For those of you who are local to Missoula: CostCo has the AA 25 qt pressure canner marked down to $199.97 with the ‘death star’ on the price label. Sez Google:
The Costco “Death Star” is a small asterisk symbol printed in the upper corner of a price tag that indicates an item is being deleted or will not be restocked in its current form.
What It Means
Pending Delete: The warehouse supervisor or corporate system has flagged the Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) to stop reordering.
Not Always Permanent: While some items are gone for good, others may return as seasonal products, package or size updates, or with a new model number and SKU.
Inventory Clear-out: Once the remaining stock on the floor sells out, the space will make room for new inventory.
Related Price Tag Clues
Price Ending in .97: Indicates a manager markdown or clearance price, which often accompanies the asterisk.
Price Ending in .00 or .88: Signals a rare manager special used to clear out the final few items or floor models.
Price Ending in .99: The standard full price, meaning the item has plenty of inventory and is staying put for now.
Sooooo…..
I just bought one of these a few weeks ago for a friend and it was about $35 more back then, so this is a great deal on a top-of-the-line pressure canner if you don’t already have one. Ive had one of these All Americans for a while now and haven’t had a lick of trouble with it. Good, solid, built-to-last build quality.
I used to know a guy out near Hamilton who had a wonderful piece of property that butted up against the rifle range. Like a lot of people who came to Montana before it became the trendy thing, he had come out here for one reason or another and fell in love with the place. As a young machinist, he didnt have a lot of money, so he went back to California and worked himself silly for two years until he had what he thought was enough to come out and buy a piece of dirt. He found this piece of property that was being sold by an old widow. Being young and a bit inexperienced in the ways of real estate, he didn’t necessarily ask how big the piece that was for sale was. He just saw the “For Sale” sign, saw it was in his price range, and knocked on the door. He made the deal with the widow and right before they shook hands she said she’d take the money but “He had to take all the land.” Waitasec..what do you mean ‘all’? Turned out the offer she made was for the entire chunk of dirt…something like 36 acres or so. He thought it was just for the little chunk he saw that was immediately around her house. So, he wound up with a lot more land than he had thought he paid for. Good for him.
I was reminded of that story today when I went and bought another Beebe Bros. winch. A friend of mine was nice enough to ‘indefinite loan’ me his 2-ton Beebe Bros. hand winch. Awesome bit of old-style tool. But, while his loaning of it to me was generous, it’s still a loan and while I am grateful I also want to make sure he gets it back. So, I went hunting for one for my very own.
I lucked out and found, locally, a 5-ton that was in great shape and reasonably priced. Yay me! But I still wanted my own 2-ton so I could get this one back to its owner. So a month or two back I found on one Facebook for sale out near Ovando (40~ miles away). They wanted more than I was willing to pay. I told them, hey, I’ll give you 2/3 your ask on it. They demurred. I said no worries…if you still have it in a few months, let me know and the offer still stands. They contacted me the other week and I picked it up today. As I was driving back I was thinking how I was going to have to take it apart and clean it, and I was thinking about getting the 2-ton back to its generous owner. But something in my head wasn’t quite settling properly. And then I had the a-ha* moment:
Yeah, that wasn’t the 2-ton model. Like the aforementioned friend, I thought I was buying the small and would up buying the large. Not complaining though. The difference between this and the other 5-ton is the drum on this one is a bit narrower (8″ vs 12″) making it slightly more portable.
It’s purpose? Hauling downed trees out of where I don’t want them and into the places I do. And I plan on moving a buncha rock next year, so it should be handy for that as well.
* = Trivia: “A-ha” means the same thing in every language.
So its been a week since I left the Jackery and panels set up at the Beta Site and left Starlink running off it so I can get live camera feeds from up there. How has that worked out, you ask?
TL;DR: awesome.
The first three days of the week were rainy and virtually sunless. As a result, the Jackery hit a low of 51% charge. After that, the sun came out and that brought it up into the mid-70% range, then 80%, and for the last two days its beein in the 93-100% range. So, for that entire length of time, Starlink was consistently running 24/7. Because there was active internet there the whole time, I could check the battery charge as often as I wanted and get real-time metrics. Here’s a few screenshots from the Jackery app:
As you can, at this particular moment in time the Starlink was drawing 17 watts. It’s draw fluctuates anywhere from 10 to 35 watts depending on how much data is going as opposed to just ‘standing by’ with the cameras off. However, what this seems to indicate, and Im an idiot in regard to electricity so perhaps Im being naive, is that for about every one hour of sunlight I’m getting about ten hours of internet.
