Canonical_Warlock

TLDR: I frequently need to look at stuff on rooftops at work and I'm looking for a fairly budget camera drone to let me do that more easily than I can with my extension ladder.

I'm a commercial refrigeration/HVAC tech which means I do a lot of rooftop work often on large commercial sites where sometimes the only roof access is the extension ladder on my van. The most anoying thing about that type of work is the constant trips up and down from the roof often just to check basic like like if flipping that breaker inside actually turned the rooftop unit off.

I've been considering getting a cheapish camera drone for a while just to do things like reading rooftop unit dataplates, checking the readings on my instruments connected to the rooftop equipment while I work on the indoor parts of said equipment, or checking the rough state of equipment before I climb up to the roof so I can have some idea of what tools to bring with me. I could also see a camera drone being very useful for taking aerial surveys of large industrial sites to map out all of the rooftop equipment.

So I'm looking for a camera drone which can withstand moderate wind fairly well and is fairly rugged. On the other hand, range is not really a concern for me because I'll usually be operating it from 100-200ft away at most. Having longer range would be nice but I can only think of two customer sites where that would be necissary so it definitely isn't a priority. For the same reason, battery life also isn't really a concern. Odds are this drone would only ever be doing short jogs up to a roof to check something and then coming right back down. My work van has an inverter which could run my house so charging between jobs would be trivial. I'm also not terribly concerned about picture quality. I need good enough camera quality and fine enough control to read equipment data plates but outside of that I'm not going to be doing professional photography with it or anything. So as long as the drone would be capable of flying up to and reading a newspaper then the camera is good enough.

Right now I'm just looking for the cheapest drone that fits my requirements. At the same time though, I have had to spend thousands of dollars on tools far less frequently useful than it seems like this drone would be so if I need to spend up to about $800 on it then I can do that. I am also aware that diy is an option and I would love to get into that at some point but I already know that that way lies maddness for me. Right now I just need a functional drone and not a hobby I will definitely wind up spending more money on than my vehicle.

So what do you all recommend for a budget no frills workhorse camera drone?

My house is due for some plumbing work and I have decided to go with copper pipe for said work. The thing is I am garbage at soft soldering copper. I never do it so I'm awful at judging the temp and I hate dealing with flux. On the other hand I'm a refrigeration mechanic so brazing copper pipe is my bread and butter. I could practically make a good leak free braze joint with my eyes closed. Also, considering most of the plumbing will be copper to copper connections, I could just use silphos filler rod and not have to worry about flux for most of it. I know brazed joints are not standard for water pipe but I already have the tools, the skill set, and I don't see any way it could be worse than soft solder. Sure it's overkill but is there any other reason I shouldn't just braze my water pipes?

Fridgie here. Just got some manufacturer training on some equipment that uses R-290 (propane) as the refrigerant and one of the interesting things in that training is that this manufacturer requires the use of wago lever connectors for any repairs on that equipment. They specifically tell you not to use any wire nuts or crimp connectors.

Why would they specifically require wagos? As far as I was aware the main benefit of them was ease of use and that doesn't seem like it would make any difference as far as the manufacturer is concerned. I especially fail to see how they could be more safe and robust than crimp connections. Is there something I'm missing here?

I drive a 2014 GMC Savanah cargo van for work. It has a handy backup camera display built into the rearview mirror. However the camera is only on when the truck is in reverse. Seeing as how this is a cargo van with a solid wall directly behind the seats, the rearview mirror is useless for anything besides that backup camera display and checking my hair. I figure if I could get it to leave the backup camera on whenever the truck is on then I could also see whatever is directly behing me when just driving normally far more effectively than I can with just the side mirrors.

Is there any way to just keep the backup camera on whenenever the truck is on? Is there any reason why doing so would be a bad idea?

Location: USA:MN

To preface, I'm a refrigeration mechanic, so I only know just enough about three phase power to ~~get into trouble~~ hook things up and make sure they work.

I'm working on a large remodeling project in my home durring which I want to future proof as much as I can (because foam insulation makes changing things later a bitch). I'm going the full 9 yards running conduit and everything. As part of that future proofing I am planning on upgrading my service from 100A to 200A. However, since I'm upgrading my service anyways, I am also strongly considering getting a three phase service. If I ever wanted to stick an electric car charger or other big piece of equipment in then a three phase connection would be handy to have. It also seems like the kind of upgrade I want to get done while the house is mostly gutted rather than trying to shoehorn it in later. So my questions are as follows.

1. Do I go with a 120/208V 4 wire service or a 120/240V 4 wire service? My provider offers both to residential customers in my area. There are additional restriction on the service drop for the 240V option. None of those appear to apply in my case but it might make 240V a bit more of a pain to get.

2. Do I need to worry about phase balance? Since this is for a single family home most of my power draw is going to still be 120V between a single phase and neutral. Obviously I want to split circuits up between the 3 phases to try to draw on them evenly, but it's never going to be split perfectly evenly. Is drawing on the phases unevenly going to cause any sort of issue?

3. Are there any other footguns to watch out for here? For example, is having three phase power going to mess with my home insurance rates or anything like that?

So I'm not sure what the right community for this is but I'm hoping yall can help. I'm a refrigeration service tech and recently I was tasked with replacing a sensor in a room used to store ethanol drums. Due to the nature of the room every device in it had to be rated explosion proof and I couldn't use any tools that could pose any risk of ignition (no heat gun, basically nothing with an electric motor, and definitely no open flames) while working in there. Normally when I splice wires I use heatshrink to cover the splice simply because it looks far more professional than electrical tape and it holds up better over time. However in this case I could not figure out any way of shrinking said heatshrink without posing a potential ignition hazard so I was stuck just wrapping the splice in tape. We do a lot of work for this company so I'm hoping to find a better solution for the next time I am in a similar situation.

