Friday 29 October 2010

A few solutions

Tom did quite a few more experiments, and although we can’t even detect a magnetic field on the other side, we did determine that there is no apparent effect on long guns: bullets fly just as expected. (Frank was wrong?) Again, the natives gave Tom quite a party when he brought in all the critters he shot. They even invited the rest of us to the party, but besides the issue of techies being afraid of the sun (are techies really vampires in disguise?), no one was certain that they wanted to eat what was cooked. We’ll continue to leave that up to Tom. He’s daring enough for all of us.
The other problem we’ve been working on wasn’t as easy to solve as we’d hoped. Adding more capacitors just created a different problem with the power: when we start up the charging cycle, the initial in-rush of current shuts down everything for a few miles around. Frank says that we can compensate for it with some kind of fancy resistor, but then that slows down the overall charge, again taking longer, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid. Apparently part of the problem has to do with the amount of power available here at this site. And that takes us to the next obstacle: location.
We had originally selected this place so that we were well out of view of the public during our design and trial runs, but the town of Timbuctoo, CA (half way between Marysville and Grass Valley on Hwy 20), is apparently just too far out in the boonies, too far off the grid, and we need the grid. Besides once we open up to the public, we’ll need some way to get them in and out. The roads here just don’t support that kind of traffic, so we’ve got folks out looking for a more appropriate place, but at this time we’ve yet to pin anything down. Any suggestions?
We’ll keep you informed when we make a decision.

2 comments:

Aaron said...

I see that tests were done with long guns, but I'm still wondering about scatter guns(shotguns). I'm still thinking that there's a possibility of improved shot patterns at long range.

You're looking for somewhere out of the way, but not too far out of the way, but still near enough to the grid to get power, but not too close that you tank the grid every time you charge up, right? How about Southern California, out near the Barstow area. There's a Marine base out there, a great source of parts to possibly scavenge if you can make the right contacts. But the biggest thing in your favour is that it's right between Los Angelos and Las Vegas, and has a major freeway heading to Arizona. But even with all the freeways and traffic, it's still a barren desert. So you're out of the way. Plus, IT'S A DESERT, plenty of free sunshine for anyone capable of setting up a few acres of solar panels. In fact, if I remember right I believe that there are some power companies trying to set up major solar panel fields out there to supply the entire south west area.

Eugene said...

Shotguns seem to work just about as expected, or at least that's what Tom says. We'll have him keep doing experiments with different loads and shot sizes, and report back.

Moving to So Cal could work, but the temperature in the desert would be a definite problem. With all the power we need just to open the Door, there's already quite a bit of heat to dissipate, so the heat outside would just make it more difficult.
Besides, we would prefer to stay a bit more local, somewhere in the Central Valley, but thanks for the suggestion! :-)