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Disaster planning should be part of every single household across America, strike that, the world. When disaster strikes, people die or lives are changed. 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.
Three years ago, our home caught fire. I spent time in intensive care and almost died, thus I know from whence I speak.
As we go into our third season of "This Old Shack", disaster planning and survival episodes become more important. After all, that's what alternative energy is - the ability for you to survive without an infrastructure. All of our episodes of This Old Shack and our new show, "CSI:SALINE" will reflect this in 2009. Oh, of course there's going to be laughs and beer drinking - this survival crap is depressing to think about.
So, practice your fire drills with the crumbcrunchers, practice evacuating yourselves, your pets, your neighbors. Learn how to use a fire extinguisher. And watch our videos!
WATCH BILL XAM LIVE EVERY NIGHT AT 6:30 PM, EST ON THE ANIMAL FEEDER SETUP SHOW!
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NAVIGATION
But why solar power?
There were several reasons for the switch:
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Sprinkle of rain = power failure.
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Giving a little back by not using so much.
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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.
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Building your own panelsI've been getting a LOT of emails about this. Feel free to email me about the building of panels. It's not that hard, just time consuming and needs a steady hand to do the soldering and connecting of the cells. Last update: 09/20/2009
Building solar panels isn't as hard as it might seem. If you can connect your battery bank together, you can build your own panels. Panels are made up of individual solar cells that are connected together and then put in a case that you make that protects them from weather and damage. One important aspect of building your panels is that you need to keep in mind the final output that you want. In other words, if you want a 2 amp (42 watt) panel that will charge a 12 volt battery bank, you're going to need a higher voltage output than 12 volts. Most commercial panels will produce about 21 volts (open circuit - nothing connected but the voltage meter; once you connect a load, the voltage will drop). You can build them in a series of sets of cells and then parallel connect them to get the desired output. I know, that sounds daunting but it's really not. Consider: you purchase a solar cell that puts out 2 amps at .5 volts. Okay, you can build a 2 amp panel from that. You'll need 42 cells to get your 21 volts (you want to connect them in series like flashlight batteries; + to -). Now, if you want a 4 amp panel, connect two strings of cells in parallel (+ to +. - to -). The important thing to remember is that it's the same as a battery bank. Parallel connections as power, series connections add voltage.
Connecting the cells takes some patience and learning how to solder the small tabs (they look like little strips of aluminum foil) to the cells, one side of which is positive and the other negative - just like a battery - takes some practice. To make the panels, you can use aluminum for the frame and back, wood, plastic - basically whatever is solid, can be made water proof (not just water resistant) and can last a long time. Solar cells can last 20 years or more. The costs of individual cells vary all the time. I suggest this supplier of solar cells: ● Email Me ● |