In addition to the information shown above, it also tracks historical energy input from the panels. Observe:
SO, long story short, this was enough to let me remotely access the two remote wireless cameras I had set up. Each individual camera came with a small solar panel to power it’s internal battery. I replaced the came-with-it panel with something a little larger becase nothing kills like overkill. At one point during the three days of rain the cameras got down to about 60% charge but once the sun started doing its thing theyve been in the high 90%’s ever since.
Because I’m concerned about battery conservation, I havent left these cameras running 24/7. I just check them a couple times a day to see how the weather is up there. Because they are not running 24/7, the individual cameras seem to be doing a good job of staying ‘topped off’.
One issue I’ve had is that as I was placing a second camera, I was limited by the range of the wifi connection from the Starlink. If I’m going to continue this project, I need to move the Starlink to a location that is withing range of both cameras.
Speaking of cameras. It turns out that CostCo sells the same brand of camera but the next higher grade for only $20 more than the ‘entry’ camera from this brand that I picked up. DIfference? Separate zoom lens, remote control floodlight, and a bunch of other nice features. Absolutely worth the $20 difference, hands down. CostCo is selling it at $119, and Amazon has it currently for $139.
Unfortunately, as much fun as I am having with this, it’s going to have to come to an end soon. It appears that the Jackery battery is of the type that does not do well with being recharged when it is below freezing. What this means is that if I want to continue this fun over the winter, I need to put together a battery/charging system that uses batteries that are indifferent to being discharged/charged at temperatures below freezing.
This isn’t a flaw with the Jackery…it’s not marketed as an all-season outdoor product. Its marketed as a camping and blackout sort of gear. In those capacities, it seems to be excellent. For my purposes, its great for use during the summer months but for winter use I’m going to have to come up with something else. And, yes, the make self-heating lithium batteries but heating via electricity is incredibly inefficient and high draw.
Over the winter the batteries would be sitting in the unheated conex, so any battery solution must be predicated on that kind of environment. More research awaits.
But, in the meantime, I’m really enjoying how this is working out so far. If I lived in a place where freezing temps were not an issue, like the southern states, I’d totally have this setup going all the time.
I’ll be heading up to the Beta Site tomomrrow to install a third webcam over the area where the bears have been munching that dead mule deer. I’m exceited to see if I can get some live-action bear cam.
I know very little about power tools but I have a surprising number of Milwaukee tools sitting here. The reason I have so many of the Milwaukee tools is that they make some stuff that dovetails nicely into my needs, and I get a discount at work on them. Because I have so many of their tools, I have a pretty big stack of batteries for them…and, of course, this tends to keep me in the Milwaukee ecosystem because I don’t want to add a new battery into my logistics.
The guy at work who orders Milwaukee tools for us brought this new product to my attention:
Yes, its a self-warming lunchbox. Apparently these things have been around for a while and there’s no shortage of them on Amazon. However, this one runs on the Milwaukee batteries I already have, and it mates with the Packout locking system of the Milwaukee cases/boxes/containers.
Seemed like something that might be worth dropping some coin on. The biggest use I see for this, other than jobsite stuff, is for hunting and ice fishing. No need to haul around a propane stove, or limit yourself to whatever a Jetboil can reconstitute. Take yesterdays pot roast, drop it in, set it and forget it.
I have a propane cookstove up at the Beta Site but, honestly, its just more convenient to break out lunch from something like this…for now.
It arrived the other day and, of course, I had to try it. I have quite the assortment of Milwaukee batts and they recommended the 6.0 battery. I loaded the food container with some leftovers right out of the cold fridge, popped them in the warmer, set the termp for highest of its three settings and let it go for two hours. The way this thing works is that you tell it what time you want to eat and it starts warming the food two hours before that. A countdown timer and progress bar show how close you are to lunchtime. So, if youre a lunch-at-noon kinda guy (as Iam) this things automatically turns on at 10a and starts warming.
