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Without Thinking Buy New and Don't Even Consider Repairing

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
Ain't Life Great"

"SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) โ€” California's largest operator of recycling redemption centers shut down Monday and laid off 750 employees.

RePlanet closed all 284 of its centers, and company president David Lawrence said the decision was driven by increased business costs and falling prices of recycled aluminum and PET plastic, the San Jose Mercury News reported. The move came three years after RePlanet closed 191 of its recycling centers and laid off 278 workers."
36 REPLIES 36

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
Yes, I am almost deaf...

But fan BLADE noise by design or speed seems to be the clincher.

I have turned on large 48" fans and heard the motor hum before the roar of the wind overwhelmed the hum.

And before it sucked the sofa and dinette out the front door.

Swamp coolers with rotary fans are not quiet either.

I had a polite mouse living behind the stove a week before I started using the Endless Breeze. He moved out before I could D-con him.

This is a case of buying a fan as being an alternative to a Mercedes then finding out it's a Moscovich, Skoda, or Yugo in drag.

pnichols
Explorer II
Explorer II
MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Brushless motor noise? Jeezo that would be like comparing leather or rubber sole shoe noise to the WW II London air raid sirens.


:h

So .... are brushless motors supposed to be - quieter than motors with brushes, or not?

(I quess I should have kept my college text book on electric motor technology!)
2005 E450 Itasca 24V Class C

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
OK I lowballed the cost of labor down there, but using the conversion rate of about 20 peso/dollar your numbers are way off too. 150 peso = $7.65 for how many hours of work?

Gimme a break

I LIVE HERE. The Peso 20 to 1 exchange rate was YEARS AGO. The last time I paid the ladies it was at 18.50 to the dollar.

I love it when someone thousands of miles outside of Mexico tries to correct me about reality. This is the foundation for BS about this country. And there have been folks who lectured me about rebuilding alternators having never taken one apart. Lead-acid batteries too.

This is NOT the Mexico of 40 years ago. Sitting beside me is a brand new SIEMENS mde-in-Mexico radiator fan motor for my car. I ground my way into the original Oriental made fan motor, and compared it with the Mexican made motor which has nuts and bolts.

The oriental motor is a joke. The brush length via the brush holder dimensions ARE TWICE AS LONG. There is more copper and there are more laminations in the SIEMENS which weighs 37% more. I can buy replacement brushes for the SIEMENS at Home Depot.

If a person travels south to Oaxaca, Chiapas, wages, and expenses are a lot lower. That is "the other Mexico" the Mexico that has hardware stores with 5% of the variety, supermarkets with ghastly tasting mayonnaise brands, and no butter only chassis grease grade margarine. 90% inventory of Nescafe instant, and 20% the inventory variety. Go to the inner cities of the USA and you will find poverty, ignorance and corner markets with exactly the same issues as Mexico.

But these folks WANT TO WORK. My housekeepers earn eight dollars an hour. That's why I have two. A steam-cleaning of my car engine and chassis is 500 pesos or twenty-eight dollars at 10-minute old dollar peso exchange rates. And that's the lowest price place in a city of 400,000

But it's the selection of a country halfway around the world with nuclear missiles pointed at us, versus a friendly neighbor crying for more work that bugs the hell out of me. There is a TRILLION DOLLAR industry ripe for the creation and hundreds of thousands of prospective small businesses waiting to be created in the USA...

A/C units with built-in soft starters.
Generators with fuel injection engines, and computer management with 30% fuel savings.
And endless other benefits that STOPS MONEY from going overseas and attracts ex-patriates to return home to a decent standard of living.

All being ignored...

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
Brushless motor noise? Jeezo that would be like comparing leather or rubber sole shoe noise to the WW II London air raid sirens.

With premium parts in an automobile, it wasn't at all unusual to see my rebuilds last to 160,000 miles. A thimble-full extra polyurea grease in each NTN-Lua bearing vastly increased their longevity.

