Tim MakSo something pretty unfortunate happened!
We live in an apartment building in Kyiv, and just moved in.
Our emergency plan involves a portable battery and solar panels, so I got to charging them by placing the panels outside...
These are Ecoflow solar panels worth ~$500 here and $350 in the states.
As they were charging, an unanticipated and frankly unthinkable gust of wind came through.
I mean just utterly who would have thought
I come back to check on the progress of the charging to this:
The solar panels were torn off their wires and flew away into the city!
Worst of all, they were Ross' panels, not mine
You'd think these panels would have fallen straight down or something but you'd be wrong.
We searched the whole perimeter of our building and another block around and they are literally nowhere to be found
Live look at Ross' face when I told him a gust of wind took his very expensive panels for an unknown flight
He's been giving me a hard time for losing his panels to a freaking gust of wind.
He keeps asking me to go back to the windows "to see if the solar panels flew back"
And today he saw me training on using a drone and he grabbed the controllers from me, laughing and saying I couldn't be trusted to fly anything this weekend
This mystery endures. Did it fall down below and someone just took off with it? We may never know, but someone needs to test the aerodynamic properties of a falling Ecoflow solar panel set up
All of this is to say if you haven't signed up for The Counteroffensive as a paid subscriber, please consider doing so if you like our kind of immersive, narrative journalism. http://counteroffensive.news
I owe Ross 500 bucks so every little bit helps
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John Breen@timkmak Now you have a least 2 more flying panels on their way to you.
@jab01701mid what do you mean?
@timkmak I mean your amazon gift list indicates at least 2 have been purchased on your behalf, and I bought one of them :)
@jab01701mid Ack you must have bought it at the exact time as the other person! Can you cancel and get a refund? We only need one and I hate to see your money not put to better use!
If you want to contribute we still need smoke hoods or a satellite hot spot!
@timkmak Give the other one away to somebody else in Ukraine.
@jab01701mid okay we will!
@timkmak FWIW, I own one, and learned that it's best to lay the panel flat between 10am and 2pm, and in that position they are unlikely to fly. Only need to angle them early morning or late afternoon for best wattage. And you can chain up to 3 together IIRC.
@jab01701mid thanks for the advice. I’ll never make the mistake again!
Bonkers@timkmak @jab01701mid you guys are amazing