Northern Michigan Solar Powered Cabin 

 Alternative Energy Living at the 45th parallel  

 

 

 

 

 Updated:06/26/2010                  ENTIRE SITE IS COPYRIGHT 2010, MC PHOTOGRAPHY                       BEST WHEN VIEWED ON A 16:9 SCREEN

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! 

wpe7.jpg (113880 bytes)

Peukerts formula explained
T = C/(I/(C/R))n X (R/C)
Peukerts formula helps you design an alternative energy system by showing the real world capacity of your bank!
Peukerts wizard
Really cool links
[Stray voltage]  [Low voltage book]
[Voltage drop calculator]
[National Electric Code]
Solar Panel grounding from the dean of solar, John Wiles.
Battery bank information from Sierra Nevada Airstreams.
Battery desulfator schematic
Saaaay....trying to watch This Old Shack and you seem to be buffering a lot? Don't blame us, blame the internet! Take a look at the current condition of the internet in North America.

NAVIGATION

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Recently updated / new pages
Wiring the cabin / DC systems explained
System wiring
New battery bank testing continues. Read about it here.
Even worse, watch a "This Old Shack" outtake
Read about the system  
Temperature compensated charging chart  

 

We're going to build our own solar panels! 
Read the diary entry here. 

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Nitro-Pak Preparedness Center

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.

Are you moving your home (like we are) or your small business? Then the Small Company Moving Guide is for you!

Visitor map by Ipligence.com

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.

Quite possibly the best preparedness site in the world.

But why solar power?

There were several reasons for the switch:

  • Sprinkle of rain = power failure.

  • Giving a little back by not using so much.

  • Independent living.

Benefits:

  • Renewable power.
  • Learning about solar power.
  • Own stock in the solar panel company. :-)
  • I like batteries.
  • I can sit around smoking a cigar because I'm an energy mogul!

Drawbacks:

  • Maintenance.
  • Installation.
  • Bunch of black glass panels sitting around.

Can I Have a Balloon?

By Bill Xam

Back to the SRV cam

   
Iballoon.jpg (114031 bytes)t was a cool crisp day in northern Michigan and all I wanted was a balloon. But they weren’t handing out weather balloons. What I got instead was a lot of fun and a great time at the open house that the National Weather Service, Gaylord, Michigan station had recently. You’ve probably heard of first responders, the people who respond to emergencies to help save lives. The National Weather Service gives first responders the information they need to do their jobs; The office issues about 90 weather warnings and 1300 marine advisories a year and issues fire advisories for 3 areas, Sleeping Bear Dunes, The Huron and Manistee National forests. During a recent wildfire in Michigan, the NWS tracked the smoke from the fire on their radar!

 

Click here for weather balloon launch video Atmospheric data is one of the most important tools that are used for weather forecasting. Weather balloons are launched 3 times a day. These provide soundings (data)  from various altitudes about wind speed, temperature, and air pressure.. These readings are used as part of forecasting weather. Here's a web site that you will love: The College of DuPage outside of Chicago has a premier weather site. Click here to visit it. Here is their national weather balloon sounding page. Just click on the city you want to see the data from (Gaylord, MI is APX)

Every living thing on this planet from the smallest viruses to humans to giant whales needs 3 things to live; water, food and air. What every living thing depends on is the weather. It ties every single life together. Weather controls how we get our food, where we find our water Bruce Cambell of NWS Gaylord and the quality of the air we breathe. Accurate predictions of weather is rapidly becoming one of the most important aspects of 21st century life on planet Earth. Ongoing work with computer modeling is rapidly increasing the ability to forecast weather more accurately for a longer time, says Bruce Cambell (see photo, left) of the Gaylord, Michigan facility.

Useless Factoid

The National Weather Service is part of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration and is a government agency. Their primary duty is weather warnings according to Bruce Cambell of the NWS Gaylord station (APX)

Gales? You’re covered. Blizzards, tornados, thunderstorms? Gaylord NWS is your best friend in northern Michigan. Manned by talented people like Cambell, the station also has 5, count them 5 weather broadcasting stations throughout northern Michigan and works closely with the National Forest Service to predict fire danger. 

  Working from what looks like the bridge of a starship, the staff atstaff1.jpg (144496 bytes) Gaylord NWS works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week keeping the civilian, aviation and boating populations safe and snug as they go about their business. The office also issues aviation forecasts for Traverse City, Alpena and Pellston, Michigan.