Not electrical but mandating the use of steering and suspension parts with zerk fittings would allow an owner to extend service life 500%.

This would be similar to extending your home roof lifespan to 50 years or repainting intervals to 30-years.

There is a new technology being used to extend pavement life to decades. And the crueler the truck overloading the greater the improvement. And it gets rid of discarded tires in the process.

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
It's the REAR bushing that gets brinneled. Oil helps for a day I drilled a .030" hole and sprayed it with lube oil Boeing T10.

Gotta tell ya Ace, a sixer of Tecate or Coors light costs five bucks down here. No more refillable bottles. The toll roads took care of that. Even soda in the can or bottle costs seventy cents at the store. I buy my sugar and tarpit free soft drinks in the USA at Grocery Outlet. 2 quart bottle of Penafiel mineral water costs a buck buck seventy down here, Canada Dry for a dollar up there.

COSTCO offers variety down here but zero savings. Get this I did the number crunching a few weeks ago

Tomatoes Worse quality 190% expensive
Postatoes Exc quality 300% as expensive
Lettuce No contest COSTCO has gourmet lettuce but it's 120% as much as the USA
Batteries NO ZERO NONE USA batteries. Mexican batteries 130% the price.

But if you come down to save money stay the hell away from beer and beverages. The low-cost line leader beer down here is frequently GALLO from Guatemala.

Monterrey made Torrey chest freezers are heavy. Between Jesus and myself we own five freezers. They are on 24/7/365. My smallest chest freezer was #1 Purchased March 2001. Flawless operation. The Viking has been in storage.

Don't suck up rumors of the forties about prices. Auto Toll between Ensenada and Tijuana is now 150 pesos for three toll booths, around eight dollars each way. Gasoline is near four dollars a gallon.

Where I live in Michoacan, the cost of living is about 65% as expensive, but instead of terrazzo tile con artist palms and pools, a person settles for dust and possibly no windows. Why people must belch BS by bucketfuls is beyond me.

My medical hideout had absolutely zero inside when I moved in. I had to furnish it from the tile floor up. And guess what? Friends thought of the price as being fair at 165 dollars a month. I look overhead. Rafters, plywood and rolls of asphalt. The town trailer park charged FIFTY FIVE DOLLARS A NIGHT. Welcome to reality

agesilaus
Explorer III
Explorer III
You would play hell trying to find someone in northern or central Mexico to work for less than 600 pesos a day for unskilled manual labor. For chrissake,s I pay my housekeepers 150 pesos for doing dishes and mopping floors -- which averages out to EIGHT US DOLLARS PER HOUR. This is in northern Mexico for the time being. Stop repeating stereotypes it sounds ignorant.
-----------------------------------------------------

OK I lowballed the cost of labor down there, but using the conversion rate of about 20 peso/dollar your numbers are way off too. 150 peso = $7.65 for how many hours of work?

This website show Mexican labor costs: page and shows a low skilled worker earns about 5000 peso/month or $260. Assuming a US work month or 160 hours that give $1.60/hr. Still way below US levels. Even a highly skilled worker would make only about $850/mo. Chump change when compared to wages up here. I made that much in a few days and I wasn't a top level earner which would expect $7000-8000 a month and up.
Arctic Fox 25Y Travel Trailer
2018 RAM 2500 6.7L 4WD shortbed
Straightline dual cam hitch
400W Solar with Victron controller
Superbumper

D_E_Bishop
Explorer
Explorer
Another little know fact is that a lot of today's activists and the general population is that we had reusable glass bottles for most drinks, beer, soda, wine. What happened? Did some government agency decide that there may be a one in one hundredth thousandth of a chance that someone might, not would but might get sick or injured by a reusable bottle. Now hundreds or thousands of places sell non-recyclable plastic drinking bottles that you can reuse but that cannot be recycled.

