra: extended cab, 8’ bed.

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Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
New, fancy 14-50R in place. And I’m either alive or posting from the afterlife. all connection bolts torqued to 75 in-lb as per spec.

cover plate arriving tonight. Will migrate over the working EVSE here later today, downrated to 32A to match the 8 ga wire.

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edit: EVSE migrated over now. Nailed the distance to the receptacle, which is important since that power cord does not like to flex one whit. No magic smoke escaped when I flipped the circuit’s breaker back on, and the EVSE reports that all is nominal.

/borat great success.gif

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Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
Watched Arrival tonight. I went into it knowing nothing besides that it was on my list for some reason or another, and I loved it. (From the absurd to the sublime eh?)

The style and pace of Denis Villenueve just resonate with me (as they so clearly did with Dune) and the “flashbacks” of Hannah of course tied the whole thing together emotionally, with the Greek mythology twist of the curse of knowing one’s fate.
watched this again today, this time on the big TV/stereo setup in the basement with my middle child under my arm. she loved it, and it was great on the big(er) screen in beautiful 4K UHD Blu-Ray goodness. the low frequency effects were great on my 15" ported subwoofer, too. :D

definitely many shades of Dune's brilliance in there. a lovely complete package of a movie with everything circular indeed.
 

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
EVSE migrated over now. Nailed the distance to the receptacle, which is important since that power cord does not like to flex one whit. No magic smoke escaped when I flipped the circuit’s breaker back on, and the EVSE reports that all is nominal.

/borat great success.gif

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First charge with the translocated Autel EVSE on the new EV-rated 14-50R, and it works. :)


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It, however, has a 20’ cable. This is sufficient to charge the Buzz and Busy Forks when either is face in, but only just so for the latter.

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The failed Leviton EVSE has a 25’ cable, so surgery is in order.

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Shall pick up a set of Torx security bits to open it up.Maybe I’ll even spot a burst capacitor inside or the like and be able to solder in a new one.

(And in that case I theoretically could pop on some Polaris connectors to extend the aluminum 6 ga from the other circuit and hardwire it. But I’m getting ahead of myself, as this would imply the 200A house service upgrade and all and I'm still waiting on a Current Installations quote from my dude-bro there)
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
17,654
15,196
First charge with the translocated Autel EVSE on the new EV-rated 14-50R, and it works. :)


View attachment 225892

View attachment 225891

It, however, has a 20’ cable. This is sufficient to charge the Buzz and Busy Forks when either is face in, but only just so for the latter.

View attachment 225890
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View attachment 225887

The failed Leviton EVSE has a 25’ cable, so surgery is in order.

View attachment 225888

Shall pick up a set of Torx security bits to open it up.Maybe I’ll even spot a burst capacitor inside or the like and be able to solder in a new one.

(And in that case I theoretically could pop on some Polaris connectors to extend the aluminum 6 ga from the other circuit and hardwire it. But I’m getting ahead of myself, as this would imply the 200A house service upgrade and all and I'm still waiting on a Current Installations quote from my dude-bro there)
Before you blow yourself up, remember there could still be charged capacitors in there.
 

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
this unseasonably warm Chinook Wind-induced weather may be bad for mountain snowpack, but at least it allowed my (disconnected prior to now) garden hose to thaw out, in turn letting me top off the water level on the swim spa

hmph
 

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
22,525
22,339
Canaderp
'tis very true, and thank you for the word of caution.
You must resist, I don't think your body has the capacity to hold a charge like that.





In circuits fine, where currents flow, A dance of sparks, a gentle glow, Resistors hum, capacitors sigh, Transistors whisper, signals fly.

But heed this tale of caution's might, For in the depths of darkest night, When voltage surges, wild and free, The smoke escapes, a mystery.

A wisp of gray, a silent scream, A dream undone, a broken scheme, The magic lost, the power gone, A lesson learned, a new dawn.

So guard the gates, protect the flow, For in the heart of circuits, know, The smoke within, the lifeblood true, Once let out, no more will do.
 

