Updated:07/30/2010 ENTIRE
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Learn about
alternative energy, hybrid systems and watch pointless videos!
If you have any
questions, contact us.
I'm always happy to provide a convoluted answer to a simple question.
At this site, you can learn from my real world experiences
in solar energy production and how I produce power at our cabin in Northern
Michigan. The cabin is located right on the 45th parallel near Gaylord,
Michigan. Check out our photography
site which has some photos around the cabin in the nature and winter
sections.
While this format of the site will stay
here as it is, more of our updates and new articles will be in the new
format. Visit the
new format site here.
Peukerts formula helps you design an
alternative energy system by showing the real world capacity of your
bank!
First of all, welcome to our site! We've been
around for several years and conduct all kinds of half baked DIY projects on our
show, This Old Shack. Be sure to check out all
of our half witted articles and pages. If you have questions, just Email
us and we will do our best to confuse you beyond all belief.
Disaster
planning should be part of every single household across America, strike that,
the world. When disaster strikes, people die or lives are c80%hanged. In times of
plenty, forego the Playstations and buy extra food. You can explain a lack of
toys better than a lack of food to your children.
In
1980 our military switched its entire food ration program over to the full
moisture MRE pouch system. These are the meals we tested on "This Old
Shack". Check
them out here.
I can sit around smoking a cigar because I'm
an energy mogul!
Drawbacks:
Maintenance.
Installation.
Bunch of black glass panels sitting around.
Diary from the shack
These are the old blog entries. Read the newer blog entries here
which has an RSS option that may or may not work depending on the mood of some
guy in New Jersey.
In our efforts to keep all of our batteries as healthy as possible, we've
turned our attention to one of the old time original batteries that we purchased
back in 2006. This is an EverStart Wal-Mart deep cycle (aka, trolling) marine
battery. It was one of our first ones which was a bank of group 24 79 amp hour
batteries. These guys performed well over their lives. Two have headed to the
big battery bank in the sky and this is our last one. Well, we've succeeded in
equalizing this thing using the methods that I describe in the "Equalizing
a battery bank" page. Tonight, we start testing it on a real time load
running the laptop from it. At 79 amp hours, using a 5 amp draw, the battery
should power the lap top for about 4 hours before reaching a 75% charge using
the hydrometer.
7-25-10
Dateline, Saline, Michigan at our main headquarters. The shack where we do
all the alternative energy is 250 miles north at the 45th parallel. Major storms
moved through the area while I was at the shack attempting once again to shoot
an episode of "This Old Shack". Lightning hit the trees behind the
headquarters, along with 90 mile an hour winds, which fell onto power lines. The
lightning then traveled down the power lines, setting them and the forest on
fire, exploding several other transformers and going into all the buildings. The
police, fire and power company responded to the fire. Once I heard about the
disaster, I headed back with the battery bank, generator and inverters. We're
now running on alternative energy. Our power company because of all the damage
expects our power to be out for up to 7 days. At this point while running
everything from the generator and battery bank, we lost the computer in our hot
water heater, a large freezer as well as who knows what else. Updates as they
occur.
Things are moving along at the shack quite nicely. We've installed the new
battery bank and it looks like we were able to merge it with the older East-Penn
(Deka) battery that we already have successfully. Doing that required a healthy
equalizing effort that we'll repeat when we next visit the shack. We brought
back the two EverStart (Exide) Wal-Mart batteries to the "This Old
Shack" headquarters to equalize them via grid power. While we would
normally do this with the generator and dump 10 amps into them for 4-6 hours,
time didn't permit it this past trip.
Another part of the entire system is to rely less and less on using the
inverter to supply power - making the entire shack run on 12 volts will increase
the efficiency of energy use. An inverter will at most be 90% efficient which
means that you're losing 10% of your power right off the bat. When you're
producing your own power every little bit helps or hurts. The next step in
this process was to reduce our wall warts by one - the cell phone charger.
We now have a Ray-O-Vac charger for the phone. And get this, it's USB!
That's right, while the laptop is sitting there happily buzzing away running on
12 volts, the cell phone can charge from it, even when it's in standby mode!
With more and more devices designed to run on USB supplied power, it's time for
a list of our USB powered stuff!
