New at my Patreon... I love country town newsagencies, with their extraordinary diversity of stock. But the Longreach newsagent's surpassed even my expectations:
New at my Patreon... I jumped aboard heritage train RM 2036, to join a rail excursion from Longreach to historic Ilfracombe. The highlight? Its unforgettable pub:
I've been on another rail day trip aboard Outback Aussie Tours' shiny old railmotor. This time we headed east to the town of Ilfracombe. Interesting place, with a lot of historic buildings including the best outback pub, the Wellshot Hotel.
New at my Patreon... From Longreach in far west Queensland, I boarded a silver train on an excursion to the Darr River - with the perfect 'smoko' at the end:
New at my Patreon... From Brisbane's Roma Street Station, I travelled 1,325km into western Queensland aboard a classic sleeper train - the Spirit of the Outback:
LIMBO*, the new, grimy Australian Outback detective noir shot in exquisite, crisp, black-and-white in a super-wide aspect ratio, starts at a slow simmer and very carefully sticks to that pace for the duration, never lets up. Loved this film. Everything about it: bravo, well-done.
*There are many films named LIMBO but this is the new Australian one. See it. You may hate it. You may be bored. It’s not American. But it’s excellent imho.
Ok. Going back to Dec 17 when I was in camp & could get pics of graphs right after a system crash while using a 4.5kW water heater.
I see the Absorb Charging Voltage followed by a Float Charging Voltage then sunset. Looks like batteries settled at @ 50.8 V or 85%. Right off the bat, I think our Absorb time needs upping. currently set at 1hr, should be 2-3hrs to really get batts fully charged. Voltage should settle at 52 when charge voltage is removed.
The gradual voltage drop overnight looks reasonable. But I don't understand why it takes so long to start and Absorb charge once it's light out.
Absorb is basically a fast charge. Float is more like a trickle charge.
So now the weirdness. That was pure battery voltage. And using charts for State of Charge SOC depending on resting, no load voltage of a 48V AGM battery bank.
If I look at the computer generated SOC. It's all topsy turvy. Says the batteries were at 90% and steady until the sun went down, at which point they magically fill to 100% overnight.
Then they start draining when the sun is out. But popping back up to 100% as soon as a heavy load was added.
And thus our system crashed from low voltage while also saying our batteries were at 100%
Would LOVE to find someone who manages an off-grid Outback Solar system.
Our non-profit's system was installed by someone who then kind of disappeared. It was supposed to come with Outback training for 2 people, but that never materialized.
It has run surprisingly well without any attention to speak of for nearly 6 years. But probably at a steep cost to the health of our batteries.
I have an electrical engineering background, so am a fast study. But a lot of the terms and setting names don't immediately make sense.
Would be helpful to be able to ask questions, or explain my understanding of something and get confirmation or correction of my understanding.
I was hoping to make my third Legacy an electric one, but #subaru has been dragging its heels in the #EV space (and, no, I wasn't not interested in their rebadged Toyota EV because, comparably, its blown out of the water by the competition).
Now it sounds like even their 2025 models will be ICE or hybrid at best. We've owned 4 subarus, but they lost me to #hyundai during the EV transition. Cmon guys bust out with the amazing #outback and #legacy EVs
Got our car (2012 Subaru Outback) back from the shop just as it hit 200k kms. A lot of work but it's running great now and we'll get a lot more kms out of it. (Aside: It's not a commuting vehicle. It's mostly a big trip vehicle.)
Pull Timing Cover, Reseal
Replace rear pads and rotors
Replace both left and right rear wheel hubs
Replace front axle
Replace front lower ball joint
Replace Cabin Air Filter
Replace Engine Air Filter
Actually it's been better than a good day. It's been a real treasure to have the luxury of a slow schedule (cloudy weather is a blessing sometimes!) and time to just stand in the bush and take it all in.
Having this macro lens is really opening my eyes to the beauty in the detail. Checkout this Mulla Mulla when you zoom in 100% to the raw file.
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