1/48 scale Type VIIC U-201 build

[rwtdiver]

Rob,

Not that one. That’s the R&R WTC that Bob also stocks. The one I am referring to is his new 3” sub driver. The 80mm one. It’s available as a early release to dive tribe members.

We got walloped last night by a heavy snow storm. Trees and power lines down every where. Snowed in for the next few days at least. Can’t use the 10’s of thousands of dollars in back up power gear we just installed because the county hasn’t done their final inspection on it yet. Was scheduled for this coming Friday but that ain’t gonna happen now. A number of the local neighbors and I spend all day with chainsaws and 4 wheelers and winches trying to cut access and re open up the roads for repair crews and emergency vehicles to get through.

Had to break out the smaller back up generators for the time being and of course they didn’t want to behave. Spent hours troubleshooting and rebuilding the main one. Got it running just in time as the sun set. More storms inbound. Oh the joys of living in the mountains.

Nick

Nick,

WOW! Sorry you are having all these issues in your area with the big snowstorms .and power outages! Arizona is getting hit hard as well with lots of rain and flooding. And the way it looks all of next week is going to be rough as well! Hang in their Nick, and take care of yourselves!

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat"

[cgbillb]

Good morning crew, I just order the 80mm from Bob. Will let you all know how it works in my ArkModel 1/48 scale Type VII.
Bill
Athens Ga.

[SubDude]

Hunker down Nick. Stay warm and safe.

[Monahan Steam Models]

Hunker down Nick. Stay warm and safe.

Will do, thanks Steve!

We expected this storm so I prepared and brought up the fire wood supply to the house and fuel for the equipment.



The shop, field and road covered in snow.





The back pond about 6:30am. Still lots of sounds of trees and limbs falling from the heavy wet snow in the background going on.

Cutting one of the many downed trees out of the road and off of the lines later Monday morning.



One of the downed big oaks we cut through. Monday morning was a mess.

Another storm is coming in tonight but it shouldn’t be as bad. I just want to get back to where I was with the build before all this crap.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Picture-Postcard stuff till you got to the felled trees. Be safe, you nut!

David

[trout]

Nick,
if you need to get warm, come to Las Vegas. We can go out and run a sub or two.

[Monahan Steam Models]

Nick,
if you need to get warm, come to Las Vegas. We can go out and run a sub or two.

Thank you Tom that is very kind and generous and I would like to take you up on that some day because it sounds like a good time for sure. Under the current conditions we would be somewhat weather refugees and I would enjoy a visit with the conditions being to meet up and have fun doing what we enjoy.

One a side note I’m going to warn the rest of you reading this thread it’s going to go a bit off topic and into a bit of a hopefully brief rant.

So we got hit by a historically big snow storm. It was forecasted so we weren’t caught off guard. Had time to prep for it. Power was knocked out and lots of destruction occurred to the power distribution system. Trees were down every where and roads blocked by either snow or trees or both. You come to expect these situations when living in rural mountain areas like we do so you adjust and plan ahead the best you can.

That being said, we have proactively invested and installed a crazy large solar system a few years ago and spent the last 6 months designing the battery back up system and redundant last ditch back up generator system for when the primary grid system goes down and it does frequently. All the engineering and plans were finally approved and the hardware and teams were assembled and scheduled.

Each team (solar, battery and generator) were organized and supplied with what they needed to make everything to complete the final project with ease. The prior dirty or hard work was done months in advance by me. The digging of the trenches. Laying the buried conduit. The excavation of dirt and concrete work to create the basements and pads for the gear to be installed.

Well the solar and generator crews appreciated the ground work that was already in place and the foresight of the planning which made their tasks much less intense and worked with integrity to complete the task at hand. The battery crew not so much. They missed days and left early.

The completion of this whole project would’ve been finished 2 weeks ago prior to this storm but was delayed by the short comings of the battery crew.