We haven't received our 108 solar cells that we ordered on
30-JUN-2010.
In an email conversation with the company in California that we purchased
them from we were told that they are "30 days behind on
shipping". Thus, our opinion of the company that we purchased them
from is being reserved for when we actually get them in hand.
One thing I will say is that we had high hopes for this particular supplier
which are rapidly fading. While we'll build the panels with the cells we won't
name the company for obvious reasons.
Watch a mini-episode all about the new battery bank
Press play or right click and then play
I write these diary entries so you can learn
from my mistakes and hopefully skip a few steps in the learning curve. All of
this is intended as an educational experience and hopefully entertaining too.
Here is an excerpt from an email discussion I'm having with a new
alternative energy user I'm consulting with about his system:
The low voltage or inverter decision is difficult to make but I'll take a stab
at giving you what knowledge and thoughts I have. I'm also going to put this
reply on the blog at the site since it's getting pretty involved in this
discussion. Might even make it into an episode of This Old Shack. Whether it's a
DC or AC system, you need a breaker box, breakers, wiring and outlets. It's all
the same, system protection.
Anyways, you can go low voltage all the way and get low voltage appliances (try roadtrucker.com)
or a mixture or stick with an inverter based system. It's all a matter of what
you are comfortable with. The lower the voltage, the more resistance any wiring
will have therefore the larger the wiring. I use 10 gauge from the panels to the
charger. For an actual wiring circuit, I'd go with 12 gauge for short runs (less
than 15 feet) and 10 gauge for over that. Yeah, I know that's some big wire but
it will make the system more energy efficient by reducing the resistance and
power usage. Another question you're going to have is what the heck kind of
outlets do I use for a 12 volt system so I don't plug in my 50" HD
television to a 12 volt outlet? Simple, use 240 volt style outlets like
this one. Get some males, wire them up and off you go! No muss, no fuss.
Makes things a lot easier if you do decide to go with a mixed system (DC and
AC).
That said, while a 510 ah battery is sweet as honey, it's still 510 amp hours
(250 amp hours usable - don't go below 50% charge!), which is about the size of
our bank at the shack. I try to stick with low voltage as much as I can (12 volt
laptop power supply, 12 volt lights, etc., etc..). What I do for lighting is use
(believe it or not) some 3 light LED lighting kits that I picked up at Lowes.
They're designed as yard floodlights but they have their own solar panel,
batteries and about 30 feet of wiring. I've been using them for 4 years, year
round. They light up at night and go off during the day. I love them. 3 or 4 of
these things and some creative mounting inside and you can take lighting off
your list. Add 12 volt switches to them and you can shut them off. Plus they
light up the place when you're not there. I actually use them for lighting when
I'm video taping at night, that's how bright they are. For me, it's a no brainer
but some people don't like LEDs because they are slightly blue but not much. You
could even go with 12
volt CF bulbs in regular lamps.
As far as an inverter goes, that again goes with what you are powering with
them. For a fridge, television, stuff like that look at pure sine wave
inverters. Remember, however, that you can get those too in 12 volt versions but
they're more expensive. Pure sine wave inverters will suck down an additional
200-400 watts just by themselves so be careful there. Remember to size it right
if you go that way. If your stuff will use 1,000 watts, get a 2,000 watt
inverter to account for start up loads. Forget the "surge" rating of
the things. For anything else, go with a modified square wave. What one of my
projects is is converting a UPS to use as an inverter. Much less expensive and
you can use them with a battery bank and they can be grounded.
For a breaker box and circuit breakers, I would stick with Square-D "QO"
low voltage breakers all the way for a 12 volt system. They fit in a normal
breaker box. If you decide to wire AC, just go with a normal breaker box. Again,
this is where you can get into a gray area with codes and such. Any system must
be grounded, that is a given, the panels, battery bank, inverter - really any
wiring. That type of inverter is a lot more expensive than one that doesn't have
a ground. An ungrounded inverter is something like $100 for a decent
one and plan on $300 plus for a grounded one like
this one. However, I'm comfortable with the grounding I have. What I do, and
this is not really code but it works is use a small inverter (400 watts) and use
a suicide cord to an outlet connected to the breaker box that feeds to the
breakers. Again, not code but it works for my needs - all I run off of AC is two
CF bulbs at night if I need them.
