Here’s a quick video Brett and I made to give you some tips for cheap, DIY survival gear you may want to include in your bugout bag or camping backpack. You probably won’t see Bear Grylls including these items in his survival tips. 
View this survival tips video directly on Youtube.
Tags: bear, channel, discovery, grylls, man, preparedness, survival, survivor, survivorman, tips, vs, wild, wilderness | No Comments »
My Edited Video
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I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor)
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DIY Solar Panels – Cool Trick to Help You Break Fewer Solar Cells
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DIY Solar Panels http://shysky.com/cheap/ Click link for our Guide to Cheap Solar Cells
DIY solar panels are a great way to save money on your power bill and can be a fun project for you. However, breaking your cells when you try to solder them together can eat away at your savings, not to mention waste your time and effort. In this video, we show you how we built a "jig" or form that not only dramatically helps us reduce breaking the solar cells, it also helps make the stings of cells more uniform. It also helps us tab (solder) the solar cells together much quicker, which helps making DIY solar panels much faster, easier and cheaper. Try to notice the two grooves we cut in the bottom of the jig. These grooves are meant to be where they tabbing wired and solder go. This allows the tabbing wire to fit below the cells, while keeping the solar cells level. We found that the tabbing wire creates an uneven surface when you try to solder the cells together and when you press down with the soldering iron, the uneven surface created by the tabbing wire and solder caused the solar cells to break. Before you get started, take some time to create a similar jig to help you create a sort of "aseembly line" form to help you with your green energy project. And of course, both Brett and Kurt STRONGLY suggest using "pre tabbed" cells. Pre-tabbed solar cells will not only save you time and trouble, they will save you money in the long run by reducing your broken cells. Check out the link below. We've created a page that shows you more DIY solar panel tips and recources for finding the cheapest pre-tabbed solar cells. |
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Solar Panels – The Easiest and Cheapest Way to Encapsulate DIY Solar Panels
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http://ShySky.com – Solar Panels – The Easiest and Cheapest Way to Encapsulate DIY Solar Panels.
In this video, we're show a cutting edge way of encasing your solar panels that's faster, easier and cheaper than using liquid epoxies and substances like Slygard. It's called "EVA Solar Cell Encapsulant Film Or "Solar Panel Eva Polymer Glass Laminate". Sheet". It comes in easy to work with sheets you simply cut to size and lay over your solar cells. Then use a heat gun to melt the sheets. With this method, you don't have to worry about any liquid epoxy getting under your solar cells and ruining them. Also, you don't have to worry about your solar panels leaking messy epoxy all-over the place. If you are putting together your own DIY solar panels using solar cells, check out EVA solar panel film. There aren't many things in life that are easier, better AND cheaper, but EVA film is one of them. I'll put up some links for EVA film if I get a chance… |
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| Time: 04:08 |
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Survival Tip – Boiling Water with Waxed Cotton Ball Experiment
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http://shysky.com/survival-tips.html Here's a survival tip for survivalists and campers. It's a quick experiment to see if you can boil one cup of water using a single waxed cotton ball.
If you're ever in a survival situation or want to make your own DIY camping gear, it's good to know things like this beforehand, and as you can see in the video the waxed cotton ball is not only a good survival fire starter, it also burns for a pretty long time, providing enough fuel to keep a fire going for over 20 minutes in our tests. Waxed cotton balls are an alternative to cotton soaked in Vaseline or other petroleum jelly. Vaseline cotton balls are easier to get lit, but are more messy than waxed cotton balls. Waxed cotton also seems to last a little longer than Vaseline when burning. If you're ever camping and in a survival situation, a waxed cotton ball may give you enough fire and heat to warm up or heat water without having to find other fuel. We hope you found this outdoor sports survival tip helpful. For more, visit our survival page at: http://shysky.com/survival-tips.html |
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| Time: 02:42 |
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How to make solar panels – Tab solar cells Parts 1 and 2
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http://shysky.com Learn how to tab solar cells to make your own DIY solar panels. Discover how to make solar panels is a great way to get cheap solar energy from the sun.
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| Time: 04:31 |
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Recondition NiCad Batteries For FREE
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http://shysky.com/greenenergy/?p=36 Here's how you can recondition dead nicad batteries or even give working battery cells a boost. It's fast easy and free.
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| Time: 03:23 |
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Reuse Nicad Batteries
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http://shysky.com/greenenergy/?p=33 Do you have a power tool that has a dead rechargable nicad battery? The battery probably only has a bad cell or two, meaning it still has plenty of other cells you can use in other ways. We'll show you how easy it is to reuse those cells in this video.
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Discover How to Salvage Power Tools with Bad Batteries
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http://shysky.com/greenenergy/?p=27 Have you ever had your favorite power tool become useless because the rechargeable battery died? In this video you'll discover a tip to show you how to salvage your drills, saws and other cordless power tools.
