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Forum: General Talk
10-29-2022, 07:25 PM
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Given the interesting conversations in the what are you driving thread I was curious on how many have moved to battery powered tools/equipment over the last few years from gas or cord connected power.
As an example. Three plus years ago I purchased an electric chain saw. 18-inch Greenworks that takes 2Ahr and 4Ahr batteries. Wanted to try it for the horse farm we help with. It's relatively quiet and has plenty of power to cut up 12-inch diameter trees for 40 minutes. I was very impressed. I still have a Husky 22-inch gas powered chainsaw for the big jobs.
Soon after I purchased a Greenworks lawn mower that took the same battery as the chain saw. After three years it still runs great. Neighbors constantly stopped by and asked how I liked the lawn mower. Now we have at least 7 neighbors in the subdivision that switched to battery lawn mowers. If you have a small to medium lawn the electric works great. Also added a weed wacker and leaf blower that runs off the same battery.
We replaced our 30 plus year old Ariens 5HP snow blower with an EGO twin battery snow blower. Was also very impressed last winter with the performance.
Most of my cord connected tools (drills, circular saws, etc... ) have been replaced over the years by Ryobi battery powered tools. The exception is a Hammer Drill, Hammer Wrench and SawZall. Sometimes you just need the extra power.
Overall, I like the fact that I do not have to do oil changes and clean spark plugs on the battery-powered equipment. We have blended gas here with alcohol, and it is terrible on fuel lines, you have to be sure you add Stabel to the gas otherwise it goes bad after a year. Even though fuel lines are supposed to handle the mixed fuel these days I still have them crack and crumble after a year or two.
Have others moved to or planning on moving to battery powered equipment?
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
01-01-2023, 08:19 PM
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Playing with the GX9 L.Monocrome Style. Really having fun. The subjects name is Spork. My daughter rescued a feral barn kitten a few months back, and it is temporarily resident at our house. Sigma 56mm 1/40s handheld in very dim light.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
02-19-2023, 08:02 AM
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Might be a wild forklift truck... We have that problem at the farm. Delivery guys run the round bails of hay right into the wall when stacking. We finally put up 2X6 furing planks along the wall to buffer it.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
02-08-2023, 08:28 PM
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Excellent work as always! Gorgeous captures.
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Forum: General Photography
02-07-2023, 09:34 AM
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In the rotated backup copy drive in the fireproof safe.
We can play bizarre scenarios all day long. Your cloud provider decides to start charging you $100/month for each TB of data. Now what? Or starts charging you 25 cents per kilobyte of download. Your ISP goes down (we lost 2 days of service when a car hit a cable company pole). You have total control over how your data is stored, accessed and saved locally in your home. You have limited control over a company that has your data and can dictate terms.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
01-19-2023, 08:29 PM
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Yes indeed.
---------- Post added 01-19-2023 at 09:34 PM ----------
From everything I have read about the G9 camera it is pretty impressive. I think it was a great choice and should serve you well for many years. The GX85 deals with the two-lens kit is just killer right now. Over at another forum that kit seems to be the go-to small camera complement to quite a few systems. Both m43 and non-m43. You just can't beat the price.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
01-20-2023, 08:45 AM
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Here is a quote as to what a DNG is:
DNG is the short name for a Digital Negative, an image format that Adobe created in 2004. It’s what is known as a RAW image, although in many cases, it isn’t captured directly by the camera, meaning it isn’t the native RAW format for most cameras.
DNG is not a glorified JPEG. It is a form of RAW, but not exactly the same as a native RAW file such as PEF. Image editing software and also the built in Windows photo apps read the EXIF and other data captured by the camera. This data includes camera settings, lens and camera profiles. Not all software reads this info exactly the same and some software will ignore some of the data. That is really all there is I think to the differences you are seeing. It's not about the camera, but rather the software being used to read and process the files.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
01-19-2023, 02:59 PM
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I second the 20mm f/1.7. It's one of my favorite lenses.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
01-18-2023, 09:06 PM
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Yes. Normally we do but the weather has been really odd again this year. A short span of subzero temps then high 30's and 40's with lots of clouds and rain. Later this week we are back down to single digits again at night, but little to no snow. I think I would prefer a little snow to cover things until spring. The one positive is we don't have to put boots on the dog when walking in the mild weather. Anything below 20 and the boots go on... Not a robust dog by any means :)
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
01-18-2023, 04:08 PM
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Winter is in full swing in Wisconsin and color can be difficult to come by outside of brown and greys. Here are two from some recent outings.
Olympus EM5.2 and Lumix GX9
---------- Post added 01-18-2023 at 05:12 PM ----------
Your macro work with the 12-60 and Raynox is always excellent and inspiring.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
01-18-2023, 11:38 AM
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I was considering the G95 myself but went with the GX9 since it was smaller and lighter. I added the JJC grip and find it to be the perfect feel and ergonomics for me. The GX9 does lack the G95 weather sealing. The G95 and GX9 have the same sensor. The G95 has a DSLR body style and some features the GX9 lacks and may feel better ergonomically. The G95 is a nice camera at a really good price currently.
For small size and weather sealing I picked up a used Olympus EM5 Mark ii. Awesome camera. But it is only 16MP. You would need to get into the EM5 Mark iii or newer OM5 for the 20MP sensor for an Olympus. The menus on the Olympus are a real learning curve but their Super Control Panel does help a lot.
The K3.3 is at a totally different level and animal than the m43 gear. I went with m43 primarily for the size, weight and cost that better suits my needs (outdoor light weight hiking). My K70 did produce cleaner images and marginally better IQ but the other factors weighed more in my decision process. The difference in IQ was not that much with the type of shooting I do. The K3.3 is bigger and heavier but also a higher spec camera. It all depends on what is important to you.