At highest setting the food was very thoroughly heated through and hot. More importantly, it didnt generate heat high enough to scorch the contents to the container. When i cracked open the containment vessel the food was hot, not dried out, and otherwise exactly I wanted.
I will be the first to say that this is, for most people, an unnecessary luxury. And a lot of people will say they’d rather save the moeny and just eat some instant oatmeal made with water heated over an Esbit stove. No argument from me. However, for me, this thing is an ideal tool for giving me a hot meal aftert a long day of banging around the Beta Site hauling rocks, climbing hills, and cutting logs.
Previously, when using the Starlink up at the Beta Site I have either used a small battery backup brick, or I’ve used an adaptor that lets me use my Milwaukee M18 batteries that power my tools. But, both of those did not really have an option for recharging up there. Once the batteries were drained, it was switch to another battery and take the depleted one back to the house to recharge. What to do?
The system comes with a 100w panel, but I decided to go ahead and pick up the 200w panel as well. Not cheap, but I wanted every advantage possible. The system has two inputs for panels, or you can buy an additional cable (which I did) that allows you to add panels in serial (daisy chaining) if they are panels of the same wattage. So, putting a 200w and 100w on the same cable is a no-no. I plugged the 200w panel into one input jack, and the 100w into the other input jack…no prob.
Like most electronics these days, the Jackery has an app for your phone. I found this to be an immensely interesting feature. Using the app, I linked the system to my house wireless network. Having done this, I could now, from anywhere with internet, see battery usage, charging rate, hours to charge, hours remaining, turn off the charging outputs to any devices I was charging, etc. This opens up some tremendous possibilities, which I’ll cover shortly.
The battery came completely charged, so I needed to discharge the battery so I could start documenting how well the panels worked to recharge it. Unfortunately, all I had around that needed charging were some flashlights and tool batteries. I got the battery down to about 89% before it was time to head to the Beta Site.
Got up to the Beta Site and the weather was mostly clear with a few clouds here and there. The sun went behind the clouds every so often, but most of the time it was direct late morning sunlight. I Laid out both panels and hooked them up.
As I mentioned, the app for the Jackery needs internet to send the info to your phone. So…I brought out the StarLink and fired it up. What was the draw of the StarLink versus the input from the panels? Lets go to the app:
So thats the data Im being shown when the StarLink is running. Now, at that moment Im not really doing anything internet-heavy except some texting. But even when it was a little more intensive, it was in the 24-34w range in terms of usage. Meanwhile, the panels are throwing 242w into the battery. In short, I’m using the battery up slower than the panels are refilling it. So, as long as the sun is shining, I can internet as much as I want and the battery will get more charged rather than less. But man does not live on internet alone. Lets see what happens when I throw a 12v DC Milwaukee battery charger on there and throw on a battery that needs charging and run the internet at the same time.
Note the times. While using the internet and charging the Milwaukee M18 battery, the system still charged itself up to 100~%. Even when the sun went behind a cloud there was enough input to offset the internet usage.
My anticipated usage for this sort of package is very simple: run the internet and recharge the things that need recharging (camera batts, tool batts, flashlightg batts, etc.) And for that usage, this seems to be a good way to go.
Here’s the really interesting part, though…With no recharging, this thing will run the internet for 30-37 hours. We saw that the internet was using 1/10th of the power that was coming into the system, so, as I see it, that means one hour of charging gives you ten hours internet. So, its entirely possible that with this set up I might be able to leave things runnig 24/7…which means internet live feed may be possible. This interest me greatly. That would open the possibility for a remote rover.
Now that would be something cool!
But back to the job at hand… So I’ve had one weekend of playing with the Jackery. I’ve left it up at the Beta Site in the cargo container. When Im back up there in two weeks I’ll see if there was any measurable self-discharge. Even if there was, I’m convince that a half hour with both panels in place will top that tank right off.
SO, my overall impression so far is good. But, a new broom sweeps clean. Be interesting to see how this holds up over the next year or so. As I said, my very minimalist meeds seem to be met by this setup but those needs won’t be minimal forever. But until such time as I need a more comprehensive, expensive, purpose-built, battery-and-panel-heavy setup I think this might carry me through until then. So, overall: recommend.
