Every now and then I surf over to Verizon’s FiOS page to see what their latest speeds and rates are. It turns out that they have upped their speeds yet again, this time to either 50 mbs down / 25 mbs up or to a symmetrical 35mbs up/down. I love high upload speeds so I decided to upgrade from my 20/20 plan. The cool part is that this new plan is actually around $15 a month cheaper than my previous plan that was half the speed. Now I can run my Tor node at the same speed as my old plan and still have bandwidth to burn. Verizon may be doing some questionable things as a corporation by selling off their rural DSL lines, but I must say that I’ve never had a problem with my FiOS connection since after it was installed.
I plan to use the truck primarily as a mobile computer networking center with the additional use of functioning as emergency relief. The idea for the networking setup is to be able to drive just about anywhere and instantly have a computer network setup to play video games with a bunch of people. Using some Linux scripting, a custom router, a portable server, and my cell phone it is even capable of having an internet connection. Eventually John and I plan to have all of the internet acquisition function automatically and add the ability to be a mean War Driving machine.
During the testing of the UPS system I drained the batteries rather low. To recharge the batteries I can either run the Diesel engine of the truck and use the alternator or I can use a smart charger that uses mains power. The battery bank is rated at 345 Amp hours at 24 Volts which takes several hours to charge. The alternator on the truck seems to output an average in the neighborhood of 50 amps at 28 volts while the car charger can only output 15 Amps at 14 volts.
Sorry for the shaky camera work, I didn’t have any of my usual weights or stands with me.
My area is suffering from snow and high winds, so power may not be very reliable at the moment. Although I am using my Deuce and a Half as a backup power system it can take some time to switch things over from regular house wiring to backup power. If the site goes down it is either in the process of having the power source switched or my internet connection has been physically separated.
We got somewhere in the neighborhood of 22 inches this past weekend (the “Snowpocalypse” according to the media) which effectively immobilized all of the vehicles on my street… except for my Deuce. The snow plows don’t usually come down my road until well after the storms so I decided to take maters into my own hands. Using the 18,000lbs of the truck I compacted the snow to a much more manageable 2 inches so that other cars and trucks could drive again.
Throughout the course of the day John and I also helped pull/push/winch a car to safety and helped a lady in another part of the neighborhood get to work. We also had a lot of fun in the process.
I got a new tablet computer / netbook last week for taking notes in class. I really like this tablet, but it has a few quirks that really need to be ironed out. I’ll get to the complaints in a moment.
The first thing I noticed about this computer once it arrived is that it is very small and very light. It has an 8.9 inch LED backlit display and weighs around 2lbs; it is very portable. It only has 32GB of hard drive space, of which the operating system accounts for nearly half. Asus makes up for the small drive by having TWO SD card slots, which is wonderful. One of the slots is protected by a semi-permanent cover and is labelled “Expansion Slot” while the other slot is the more traditional front facing open access design. Both slots are spring loaded.
They key asset that this netbook leverages is that Read more…
This weekend John and I installed the raceway on the driver’s side of the box. The network cables are now neatly tucked behind the metal raceway. Unfortunately, either the windows or the power strip that came with the truck was installed crooked, so it looks a little off. We also took a look at the driver’s side door henge which is bent and preventing the door from closing completely. John ran a new power cable from the network box to the main breaker box, but since we didn’t have enough raceway we had to just let the cable hang in place. Hopefully next weekend we will have more materials and be able to tidy it up.
Not the most interesting video, but some people requested that I post what video I had of the most recent LAN party. The game of choice was Warcraft III with DoTA, Castle Fight, Line Tower Wars, and Battle Tanks. There were about 12 people (depending on what specific time). We had 5 people in the Deuce and a Half and another 5 people in my computer room.
This weekend John and I worked wiring the 120v electrical system for the M185a3. Over the span of two days we were able to wire and test the electrical umbilical connections, about half of the Ethernet cables, and install the network box. More videos will be posted as progress is made.
I’ve decided to start posting some videos of the progress John and I are making on the deuce and a half. This video glosses over the progress we have made so far. Over the coming weeks I’ll be posting more videos showing specific sub-projects, such as setting up the network box, installing a seccondary breaker pannel, charging the battery bank, and other various things.
