Rinoa's Auspicious Travails

A bad storm took out some of the town's power, so I installed the solar panels on the repair shop roof and took charged batteries over to keep refrigerators running at Thais' relatives house. Then I also sold the wood chipper and built a winch to assemble a 1935 GE refrigerator I got yesterday.

A lot happened today.

11 months ago | [YT] | 79

Rinoa's Auspicious Travails

Yesterday me and Thais went to New Jersey to save a 1930s Frigidaire from an old post office, but even with a winch and leverage, the steps were too steep.

I'll go back with more knowledge and equipment. We snapped tie straps and damaged the thing unfortunately. I believe the building had a different entrance it was lowered through before, and these steps aren't the entrance it came up through.

This is going to be a long project.

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1 year ago | [YT] | 33

Rinoa's Auspicious Travails

The missing piece for my solar sunday videos has arrived. I had been looking to get a battery pack for my solar projects but I wanted LiFePo4. I had looked at getting an Ecoflow River battery but the cost to watt-hours just didn't add up. I'm glad I waited. I had no idea these LiFePo4 batteries with onboard computers and heating existed, and they're like 1/3rd the price of the popular portable power packs.

So far I'm running most of our livingroom off it and it looks to be able to run it for about 7 hours if fully charged. I'm still debating if it should live at the apartment or live at the workshop but oh well. For the time being it can live at the apartment and run things. I might just have to run cables for it.

The manual states the method to wake-up the BMS if it goes fully flat, and it has a heating element to keep it above freezing. Lastly the app actually doesn't require an account at all, so that actually gets a pass from me. I can check it over bluetooth so I can't help but think this would be good on a boat.

Just thought I'd share that. This thing is pretty interesting and I'm really glad I didn't buy something because this was better in the end.

2 years ago | [YT] | 47

Rinoa's Auspicious Travails

I spent the past two days building a VR world (You can play without VR) of one of my favorite areas in Final Fantasy XIV. I hope to update it every so often as I learn Unity development.

vrchat.com/home/launch?worldId=wrld_196c177f-fecc-…

Would this be worth making a video of I wonder?

2 years ago | [YT] | 42

Rinoa's Auspicious Travails

An Important Update, and a thank you.

There was a time when I made 900$ a month from youtube (2015), now it's down to 200$ a month. My videos barely get 1/10th of the views they used to get too. It's clear that all of you who support us are far more reliable than YouTube, and we'd like to thank you for that. It means a lot. I can no longer work harder at making videos and make any more money since it's only my pre-2020 videos making money.

Meanwhile all of you support me with over 100$ on patreon each month. I value that stable 100$ over youtube's 200$ any day.

Me and Thais had a really bad year last year, but this year is looking to be really interesting. I just wish I could recover from stress quicker. That well of energy I draw from is getting low. I can still do projects, but voicing commentary and editing videos is a pain. I have like 15 videos filmed but can't stand to look at the footage, even if they are fine videos. The place I live in now is very calm though, so I'll recover. I feel like I made it, as much as one can feel so in a world of shifting sand.

I have found a lot of jobs IRL that I'm doing. Have three building restoration jobs, got paid 75$ to clean up trash in an alley, have been selling my rapid prototyping skills to two people wanting to design products too.

A lot of people question why I moved to philadelphia, well, simply there is 100x the opportunity here than illinois. Illinois was dead and lifeless, here I just keep finding work. I don't dream of living alone, I've done that all my life. The people who dream of living away from society had the privilege to grow up in one. They probably got to have non-imaginary friends when growing up. They also probably got to go to school.

I want to thank you for all the help you are, especially financially. It's a shame people aren't interested in building or restorations on youtube, or at least the algorithm isnt. I plan to keep posting videos even if I get no new viewers. There's nothing wrong with continuing quietly into being forgotten. You have to go into the unknown with grace, since the unknown is just more of the boring "known" after all.

I mean, hey, I see the positives in not being popular anymore. I haven't had somebody stalk me IRL or attack my family in years.

So for that I'm honestly thankful for all this. It went from small to big and back again. I like to think it helps my channel seem cool and niche, like a hidden gem for those that still find it.

Thank you all for the continued help. It means a lot.

At least Final Fantasy XIV keeps getting better, because fuck this material world. lol

Btw, might be getting a small workshop here, unsure though. But I have an opportunity to get one for free.

-Rinoa

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3 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 53

Rinoa's Auspicious Travails

Me and Thais' apartment solar project made its first kilowatt-hour! We are still running the 30 watt panel in the window, but have two 100w panels I could put out later. I'm holding off on adding the 100w panel in the window because I need to make sure I get my system wired well enough to use that. I have been filming a video about our energy exploits over the past month for a solar sunday series, but now that I've hit the 1kwh mark I can finish it.

I really enjoy the restriction in resources because I've found myself getting very creative running lights and a computer off 30w.

