how best to get electricity for emergency prepareness

[Rich Grise]

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.design.]

Your responders so far seem a bit too much upstanding citizens to have
mentioned a decent gun with lots of ammo. In a true disaster situation
a gun with ammo would be far more valuable than any of the above
mentioned equipment and toys. With a gun you can take what you need,
defend what you have, and protect yourself against other armed
looters/unsavory characters.

You forgot to mention that a gun also comes in handy for shooting at
rescue helicopters.

<quote>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>

A strange anecdote, from a colleague's friend who is in the NG, and is in
New Orleans flying an Apache.

He was rescuing some people off of rooftops and that sort of thing, and
some numbskull with a rifle took a pot shot at him. Located the guy, on a
bridge, with a bunch of other people around him. He turned the Apache
around to train the big guns on the fellow as he was reloading-- the other
people shoved him off the bridge to his death so they wouldn't get caught
in the crossfire.

I guess that's why _Army Times_ had this headline:
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1077495.php

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
</quote>

Cheers!
Rich

 

[nospam]

1. Crunch the numbers; a separate car battery doesn't store
enough energy to run an inverter for very long. Also,
inverters tend to shut off if the input voltage falls below,
say, 10V. That protects the battery from discharging, but
prevents the inverter running off only a battery for long.

2. Only obsolete inverters produce a square wave. The current
technology gives a modified sine.

3. The starting current that motors draw is a real issue.
The inverters I was reading up on yesterday claimed that they
could supply a starting current twice their continuous
current. However, I wondered if that was conditional on
enough DC current being available w/o drawing down the supply
voltage too much.

4. I was unable to run a stand-up freezer on a 700W inverter,
even using a large gauge extension cord, with the car running,
and revving the engine. I haven't tried to power a fridge
yet.

 

[[email protected]]

I found LED bulbs for my Maglight flashlights that out perform the
incandescent ones and quadruple the battery life. I think I got them
from www.theledlight.com. The only thing wrong with this outfit is that
they will not refund shipping on items returned do to defect.

Being a "flashlight freak" I was attracted to your message. Do
you know how many watts the new LED bulbs are?

I now own several LED flashlights:

(1) Dorcy (1 watt LED) powered by 3-AAA's. = Good light output

(2) Elements (1 watt LED) powered by 3-AAA's. = Good light output

(1) River Rock (1.5 watt LED) powered by 2-C's. = Good light output

(1) River Rock (1.5 watt LED) powered by 2-AA's. = Good light output

(1) Brinkmann (holds 3 LED's)(LED power unknown) 2-D's - Poor output

The Dorcy was purchased at Target ($24.99) and the Elements were
two in a pack for $24.99 at Sam's Club. The new River Rock lights
were just purchased at Target ($24.99 and $19.95) .... same as the
Brinkmann.

If you wanted to modify, experiment, upgrade, or destroy the
2-D Brinkmann I would be happy to send it to you at Co. 2.

(KM)

To reply to this place (-) between the x and d.

I also have a 10 million candlepower floodlight. We can discuss
that another day!

 

[Robert Latest]

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 01:01:19 GMT,

I guess that's why _Army Times_ had this headline:
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1077495.php

Ahh, that's what real MEN read:

"This place is going to look like Little Somalia, Brig. Gen. Gary Jones,
commander of the Louisiana National Guards Joint Task Force told Army
Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to
launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside
the Louisiana Superdome. Were going to go out and take this city back.
This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.

[yadda yadda yadda]

robert

 

[Keith Williams]

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.design.]

Your responders so far seem a bit too much upstanding citizens to have
mentioned a decent gun with lots of ammo. In a true disaster situation
a gun with ammo would be far more valuable than any of the above
mentioned equipment and toys. With a gun you can take what you need,
defend what you have, and protect yourself against other armed
looters/unsavory characters.

You forgot to mention that a gun also comes in handy for shooting at
rescue helicopters.

<quote>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>

A strange anecdote, from a colleague's friend who is in the NG, and is in
New Orleans flying an Apache.

He was rescuing some people off of rooftops and that sort of thing, and
some numbskull with a rifle took a pot shot at him. Located the guy, on a
bridge, with a bunch of other people around him. He turned the Apache
around to train the big guns on the fellow as he was reloading-- the other
people shoved him off the bridge to his death so they wouldn't get caught
in the crossfire.

Sounds like an UL. The Apache has a crew of two and can carry zero
passengers. The Apache is an attack helicopter, useful for killing
people and armor but hardly for pulling people off rooftops.

 

[keith]

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 17:45:18 +0000, Robert Latest wrote:

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.design.]

Your responders so far seem a bit too much upstanding citizens to have
mentioned a decent gun with lots of ammo. In a true disaster situation
a gun with ammo would be far more valuable than any of the above
mentioned equipment and toys. With a gun you can take what you need,
defend what you have, and protect yourself against other armed
looters/unsavory characters.

You forgot to mention that a gun also comes in handy for shooting at
rescue helicopters.

quote
Message-ID: <[email protected]

A strange anecdote, from a colleague's friend who is in the NG, and is in
New Orleans flying an Apache.

He was rescuing some people off of rooftops and that sort of thing, and
some numbskull with a rifle took a pot shot at him. Located the guy, on a
bridge, with a bunch of other people around him. He turned the Apache
around to train the big guns on the fellow as he was reloading-- the other
people shoved him off the bridge to his death so they wouldn't get caught
in the crossfire.

Sounds like an UL. The Apache has a crew of two and can carry zero
passengers. The Apache is an attack helicopter, useful for killing
people and armor but hardly for pulling people off rooftops.

 

[Me]

Direct line phones don't use power, it comes along the line.

Dah, tell that to all the folks in New Orleans......None of the
telephones worked, after the Emergency Generators ran out of fuel
at the Telephone Exchanges, and could not be refueled, due to the
road system being UNDER WATER.....Cellphones didn't work for the same
reasons, and all the Telco Interchanges stopped working that connect the
Cellsites. ALL Telecomunications USE POWER, it just may not be needed
at the subscriber end. If the infostructure is down, nothing on the
subscriber end is going to work either......This makes the event a
Disaster, when the basic infostructure is disrupted......


Me

 

[Jim Thompson]

Dah, tell that to all the folks in New Orleans......None of the
telephones worked, after the Emergency Generators ran out of fuel
at the Telephone Exchanges, and could not be refueled, due to the
road system being UNDER WATER.....Cellphones didn't work for the same
reasons, and all the Telco Interchanges stopped working that connect the
Cellsites. ALL Telecomunications USE POWER, it just may not be needed
at the subscriber end. If the infostructure is down, nothing on the
subscriber end is going to work either......This makes the event a
Disaster, when the basic infostructure is disrupted......


Me

Yep, But you do what you can. My home internal wireless phones AND
the cell-phone chargers are on UPS; plus I have car charger adapters.

...Jim Thompson