There you go. I'll close by saying that with some careful planning and downloading
the program called HOMER
to help you design the system and you can prevent a lot of the growing pains
that you'll have with alternative energy. Free and it works - it's what I
used.
UPDATE: 7-6-10;The new bank has been running our
Acer laptop using a 12 volt power supply (5 amp constant) for 9 hours pulling a
total of 45 amp hours. Math indicates that we should be at 80% charge.
Hydrometer agrees with the math exactly. Conclusion: the new bank is working
better than expected.
After getting back to our headquarters from the shack, we've started a new
regime for cycling the new batteries to get them to their full potential. As you
can read in some of the earlier diary entries, we've learned that it can take up
to 30 to 50 charge/discharge cycles for a deep cycle battery to reach it's full
potential. That's what we're doing right now with our East Penn deep cycle
batteries. Let's
take a look at the the results so far:
CYCLE #
START CHARGE % (SPECIFIC GRAVITY)
END CHARGE % (SPECIFIC GRAVITY)
LOAD (AMPS)
TIME TO FULL CHARGE (HOURS)
LENGTH OF TEST (HOURS)
OUT OF BOX
1.238 (80%)
1.250 (100%)
0
5*
0
1
1.250 (100%)
1.225 (75%)
1
7*
1.0
2
1.250 (100%)
1.195 (60%)
3
4*
3.5
3
1.250 (100%)
1.217 (75%)
3
3.75*
3.5
4
1.250 (100%)
1.219 (80%)
3
3.25*
3.5
5
1.245 (98%)
1.238 (80%)
5
3.5**
7
6
1.245 (98%)
1.238 (80%)
5
3.5**
10
7
1.250 (100%)
1.216 (75%)
7
3.25
10
8
9
10
* manual charger, 6
amps **Automatic
charger, 3 stages
Bank configuration: group 31, 119 amp hours each, 238
amp hours total
Don't forget to refer to the battery temperature
compensation chart when you are testing your batteries. As you can see, each cycle gets us both a shorter charge time, longer cycle
time even though the loads that we're placing on the batteries are increasing.
The goal is to have this new bank run an older laptop 27/7 and will use one of
the new solar panels that we are building to use as a game camera at the shack.
As you can see, we've stopped using voltage readings for the new batteries.
While voltage is handy for a general condition it does little for you while a
load is on the battery. As a for instance example: Your battery is at a 90%
state of charge (12.48 volts), while under a load, it might read 12.10 volts.
Using a hydrometer, your off load reading would be 1.245 and under the load it
would be 1.245. As you can see, using the hydrometer method is both more
accurate and better. However, certain safety protocols change - wear goggles,
wear rubber gloves, have a glass jar or cup to put the hydrometer in to keep the
electrolyte from damaging your stuff.
Survivalist tendencies go along with off grid lifestyles, regardless of your
reasoning for pursuing the lifestyle. When you're dependant on yourself for your
basic survival, your outlook changes somewhat from supplies management to energy
production. Having access to the latest scientific and public intelligence
allows me to pursue several possible courses of action for any given
activity.
As an example, my latest thoughts: I started looking for any
association between PV output and solar flares/sun activity. Well, I didn't find
any of that but I did find some disturbing information. The popular opinion is
that ground based PV systems would not survive an EMP pulse (natural or man
made). So, is it enough of a concern to keep some PV panels in a faraday cage (a
faraday cage is an electrical shield around sensitive electronics. The first
modern use was equipment to test nuclear bomb tests)? Quite possibly. At
the very least a couple of hundred inexpensive solar cells in a foil wrapped box
would be a good idea along with a charge controller.
An EMP pulse is generated when there is either a high output event from the
sun or from a man made explosion (nuclear detonation), probably from orbit. As
an example a relatively small nuclear explosion in orbit from a country that
doesn't like us like Iran over the central United States would fry every
unprotected piece of electronics from the entire electrical grid to vehicles,
aircraft in the air from the east coast to the west, north to south. Exceptions
would the the northeast, northwest tier of states and some pockets. Having the
shack as far north as the 45th parallel suddenly seems like a pretty good idea.
