073: Timed Plant Watering System and Candle From Altoids Tin or Nivea Tin and Interview with Todd Jarrett

Housekeeping:

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Topic:

How to Run a Timed Plant Watering System for Starting Saplings

Brian starting seeds, wants pole barn to harvest water, needs to automate to water

Scenario 1 (Best and easiest)

• Run waterhose from house to bed
• Place timer at your home tap going to hose

Scenario 2

• Elevate your totes off the ground, just under the gutters of the pole barn.
• Catch rain in gutters that drain into totes
• Place timer on bottom of the totes that open and gravity feed to the bed
• If you do this, don’t use a sprinkler system, use a drip system

Scenario 2 Electrical setup

• 12v 8AH SLA (sealed lead acid) battery for holding power
• Sunforce 7 Amp Charge Controller
• Renogy 10 Watt Photovoltaic Solar Panel
• Docooler Mini Micro Brushless Water Oil Submersible Pump (5W)
• If nighttime came and never showed day again, the pump could continuously run for 19.2 hours
  • Which you will not
• It will take about 10 hours of sunlight to charge the battery fully
• Woods 50015 Outdoor 7-Day Heavy Duty Digital Outlet Timer for the pump

Alternate setup to remove electrical costs

• Orbit 62061N-91213 Single Dial Water Timer
• 4000 on and off cycles per 2 AA batteries
• Use Enloop Batteries to have recharge capability.
• Use this setup, off of a water hose.  When you expand your operation, you may want to so some more permanent piping.

Another thing to Consider

• Elevate your bed that you will be starting seeds in
• Let bed overflow into another tank to reclaim what overflowed in the bed
• Similar to a hydroponics setup
• Could run a pump to recirc back into the top tank if you wanted a closed system with rain makeup

How to Make a Candle out of an Altoids Tin or Nivea Tin

1. Martin asked a question about making a candle in an Altoids tin.

Melt the Wax for the Candle

• Use Paraffin wax or Bees wax for your candle
  • Melt the wax in an old soup can or a pot
  • If you want to color your wax, you can melt crayon wax into the pot with the wax

Make Some Wicks for Your Candle

• While wax is melting, you need pure cotton twine or some tea candle wicks
  • Just remove metal and wick from tealights
  • If possible, go ahead and prep your wick by coating it in wax, but this step isn’t necessary.
• Glue tealight wicks to bottom of altoids tin so they stay in place when you put the wax in
• If using cotton twine, or a wick without a base, just build a small stand you can tie the wick to above the tin to hold it vertical
• I would recommend about 3-4 wicks in the tin so you have the ability to use all the wax when burning… not to burn them all at once.
• Cut the wicks flush with the top of the altoids tin.

Pour The Wax into the Altoids Tin

• Pour the melted wax into the altoids tin taking care to leave the wicks where they are meant to be.
• Before the wax solidifies, you can make some adjustments to the wick position.

Solidify the Wax

• Place the Tin in the freezer
• Solidify faster
• Candles burn more evenly

Add “The Extras”

• Take two old cardboard match books and glue them to the lid of the Altoids tin, and you will have a way to light the candle.
• The tins stack well for long term storage

Interview with Todd Jarrett (Audio Skipped ALOT… Sorry)

• Things to practice to get motor skills for drawing firearm under stress
• Todd Jarretts preferences in a firearm
• Why a laser is important on a firearm
• The responsibility of using a firearm