Am I responsible or is the Stock Market and the Straw Law producing Government( both major parties included) that cannot make up their minds about what is in the best interest of the environment responsible?
"I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to go". R. L. Stevenson

David Bishop
2002 Winnebago Adventurer 32V
2009 GMC Canyon
Roadmaster 5000
BrakeBuddy Classic II

pnichols
Explorer II
Explorer II
MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
I'm talking a real barn-burner of a squeal...






Perhaps ... sewing machine oil administered to each bearing via a small tube (a tiny long tube pulls out of the long nozzle you see portruding from the plastic bottle in the photo)?: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G63K98C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

P.S. You didn't answer my question on inherent noise from brushless motors?
2005 E450 Itasca 24V Class C

Chum_lee
Explorer
Explorer
agesilaus wrote:
Chum lee wrote:
MEX: I'm a fan of the way some containers are used in Mexico. For example, Corona beer bottles are not only recyclable, they are REUSABLE and REFILLABLE. If not broken/chipped/cracked they can and are refilled hundreds of times. IMO that's the cheapest and most environmentally friendly way . . . long term. This single use mentality is killing us, but, it IS convenient.

When I was a kid, I remember my mom would buy some products based on the container they came in because she could/would clean it, then reuse it, without having to BUY something new.

Chum lee


Could it possibly be the cost of labor in Mexico vs what we pay in the US. What do they actually pay unskilled workers down there? $0.25/hour, $0.50? vs a minimum of $12 an hour up here, $8 minimum wage plus $4 in fringe benefits and possibly $20/hour where the socialists have run the minimum wage up to $15. Plus all other business costs are much lower down there with the exception of La Mordida

So labor costs 24 to 80 times as much might make paying someone to pick up and wash bottles a trifle more expensive don't you think? Corona might have a problem seeing a bottle of beer at $10/bottle.


Corona Beer costs +-$1.00 a bottle in the U.S. In Mexico, it's much cheaper because they reuse the bottles.

The cost of labor is relative. The people buying the product, in my example Corona Beer, ARE the low paid labor that uses the product and somehow, Mexico in this case, gets it to work. When considering ALL the costs of a product, generally reusing the product hundreds of times is cheaper than buying a new one each time. It doesn't work for everything, but in this case, it does, otherwise it wouldn't be happening, as it has in Mexico for over 50 years. If you think something won't/can't work, YOU'RE RIGHT, it won't. In the U.S., the powers to be DON'T want it to work. So far, THEY make more money that way. As long as the American public can afford to pay the bill, it will.

Chum lee

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
Let's ramp our way back to the real subject?

Haven't been refillables in decades.

You would play hell trying to find someone in northern or central Mexico to work for less than 600 pesos a day for unskilled manual labor. For chrissake,s I pay my housekeepers 150 pesos for doing dishes and mopping floors -- which averages out to EIGHT US DOLLARS PER HOUR. This is in northern Mexico for the time being. Stop repeating stereotypes it sounds ignorant.

Lessee we could absorb airflight fees or freighter fees from halfway around the world

From a country who would nuke us if they thought they stood half a chance.

Or we could help our neighbor improve their economy while avoiding greasy palms (either you do this our way -honestly- or no way and let the population know this is a corruption-free deal) 100,000,000 pissed-off Mexicans in the grand plaza in Mexico city would scare the snot out of millionaire leaches.

Set up factories then let the citizens gain too much to lose. They'll fight for it, trust me on this. American overseeing and auditors. It's called management.

And don't try and tell me this cannot be done! There are enterprise operations down here that function exactly as I have described. My good friend Eduardo, works for Canadians. They raise striped bass in huge pens offshore. They send 480 TONS a month of fillets He makes more than a thousand dollars a month.

Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries are raised to the south under intense cultivation and the workers are paid three times the going rate and includes healthcare.

90% of the garbage China sends over here that arrives broken or at death's door can be made in Mexico. Labor intensive so refrigerators, televisions, electric motors, A/C would be repairable. A nine hundred dollar side-by-side goes boink. Thanks to the Mexicans an entire tray can be removed and sent back to Mexico. Then be repaired for 300 dollars retail resold.