So there you go, another twisted bit of logic that may or may not be
accurate. Only time will tell.
Test cycle number 2 and 3 on the new testing batteries is done (East
Penn group 31 deep cycle, 119 AH each). This cycle I connected one of the
laptops to each battery in turn for 3 hours each and ran a web cam on the
computer. As you probably read in the initial
diary entry about the new batteries, it takes 20 or more cycles before a
deep cycle battery reaches it's full potential.
Do your own research on the web! Never take
anyone's word that what you are reading is correct - find some kind of
secondary source about the same information. I've got some links at the
top of every page on the site that are a good starting point.
This can be pretty disconcerting to a alternative energy novice and even
some professionals. The theory is that deep cycle batteries have heavier lead
plates and better plate separators. When you first get the batteries that you
are going to use, the strength of the electrolyte is at a certain point from the
factory where it was made.
As you cycle the battery, the electrolyte gains strength. My first group 31
battery (made by the same company as the new ones, East Penn) was a disappointment
when I put it into service - this was before I actually spent the time to
research what I was doing - it just plain sucked. The cycle length was pitiful
and it took too long to charge. Now, after three years of use and about 100
charge cycles on it, it performs like it should. Had I taken the time to learn
and read, I would have known this from the start.
Now that the new batteries are starting to get their "legs" I'll
run the next couple of cycles at a higher amp level using not only the laptop
but a small inverter and a 7 watt CFL bulb. The idea is (and this is only the
way I condition deep cycle batteries, how you do it is up to you).
Here are some photos of the new veggie garden. Watering is done using an
inexpensive drip irrigation kit (comes with tubes and little drip thingies) that
uses rain water drawn from the cisterns using gravity (siphon). We're going to
draw off of both cisterns at the same time using a "T" fitting in the
lines. I don't know if it qualifies as alternative energy but it doesn't use any
power! Click for large photos
Here's a photo of cistern 1 with
the gravity fed watering kit. The cisterns are 35 gallon trash cans with a
hole in the lid for the downspout.
Yes Virginia, it really does
work. Here is the siphon drip system in action. We use a small clamp on
the hose to regulate the flow of water.
Using landscaping blocks, we set
up a ring and used plastic sheeting under the dirt to hold moisture - the
land is all sand.
Here's another shot of the
garden. Think of it as a real big container garden, a sort of weird square
foot gardening method.
We are eagerly awaiting the delivery of our shipment of solar cells to
produce our first panel. We should be able to produce either (2) 60 watt panels
or (1) 120 watt panel. The key is not actually making the things. The real
issue will be making them weatherproof. See this diary entry
for more
Yet another exciting day at the 45th parallel. Our new batteries are passing
the initial test that I'm throwing at them which is running a laptop with a 12
volt power supply and a web cam to record scenes from Big Bass lake during the
day and our animal visitors at night. After 4 hours of use the first test has
the batteries at 85% charge for battery number 1 and 80% for battery number 2.
Our test and review of our new solar lighting system is underway. Thus far the
lights are working fantastic and are able to stay lit for 9 hours or more.
We will be at the shack shooting another exciting episode of "This
Old Shack" this weekend (7-1 thru 7-5). Up this time around is the first
test results from our new solar lighting system and building a small generator
house on the cheap. While we're there, we'll be trying out the At&T wireless
at the local McDonalds in town - a 30 mile trip - and maybe some on the spot
diary entries!
7-1-10B
Good news! After 3 years of attempts, switching between two different
synthetic oils, moving around the air filter, mounting air dams and Air
Tabs on the official "This Old Shack" truck, we have hit on the
perfect formula for getting the very best fuel mileage. Using the hyper mileage
driving technique and all the other additions to the truck, we have achieved
25.5 miles per gallon over a 750 mile loop. Starting at 17 miles per gallon and
adding the side skirts, air dam, low rolling resistance tires, the airaid air
filter and several other small additions to the truck, we have been able to get
the thing to a constant 25.5 miles per gallon. Look for an upcoming mini episode
of "This Old Shack" detailing this amazing increase in mileage in the
near future.