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
I'll put a beefy screwdriver-conductor across the pins of the 6-50 before I crack open that bad boy at the very least

plus my insurance is all up to date anyway
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
56,589
22,695
Sleazattle
I'll put a beefy screwdriver-conductor across the pins of the 6-50 before I crack open that bad boy at the very least

plus my insurance is all up to date anyway
A property designed device with high energy capacitors should have bleed down resistors to make the product safe after a reasonable amount of time. Power supplies that I used to work with that had a set of 600V capacitors the size of a shoe box would be safe after about 10 minutes.
 

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
@Toshi , How ubiquitous is CT imaging becoming? I don’t think they do it up here yet.
(not me, just an image)

View attachment 225916
everyone has the packages to do such 3-D volumetric rendering from any old CT. we don't use those to actually read the studies. those are more for the benefit of surgeons who are used to real-space rather than image-space, as it were.
 

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
finished up Margin Call tonight. watched it on Tubi during my eldest's rehearsals this past week and tonight.

Margin-Call.jpg


it held my interest despite my not being from that world in question at all (albeit just one degree removed from it via many of my former classmates). some good acting, imo. I was especially impressed by Paul Bettany and Zachary Quinto.
 

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
My 3rd grader now reads at a college freshman level.

1196 on the star score scale.
Yuna-chan midway through 4th grade has a Star score of 1171. 9th month of 12th grade level. given that she reads a hell of a lot less than Mariko-kun did and does this is pretty good indeed.
 

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
next up to watch: Blood Machines. on my list due to its VFX.

that's some weird shit

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Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
56,589
22,695
Sleazattle
Speaking of CTs, my ortho showed me this and grunted that I needed a bone graft. He never explained why. Assuming this is a 2-D slice of 3-d topology I couldn't tell what was wrong but I assume the bottom part should be more continuous.

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Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
Got my security bit set, used a TS25 bit to open up the case… and was greeted with this in my failed 9 year old Leviton EVSE.

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Yikes.

Something on the input side had clearly released its magic smoke, coming apart into two pieces when I pried at it a bit.
I’ll check the wiring on the output-side cord assembly that I want to salvage very carefully!
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
17,654
15,196

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
Brought a rocking chair and its small ottoman up tonight. And also brought myself up I suppose

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Shall set up the chair tomorrow and then carve up groomers on my Stöcklis for a few hours. Going to be warm so will be down a layer, spring skiing style

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Burnt 53% SOC on the way up here. Dry + mid 30s.

edit: 30% SOC used for the return journey with similarly unseasonably warm conditions. mid 30s in Tabernash through the pass, then 60s in Denver (!).
 
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Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
IMG_7371.jpeg


I set up the rocking chair in its corner

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drove some deck screws in at an angle to tack down boards that love to pop up due to the hidden Trex connectors requiring tighter tolerances than my deck contractor employed

then I went skiing and it was actually really awful. windy, icy, flat light, and did I mention windy? and with these Chinook winds the base has melted off enough that the snow cats were digging down to dirt in places. check the video from the top of Olympia...


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since the skiing was so bad I called it a day after 3 runs or so, jetted back to the house, and packed up the whole place. (we were going to pack it up on Sunday as it's renting out for Presidents Day weekend and the adjacent week. now it has a chance to rent out this weekend, too, as we will skip out on skiing. 3" over what's there now will still not be good.)

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once home I finally pulled off the 25' charging cord + connector assembly from the burnt-inside old EVSE. it looks fine, with only mild heat-related changes but no frank scorching on the beefy leads from the nearby conflagration.

I also emailed Leviton tech support to see if they want to have the old unit shipped back to them to figure out why the magic smoke escaped. email exchange ongoing with them now--might happen.
 
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Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
40,404
9,223
based off of current conditions and projected snowfall:

- I'm not skiing this weekend at WP
- canceled my scheduled Wednesday ski day a week from today
- will track the storm projections for Wolf Creek... driving down Friday night, staying locally, skiing Saturday is maybe in the cards if this holds up. maybe.

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