Good afternoon! Mostly cloudy and 83 degrees in Delmar, NY. Light breeze from the south west, almost feels a bit hot and humid💨. The dew point is 55 degrees. The morning was beautiful, but it wans’t bound to last. There are already some showers starting to pop up on the radar, and the sky gotten pretty dark. So much for the 78 watts my solar panel was putting out on the truck earlier this morning, until things got put into float mode.

So the big project for day was getting the second accessory battery hooked up to the low-voltage disconnect from the bed. Previously, it was hooked into the bus bar that runs all of the accessories in bed of the truck, but I wanted to make sure I had undervoltage protection on the battery, especially because the other accessory battery already had that and unbalanced batteries like that could be dangerous or at least bad for the life of the batteries. 🔋 I also cleaned up the wiring in the cab of my truck for accessories, including adding an always on USB outlet for charging things like my USB battery bank, or even my laptop.

It’s now wired for 30 amp, so I have plenty of power for even charging the laptop there, and it’s conveniently located under the driver seat, and doesn’t shut off when the truck is off. I had to move some of the components around — name swap the places of the low voltage disconnect and the solar charger to make the wiring fit, a had to go to Advance Auto to buy a few butt connectors, shrink wrap, romex cable protectors, and then to the Hardware store to get a drill. Sure, there goes another 20 bucks, but I was good this weekend, I stayed in town, although this morning, I kind of wish I had headed out of town because it was so nice — but it’s become cloudy now and rain, so I’m not missing much.🌄

That said, I think the feature I like best in that voltage/amperage/power meter I got last autumn but didn’t wire up until now. I actually got two — only are using one right now though. It’s pretty cool how it not only shows you the voltage but also the amperage, and does the math for the wattage and total power produced (in watt hours or kilowatt hours) ➕➖➗. Works with a 50 amp shunt, which I got as a package from China last October on AliExpress. I’m a big fan of AliExpress for small electronic stuff like that — if you can wait, you can save a lot of money ordering direct from the factory in China — and umm, not pay sales tax. I doubt the People’s Republic of China will tell the People’s Democrat of New York about the $10 gadget I bought without tax.  Why be sneaky when your going to post it on the Internet?

Tonight will have showers, mainly after 11pm. 🌧 Low of 63 degrees at 6am. Six degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 58 at 5am. 🏖️ South wind 5 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 50 degrees. The record low of 40 occurred back in 1961.

The sun will set at 8:35 pm with dusk around 9:09 pm, which is 25 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for rain showers 🌧 and temperatures around 72 degrees. The dew point will be 54 degrees. There will be a south-southwest breeze at 9 mph. Today will have 15 hours and 18 minutes of daytime, an increase of 24 seconds over yesterday.

Tomorrow will have showers likely, with thunderstorms also possible after 2pm. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 73 degrees at 4pm. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around May 30th. Maximum dew point of 64 at 2pm. South wind around 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 84 degrees. The record high of 96 was set in 1967.

I decided against getting a USB flashlight. I have plenty of flashlights already. I might instead get a battery charger like this one and pick up some rechargable nickle metal halide batteries at Walmart. I think it’s pretty cool that those smart chargers not only can do Ni-MH or the newer 18650 LiOn batteries. But then again. it’s not exactly rocket science, just a microprocessor and transistor with PWM that cuts or reduces output as the battery gets close to full charge.

On this day in 1967, The People’s Republic of China tests its first hydrogen bomb. It would be one of the world’s few powers with access to the devestatingly powerful hydrogen bombs.💣 Now everybody except Trump likes inexpensive things you can get on AliExpress in like four weeks, which are fun for the many projects you can build.📟

As previously noted, next Saturday is Average High is 80 🏖 when the sun will be setting at 8:37 pm with dusk at 9:11 pm. On that day in 2018, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 81 and 50 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 80 degrees. We hit a record high of 95 back in 1954.