So do any of you know any way to shrink heatshrink without posing an ignition hazard or am I stuck just using tape in those situations?

So when I drink water I always like cold water even if I'm in a cold environment. But that makes sense because I'm a warm blooded creature.

On the other hand snakes are cold blooded and they require external warmth so I could see them prefering warm drinking water. At the same time though, in a natural environment any water they drank would be cooler than the air so maybe cooler water would feel more normal. Also in a properly setup terarium a snake has ample access to warmth from other sources so they don't really need the additional heat from warm drinking water so maybe having cool water would be a nice change and allow better temp regulation. But warm water also has the side benefit of helping boost humidity.

Anyways, this is just what I decided to overthink today. I'm also not talking actually hot or cold, just lukewarm or cool. What do you all think? Would my pet snake prefer to have their water dish topped up with cool or warm water?

Location: USA

My last job was barely paying me enough to get by and when I had a health issue last year I fell several months behind on my mortgage and other bills. That medical issue has since been resolved so I am no longer falling further behind but I am also not catching up.

Things are starting to look better though because I have recently gotten a new job which should pay slightly more (starting hourly rate is barely higher but overtime is more likely) and it should vastly reduce my expenses (cheaper and better insurance along with a company provided vehicle and gas). In addition it is going to be a far more secure job in the comming economic crisis. Honestly, it's also looking like my dream job. However this new job requires me to purchase many of my own tools. There is a tool stipend but it accumulates hourly and only pays out quarterly so I will need to front my own tool costs to start with. The problem here is that even the cheap tools are going to cost me about $1000 and if I want a set of tools just good enough that they aren't an active hinderance I'm looking at closer to $2000. I currently have no money which isn't allocated to bills that I am already behind on.

It seems like a simple solution would be to take out a loan from my 401k. Right now I could take out a maximum loan of a bit over $6,000. $5,000 would be just about the perfect amount to catch up on all of my bills and buy the tools needed to do my new job. If I set it at a 5 year repayment term then the monthly repayment is under $100 which I should definitely be able to afford with my new job. I could go with a shorter repayment plan but my thinking is that without knowing exactly what my finances are going look like, I want to have the smallest required payments and just plan to pay it off early if my finances are where I expect they will be even if that means I pay a bit more in interest.

At the same time I don't like the idea of taking out a loan to pay off debts that aren't charging me any interest. My bank isn't forclosing on me yet and, considering I am still paying them every month, I doubt that they will. My medical bills may go to collections if I let them sit much longer but there aren't any late fees and I can always pay off the collections company as I get money. Just looking at the money it almost seems like the more financially sound long term plan would just be to choose to fall a bit farther behind on my bills now to buy my tools and then catch up on those bills later. My credit is already trash and will be for a while. But I also already own my home, have no plans of moving, and tend to buy dirt cheap used vehicles with cash, so I don't really need a good credit score right now or anytime soon. So my late bills really aren't doing anything but causing me stress right now. Does it really make financial sense to start paying interest on a loan just to get rid of that stress?

At this point I am heavily leaning towards taking out the loan. But I can't help but feel that I'm going to be paying a whole bunch of money in interest just to feel more secure. I've also never taken out a 401k loan before. So should I take out the 401k loan or just temporarily fall even more behind on my bills? Also if I should take out the loan is there anything I need to know about 401k loans or any pitfalls to watch out for?

My old washer just let the smoke out of the control board in the middle of a load of laundry the other day but luckily I had my moms old washing machine (still newer than mine was) laying around to hook up instead. Except now I realized that my mom aparently loves fabric softner and every compartment on the thing needed a waxy fabric softner buildup scrubbed out of it.

I can't exactly complain about a free appliance but damn do I hate fabric softner. It makes my fabrics water repelant and it gums up washers. Awful stuff.

Title pretty much says it all. I just got accepted for a new job at a new employer and they're going to be running a check on my driving record. However my liscense is expiring shortly so I want to get it renewed. Ideally I want to get it renewed before I actually start the new job because once I start I will be working durring DMV hours. But I don't want to delay things with my new employer or iritate them by messing up the MVR check.

So can I safely get my drivers liscense renewed now or should I wait until after I start at the new job and the MVR check is done?

So over thanksgiving my brother-in-law was talking about how he's currently going through the training to become a cop (being fast tracked for reason below) and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I'm firmly in the ACAB camp. On the other hand, if somebody is going to be hired a cop, he seems like the kind of person that would do the least harm.

Frist off, he is an MP in the army and has been for several years so he already has more and better training/dicipline than most cops out there. He has actual training in conflict deescalation and proper restraint methods that don't kill people. Unlike most cops he actually has real firearm training so he can be trusted not to shoot at falling acorns or blow an infants head off in an altercation. He has actual medical training, which most cops aren't required to have.

Outside of training he also does seem like a decent guy. He's not an agressive macho shitbag like most cops and he does what he can to help people. He does strike me as leaning slightly conservative but he also lives in a rural area of a red state so that's to be expected. I don't think he's a trump supporter but if he is then he's smart enough to keep his mouth completely shut about it even after the election (which trump supporters usually aren't).

So I'm kind of torn on this one. On one hand, our current policing system is rotten to the core and he's someone looking to be a part of that. On the other hand, even though the current system needs to be burned down and rebuilt, we do need some form of police force and he seems like someone who would do the least harm in that roll.

So yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about that. I would be interested to hear what y'all think though. Have any other lemmings experienced similar or have family members who are cops?