Musicians From Mars is part of the famous “Blood and Guts” speech General Patton to his men in 1941
“There is still a tendency in each separate unit…to be a one- handed puncher. By that I mean that the rifleman wants to shoot, the tanker to charge, the artilleryman to fire…That is not the way to win battles. If the band played a piece first with the piccolo, then with the brass horn, then with the clarinet, and then with the trumpet, there would be a hell of a lot of noise but no music. To get the harmony in music each instrument must support the others. To get harmony in battle, each weapon must support the other. Team play wins. You musicians of Mars must not wait for the band leader to signal you…You must each of your own volition see to it that you come into this concert at the proper place and at the proper time…”
General George S. Patton, Jr., 8 July
1941, address to the men of the 2nd
Armored Division, The Patton
Papers, Vol. II, 1974
What this means is to be balances and synchronized. To do what is needed when it is needed and not to spend too much resources on any single thing – unless it is time for that thing.
My old boss loved talking about the battle rythmn while working disasters. Meaning when we do what to get the emergency stabilized.
He got a twinkle in his eye when I mentioned this speech. Old LPF was a great leader, he said a bunch of wild stuff and made you think. He gave hints and guidance and was able to let you figure it out on your own.
I think he also once heard about Patton’s preference for course speech. But Patton did not curse for cursing sake, like everything he had a reason.
When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can’t run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn’t fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag. … As for the types of comments I make, sometimes I just, By God, get carried away with my own eloquence.
Being a DIY’er is a lot like being a gun guy. Any self respecting gun guy has (at one time or another) bought a gun simply because he had either a holster or an odd box of ammunition that he didn’t have a gun for.
This DIY Battery Pack project is like that. I had batteries, so I needed to do something with them.
Recently I was gifted some sealed lead acid batteries from a hospital. Like smoke detector batteries these get replaced on a time table that does not account for useful life. Sometimes it’s better to spend a little extra than risk a failure of a piece of life safety gear. So now I have three neat little batteries and am compelled to find a way to use them.
Anyway these are small sealed 12 volt batteries. They don’t have enough capacity to do very much useful work by themselves. However, they were fully charged and designed to be recharged over and over.
I figure having a small battery pack would be a lot easier to tote than a dirty car battery. While I am at it, having some inputs like a cigarette lighter socket and some terminal posts would make it even better. Add in some lighted switches and I would have a full fledged project.
Since I had three small batteries I had to decide how to wire them together. I could either wire them in series to make them stronger, or in parallel to make them last longer.
Series
In series you basically wire them end to end. Like in a flashlight where the positive terminal of one battery is in contact with the negative terminal of the next. If you do this then you make one big battery. Three 12 volt batteries wired in series would give me 36 volts. However, they could not last very long. It’s like having three jugs of water and dumping them all out at the same time. You get a lot of water, but it runs out fast.
Parallel
Since I don’t have any 36 volt gear to run, and I would rather get more time I decided on wiring them in parallel. That is running a wire from one positive terminal to the next and running a separate wire from the negative terminal to the next. This daisy chains all the like terminals together. Using the water jug analogy, this would be stacking the jugs on top of each other and poking holes so that each jug fills the jug below it.
Consequently, this gives me the same flow as a single jug, but for a longer time. Running in parallel does not increase the voltage. What is does is to increase the time I have to use the batteries.
What I Needed
I went to the local electronics store and bought some spade connecters. The spades were small enough to fit on the battery terminals. The lugs were large enough to fit two 14 gauge wires. I needed to fit two wires, as each spade clip needed to be wired to the battery before and after it.
ITwo lighted 12 volt automotive switches, two sets of terminal posts, two sets of 12 volt cigarette lighter outlets, and some shrink tube were also purchased.
My plan was to insert a rectifier diode to each end so one set of switches and outlets would be for charging. However I could not find the right sized diodes.
My solar kit has a charger controller with multiple inputs and fuses. I plan on using that in my upcoming projects because it has a built in meter and I won’t have to worry about back feeding.
Any radios I may use with this pack also have fuses on the input wires so I don’t have to worry about blowing them up either. Basically this is just a portable battery with some fancy switches.
Check Before Boxing Up
After I wired everything up, I checked it to make sure it all worked and I didn’t have any shorts. Then I had to find a decent looking project box for it.
I had originally planned on using a metal ammunition can for the project box. After some careful consideration, I decided that putting a bunch of wiring and batteries inside a metal box might not bode well for my homeowner’s insurance.
What I ended up using was a small military surplus plastic first aid kit box. A very sharp chisel lifted the embossed writing and cross from the top of the box. Fine sandpaper made it smooth enough. Rattle can green spray-paint covered up the majority of my mistakes with the chisel.
I then took the appropriate sized drill bits and drilled holes for the switches and plugs. Of course I first made sure everything would fit after installation.
Finally, it was a tight fit, and I had to electric tape the batteries together so I could get them in just the right place to close the box. However, I think that just makes everything easier. Now there won’t be any shifting inside to cause damage to my poor soldering skills.
Dictionary and Manual of Fireworks was written by a legend in the pyrotechnic field.
Not only is this book written by George Washington Weingart’s, it contains the Carlisle-Weingart Papers. These papers are years of priceless firework related correspondence with Weingart.