I’ve mentioned it a time or two but never really expounded on my opinion on the Milwaukee Transfer Pump that I’ve been using lately to move water around the Beta Site. The TL;DR version: buy it.
My primary uses of it to date have been to a) move water from the creek, uphill, to a larger water tank and b) transferring water from a smaller tank to a larger one. In both cases, this thing did an outstanding job. It’s pretty quick at 8 gpm, and creates enough pressure that when I feed the output to a garden hose with a spray nozzle on the end I get a good 20-30′ of range.
The pump runs off the Milwaukee batteries and accepts all of the M18 series of batteries. I usually use the 6.0 battery although if you remove the spacer in the battery compartment it will accommodate the larger 12.0 batt. I ran the 6.0 battery today and moved 200 gallons of water before the battery called it quits..that was a 50-gallon fillup, transfer to the main tank, another 50-gallon fillup, transfer that to the main tank. Thats a total of 200 gallons of throughput.
The pump is fairly quiet…from about 30′ away all you hear is a quiet whine. I has two hose faucet male threaded ports..one for input and one for output. I just cut some how, got an assortment of connectors, and make my own specific connections as needed. Sometimes I need female threaded end of the hose, sometimes I need male threaded end…having an assortment of fittings and hose clamps really opens up a bunch of possibilities.
There are, of course, larger pumps out there that will pump higher and further, but for my needs thus far this thing has performed quite well. It ran water uphill to the tank in the back of my truck with no problems, and it’s light weight makes it easy to haul around the fairly primitive (for now) environs of the Beta Site. You dont have to be a genius to see how something like this can have quite a few applications for we of the survival mindset. Pumping water from your bathtub to your toilet tank, filling jerry cans from a creek or other water source, impromptu showering, keeping handy for firefighting when doing a slash or barrel burn, watering a garden from a water storage tank, etc, etc. It has been the key to having high water pressure for my portable tankless water heater…it makes a strong hot stream of shower water possible. Don’t undersell that.
When I originally bought this I only had a vague idea of how useful it would be. Now that I’ve had it for a while and used if for several different tasks ‘out in the field’ I cannot say enough good things about it.
Well, you guys seemed to like the 2-ton Beebe winch I posted about, so you’re gonna love this: It’s the 5-ton big brother to the 2-ton. I was cruising eBay looking for a beater one to use for parts and maybe get the correct handle. Naturally, I got sidetracked and started looking at all the winches that were up for sale. I came across this monster which was, at $550, the cheapest one in good condition that was for sale. I had discovered that while you may find these things online at reasonable prices (although often they are wildly unreasonable) the shipping absolutely queers the deal. Shipping? $372. I mentally shrugged and was about to move on when I noticed that the listing said this thing was sitting in Corvallis….well, thats about 40 miles down the road. I’ll drive 40 miles to save $372…especially if I can get a better deal. So I contacted the buyer and asked if they’d take $300 and could I come pick it up. Yes to both, it turned out. And, in fact, they were passing through Missoula on their way somewhere for the weekend, so they actually dropped it off here in town for me. Sweet!
How does it compare to the 2-ton? Well, for one thing, its more than twice as heavy. As for size, here you go:
I’m thinking of how best to use this thing. It weighs about 150# so portability is a bit of a challenge. What Im thinking of doing is mounting it on a flatbed cart and using that to haul it around. Chain the winch to a tree as an anchor and all the stresses and weight goes into the chains around the anchor and the platform takes no strain at all. Need to give it some more thought.
But, its a really neat piece of machinery from ‘back in the day’. I’m looking forward to spooling some cable on it and seeing what kind of mayhem I can create with it.
One of the interesting things I’ve noticed since I acquired the Beta Site is that many people, people I know in real life and internet strangers, suddenly become invested in the adventure. I get a goodly amount of messages of people saying they are living vicariously through my experiences and that I’m doing something they’ve always wanted and haven’t gotten to do yet.
