For the last few days of our trips to Ireland we stayed with friends in County Clare. They took us to this amazing place, on the way to lunch elsewhere:
https://wastelandssalvage.com/
There's a huge amount of stuff, of which a very small proportion might be of direct interest to forum members. I didn't buy anything
Certainly on the road to the back of nowhere. Been up that way once maybe going to Scarriff.
Our friends live in the middle of nowhere near Tulla, about 20km west of Wastelands. We called at Wastelands en route to Killaloe, to look at the Lua and Brian Boru history etc. Our friends have a grandson aged about 4 who is fascinated by anything mechanical and electrical. Of course I showed our friends "The Knack"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8vHhgh6oM0 The lad is entranced by Wastelands but he wasn't with us that day. His father is an IT professional (infosec) so he understands.
Maybe Tulla has or had a chipboard factory from local forestry? Yes, I'd go through Killaloe to get to Tulla.
Mike, apologies for not arranging to see you on this visit. We knew we would be fully committed with our friends near Tulla. And I had a horrible cold for the days we were near Tulla so you wouldn't have wanted me around.
Earlier in the trip we were in Northern Ireland and Donegal. Photos are Ruth on the Carrick-a-Rede bridge and the LED light at Fanad lighthouse. That was a fascinating visit. The LED assembly looks like a mechanical drop-in replacement for the 4x halogen assembly that in turn replaced a massive conventional filament lamp. I forget how much they reckoned the LED saved on the electric bill but it was certainly thousands of Euros per year. I think the LED was 70W, replacing 1kW of halogen and 3kW of conventional. I'm not sure that all the halogen and filaments were in use at the same time. Some may have been backup. Impressive heatsinks!
https://fanadlighthouse.com/
Highly recommended if you're in Donegal.
Don't look down :D Or at the light!
It's a long time since I was on that bridge. And longer before that that I had a tour of Blackhead lighthouse at Whitehead. The big diesel generators were impressive.
August has the Lighthouses on the Air weekend. I went to Tarbert once for that.
That is one hell of an LED.
Big LED arrays are common these days as they are used in hydroponic growing.
Tracy
The main thing about the lighthouse LED is that they are getting as close as possible to a very bright point source. Very different to growing lights which are wide area and diffuse.