I looked for heavy-duty rectifiers for a 270 amp Ford alternator. Which has doubled 40 amp dish diodes. Three phases. 80x80x80 do they add up to 270? And there are no alternatives. Same for voltage regulators. "Welcome to our restaurant, We have for you -The-Slop-Of-The-Day- No alternatives no exchanges and please, no complaints- "

Like the old Soviet Union joke goes

As long as they pretend to pay us
We'll pretend to work.

agesilaus
Explorer III
Explorer III
Chum lee wrote:
MEX: I'm a fan of the way some containers are used in Mexico. For example, Corona beer bottles are not only recyclable, they are REUSABLE and REFILLABLE. If not broken/chipped/cracked they can and are refilled hundreds of times. IMO that's the cheapest and most environmentally friendly way . . . long term. This single use mentality is killing us, but, it IS convenient.

When I was a kid, I remember my mom would buy some products based on the container they came in because she could/would clean it, then reuse it, without having to BUY something new.

Chum lee


Could it possibly be the cost of labor in Mexico vs what we pay in the US. What do they actually pay unskilled workers down there? $0.25/hour, $0.50? vs a minimum of $12 an hour up here, $8 minimum wage plus $4 in fringe benefits and possibly $20/hour where the socialists have run the minimum wage up to $15. Plus all other business costs are much lower down there with the exception of La Mordida

So labor costs 24 to 80 times as much might make paying someone to pick up and wash bottles a trifle more expensive don't you think? Corona might have a problem seeing a bottle of beer at $10/bottle.
Arctic Fox 25Y Travel Trailer
2018 RAM 2500 6.7L 4WD shortbed
Straightline dual cam hitch
400W Solar with Victron controller
Superbumper

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
You must mean one of these or the 300-dollar stainless steel model from West Marine that sucks 5 amps

AMAZON AMAZON AMAZON


Quick Products QP-TE1-0126 Boundless Breeze Ultimate RV/Marine Fan โ€“ 12 Volt
by Quick Products
4.0 out of 5 stars 45 customer reviews
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Perfect for your RV, car, boat and more
Ten powerful blades create sustained airstreams up to 10 mph
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CANDID DESCRIPTION from Manufacturer QUICK! INDEED

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Explorer
I'm talking a real barn-burner of a squeal...






pnichols
Explorer II
Explorer II
MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
My experience with FANTASTIC FAN Endless Breeze is that I am FORCED to settle for a top of the junkheap EXPENSIVE product. There are none better and most a lot worse.

The motor is a JAPANESE product. Irreparable.

Riveted. Rivets are unique. So are the brushes and the motor manufacturer refuses to sell anything but complete motors.

The last three fans including warranty emit a high pitched squeal that offends my 90% deaf ears. People with regular hearing cannot tolerate to be in the same room with the squeal. The manufacturer smiled and sends complimentary fans that squeal even worse.

I have been getting a JUNK product. Period.

But there are no other competing products.

A new motor costs 80% of the cost of a complete new fan
I am supposed to be satisfied with this?

And now we have a fresh crop of double-digit IQ radical congresspeople in Washington who can't pour p*** out of a boot with directions on the heel?


David, you might want to look in the marine world for good quality fans that are intended for use in boat cabins. As I understnad it, they're quiet, just sip 12 volt current, and you as you might have guessed ... it's expensive.

I'm really paranoid about product quality. When I shop for something nowadays, I start looking for the most expensive version of it and maybe, or maybe not, work down (in price and quality) from there. I like to buy it right so that I only have to buy it once - in the long run it's cheaper that way.

P.S. My Endless Breeze Fantastic Fan in the RV does make a bit of a "mechanical sound" that is noticeable mostly on it's highest setting. I attribute that to it's brushless motor (with me knowing nothing about brushless design limitations) ... but maybe that has nothing to do with it. Are brushless motors inherently more noisy?
2005 E450 Itasca 24V Class C