Northern Michigan Solar Powered CabinAlternative Energy Living at the 45th parallel
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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.NAVIGATION Email or Contact us here
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We're going to build our own solar panels!Read the diary entry here. |
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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 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.
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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". |
Quite possibly the best preparedness site in the world.
There were several reasons for the switch:
Sprinkle of rain = power failure.
Giving a little back by not using so much.
Independent living.
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National Weather Service Article
Last week of March, 2007
Latest Diary entry:3-30-07 After rooting around on the web for a while, I've come across some sites that sell bits and pieces that off grid homeowners might be able to use. Yandina has some products that allow you to combine AGM and lead acid batteries, 12/24 volt automatic switches and other handy devices. For as long as this is active, here is an interesting discussion on exploding battery banks in industrial settings - we'd all do well to follow the advice here. I don't care who you are, this little tool is interesting for locating your solar panels. And finally the data you've been looking for, excerpts from the NREL redbook! 3-28-07
Well, the diary entries are coming hot and heavy as the first trip to the cabin approaches. If you watched the first episode of "This Old Shack" you saw how to make cables for your battery bank. I'd been using store bought cables - they corroded in less than 6 months of use so I opted for copper connectors and thus I showed you how to make them and build a battery bank. While checking over the type 31 batteries in the large bank (see here) I found one that was very low on water. That's bad. Somehow I missed it so I'm drawing up a regular maintenance schedule that's better than the old one. I have also created a new scheme that's between an RV and a cabin set-up. We'll see how that works (I'm not holding my breath). The second episode of "This Old Shack" will be filmed this coming weekend so stay tuned for more explosions! 3-27-07 There has been an update to the first episode clarifying series battery bank connections. See the link at left. 3-26-07 The first episode of "This Old Shack" is in the can, edited and now available for viewing! While filming, I was able to get some actual work done; I made new cables for the the small bank, connected a 12volt power outlet to it and ran a 12 hour test at 9 amps using the laptop. It's starting to look a lot like springtime! The snow cover in northern Michigan is gone, the weather looks "good" for next weekend, soooooo. It may be time for the very first trip to the cabin of the year! 3-20-07 I started to do the first episode of "This Old Shack" but after stammering into the camera for a half hour I decided to wait for a more opportune time. If you remember from my last entry, I've labeled all the batteries and split them into two planned banks, Large and Small. The large one for inverter use, the small one for 12 volt power use.
After the first two tests where I place a constant 6 amp load on each battery individually, I discovered that the charge time for each one (S1, S2, S3) varied. By a lot. How I did this was by charging each unit from a 70% charge to full charge (according to the Schumacher Smartcharger) at a 2 amp rate (Note: yes, this isn't a real world example. While at the cabin, I charge at 30 amps) in order to bring the batteries up to full charge with as little stress as possible. What I noticed is that battery S2 got to 90% and stayed there. A loooong time. At a charge rate of 8 amps, it came right up to a normal charge. What I've done is equalize the battery with my manual charger and will test it again tonight. The other two small bank batteries are performing nominally (note to self: gotta start using more NASA like terms - call it NITWIT: Nasa Infusion of Terms With Interesting Testing) and don't look like they're a problem, even the one that did in fact give me problems when it was new.
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How I testThere 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.
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