Yesterday I spent a great deal of time with the VP of the company and the main scheduling manager to make sure we were all on the same page to get the final work done to complete the generator instal and battery install today. I warned them of the recent conditions that were the result of the storm and we both agreed and guaranteed one another of the responsibilities we would take on to make the plan happen to stay on target and achieve today’s goals. Outside of that, mine have been waking up every couple hours during the cold freezing night to keep the wood burning stove fueled to keep the family warm. At 5am I was in the tractor in the clearing the roads for 3 hours so the crews could get through easily.

No one called except for the main generator guy. He was a 100 of miles away doing another job. The schedule manager, although we spoke yesterday had rescheduled him to be on another job. I had just spent 3 hours plowing the roads and many hours the day before to make this morning go smooth.

Having realized all of this, the gentleman who was originally planning to be here to bring the generator system online finished his work and drove 100 miles back this direction to get our equipment working. He and I then worked together the next 4 hours to get the well water system to be backed up off the generator. We were both tired and our toes were frozen solid from each being out in the snow for so many hours but it goes to show the integrity of team work and working together. He didn’t have to do any of this and i as customer didn’t have to spend hours plowing roads or pulling wire in freezing snow but we both did because we respected the other and realized what needed to be done and the team work to make the goal happen.

We are now fully powered with working electricity and water again and can help our neighbors. Tenacity and perseverance is what gets the job done.

[Monahan Steam Models]

Im going to sleep. The fire in the wood stove has plenty of coals to keep this place warm tonight until i need to put more wood on. Im exhausted and signing off for now

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Thank you Tom that is very kind and generous and I would like to take you up on that some day because it sounds like a good time for sure. Under the current conditions we would be somewhat weather refugees and I would enjoy a visit with the conditions being to meet up and have fun doing what we enjoy.

One a side note I’m going to warn the rest of you reading this thread it’s going to go a bit off topic and into a bit of a hopefully brief rant.

So we got hit by a historically big snow storm. It was forecasted so we weren’t caught off guard. Had time to prep for it. Power was knocked out and lots of destruction occurred to the power distribution system. Trees were down every where and roads blocked by either snow or trees or both. You come to expect these situations when living in rural mountain areas like we do so you adjust and plan ahead the best you can.

That being said, we have proactively invested and installed a crazy large solar system a few years ago and spent the last 6 months designing the battery back up system and redundant last ditch back up generator system for when the primary grid system goes down and it does frequently. All the engineering and plans were finally approved and the hardware and teams were assembled and scheduled.

Each team (solar, battery and generator) were organized and supplied with what they needed to make everything to complete the final project with ease. The prior dirty or hard work was done months in advance by me. The digging of the trenches. Laying the buried conduit. The excavation of dirt and concrete work to create the basements and pads for the gear to be installed.

Well the solar and generator crews appreciated the ground work that was already in place and the foresight of the planning which made their tasks much less intense and worked with integrity to complete the task at hand. The battery crew not so much. They missed days and left early.

The completion of this whole project would’ve been finished 2 weeks ago prior to this storm but was delayed by the short comings of the battery crew.

Yesterday I spent a great deal of time with the VP of the company and the main scheduling manager to make sure we were all on the same page to get the final work done to complete the generator instal and battery install today. I warned them of the recent conditions that were the result of the storm and we both agreed and guaranteed one another of the responsibilities we would take on to make the plan happen to stay on target and achieve today’s goals. Outside of that, mine have been waking up every couple hours during the cold freezing night to keep the wood burning stove fueled to keep the family warm. At 5am I was in the tractor in the clearing the roads for 3 hours so the crews could get through easily.

No one called except for the main generator guy. He was a 100 of miles away doing another job. The schedule manager, although we spoke yesterday had rescheduled him to be on another job. I had just spent 3 hours plowing the roads and many hours the day before to make this morning go smooth.

Having realized all of this, the gentleman who was originally planning to be here to bring the generator system online finished his work and drove 100 miles back this direction to get our equipment working. He and I then worked together the next 4 hours to get the well water system to be backed up off the generator. We were both tired and our toes were frozen solid from each being out in the snow for so many hours but it goes to show the integrity of team work and working together. He didn’t have to do any of this and i as customer didn’t have to spend hours plowing roads or pulling wire in freezing snow but we both did because we respected the other and realized what needed to be done and the team work to make the goal happen.

