Buy Refrigerator: somethingimade

In short, it's a 200 watt solar panel system with four 6-volt golf cart batteries serving as the power bank. I've got a 3000 watt (6000 watt peak) pure sine wave inverter to change the 12-volt DC current to 120-volt AC.

I use it in the summer for camping. A big stereo for partying in the woods, hot plates, rice cooker, an air pump for air mattresses and river tubes, box fans to put in tents for summer camping, water pump for showers, and power tools for remote location projects.

In the winter, I have ran an extension cord into the cab for a 1500 watt electric heater. Really nice in MN when it's -10F. I estimate that I could run the 1500 watt electric heater for about 6-8 hours. Typically it gets ran about 45 minutes to an hour at a time, and the battery banks are fully recharged by the next day.

Extra details:

-I had to add an extra leaf spring to my pickup truck's suspension to make up for the extra weight of the batteries always being in the bed.

-I have everything fused low. For instance, the power inverter is capable of outputting 6000 watts. That comes out to 500 amps@12-volts. I have the power inverter fused in-line@250 amps. I purchased an inverter capable of outputting more power than I planned on using. I don't plan on pushing the system, I'd rather keep it safe and blow a fuse. Yes, I do realize that things like refrigerators will have a very high peak wattage when the compressor surges. But, I'm not running anything like that.

-The 12-volt cigarette lighter output is fused at either 15 or 20 amps, I don't recall. It's -5F outside right now, I didn't feel like digging around too much.

-The system is quite expandable. I believe that the solar charge controller can run four panels total (400 watts). I can fit -exactly- 10 batteries into my current box with about a 1/2 inch of space left.

-The roof rack on my topper is higher than the panels, I can still transport my canoe!

-I didn't have to fabricate anything, not really. Which means that I can easily move this solar system to another vehicle, or perhaps the corner of my garage or in a shed our outbuilding.

Let me know what you think!

Submitted January 06, 2017 at 05:49AM by RedTopSR20 http://ift.tt/2iJWBo8 somethingimade

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Tired of Wimpy "Standard" Refrigerator Magnets, I Made Two Using Powerful Neodymium Magnets Instead somethingimade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6QwZOuCbFw

Submitted September 27, 2016 at 06:31PM by forgerforager http://ift.tt/2cI6scs somethingimade

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

A gift I made for my kids for the last day of Yule. somethingimade

http://ift.tt/1VamZDV My older son and daughter (ages 6 and 9, respectively), both like to pretend to cook since my wife and I cook a lot. My older son actually said he wished that he had a good play kitchen to pretend to cook on, and I decided to get to work. Web had removed one of our cabinets because we had a new refrigerator put in, so my wife and I used that as the starting point of project. I went to Lowe's and bought some oak boards to make a countertop, backsplash, and the box for the bottom, along with new hardware for the doors, paint, some hinges, some plexiglass for the oven, and a couple shower drains to work as burners. We also got a new faucet to replace our kitchen sink's faucet so we could use our old one for the play kitchen. My wife painted it, along with chalkboard paint on the cabinet, and I did the stain, the building, and the picture-taking. I know it's not much to go on, but I'm proud of it, and wanted to show it off. Happy holidays, everyone!

Bonus laser and whiskey pictures. I guess I accidentally added those.

Submitted December 24, 2015 at 07:04AM by FhearSliabhNeil http://ift.tt/1PlI0Ll somethingimade

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Instead of buying magnets for my fridge, I decided to make some! somethingimade

With the help of my 7 year old niece, I made glittery fridge magnets! We made individual ones with their own color, then 2 special ones - a 'Frozen' one with iridescent + blue, and a rainbow one using all the colors mixed together.

You can guess whose idea it was to create the Frozen one. hahaha ;)

We used this tutorial. Only things I did differently are that I used a sponge paintbrush to brush the Mod Podge glue (in Gloss) onto the bead, then once the glue & glitter was dry, I sprayed a few coats (about 3) of Mod Podge Clear Acrylic Sealer (in Gloss) on top to seal the glitter from fallout. Once dried, I then super-glued the magnets. The good magnets to use are the ones that say ceramic on the package. They have a good magnetic force that'll hold to the refrigerator well...especially if you use the larger, heavier beads. I used the beads that are bigger than a quarter, but they make smaller ones too. All materials can be bought at Michael's craft store.

Here they are!

All magnets together (I blocked out my real name on the valentine she made me)

Special magnets

Please ignore my dishwasher notecard. My husband & I often work opposite hours, so I created that as a system so we know what is what. The other side says the same thing but with Clean in blue. :)

Submitted February 05, 2015 at 10:31AM by amyria http://ift.tt/1DHKhbh somethingimade

Friday, November 21, 2014

Magnetic Bottle Opener For Refrigerator somethingimade

http://ift.tt/14SJUPz

Submitted November 22, 2014 at 04:15AM by beerbottleopener http://ift.tt/1AuLQKV somethingimade