Diy Electronics

Your generator purchase should also include enough oil, spark plugs, and filters to last you 10 days of maintenance, based on running 24hrs a day. Even when power begins coming back online and gas is more readily available, the rush on engine oil is the next scarcity to occur. Prepare ahead and get enough maintenance products to last. You should also budget 2-3 5gal jugs for gasoline, and a larger 15gal. You’ve got to outlast the infrastructure being completely down.

We lost power for 7 days from Beryl, and in this week I went through close to 60 gallons of fuel, changed the oil 3 times, and put on a new filter and plug.

We bought the one we have after hurricane Ike in 2008. Also bought a portable AC at the same time. This week was the first time we used either one of them. 16yrs later, and they both still worked perfectly. It is easy to get complacent in the (hopefully) long period between disasters. Keep on top of your maintenance so you are good to go when the shit hits the fan.

I was out of town on business this past week, and family wasn't equipped to manage the oil on our Generac 23kW (21kW on natural gas) standby generator. It ran for 5 days with no breaks.

Power came back on the morning before I came home.

Oil was about a quart low when I checked it. I refilled it, but I'm curious what other maintenance should be done other than a full oil change? What else should be checked due to running on low oil?

Thanks in advance.

It's not enough to just 'run' the generator you need to pull the electricity out of it. Try to use half of It's rating. I use 3 cheap 1000 watt hair dryers. Plugged in and running for half an hour or so every 3 or 4 months.

Crazy times

Caddx released some new goggles, aimed at being a much cheaper entry point for people to get into digital FPV. I have had them for about 3 - 4 weeks now and honestly it's been so much more fun than I thought they would be. 

They are not perfect but for the $199 price I think its going to be a lot harder choice now on which system to get.  This is all covered in my video here - but I realise not everyone wants a video so I wrote this up The Goggles themselves are 

• Box style, fairly compact.

• 1080P 60fps

• Use the Caddx walksnail digital system

• Have inbuilt antennas in the front,

• Large voltage input - 2 -6s

• Dvr etc,

• Have some gyro functions and head tracker functions (I didnt test these) 

Positive parts

• The price is pretty awesome at $199

• The range (AFTER FIRMWARE UPDATES) was amazing

• Probably some of the most comfortable box goggles I have worn. Lots of space for my big nose

• Amazingly no eye strain… this was hard to believe. Normally I dislike box goggles but this is the first time i could forget i didnt have normal goggles on, none of that cross eyes feeling I get with ev800ds etc. is this just the shape of the lens, because its HD. or a combination?

• Some of the most fun I have had in FPV because I could bring the family along on FPV flights in digital. My kids don't like the small fatshark style goggles but a box like this that was also HD was awesome. 

• Because they were so fun for ride alongs, I would feel like even if you upgrade to a better high end set of goggles, you will still always have these in your bag ready to share your HD flights with others

• The screen IMO was pretty nice to look at. 

Negatives

• The first firmwares etc gave me bad range, I went through 4 iterations of firmwares etc back and forth from bad syncs, to no sync, - latest firmware has been awesome however

• No room for glasses

• No custom antennas (I had no issues and actually had amazing range with the stock ones but im sure people would like to have the option to use their own

• No Av in for older analog receivers etc

The next part I want to mention is that I think Caddx needs to lift their game on the update and communication side. I should be able to review a product not be the one explaining why this firmware is not working or matching this one, why an update wont work etc. Caddx also needs to tell us and communicate more about their plans, they have dropped some features etc from the goggles x without any explanation. Firmwares are slow to be released. Although I like the goggles L I think caddx themselves can be better at supporting their products

Final thoughts. 

For $199 the goggles IMO are a must for anyone new, or wanting to upgrade to digital (unless pure whoop or pure racer - if that the case either go $70 cheap analog or $700 Hdzero) but for most pilots I would recommend them. If i started today this is what I would get. This is what I would tell my friends to get. They performed really well, their airunits are still pretty small, like the 1s kit and the amazing part for me they fit my face so well and with little to no eye strain. Plus if i wanted to upgrade in the future I can still use these for awesome ride along goggles. In my video above I asked steve “if he had to choose, would he take the walksnail goggles L or the best analog on the market. but he could never upgrade again” we both chose the box goggles L. Ill have a bunch more info on these release very soon on my channel. I also spoke more about them in my latest live stream

full review here

extra live stream discussion here time stamped

goggle link -

Happy flying 

uavfutures