People who know me in ‘real life’, as it were, are also very happy for me. I get quite a few offers of people wanting to come up there and help, or to loan me equipment, etc, etc. One thing that a friend dropped off on ‘indefinite loan’ is this cast metal monster:
Its a Beebe Bros. 2-ton hand winch. You anchor this monster to a solid object (hence, the chains), play out the line to the object you want pulled, and start cranking. These things turn up sometimes at ranch and farm auctions. I like the idea of a hand-powered winch that I can use up at the Beta Site for moving heavy objects. Here’s some more detail on it.
This thing has some weight to it but there isn’t a part on it that isnt made of metal. This is one of those utilitarian objects built back when you built something like a tank and expected it last for generations.
My use for it is in moving a rock sled and some fallen timber around. Given my druthers, a lightweight portable ATV-style electric winch would be my first choice. But we don’t always get what we want and the apocalypse is certain to have a distinct lack of electricity. So…why not have something like this in the toolchest?
I’d like to thank the local person who dropped this thing in the back of my truck and said “theres no hurry in getting it back”. Much thanks.
A few posts back I mentioned that I was going to be looking at picking up an estate from a deceased survivalist. How’d that go, you ask? Well, you tell me……..the haul includes, but is not limited to, things like gas masks, filters, water purification, water filters, water barrels, water tanks, propane tanks, kerosene, propane heater, kerosene heater, knives, holsters, bear spray, speedloaders, gun rugs, tools, and a bunch of other stuff. Lets go to the pics…
Also picked up a Makita power drill as well…
There were several Buck and KaBar knives. The SOG Seal knife is a bit of a collectible.
Mostly Glock and K-frame holsters. The brand new DeSantis gun belts are only an inch lager than my normal belt size, so those should work nicely. The brown holster is for an L-frame Smith which is the same size as my GP-100 pistols. Same for the speedloaders.
Several of these with filters. All appear new and unopened.
These are one-gallon containers but there were some 5-gallon drums of kero as well.
A little bit of everything. The two tanks are 100-gallon.
I really only took pictures of the interesting stuff. There were also a dozen full barbecue bombs, which, of course, I snapped up.
A bunch of this stuff will wind up going to the Beta Site at some point soon. A lot of this stuff is actually redundant to things I have here in town…as it should be. Never know if youre gonna be stuck at home for the apocalypse or if youre gonna have time to beat feet to your alternate location.
Its always interesting to go through someone elses preps and see how they decided they wanted to prepare for the uncertain future. Im sure that a lot of cool stuff was picked over by relatives and friends before I got to it, but I am nonetheless pleased with what I got. There were a few good values in there and I have nothing to complain about.
90% of this stuff will wind up going into containers and set aside for when I get the conex up and secured. But, it crosses a lot of things off of my list of Things To Get For The Beta Site.
The Missoula gun show was this weekend. Its always a fun time, and I often get to see people whom I almost never see the rest of the year.
Johnny Trochmann wasn’t there this year. Not sure why. Nonetheless, there was someone there selling the parachute flares I normally get from John. Picked up two dozen as well as some sealed up lifeboat first aid kits.
I also scored what I believe is the largest Hardigg/Pelican case you can fit in t pickup truck. I was walking through the parking lot and there was a pickup truck with three Hardigg/Pelican cases on it and an ote with a price and phone number. I texted the number, met with the guy, did the dance, and wound up with this monster to take to the Beta Site:
Its four feet by five feet and about 32 inches tall. I could pull the foam and use it as a hot tub. It is, I think, the last word for storing a secreted stash of gear to be hidden in the woods somewhere, You could easily fit clothes, food, water, sleeping bag, tent, pack, radio, batteries, utensils, and everything else you’d need to hide out for a week or so.
Anything else acquired at the show? Guns? Well….one, yeah. Found a 5″ 1946 vintage Smith & Wesson M&P (pre Model 10) revolver in very good condition. I have a weakness for 5″ barrel pistols and the old timey Smiths are always well made guns.
A buddy of mine will be heading up to the Beta Site this week to level the area where I’ve decided to drop the 20′ conex. Tomorrow I need to go see the conex people, show them the maps and Google Earth views of the area and access, and then ask them if they think they can deliver that 20′ conex to where I want it. If so, we have a deal. Fingers crossed.
