Railworks America

So I had planned on making some trips to some of my favorite train hotspots and to some new spots I have never been to before sometime this summer. In the past I have gotten hotel rooms for multiple days to see these spots. This year I wanted to change things up and camp instead of staying in hotel rooms. Not only would it be fun (I love camping), but the bonus is that I will save money in the process.

When I went to film my Beaumont Hill and Tehacahpi Pass videos for my YouTube channel, I used my laptop in the hotel room to see the day's footage and start editing the clips immediately. Since this time I'll be camping in back country a lot of the time where there are no electrical hookups, I decided to bring the electricity with me.

So I bought Goal Zero's top-of-the-line Yeti 1400 lithium-ion power station. It has 1425 watt-hours of power and a 120-volt pure sine wave power inverter (with 2 three-prong electrical sockets) that is capable of up to 1500 watts of continuous power and up to 3000 watts of momentary power spikes. It also has a 12-volt (10A) cigarette lighter-style power socket as well as 4 USB ports capable of outputting 2.4 amps each. The battery can be charged by a 120-Volt wall outlet or with solar panels. And unlike lead-acid based deep-cycle power stations, lithium-ion allows me to drain the battery all the way to zero without the voltage drops or shortening the overall lifespan of the battery before it needs to be replaced.



I went with two 100-watt solar panels (each one is two 50-Watt panels in a fold-able briefcase style frame) to power it. I plan on buying two more 100-watt panels (for a grand total of 400-watts) as soon as they release their new 4-panel linking cable adapter.





I also got a 12-volt 45-Watt thermo-electric cooler as my refrigerator (will also heat things to 140 degrees if I use it in warming mode instead), a 700-watt output (1050-watt draw off the plug) microwave oven, a little crock-pot and a cordless rechargeable vacuum cleaner.



In order to edit in the field and play games on it too in style, I bought an in-car mounted computer laptop stand similar to what police use with their laptops in their police cars.




The power station's battery has enough capacity to run my new GTX 1070 laptop for about 32-hours straight if I use it for surfing the net and about 7 hours if I'm gaming with it. If I use my older GTX 850M based laptop I can get about 95 hours of surfing the net or about 23 hours of gaming on it. If it's daytime and my solar panels bring in more watts of power than the laptops use, then I can use them without using any of the battery's power. I can save that power for use at night.

I also upgraded to Verizon's unlimited data plan, so I will be set if I'm bored at night and want to surf the net to my heart's content up in the mountains and back country. It's gonna be a fun summer!

I rate your set-up 8/10 could use more Surround Sound

All joking aside this is very cool, I would have never thought about using this much equipment for out on the go camping and web surfing while watching trains. no matter how far in the wilderness you are, you always need the internet


But it sounds like you're going to have a fun summer! Cant wait to see some of the vids!

Admit it... you spent so much on that laptop, you are homeless now.

Ericmopar wrote:Admit it... you spent so much on that laptop, you are homeless now.

That was a good one!

The laptop was normally $1800 and I got it on sale for $1500. Remember I was as originally gonna get a $4000 laptop until I found out that they discontinued the model I wanted a couple days before I tried to order it. I was waiting for the Samsung 960 Pro SSD to come out before buying the laptop and that waiting screwed me in the end. But I'm kinda happy I got this laptop. It's a pretty good bang for the buck for the price I got it for.

The power unit, two solar panels and a 30-foot 8mm solar cable extension was about $2800. I really like the fact it tells you what the amparage, voltage, wattage and watt-hours are of the device or devices you are using. If it's charging it tells you how long until full and when depleting says how long until empty or you can choose percent full. It also shows the wattage coming in from the solar panels.

I'm quite impressed with it. I'll get to run it through its paces when I go up to Tehachapi Pass the week after Easter if the weather makes it worth going there.

GSkid wrote:

Ericmopar wrote:Admit it... you spent so much on that laptop, you are homeless now.

That was a good one!

The laptop was normally $1800 and I got it on sale for $1500. Remember I was as originally gonna get a $4000 laptop until I found out that they discouniued the model I wanted a couple days before I tried to order it. I was waiting for the Samsung 960 Pro SSD to come out before buying the laptop and that waiting screwed me in the end. But I'm kinda happy I got this laptop. It's a pretty good bang for the buck for the price I got it for.

