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yeah yeah china makes everything but I don't think this is as an acute a problem as all that
we aren't going to starve, the US produces a large surplus of food. we have oil and gas, we have coal
we're lacking manufacturing obviously but that's more a slow decay as stuff breaks and can't be replaced, from the individual civilian perspective
there would be lots of shortages but maybe that's a good thing, shock people out of the mindset that they can always go buy what they need so money is all that matters
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@hazlin everyone should have a plan for water
but it's not like we actually need all our water to be potable, so assuming good management (lol) we could get by with way less water treatment capacity than we have
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@deprecated_ii The china war will be nuts. But, I think the more immediate issue will be water shortages.
I only recently learned that almost everyone in my area drinks tap water.
Sure, some people have their own wells. But, if the tap became undrinkable, lots of people would die. It is an even a more exposed target than grid power or the supply chain.
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@deprecated_ii @hazlin Learn how to dig a coyote well. Buy a Sawyer squeeze or other small filter. They sell faucet adapters for these, and it's actually used in a lot of areas where infrastructure has collapsed. You can also collect rainwater and make it safer to drink by putting a few drops or iodine or bleach in the barrel. This water should be filtered prior to drinking.
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@BowsacNoodle @deprecated_ii
> iodine or bleach
I'd just use ozone if you are able to do so.
> They sell faucet adapters
Honestly, the two disruptions I have the most concern about, 1 is chemical contamination (it isn't like trans and trucks with chemicals aren't having accidents you know xD)
And 2, geological disruption. Think, muddy water coming out of the ground. I bet 99% of people would not be prepared to filter that to drinking purity.
> You can also collect rainwater
If it is in-place before the issue, then yes. I do like this a lot since it has a robust purification mechanic.
Portable offgrid drinking water solution, is one of the machines I am trying to build xD Collect, Purify, Store.
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it was a gardener who defeated Sauron
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If shit goes all the way sideways, your art will be appreciated but you'll need other skills as well. You'd be shocked how far you'd get just learning to weed a garden or tend hedges/fences. Think of it as productive beautification. It serves a very real purpose, and is pleasing/comforting to the eye.
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I've been wondering what my creative skills are worth in the midst of all this. End of the day, I just want to build and create beautiful things.
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Mechanics of any stripe are always useful on farms. Lawyers and other vermin will be shot on sight.
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@deprecated_ii I have friends with farms and not a lot of tech skills. I have a lot of tech skills (actual physical tech skills, not writing spredsheets and other computer tasks)* and no farm.
I'm sure we'll reach agreements.
*Which reminds me, I need to get that bicycle engine removed, cleaned, and mounted to a board with an alternator, and get it a fresh fuel tank.
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@hazlin @deprecated_ii Chemical removal is challenging without any sort of disposable solution. Distillation can work, but it's costly on the energy side. Activated charcoal (really any charcoal thh) will work, and that can be made simply enough. I know they have this special nested-box design that creates a decent bit of water on its own, passively, but it takes a lot of space to make anything useful. As for dirt water, it's very easy on the small scale to fix but annoying for industrial or municipal level. A bucket + time will work for you or me, and a centrifuge made by twirling a bottle with a rope can do an okay job of speeding things up.
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@hazlin @deprecated_ii Ozone is good, but be careful with the pH affecting your container. You just want to kill most microorganisms that came in and you filter later. Kill them on arrival so they can't setup shop if they have poisonous toxins on death, like salmonella.
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@BowsacNoodle @deprecated_ii
> pH affecting your container
I'm thinking Shock it, then let the container return to ambient, then seal.
> Distillation can work, but it's costly on the energy side
I'm looking at dehumidifying via solar. I'll let you know how that goes :D It can also be augmented with a water heater.
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@hazlin @deprecated_ii A solar concentrator is much more efficient than panel. Not sure if that's the direction you're looking at, but some type of tiny chamber where water drips in and boils up and out to the clean side would be good for that. Thinking like the pet bowls that automatically fill with more water after a certain amount comes out.
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@BowsacNoodle @hazlin @deprecated_ii Glass is mostly non reactant, isn't it?
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@brimshae @deprecated_ii @hazlin Yes. Glass is immune to almost everything except for hydrofluoric acid and tomato soup stains.
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@brimshae @BowsacNoodle @deprecated_ii
So, my first design is a bit ad-hock, still waiting on some of the parts to arrive. But, it is very simple.
Basically, I noticed I could not buy a drinking water dehumidifier. And, most condensation coils are not designed to be cleaned. So, I am going to use chemistry glass where (which turned out to be very cheap lol) as the heat exchange. A PC cooling thermo-electric generator to provide the cooling going into the heat exchange. Which should turn 100-200W of 12V or 24V DC solar panel energy into cooling. And, I've got lots of toxin free jugs to fill. Also, thinking that a low power ozone machine, running intermittently at the filtered air intake (a filter, then a fan, than a 3d printed funnel down to the glassware, maybe inject the ozone right after the fan) would keep the whole system clean.
