Recent content by ksJoe

If you have open line of sight, and a good antenna at the food plot: very easily. If you have to go through trees I expect it would still work well, but I've not done that yet. I would avoid 5ghz wifi. 5ghz is higher bandwidth (faster data), but the signal doesn't carry as far. 2.4ghz will...

Network performance will decrease with each hop, but yes they can be daisy chained several hops. My garage has a wifi network ssid called "garage-blind-link" on a high power transmitter with a yagi antenna. The access point in the blind is set to connect to "garage-blind-link" and repeat on a...

A few updates: I got a cheaper battery/solar pan-tilt wifi camera for free. Motion analysis requires a subscription. Without a subscription, it detects very little. It will detect people at 5 yards and a raccoon at 5 feet. It is currently monitoring the water outflow from my pond. Its good...

There are some battery powered garden hose timers that specifically say they will operate with low pressure/gravity feed. We were intending to go that route on some apple trees before the neighbor's pesticie spraying killed them. Drippers may not let any water through without pressure, but...

I highly recommend it. I've spent far less time messing around with this than I would have spent watering the trees this year. Once the trees get established, I expect this will continue to make them grow faster because I'll water them as much as they want, rather than as much as I have time...

A few updates & things we've learned so far: - That 3 gpm/40psi pump was a bit small. I replaced it with a 6gpm/70psi pump and it does much better at maintaining pressure at the far end of the line. - From now on, I'll only buy drippers like the one shown in the photo above. Note the cap on it...

@Foggy47 I'll try to remember that idea in 20 years as I'm approaching the time I'd need it. Actually, I wouldn't mind a broken one. It would make a nice starting point to add a winch to.

I'd love to hear ideas! My tentative plan is to fabricate hinges for two posts, so two posts are solidly attached to the concrete before it starts going up. Then lift it with the tractor to pivot into place. For my lifting tool: I converted an old non-3-point PTO driven host hole digger to be...

Do you have power? Have you thought about a winch? I'll put solar on top (for high def security cameras & wifi). I was talking to my wife last night about this idea, and we were talking about when I'm older and don't like climbing it, I might put a winch in it. With a swing set seat, it could...

If the ladder was outside, it would definitely be angled. But I feel safer (and more discreet entry) with the ladder inside. I'm picturing the blind as a fully enclosed hexagon with 2 foot sides (just 4' +/- corner to corner). There just isn't enough room inside for the ladder to have any...

If you live on the property (so there's internet), and you're a DIY/tinkerer type of guy, it wouldn't be that difficult to extend your wifi network. Then the solar/battery powered wifi cameras would work great for you, and you wouldn't need to provide power at each camera. That would save you...

There are lot of variables, depending on your power and internet situation. If all you want is something to watch live, any cheap security camera will do. If you want to review animal activity, I'd recommend only considering the smart cameras with smart "pet" detection. I've had simpler...

I thought of a new design for a blind and thought I'd solicit your input. about a year ago I built a small hexagon shaped blind (link). I'm thinking about making another with a similar footprint: so a hexagon, 2' sides, 4' corner to corner. But this one would around 18 or 20 feet tall. I'm...

Once it got past the first few days, mine stays at 100% too. Even first thing in the morning it says 100%, which doesn't really make sense. I suspect they calibrated it to show 100% even when its not quite 100. Regardless, the battery is plenty good and should continue to be fine even as...

I got it connected today. I made it semi-portable. The aluminum rack is not secured to anything and the PV input and AC output are both twist lock plugs. So I can disconnect it and set in the truck as a portable power supply if needed. I was a little concerned because the batteries were in...