Friday, June 23, 2017

a friday night film

13 comments:

John Wells said...

Seeing how we have just begun the rainy season, I figured it was time to check how much water I have on tap. So far this year I have recorded 3.22" of rain. Our average is 7 - 9" per year (usually from June - October), but the last couple of years we have had close to a foot of rain over the course of 12 months. My total storage capacity is 22,000 gallons and I get about 2,000 gallons per inch of rain from my roof surfaces. If it is a "fast inch of rain", I can add another 3,000 gallons to that from water pumped from an arroyo (into that second group of 3 tanks that appear in the video). Most of the storm events I get are less than 1/2" and only rarely do we get pounded with and inch or more in one go. I will be doing a video soon on how I filter my rainwater for drinking. News Theme by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) Artist: http://incompetech.com/ Non Piu Andrai by Ron Meixsell used by permission from the YouTube Audio Library.

Road said...

Ha!

Clever, creative, and informative. Excellent usage of your new flying camera.

Very nicely done, John.

Bravo!

Ronald Mahan said...

The Field Lab has a relatively huge water storage capacity of 22,000 gallons - compared to our tiny water storage capacity of 1500 gallons for the Mahan Hunt Camp. Of course - for most years we are only occupying our place only 4 of 52 weeks per year or about 7.7 percent of the time. But most of our captured water is used year round to keep two water guzzlers providing water (24 hours per day - for 365 days per year) for our wildlife friends.

And over the past 20 years - we have only experienced two breakdowns resulting in lost of of all water stored. One of these failures was due to a float valve failure which drained our water storage tank - and the other was due to freeze damage - during usually cold weather. The first problem (corrosion related) was corrected by replacing all the galvanized steel piping in our system with high quality PVC piping. And the freeze damage problem was corrected by improving our above ground piping insulation. Our system does not use any electricity - as all water flow is done by gravity.

We are grateful to our Lord in Heaven for providing ample rainwater to meet all of our needs for our infrequent trips, and to provide water for his wildlife - every year we have had this rainwater collection system. We regard this system as the very best improvement we ever made to our Hunt Camp in this West Texas desert.

RossA said...

Bravo!!

Steve said...

It's impressive what a stable platform that Mavic Pro is.

John Wells said...

A tripod that can go up to 1,640 feet.

Gary said...

I watched several times mostly to enjoy your surroundings & the music.

Mage said...

Bravisimo.
I had just been wondering how you filtered and cleaned the water. Thanks.

Off Grid Research said...

Is this above average for this time of year?
Or have you had more than usual rain for May and June?
Very impressed with the stability of the drone!
Looking forward to the filtration video.

Zole said...

1640 feet is over a 1/4 mile. Is that electronically limited or just the physical limit of the unit. I know, I could look this up on the DJ website. duh!

John Wells said...

Zole...The Mavic Pro has a maximum altitude of 500 meters. The limit is set in the firmware on the drone and cannot be bypassed or hacked. There are a few videos on YouTube that claim much higher altitudes, but they are fake. Jon P...this is typical and on track for a normal year of rainfall.

B said...

Hi John, how does the drone do in a light breeze/wind?

John Wells said...

I have only flown it in calm to a 4mph breeze so far. It can supposedly handle winds up to 20 mph but I have no interest in pushing that limit. Good cinematic shots are the point and trying to do them in unfavorable conditions is a waste of time and you are only asking for trouble. Battery life diminishes as wind speed increases because it has to work harder to stay stable. When the system is overtaxed by wind, the Mavic sends a high wind warning to the controller - with a visual notification as well as a vibration in the remote. The higher you fly the more apt you are to encounter high winds.