The power unit, two solar panels and a 30-foot 8mm solar cable extension was about $3800. I really like the fact it tells you what the amparage, voltage, wattage and watt-hours are of the device or devices you are using. If it's charging it tells you how long until full and when depleting says how long until empty or you can choose percent full. It also shows the wattage coming in from the solar panels.

I'm quite impressed with it. I'll get to run it through its paces when I go up to Tehachapi Pass the week after Easter if the weather makes it worth going there.

It looks like a cool setup.
Is Cajon getting any wildflowers after the fire?

I don't know. I don't plan on going there this trip. Filming on Cajon Pass is rough because the strong winds wreck havoc with the audio track even with my furry windscreen on and shakes the camera

BTW... it was $2800 for the solar setup... not $3800. I corrected it.

Before I bought this I was holding off until the Yeti 3000 (3000 watt-hours) came out but it won't be released now until late 2017-early 2018. I couldn't wait that long cuz I wouldn't of had a solar setup for THIS summer's trips.

What is cool is they said I will be able to hook up another battery in the future to it through a chaining cable to be released later. So more than likely I would be able to double my capacity. But I likely won't need to as it seems the 1425 watt-hours of capacity will be plenty for me. We will see.

The thermo-electric cooler doesn't come with a thermostat, so I have a 12V timer on the way from Amazon to turn it on and off at certain intervals to keep food cool enough but also minimize the battery power needed to do it. Otherwise I'd have to keep the cooler running constantly.

I also bought a 10-watt solar car battery maintainer and a solar Bluetooth boombox with built in microphone to use as a speaker phone and play music or whatever.

I didn't see a kettle in your car, how are you going to make your pot noodles, soup and coffee, on the go, that'd be the first thing I would have installed personally, then, the solar panels to power everything up on, it looks a good set up young man anyway, very nice.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

ex-railwayman wrote:I didn't see a kettle in your car, how are you going to make your pot noodles, soup and coffee, on the go, that'd be the first thing I would have installed personally, then, the solar panels to power everything up on, it looks a good set up young man anyway, very nice.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

I rarely drink coffee and I can heat up soup in the microwave or the crockpot. I bought a special mac and cheese microwave dish where you just fill water to the line and noodles come out pretty good.

I'm thinking of getting one of those 12-Volt heated coffee mugs for hot soup or hot chocolate.

GSkid wrote:I bought a special mac and cheese microwave dish where you just fill water to the line and noodles come out pretty good.

Technology is amazing...pour some water in and noodles come out.

When geeks go camping...

If someday I become crazy, I hope I'll be crazy like you.

:)

Chacal wrote:When geeks go camping...

If someday I become crazy, I hope I'll be crazy like you.

:)

Now that's luxury camping ...

It is safe to camp out displaying all this wealth? Some other poster (I believe even on this board) wrote he doesn't do train watching by himself all night anymore because of being mugged by local thugs who also know these hotspots?

OK then maybe add an electronic alarm system and guard drone.

Get a couple of pit bulls, they'll scare the bejesus out of most people, don't worry about dog food, they'll survive on Pizza and Pot Noodles.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

The only place I've felt unsafe was in southeast Bakersfield near the BNSF and UP yards. There is a lot of homeless (especially near the UP yard) and meth addicts roaming the streets there. Otherwise I've had no problems when hitting my favorite spots. I rarely go to Bakersfield anymore as I usually go no closer than Sandcut.

I will have my stuff covered as to not draw attention to myself.

I do have a security system in the car, but a determined thief isn't gonna care. He will just smash and grab anyways. Not much I can do about that. The only alternative is to buy those locked, bolted down, heavy steel cages that television news stations store their expensive $25K+ video cameras in the back of their SUVs with. Not exactly worth the expense considering I'm only going on a few trips like this.

The spots I usually go are out in the middle of nowhere where muggers don't usually hangout.

Or do what I did with my bicycle in college: get some weathering paint from the hobby store and paint scratches, stains and and rust spots. Add duck tape on the bumper, old carboard in some windows, false trash on the floor. Run the car a few times on a dusty road. Invisible car!