I'm thinking with the oncoming power shortages in the world I should also make good videos about my experiments for my Rinoa's Big Projects channel. Solar Sunday Experiments will cover the messy research on this channel, but then later I'll re-film a lot of it with good audio and clearer presentation for a Solar Sunday video on the other channel.

The funniest thing is that me and Thais have cut our power bill down to 30$ exactly due to other creative ways to save electricity we've found. I think the next revolution will be to stop needing 40 solar panels, and learning to do more with less. I feel people have become misguided with renewable energy lately. A lot of the sustainable living websites I follow are now Tesla and Solar fansites that now are ok with excess as long as it's electric. I remember the late 90s and early 2000s when renewable energy was a much wider field. We didn't know photovoltaic power would be the one that would win out, but we also didn't expect the other parts of living a sustainable life to be thrown out with the bath water. I've gotten nothing but bad reactions to my worries on sites such as cleantechnica. Maybe I should help MotherEarthNews write an article on making solar last better.

Me and Thais even run that 1930s incandescent bulb every day because its our favorite. It isn't like we're some hermits living without power, we're just efficient. I think you can be quaint, efficient, and happy all at once.

-Rinoa

3 years ago | [YT] | 39

Rinoa's Auspicious Travails

I got a sorta-job at the local maker space. By sorta-job I mean "Has none of the limitations of a normal job". The director is really excited to have me since I seem capable of solving tons of their problems, and I bring new possibilities to them. What this means.

1: I have access to a lot of workspace now for filming videos

2: I should get a few hundred dollars a month in pay to help ease stress

3: They have two buildings, and I'll film videos of restoring them including hand operated 1920s lift.

4: This will be a good distraction. I need something to take my mind off things. Something that I can go to and help out with, and film videos about.


I've been in a very bad spot lately, very stressed. I'm going to do the right thing and jump towards this job. It'll result in great videos as well. I'm hoping this all ends up being delayed reward. Where I'm not in a spot now to enjoy it but I will be later.

PS: I'm going to use your patreon funds to buy me a new camera, I decided a used iPhone 12 would be perfect, and in a few weeks the iphone 14 comes out, so I'm going to hold for a bit and see if the old 12 gets even cheaper. Make these funds go further. I think that's a wise use of donations. I always worry about how to spend that money.

3 years ago | [YT] | 84

Rinoa's Auspicious Travails

I got contacted by a company called Czur, they want to give me a digital scanner for use on the channel. I'm really cagey about who I give my email to, so i'm posting here so Emma C from Czur knows, yes, that is my email address. lol

I'm never going to put my email on my channel. think of all the crazies I'd get contacting me. Also my email is almost nothing related to this channel by design so nobody guesses it. lol.

I shall maybe delete this later, if I care.

Hope I can use that digital scanner to digitize some 1850s german newspapers I have. and some early 1800s books.

3 years ago | [YT] | 37

Rinoa's Auspicious Travails

Hey guys, I took a trip to illinois for 8 days to film more videos for you all. I got there and the heat started cranking up. We filmed two 1925 house videos and a junkyard video, but everything past that went to shit.
I had to start going out early to avoid the heat, but by day 4 it was already too hot at 9am.

My solar panel setup on my brick shed had its batteries die, so that was a solar sunday in the making. Filmed half a solar sunday video but then gave up due to heat. Decided to move the system to philadelphia. it'll work out for the video actually, I got enough clips for that.
But then I was trying to film a few simple restoration videos and everything was failing. Then finally my camera died on me. So I couldn't film any more.

I got so angry. it's like something broke in me. I hide behind my online character I play because it mellows my mood and keeps me focused. It's fun to act and it's a tool for stressfull situations, but when the camera broke, my mask broke. I got so mad I canceled my return trip and bought one that night.

I got to visit with Bill for four days, got to have dinner with my dad and his wife. Got the stuff I wanted for me and Thais' new apartment as well.

Boy am I glad I came back early too... We were supposed to get our new apartment this week but on the day we were supposed to get it, they instead have us resubmit everything again... Imagine if I was stuck in illinois trying to film videos and scrambling to be re-approved for an appartment I was already approved for.

Fucking hate this heat. It's a multiplier for pain.

I am excited to do more Solar Sunday videos. I recently bought a 10w panel from the 1980s.

Rinoa

3 years ago | [YT] | 69

Rinoa's Auspicious Travails

Introducing my new rocketry website www.ardentaerospace.com/

It's the seed of an aerospace startup as well. Maybe my idea of selling educational rocket parts to universities will become a real business someday.

There has been much regarding the liquid fueled rocket engine project which I haven't told you guys. Tinkering here and there, learning programming, settling on a project name. Slowly updating every aspect of the system.

I first started making the website in 2019, and applied for ownership of the company name in 2018. Logo came to me in 2020 when I was looking at Anton Stankowski's work. I doubt it'll ever amount to anything, but I really wanted my rocketry projects to run under a memorable name. Especially just in case things get exciting.

I'm flying back to illinois later this month, and plan to tie a lot of things together for rocket engine test 2.

I hope you enjoyed this rocketry update.

3 years ago | [YT] | 22