In this book, Learn why Weingart decided to write the book, discover new formulas & techniques.
With the papers you get the benifit of two great pyro minds together!
The book is full size, and contains 136 pages, 146 formulas, 15 tables, 100 illustrations.
This is a great reference for pyrotechnic enthusiasts. and very useful is you want to make fireworks.
I don’t think this is the ONLY pyro book you own, but I do feel that it should be in your library.
I also believe that the home construction of fireworks is not something to be taken lightly. Not only do you have to keep current on any applicable laws (laws that become more strict with every accident or incident) but also the tried and true safety techniques that keep you from hurting yourself and others.
I use the Dictionary and Manual of Fireworks as a reference, especially when looking at more in depth books like Shimizu’s Manual (which is a $200 bible of firework creation).
I am a fan of Dave Ramsey, I listen to him on the radio, read his books, and being from Tennessee, I have driven by his studio several times as it is just down the road from one of my favorite gun stores.
The thing I like best about his system is that it takes into consideration human behavior as well as math. The other day while listening to his show he was discussing a Tony Robbins quote “Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.” That was interesting to me as the Dave Ramsey program is about focusing all your resources on some simple “baby steps” to achieve financial independence.
Dave Ramsey’s baby steps are:
1,000 to start an Emergency Fund
Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball
3 to 6 months of expenses in savings
Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement
College funding for children
Pay off home early
Build wealth and give! Invest in mutual funds and real estate.
If your goal is to achieve financial independence as quickly as possible then it’s really hard to take away from his program because it works.
However, like many highly successful people the system is very narrowly focused, this is good because the “laser like focus” is what makes his system work. Unfortunately, Dave seems to believe that if you have enough cash you can solve your problems. To be fair, he is quite clear about his Christian beliefs and I am not including spiritual or social problems in the problems he solves with money. He just acts like you don’t need food storage or alternative solutions if you have enough cash flow.
An example of this is that if you call into his show and ask about investing in things like gold he is quick to tell you that gold does not work as an investment – (which is sound, because gold’s value depends on people’s willingness to buy it not any inherent value.) He proudly ignores its use as a means of barter, the same way he ignores any other emergency preparedness resources other than having “piles of cash”.
I find it interesting that a man that so clearly “gets it” about a man’s responsibility to provide for his family fails to prepare for times when basic essentials may not be able to be purchased. He speaks of his responsibility as a husband to alleviate his wife’s fears of not being able to feed the kids by having an appropriate emergency cash fund, but ignores food storage.
With our current increasing inflation, and the sizes of grocery products shrinking while the costs are rising, it seems like the food I bought in bulk last year is a lot better deal than the food I bought in bulk this year, so by having food storage I do have a pretty good rate of return. – Especially since the only reason I work for money is so I can buy the things I need.
In places like Zimbabwe gold and tangible goods are used in the place of money because government currency is over inflated and worthless. I know this is America, and people don’t like to think it can happen here, but Dave Ramsey rails against the effects of living outside your means and what that causes, but ignores the fact that our government is doing the same thing, which may cause our currency to become worthless if people stop speculating on it.
SO….
In my house we have a solution that works for us. We follow the Ramsey baby steps, BUT in out budget we have a line for preparedness. We budget for physical emergencies just like he says to add a line in the budget for fixing your roof.
We also put a 72 hour kit as baby step zero – as it’s cheaper and easier to do than get that first $1000.00 emergency fund.
We also have a baby step preparedness outline so we have a plan to prepare rather than just buying the neatest prep tool I see.
If there is any interest I may post our “preparedness tiers / baby steps” plans at a later date. Today I just wanted to rant a little, because while I love me some Dave Ramsey, he can get a little opinionated on his program and that there is some room for adaptation if you have an end goal in mind.
I recently had a chance to talk with 7 Trumpet’s Prepper as he was traveling home after filming a show up in Alaska.
I do like and respect Lucas from 7 Trumpets, but I do have some things I like about Lucas but I also have things I disagree with.
My science education suggests to me that there is not such thing as free-energy.
You can try all of the methods you want but inefficiencies and friction do not allow perpetual motion.
I do respect his beliefs and his ministry, but once again Lucas and I do have some differences in religious doctrine.
We have a lot of similarities, I really enjoyed sharing with him our experiences in the failures we have as we try to make honest content. Making videos by doing is hard and sometimes ideas fail
We also talk about our shared experience with Doomsday Preppers, and how frustrating it is of the negativity people have toward preppers and prepping in general as well as media bias.
I don’t agree with everything he said. I know perpetual motion is impossible due to friction and drag but I can respectfully listen to other people’s opinion because I am not an asshat.
Musicians From Mars is part of the famous “Blood and Guts” speech General Patton to his men in 1941
Being a DIY’er is a lot like being a gun guy. Any self respecting gun guy has (at one time or another) bought a gun simply because he had either a holster or an odd box of ammunition that he didn’t have a gun for.
Dictionary and Manual of Fireworks was written by a legend in the pyrotechnic field.
I am a fan of Dave Ramsey, I listen to him on the radio, read his books, and being from Tennessee, I have driven by his studio several times as it is just down the road from one of my favorite gun stores.
