Austin Area TW Chapter (all gens welcome, even T4Rs; heck, just make it a Toyota and we're good)

No shit?

Fairborn class of ‘87.

 

I used my jackery 500. Same thing I would get a few hours of power but charged enough to last me through the night.

 

I still can’t believe how much water we used flushing the toilet after shitting or at the end of the day to get rid of pee.

I limited myself to only drinking 24oz knowing it was coming back online.

Got a whole list of shit to buy for next time.

 

Mornin

 

we shoveled up and chipped out about a ton of ice and snow and filled buckets/wheel barrows, brought them into the garage to melt, or if we needed to speed up the process, melted it on the gas stove. 11 people in the house means a lot of flushing even if you go by "if it's yellow let it mellow..."

 

11 people in the house!

 

I will rig the Taco as a simple overlander (shell, mattress, fridge). So if I have a Lithium-Ion battery, such as a battle born, it also a huge backup. Li-Ion batteries do not like operating below freezing (don't charge below or above certain temperatures).

Trying to design a module set up that I can slide in for overland, but remove when I need the bed of the truck to haul stuff. I have a three-wheel recumbent bike, so it would be nice for it to fit back there with everything in place when I need to transport it.

This gives an idea of what I am thinking of
Ultimate Tacoma Truck Bed Buildout
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MJar-6v_bk

This was a fun project for a great customer who loves getting out and exploring in his Tacoma. John came to me with a straight forward and fairly simple idea of hos he wanted the rear of his Toyota to function. I was able to take his thoughts and ideas and build the truck bed into a single sleeper with tons of storage and room for a fridge! Follow him out on the trails here www.instagram.com/mountain_taco_1 Items Used in the build: 60" Locking Drawer Slides: https://tinyurl.com/y83x53jq Fridge Slide: https://tinyurl.com/yby4l3ss Tailgate Panel: https://tinyurl.com/y7l5khj7 Clear Coat: https://amzn.to/2Xok2IV
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I like the 60" slides and slide-out fridge and stove slide-out. I need to sleep at an angle to fit with the tailgate up but would like to flip-up side windows on the shell, so the fridge can be up against the cab to give more foot room/place for muddy shoes.

I'll make the wooden box and slide-outs for a mock-up, then fab a cardboard shell to see "can I sit up, put my shoes on, then jump out. I suspect I need those extra 4" of high rise shell.

Do any of you have a shell? Interested in a wooden platform?

 

yeah, brother's family, his friend's family, myself, all crashed at Mom and Dad's since they had power/water at the time. then it slowly started shutting down, and everyone was iced in.

 

Ever met Cody?

 

I almost bought one of these a while back...should have! Probably won't now that the price has gone way up on them I remember seeing the 240 for $115 at one point and just decided I didn't "need" it.

 

@lilred95 all the way!

 

ahhhh '87 such a good year

 

Not that I remember. I had the white FJ40 with a canvas top and Red & Blue FJ60's. Usually, my sons were with me, but pretty much stopped off-roading around 2005. My wife was in ICU for three months, three years of surgeries, lots of home care. Medical bills hence sold off my old Cruisers and disappeared for a long time.

Slab runs and Gilmer, but most of the time was just out camping. We would go out to Mason but watched everyone do the hardcore rocks as I kept my sheet metal clean.

So with the Tacoma, maybe rock sliders and KO's but that will be the extent of it. Just keep to simple trails and air down when needed.

 

Damn kids, get off my lawn. Class of '76. I still feel like I am 18, but sucks to be trapped in a 62-year-old body!

 

Cody is @lilred95 and makes a living building slideouts, and other things. And such.

 

'79 here, ya old fart! Age is all in the mind. The guys clearing the neighborhood trail here on Saturday averaged 71.5 years old, and if it wasn't for me dragging the number down with my 60, the 83 year old would really have something to brag about!

 

Walter Yates, aka Yukon Yates, was my neighbor who never slowed down. WWII Vet (Marine), who built his own subdivision (Breakaway), built his own plane and helicopter, made his own stagecoach (felled the oaks on his property to get the proper 5/4 planks to keep to 1880 design), built his own electric vehicle. Sadly we lost him about five years ago, but I suspect he would have a story to keep us cheered up and going last week. He flew into Alaska, homesteaded and built his own log cabin, and lived off the land for a year.

Thankfully his family and friends encouraged him to write a memoir. Oh, 27.5 flights by helicopter into Alaska. The 0.5 flight was a tail rotor separated at 700 feet. He jumped clear of the wreckage, broke his back, and had just a box of charged prunes to eat. Thankfully was spotted two weeks later by search and rescue as he filed a flight plan—soft-spoken guy.

His homebuilt also suffered a tail rotor failure; he autogenerated landing in the tree canopy!

Breakaway by Walter Yates (good read)

 

Jackery came up on my Amazon search for larger powerbanks. Good stuff? I only know Goal Zero, because I used to get them cheap.

 

Goal Zero and Jackery are fine. When you first get them, try every feature and return for another (19 out of 20 work great, that 5% failure you hope to find the issue early and no-cost return shipping).

You can build your own power banks, but at the end of the day, it's a trade-off between time and money.
This is a little extreme, but another EV guy from way back when.
Its not Click Bait 200 cells x 3000mah = 600,000mAh AKA as 2.2kWh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn0KtdrpoEM

I had a 100W panel and small house battery in my Ford but sold it. Normally it was "drive three hours, park three days" so charming when I drove and good weather meant a smaller battery was fine. This past week, super dry air meant my CPAP humidifier was running all night.

Lead-acid deep cycle batteries are more temperature resistant, but for the weight, Li-ion is much better. I can get a Trojan AGM 31 for $300, but the same capacity in Lithium-Ion is $900.

https://www.trojanbattery.com/product/31-gel/

https://battlebornbatteries.com/product/12v-lifepo4-deep-cycle-battery/

Both are rated for 100 Wh capacity. Using 50 Wh overnight gives 1000 cycles (three years of daily use); the BB should be good for 3000 cycles (10 years daily use). With my Van I was able to top up with solar during the day, only needed the battery at night for the fridge and CPAP.

 

3 things that made life bearable during the ice storm.



#1 MOST important... My Big Buddy heater. We ran out of the stock of 1lb cylinders so I hooked up the bulk cylinder hose to one of the 40lb tanks that we filled right before the storm.



The

$124 Milwaukee M18 Cordless Lithium-Ion 6-1/2" Circular Saw - 2630-20 - ( MILWAUKEE ) - BARE TOOL

Milwaukee M18 100 lumen LED Trouble light with USB charge port. worked so well on the the previous weeks camping trip that I bought another one soon as we got back. having two during the ice storm along with 4 fully charged batteries kept a bit of light on, and the portable devices charged





This last item did not really get used, until the last day, Since I still had to work, I was gone before the sunrise, and did not get back until long after sunset. the first day off work, I set the two 20watt Goal Zero panels out to charge the Anker battery pack, which was also really useful during the outage.

Since we have gas our stove top worked, with a manual light. and while we lost pressure and had two hose bibs freeze up we maintain water.