We made a quick, temporary battery mount to get our Ranger going – a rectangle of OSB with a few strips of 1×2 screwed in to hold the battery in place.
There’s a ratchet strap around the whole thing to ensure the battery stays on the board, and the board is screwed into the frame. Wired up, and we are driving!
We were able to revive three of the eight batteries that came with the Ranger, but we need four to move. So we’ve removed all of the lead acid batteries & cleaned up the trays. Battery acid isn’t great for a steel plate — baking soda water to neutralize it, then a scrub.
As a proof of concept, we’ve got the 48v lithium battery in the bed and will temporarily wire it into the vehicle. It’s wild that the one orange battery has about as much usable power as four of the red ones. Weighs about the same, takes up slightly more space but not that much.
We lost a few lights on the dash of our Ranger – and the parts diagram shows it as one monolithic (and ninety dollar!) part. That’s … more than I want to spend to find out I’m in forward mode!
Looking at the back of the unit, though, there’s little slotted buttons — like a bulb that can be removed. And, yeah, there are bulbs in this thing. Six of them. Which you can buy at NAPA for about a buck a piece ($5 for a 5-pack). Or replace with LEDs for under $0.40 each (and you’ve got spares for the future). For this specific LED replacement, the negative side goes up when you install them.
We’ve got a few petrol UTVs that are convenient, but it is a pain to keep refilling five gallon fuel containers so we can run these things. We tried to repair the 12v lead acid batteries, but that doesn’t look like a viable solution. Off to research 48v lithium ion battery options … until then, the Ranger is getting a bath.
We’ve got catkins forming for next year already!
I’ve long hypothesized that, as companies adopt AI (more accurately LLM’s) in their processes, the skillset required to enter the job market will change. You don’t need an entry level team member – that role is filled by the AI. You need a senior level person who can manage, direct, and oversee the junior “team members”. What that looks like varies by industry – in software development, you don’t need junior developers. You need a senior dev who does quality control on the generated code, integration, and debugging.
There’s now research backing up my expectation — https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5425555
While the number of senior employees has continued to increase, the number of junior employees has actually decreased in the past few years.
We’ve got an old charcoal grill/smoker at our camping site, so I made some shish kebobs to cook for lunch/dinner when we were hanging out this holiday weekend. Marinaded the beef in a little soy, ginger, and garlic. Then skewered along with various peppers, zuccini, tomatoes, and broccoli.
We cooked them over a wood fire
And had a quick meal — it’s easy to overcook small chunks!
We got our fire pit set up for the labor day weekend, cooked out, played music, and relaxed.
Unfortunately maple marshmallows didn’t work over the open fire — it was close, but the gooey mass ended up falling before it was really toasted. Luckily we had backup commercial marshmallows. And smores constructed and then set into the warm smoker grill were spectacular!
Marshmallows made with pure maple syrup and gelatin powder! In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine 1/3 cup of cold water and 1 Tbsp of powdered gelatin. Let the gelatin hydrate.
Heat the maple to the soft ball stage (~235F) and slowly add to the gelatin whilst mixing at low speed. Once all of the maple syrup has been added, turn up to a high speed and keep whipping until it’s a firm, sticky mass. (stiff peak stage). Then put it somewhere to set. I used a 8×8 cake pan that was lined with wax paper. Refrigerate for a few hours, then remove and cut. You can dust the squares with powdered sugar if you don’t want them to be sticky. Or just deal with sticky maple-flavored fingers.
The first hazelnuts are falling, and Anya has been hunting them in the grass.