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How to tab solar cells for diy solar panels
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http://shysky.com/cheap/ This video shows a simple technique you can use to solder tabbing wire to your solar cells to make your own do it yourself solar panels.
Click on the link above to check out more videos and info for tabbing solar cells…Plus, find a ton of resources for "pre tabbed" solar cells. We highly recommend pre tabbed solar cells, as they are big time savers. Pre tabbed also saves on solder, tabbing wire, and flux. But more than anything, you'll break far fewer solar cells if they are pre tabbed. For more info on pre tabbed cells, plus where to get them at the lowest cost, visit: http://shysky.com/cheap/ Also, if you chose to tab your own cells, be sure to see our quick trick for cutting tabbing wire. It will save you a lot of time and effort: http://youtu.be/SBpKjiUekDk |
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Solar Panel Tabbing Wire Trick
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http://shysky.com/cheap/
Here's a quick video to show you how to easily cut all your tabbing wire at the same time. Most videos instruct you to cut each bit of wire one at a time. But this method shows you how to cut a bunch of tabbing wire at the same time. Also, click on the link above for more resources on how to connect solar cells to make your own DIY solar panels. You'll also find links to cheap solar cells, including pre-tabbed cells. We HIGHLY recommend you using ONLY pre tabbed solar cells. Pre tabbed cells only cost a few pennies more each. But you will make this up by not having to pay for tabbing wire, solder. More importantly, if you use pre tabbed cells you will break far fewer solar cells trying to tab them together. In other words, you'll save blood, sweat, tears AND money using pre tabbed solar cells. |
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recycle hard drive
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http://shysky.com Click to join us for more informative DIY tips and tricks.
In this video, we tear apart a newer hard drive to recycle the rare earth magnets. |
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| Time: 05:11 |
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Fire Starter Wax Cotton Ball
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http://shysky.com Click to join us for more great DIY projects.
How to make wax cotton balls for fire starters and fuel. One of the problems with wax cotton balls vs. cotton balls that use vaseline is that wax usually can't be lit using just a spark. We've added a secret ingrediant (a match) that allows waxed cotton balls to take a spark or be totally self-lighting. We found the wax versions burn longer and are far less messy… |
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| Time: 02:31 |
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DYI Camping Gear The BEST Buddy Burner
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http://shysky.com Click to join us for more great DIY stuff.
Here's a simple but great diy camping and survival technique that's a favorite of the Boy Scouts. We use a secret trick to make our diy buddy burners take a spark to make fire much easier than other buddy burners. These are a perfect DIY project to create camping gear for fire outdoors. |
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| Time: 05:38 |
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DIY Camping Gear – Hillbilly Clothes Washer
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http://ShySky.com – Join Brett and Kurt for more great stuff…
A short fun video showing how to make your own hillbilly laundry using a windshield wiper motor to take camping or RVing. It can be powered by a 12v battery or a 12v solar panel. |
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| Time: 03:55 |
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Estes Park Elk
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Here's a quick video of some elk in Estes Park Colorado. Monday, March 26, 2012 at about 6:30 pm.
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| Time: 01:51 |
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Here’s a great money saving tip for reconditioning nicad batteries for free. If you have a dead, rechargeable nicad battery, they are made up of multiple cells. Often, just a cell or two are bad and can be reconditioned or rejuveniated very easily.
Watch our how to recondition nicad batteries for free video on Youtube here…
Tags: 36v dewalt, battery, dewalt battery, fix laptop battery, how to fix battery's, nicad, rechargeable, recondition, repair, revive battery, zap battery | No Comments »
One of the biggest problems with power tools that use nicad rechargeable batteries is the battery often dies. But, all is not lost …Nicad batteries use multiple “cells” and usually just a single cell dies. This means all the other cells in the battery can still be used.
Watch this quick video to see how fast and easy it is to reuse nicad battery cells for other tools:
You can also view our “how to reuse nicad batteries” video on Youtube.
Here’s a quick and fun DIY camping gear video Brett and I made using a 7 gallon plastic bucket and a windshield wiper motor. We wanted to run it using a solar panel instead of a 12v battery, but the sun wasn’t out that day. Something like this is great for camping, RVing or using for oily shop rags you don’t want to put in your main washing machine.
You can check out the DIY camping gear video “Hillbilly Laundry” on Youtube…
ShySky’s Sunny Money Updates
All updates to the private Sunny Money site will be posted here. Check back often.
Boat in a Hole — George’s Unique Rootcellar
Could not help passing this on.
This is George’s solution for a cost effective, relatively easy to build, and very functional root cellar.
After thinking about a number of ways to build a root cellar for their new place, they tumbled to the idea of using a fiberglass boat hull. It turns out these are available for reasonable prices. They provide a good, waterproof and strong root cellar.