Well, it's time! Those of you who watch the show would probably assume that
it is beer time (of course) however we will finally be doing something that is
our most requested topic - we're going to build our own solar panels! Using a
solar cell kit available on the internet that we're ordering this week, we will
build solar panels. These kits are supposed to come with all the needed stuff,
rosin, taps for wiring and everything. How is it done?
Concerns about building panels: Sandwiching the cells between two glass plates raises
several concerns:
Trapped water vapor causing condensation and shorts. Could
use a vacuum sealer to suck the air out.
Glass will stop some needed frequencies of sunlight.
Glass will cut down on the intensity of the sunlight.
Remember my article
on series versus parallel connections - series adds the voltage, parallel
adds the amps. So, to make a solar panel what you would do is connect a
series of solar cells (cells make up a panel) to the correct voltage
(something like 21 volts not connected to the battery bank, that is what
is called the "shorted voltage"). Then you take several of these
series of cells and connect them in parallel to get the amperage that you want.
So if you want say, a panel that puts out 60 watts, you would take a series of
cells to get to your 21 volts (not connected to a battery bank, that is
what is called the "shorted voltage") and then take several of these
series and connect them in parallel to get the amperage that you want.
Building a panel is fairly easy. The most difficult part is building the
housing that the things sit in. I've seen commercial panels that have no, repeat
no glass over the cells and some that do have glass over them. The trick, I
believe is to create a perfect seal between the cells so there is no possible
way for moisture to get in there and using an aluminum channel to mount the
panel in. Here's an idea: Using those little plastic tile crosses that space
ceramic tiles to space the cells. That will allow us to apply a perfect seal
between the cells (something like silicone caulk).
As for the mounting of the cells, I suspect that using Lexan or Plexiglas to
mount the cells to is the way to go.
We will, of course, see if that idea works. Mounting the series of cells
would be using a silicone adhesive not a hot glue because the things will get
HOT in the sun - up to 150 degrees on some days.
Stay tuned to keep up to date on this most requested project.
Oh baby, do we have a video for you! I'm a storm chaser and as
luck would have it we had a major lightning storm here at the main house.
Lightning hitting the street in front of us, transformers blowing up and our
neighbors getting hit by lightning. Check
it out!
If you've watched my Youtube trailer for the season premier
of This Old Shack, you're probably saying, "Bill, what the heck happened to
your hair?". Go here
to find out more.
And finally the data you've been looking for, excerpts
from the NREL redbook!
There are several people on various newsgroups and discussion areas that waylay in uninformed or those just starting out in the off grid world of self power generation. This involves an almost religious belief in a phantom 6v golf cart true deep cycle battery that is superior in every way to any other battery in existence.
A simple examination of the specification sheet for a line of 6v and 12v off grid batteries will tell you quite clearly that there is no one single best solution for all circumstances. It is not accurate to say one is best.
Our system has been using the much maligned Harbor Freight 45 watt solar panel kits for 4 years. Over these years, we've moved them back and forth from the main home in Saline, Michigan to the shack in Gaylord. They've been dropped, exposed to heavy rain, snow, sleet, hail. One even has even had the glass on it shattered from a tree limb dropping on it.
Look, using testing equipment is all well and
good but those spec sheets don't mean squat if you can't run YOUR stuff
for as long as you want to. So what I do (so you don't have to) is get the
equipment (batteries, inverters, solar panels) and put what I run on it.
Usually about 30-50 watts at 12 volts - few amps of draw. You know, turning
lights on and off, running a computer (a laptop) and whatnot.
Throughout the test, a digital meter is run on
the bank and a hydrometer is used once an hour to determine whether the meter is
reading the correct voltage. During the sunlight hours on the panels, there is
another digital meter installed at the primary junction box (where the panels
feed into the 10 gauge cables that feed to the charge controller) that measures
panel voltage and amps.
One of the things that I like the best about
alternative energy is that you can make it as complicated or simple as you like.
Some people, even though they use alternative energy simply don't have a good
grasp on the entire substance that goes into the makeup of an engineered system
that has been built from scratch.
Don't ask me why, but I've recently become interested in
studying earthquake/volcano activity around the world; ash plumes and such. I've
added a page with RSS feeds and links to satellite imagery.