This innocent looking facility strikes you as one of the most important weather forecasting facilities in the midwest if not the nation. Responsible for over 4500 marine forecasts covering 4300 miles of great lakes shoreline (12 marine zones in the great lakes)  for Lakes Michigan, Huron and parts of Superior, NWS Gaylord  covers everything from freighter safety to forest fire forecasts to blizzard warnings to aviation warnings and forecasts. Safety and weather warnings for freighters that carry many of the products and supplies that the midwest of the United States relies on comes from this office situated in the smack dab in the center of Michigan between Lake Michigan and Huron almost right on the 45th parallel, the midpoint between the equator and the North Pole.

Another part of weather data comes from unmanned data collection. Here's a photo of a "Fischer-Porter-Belfort"PICT0456.JPG (1265591 bytes) electromechanical rain gauge that measures rainfall by the weight of the rain and tracks the data at 15 minute intervals. They're all over the state of Michigan. 

 

 Weather predictions are done by 3 advanced computer models running on computers in Washington D.C. using physics formulas that would make Einstein blush. The knowledgeable people at the local National Weather Service offices like Gaylord  (most with masters degrees) pick and choose between the predictions depending on which model happens to be producing the most accurate weather outlooks. 2006 marks the 10thradar.jpg (69591 bytes) anniversary of the installation of the weather radar at Gaylord. Future plans call for a phase array radar similar to what the United States Navy uses which will greatly speed up weather radar updates. You see, the weather radar dishes rotate at a rate of about 5 minutes, scanning a different altitude each time. That’s why weather radar is updated every 15 minutes. A lot can happen in 15 minutes, so speeding up the process is job one for researchers working on the project.

Also on hand was the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, another division of the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) which now has a buoy tethering system for scuba divers and snorkeling shipwreck explorers. The program is approved by the Coast Guard and are highly visible for everyone interested in seeing great lakes shipwrecks, which include the E.B Allen, the Montana and the Shamrock, all ships that have sunk off of Thunder Bay. I'll be covering that in an upcoming article.

The author would like to thank the NWS Gaylord, Michigan staff for their time.

Back to the SRV cam

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Interested in using a solar cooking. You need recipes.

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This company makes top notch battery desulfators. Check them out.

http://www.solarhotusa.com

 Increase your home value installing Solar energy water heater.

We've teamed up with Amazon for our product listings after some really bad experiences with an online auction site.

Products

GoldenGadgets.com
Golden Gadgets, LED lighting and low energy products.

80-Watt High-Efficiency Solar Panel - $404

20A Solar Charge Controller - $40.95

1000-Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter with Remote Control-$239.20

AIMS 5000 Watt DC to AC Modified Sine Wave Inverter-$379.51

Tripp Lite 1800W Permanent Mount Inverter-$277.41

Tripp Lite PowerVerter RV Inverter/Charger RV2012OEM - 2 kW-$499.99

DC Power Meter Monitor with computer data logger software for volts, watts & amps-$199.00

Clamp on meter for measuring PV system amps- $79.99

HQRP 50 Watt Mono-crystalline Solar Panel 12 Volts in Anodized Aluminum Frame

How I test

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. 

Sierra Nevada Airstreams battery temperature compensation chart Even worse, watch a Feedjit Live Blog Stats Battery bank setup My generator updated Email Me Temperature compensated charging chart Read about the system Solar Panel grounding from the dean of solar, John Wiles. Alternative Energy News Feeds Photographs Xantrex Charge Controller latest lightning video Read the diary entry here. DiaryDex Live weather from the shack Check it out! Building your own panels Are you moving your home (like we are) or your small business? Then the Small Company Moving Guide is for you! This Old Shack About the system THIS OLD SHACK Air Tabs energy blog Old Shack here Energy News Feeds battery desulfator schematic Earthquake/vocano activity A trip to the cabin! You need recipes Battery charge chart Sun activity widget added to earthquake activity page Generator buying tips Quite possibly the best preparedness site in the world. Appliances for cabins initial diary entry Privacy policy - please read! NREL redbook Death of a battery Battery wiring Cheap solar water heater Peukerts Wiring the cabin Photos of my system Gas mileage (Dodge Dakota) About the alternative energy system New battery bank testing continues. Read about it here. Live weather information from the shack! Peukerts formula explained Handy conversion formulas Generator article reprint Alternative energy news feeds (NEW) Installation