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| Buried for root cellar use. |
They use it for both a root cellar and also as a bunkhouse.
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| The entry. |
While I suppose this might seem a bit sad to some boat owners, George points out that there are a number of derelict boats around that will never see use again, and this is a 2nd life that I’m sure any boat would like a lot better than just rotting away unused.
George’s full description of the boat for root cellar…
More on various root cellar designs…
Gary
Flow of River Hydro — Using Only Stream Velocity to Drive a Turbine
I get email questions from people who live on a stream and would like to use the stream to make electricity.
If the stream has some elevation drop over the property and the flow is decent most of the year, then the answer is that if you can meet the legal requirements, its possible to make electricity, and that it can be quite cost effective.
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| Quite a nice underflow water wheel. |
But, if the stream has no elevation drop, and you just want to make use of the velocity of the stream water to make electricity, then its more challenging. I’ve added a new section that goes into what’s involved in generating electricity only from the water velocity. It covers how to estimate the amount of power your stream might generate, provides a bit of design information, and it lists all of the home scale example projects I could find that seemed like they might actually work. Its a place to get started on your quest for free no pollution energy from your stream.
One of the reasons getting power from your stream is difficult is that while its clear that there is energy in that flowing water, it not nearly as dense as the energy you can extract from water dropping through an elevation difference. This plot shows you roughly how much power you can get from 1 sqft of flow area at various stream velocities.
Just a glance will tell you that if you have a 2 mph 6 inch deep stream, your power generation possibilities are pretty limited. But, if you have a deep 5 mph stream, there is some worthwhile power there.
I found a few commercial and few homemade examples of flow of river turbines and water wheels — the link below provides pointers to all the ones I could find. If you know of others please let me know.
The new section on Flow-Of-River hydro installtions…
The micro-hyro page for info on more conventional hydro…
Gary
ShySky’s Sunny Money Updates
All updates to the private Sunny Money site will be posted here. Check back often.
Boat in a Hole — George’s Unique Rootcellar
Could not help passing this on.
This is George’s solution for a cost effective, relatively easy to build, and very functional root cellar.
After thinking about a number of ways to build a root cellar for their new place, they tumbled to the idea of using a fiberglass boat hull. It turns out these are available for reasonable prices. They provide a good, waterproof and strong root cellar.
|
| Buried for root cellar use. |
They use it for both a root cellar and also as a bunkhouse.
|
| The entry. |
While I suppose this might seem a bit sad to some boat owners, George points out that there are a number of derelict boats around that will never see use again, and this is a 2nd life that I’m sure any boat would like a lot better than just rotting away unused.
George’s full description of the boat for root cellar…
More on various root cellar designs…
Gary
Flow of River Hydro — Using Only Stream Velocity to Drive a Turbine
I get email questions from people who live on a stream and would like to use the stream to make electricity.
If the stream has some elevation drop over the property and the flow is decent most of the year, then the answer is that if you can meet the legal requirements, its possible to make electricity, and that it can be quite cost effective.
|
| Quite a nice underflow water wheel. |
But, if the stream has no elevation drop, and you just want to make use of the velocity of the stream water to make electricity, then its more challenging. I’ve added a new section that goes into what’s involved in generating electricity only from the water velocity. It covers how to estimate the amount of power your stream might generate, provides a bit of design information, and it lists all of the home scale example projects I could find that seemed like they might actually work. Its a place to get started on your quest for free no pollution energy from your stream.
One of the reasons getting power from your stream is difficult is that while its clear that there is energy in that flowing water, it not nearly as dense as the energy you can extract from water dropping through an elevation difference. This plot shows you roughly how much power you can get from 1 sqft of flow area at various stream velocities.
Just a glance will tell you that if you have a 2 mph 6 inch deep stream, your power generation possibilities are pretty limited. But, if you have a deep 5 mph stream, there is some worthwhile power there.
I found a few commercial and few homemade examples of flow of river turbines and water wheels — the link below provides pointers to all the ones I could find. If you know of others please let me know.
The new section on Flow-Of-River hydro installtions…
The micro-hyro page for info on more conventional hydro…
Gary
A Small, Portable PV System for Camping, Emergencies, …
This is a nice, small, inexpensive, easy to build, very portable PV system from Kevin. He uses it primarely for camping — lights, radio, charging cell phone… But, it also would make a good power source to have around in emergencies, and a good project to learn something about solar electricity
A $1K Solar Water Heating System AND Open Source Differential Controller
A $1K Solar Water Heating System AND Open Source Differential Controller
Nathan did a really nice job of building and documenting his solar water heating system.
Recycled Bulk Milk Tanks for Solar Heat Storage
These tanks are made from stainless steel, and will provide a very long life. The tanks already include some insulation of some of the surfaces. The tanks are typically in the 300 to 500 gallon range, and the price of the used tanks is about $1 per gallon.