Hope this helps.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
01-02-2023, 04:16 PM
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Tried out the Monotone mode on the EM5.2 and 20mm f1.7 with the Orange filter. This time it was on Odie, the Shih Tzu Bichon. He gets along with Spork the cat quite well. Spork is much younger and wants to play all the time and Odie being older and grumpier mostly stands around and tolerates it.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
01-06-2023, 08:07 AM
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Very impressive. Love the color cast on this one.
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Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF
09-16-2022, 07:26 AM
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I believe that new K-70 cameras will be free of the ABF issue. I have a 2021 built unit and no issues.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
11-07-2022, 12:36 PM
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Really?
Lithium-ion battery fires: Exploding battery fires the new home fire menace | The West Australian
https://www.ionenergy.co/resources/blogs/battery-safety/
Based on that logic lets save some money and sell cars without seatbelts and air bags. After all, I was never in a car crash, so why do I need seat belts and air bags?
The short sightedness of people never ceases to amaze me. Losing your house or your life must be worth the risk to some people. I mean, you saved 30USD on a battery, right?
Quote from the Ionenergy site:
"In addition to manufacturing defects, using low-quality components is one of the highest causes of battery failures. Increasing competition is driving the prices of batteries down, causing battery manufacturers to cut corners where they shouldn’t. By skimping on poor quality electronics like the battery management system, the risk of battery failure increases.
The battery management system is critical to battery safety and performance. It protects the battery pack from operating outside of its safe operating area. As batteries form a high-value component of an electric vehicle or energy storage system, it’s essential to invest in a smart battery management system that can detect cell failures immediately and prevent the battery from exploding."
I do find it irresponsible that anyone would recommend buying a battery that has no safety features what soever and could be made of flammable materials.
Do whatever you want. But don't cry about any issues later.
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Forum: General Talk
11-04-2022, 05:16 AM
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Yup. Ryobi, Rigid and Milwaukee are owned by Techtronic Industries Limited. DeWalt, Craftsman, Porter Cable and Black and Decker are owned by Stanley Black and Decker. I checked into it after I noticed that a lot of the 20V Max batteries started to all look the same. Of course, they modify the battery case and tool base so as you cannot interchange them. Some YT videos do show some people with Dremel tools modifying them so you can do an interchange of the batteries.
---------- Post added 11-04-2022 at 07:25 AM ----------
Same here. We have a gas powered woodchipper and a splitter and I do not see it being replaced by electric any time soon.
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Forum: Pentax K-01
11-03-2022, 07:50 AM
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This is the point I was also considering. Sony is already on their 5th gen updates and the others are also into several generations already with their refinements. Pentax would have to hit it out of the park with a mirrorless design with no design or quality issues to compete in that market. The competitors have had time to learn and refine designs while Pentax would be just starting out. It would be a steep uphill climb for them, and that requires deep resources to support with little room for error.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
10-28-2022, 09:06 AM
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The maple trees in the yard are dropping leaves rapidly now since the evenings are getting in the low 30's. E-M5.2 w/12-60mm.
---------- Post added 10-28-2022 at 11:55 AM ----------
That and I would have thought by now they would have gone to USB-C for the port. Small cost to change that I would think. Overall, a really nice camera though.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
10-30-2022, 08:14 PM
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Nice warm colors. Looks like a late in the day capture.
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Forum: General Talk
10-30-2022, 08:40 AM
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We have a neighbor across the street that probably spends at least 3 hours on his lawn when he cuts grass. Cuts grass, leaf blows, rakes and also bags. Other neighbors have joked about the hour or two leaf blowing sessions. I have not bagged leaves in over 30 years. Just rake a bit to spread out the heavy piles then run the mulching mower over them. I take the ground up leaves and use them as mulch on the flower beds and berms. Free ground cover. I use the battery leaf blower to clear the garage and driveway. Takes about 3 minutes total.
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Forum: General Talk
10-29-2022, 08:27 PM
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Agreed. It's a significant cost. It does allow you to stay powered if the grid goes down though. Thanks for the good info.
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Forum: General Talk
10-29-2022, 05:41 PM
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I think that is a great way to use waste oil. In my former job at UL (Underwriters Laboratories) being an auditor I used to inspect waste oil heaters at a company. Beats what people used to do, dump it down the sewer.
---------- Post added 10-29-2022 at 07:59 PM ----------
OK, that is really cool. They are basically a power plant. I thought about doing that with just solar. The upfront costs are high but the thought of being mostly energy independent, especially in these times is compelling. I would do an off-grid system. I have to do the calcs and figure out how much solar/batteries I would need. I have a 4KW electric water heater so that does not help. At least the range is gas. Heat is gas also. Heating things takes a ridiculous amount of energy.
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Forum: General Talk
10-29-2022, 01:30 PM
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I could not agree more. Unfortunately, people start to treat these things like a religion, which makes having an objective conversation near impossible.
Just changed the oil and filter on the RAM truck. 6qts synthetic oil and filter cost about $30.00. Took me about 20 minutes. Based on my driving habits these days it should take me through the winter and well into next year now. I hate changing oil in February.
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Forum: General Talk
10-29-2022, 11:42 AM
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Pretty much. If we are honest we should admit that all forms of energy production has a downside and an upside. Depends on which one we believe is less harmful to us and the environment while allowing us not to freeze in the dark.
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Forum: General Talk
10-28-2022, 01:49 PM
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Which is why I previously stated that the current Li batteries are not a good idea. Battery tech needs a big leap to something that is not so environmentally damaging, charges faster and gives greater range.
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