Why work harder when you can work smarter by daisy chaining cargo straps to a PistenBully and using brute force instead?
We went out to the site on Monday with the UNAVCO engineer, Nikko. We dug out one of the two large plywood enclosures that are out at the site. Nikko has been to the field many, many times, and he taught us some better digging techniques.
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| Our scenic test site. |
We had dug out to the top of the enclosure to check the equipment inside
on Saturday, but since we were planning on raising it up to the
surface, we had to dig all the way down the sides to the bottom.
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| Reaching the bottom of the plywood enclosure! Unfortunately there was a thick ice layer underneath. |
The plywood enclosure was filled with the aforementioned 20 Lithium batteries (11 lbs each) and 38 AGMs (65 lbs each). We moved every single battery out of the box and onto the snow surface.
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| 38 heavy-as-heck AGM batteries. |
Since the Lithium batteries aren't chargeable, we decided to load them up in the PistenBully and take them back to the Crary lab to measure their voltages. This test site shouldn't consume enough power to have to rely on the Li batteries anyway. We also noticed 2 of the AGMs had corroded terminals, so we put those in the PistenBully to clean up in the lab.
Once we'd gotten all the batteries out, we realized that the bottom of the enclosure was caked in a very thick layer of ice. We decided to come back the next day, equipped with ice axes.
Just Avi and I went out on Tuesday. After about 30 minutes of fruitlessly chipping at the ice under the enclosure, we decided it was time to utilize all of the tools we had at our disposal. Namely, PistenBully 314. We had cleared about 2 inches of ice from strip along the bottom-back. We wrapped a cargo strap around this strip, and then tied that to 2 more cargo straps, which we attached to the hitch on the back of the PistenBully.
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| The setup. |
I climbed in the PistenBully and Avi backed a safe distance away from the cargo straps so he wouldn't be injured if one snapped. Avi then used hand signals (the hand signals we learned in Pickle training!!) to direct me as I slowly inched the PistenBully forward.
It took a few tries, but finally.. success! The plywood enclosure was wrenched out of the icy layer with pure PistenBully power!!!! And, best of all, no one got hurt.
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| Our redneck engineering was a SUCCESS!! |
We carefully backed the PistenBully back up, removed the cargo straps, and climbed back in the hole. Then we shoved the plywood box over our heads and up a small slope we had dug out (this was HARD because this box is dang heavy!!).
Once we got it on the surface, we leveled the snow a bit. Then came the real challenge. Moving all 36 65-lb AGM batteries back into the box. We moved 2340 lbs of batteries. Who knew this job involved so much heavy lifting??!
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| I took a break to snap a picture of Avi lugging a battery over to the relocated plywood enclosure. |
By the end of the day Tuesday, we had completely raised one of the two plywood enclosures! The next time we go out, we are planning on actually setting up some of our test equipment.
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| Plywood enclosure raised! |
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