We are now fully powered with working electricity and water again and can help our neighbors. Tenacity and perseverance is what gets the job done.

Rant heard loud and clear. And most appreciated. A story of what is right and wrong with America right now: Those who are self-starters, take pride in their work and word, and overcome adversity; and those who don't.

You, Rick, and your kind, personify the 'old' American way. The battery guy's and that 'manager' represent the unaccountable, disinterested 'new' America.

Let's Go Brandon!

David

[MFR1964]

Wow Nick,

And you said to me that my basement was a epic build, hats off to you.

Manfred.

[Monahan Steam Models]

Wow Nick,

And you said to me that my basement was a epic build, hats off to you.

Manfred.

Manfred, thank you sir! But seriously your new work area is way more of an epic build and the finished result looks absolutely amazing! I wanted to say that when you posted the photos earlier. Between the holiday, these winter storms we’ve had and getting this back up electrical system gear finalized it’s been a crazy time! Look forward to seeing the awesome work you do in the new shop space.

Happy New Year!

Nick

[MFR1964]

Nick,

Just curious, what are the specs of your electrical/solar system, the company i work for, installs those systems as well, but without the battery/generator backup, which is not common in our sitiation at our country.

Manfred.

[Monahan Steam Models]

Manfred,

Before the start of the most current phase of the solar/back up system we had already installed 54 340W solar panels. 38 of those panels are for the 240V 3 phase electrical service which provides power to the shop and some large water pumps.

The other 16 panels supply power to the 240V single phase house electrical service panel. We just added 5 more 360W solar panels to this system so we now have a total of 59 panels.

Here are some screen shots of the energy production from about 6 months ago when we began the planning for the current stage of this project of adding 5 more panels, the Tesla PowerWall back up batteries and the 25kW back up generator.



Here is a screen shot of all the solar arrays as they are layer out. Roof 1A is the 16 panel system dedicated to the house. This is the solar array we just added 5 more 360W panels to.



Screen shot of the specs on the original 54 panels.



Energy production screen shot.



This is the water cooled LPG 25kW back up generator that’s keeping the whole house system and lights on currently while the main local electrical grid has been down since Sunday night.



These are the 3, 13.5kW each Tesla PowerWall batteries we just finished wiring up yesterday and are hoping to bring completely online this morning. Some of the automated switching gear and breakers panels in the background.

The whole system is either completely automated or can be activated manually. When the local power grid is normally operating, the solar arrays supply power to the house and shop and the extra power is sent back into the grid which we receive credits for. We can also use the batteries to provide power to the house during peak electricity cost hours while at the same time send all the power produced by the solar panels into the grid during these high cost energy times. The batteries can then be charged back up in the middle of the night from the grid during the lowest cost grid energy consumption times or be recharged with extra electricity production during the day from the solar.

The back up generator kicks in automatically when the grid is down and the batteries have been discharged to a capacity of 20% or whatever cutoff percentage we set them too. If the grid is still down, once the batteries are charging again from the solar, the generator automatically shuts down again.

The system is highly configurable to operate in which every sequence, parameters or situation it is set for.

If you’re interested in a specific spec that I have not provided, please ask and I will try to get that information.

Best Regards,

Nick

[MFR1964]

Nick,

To our standards it's a impressive installation, you went all the way with a no-break installation and tesla walls, if i'm lucky i have room for 10 solar panels on the roof, room enough in the basement for a 13,5 kwh tesla battery,
For now we pay about 0,25 eurocent for 1Kwh, the grit itself is relailble, all underground cables, none to less grit failures, for us it's more a plus then neccesary, the panels/altenator i can get by my company free of charge, probably a project for in the future.
Thanks for the effort to provide me with details.

Happy NewYear, and stay safe.

Manfred.

[Monahan Steam Models]

First time since I started this project last year that I’ve seen the four forward torpedo launch tubes together finally in the hull. The port side is fresh off the printer and still needs to be cleaned up and fit but I couldn’t wait to see how it dropped in as is.