Mind you, I don't have this working yet, so I am unsure if I will be in viable operation windows for the equipment. (more heat exchange stages or more cooler power may be likely)
Now, since mobility is a priority the glassware really isn't the best solution, (I think it will be very easy to keep clean, but that doesn't mean shit if it breaks). So an improvement will be food grade toxic free plastic hose, spooled inside of a jug, where the jugs is the heat exchange. Some care will need to be taken to ensure that you don't create a liquid trap somewhere along the path.
The only other things that come to mind, 1, the exchange and coil lines need to be insulated! And, 2, an adapter that sets nicely into a window, to get humid outside air, and return the excess heat to the outside would be useful if you are still in an urban environment.
And, I suppose that you could use a lower power system (smaller exchangers as well), and do a batch process on a volume of air, before exchanging it for new air with more moisture. Honestly, if you could feed the coolest air back into the process, it would probably be a lot more efficient. Just having the cold output, mix with the new input may improve the system significantly (as well as tuning the old:new ratio).
If my evaluation has any grounding in reality, this should be achievable for probably less than 100$, (maybe 200$ or 300$ with solar panels, depending on what kind of energy is required by the end.)
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@hazlin @BowsacNoodle @deprecated_ii
Share your plans for your water purifier? I need another project on my list of stuff I'm not going to finish. :0120:
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@hazlin @brimshae @deprecated_ii Keep in mind ozone eats a lot of things because it's such a strong oxidizer. Silicone might be your best bet for the hose because it can be safely boiled and tends to hold up well against UV. It will require infrequent replacement. Ozone generators can be low power, and the efficacy of production via corona ozonation is humidity dependent (drier is better) so put it in the exhaust side and shroud it back in.
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@hazlin @brimshae @deprecated_ii Can you explain how you intend to use glass as a heat exchanger? It's normally a pretty weak conductor of heat. You can wrap your own copper coils by filling them with salt or water, crimping the ends, and bending them around something like a pole. Copper in the presence of distilled water will leech, although I'd assume condensed water might have enough impurities from dust and such to mitigate that somewhat. speaking of, you'll want to build a simple box shroud to allow you to use some furnace filters. I'd recommend doing two or three that slide in swap out. Cheapo filters are fine, maybe use one cheapo, one grade 5+.
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@BowsacNoodle @brimshae @deprecated_ii
> Can you explain how you intend to use glass as a heat exchanger?
They just... sell glassware for that lol (picture related). Being an insulator, you just need more surface area or a greater delta-T to drive the transfer. (honestly, it is the same problem even if you use the plastic tubes.)
The reason why I mentioned potentially using a batch process, is because it may take a few passes to get the gas down to the dew-point, if you lack a large dT or enough surface area.
As long as you can insulate, and keep waste heat from leaking into the exchange. Then even if the exchange surface is an insulator, that just means it will be slower, not that it wont happen. (the flow rate will be important to any setup, otherwise the exit gas may be warmer than the dew-point)
>Copper
I'll be using copper and aluminum for the thermo-electric heat exchange, I just don't want it to touch my drinking water lol.
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@brimshae @BowsacNoodle @deprecated_ii
Well, now that depends. You can power the fan, and each thermo-electric pad independently. Spread the load out.
Or you can stack the pads in series, and the same for your solar panels.
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@hazlin @BowsacNoodle @deprecated_ii
>100-200W at 12-24v DC
That's a lot of amperage
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@brimshae @BowsacNoodle @deprecated_ii
Not in either case.
If you break it into parallel systems, each wire will carry less amperage. (same voltage, less power per wire)
And, if you stack everything in series, and drive it with a higher voltage, each wire will use less amperage. (same power, higher voltage)
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@hazlin @BowsacNoodle @deprecated_ii Still the same amperage.
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@hazlin @brimshae @deprecated_ii if you manage to make a glass-thermoconducting peltier cooled solar-powered moisture-farm device for under $200, and it actually works, I'll be dang impressed. I think something that exploits vacuums or the old standby classic (boiling water) would be far simpler. Make a solar collector and concentrator. Think skylight bubble with a focal lense at the bottom that hits peak at the bottom of a bucket where you have a black rock for it to hit for heating up. Create a seal on the bucket and a small hole on the side near the top, maybe two or three. Glass lab evaporative collector tube goes in there and drips out. Viola, boiled water for free during the day. At night, you can use the tarp-over-a-hole method.