Diary from the cabin, page 9

7-2-06

Summertime in northern Michigan is in full swing!

The Loons are in the lake, the Beavers are building their dams and for the first time ever here at the cabin, we've got Rabbits, which explains how my veggies disappeared.

Tripp Lite LC1800

 The new generator is installed, the ground to it is hooked up and it's wired to the battery bank from the 12 side and hooked up to my Tripp Lite LC1800 line conditioner on the 120 volt side. As I write this, I've run it for a total of about 12 hours to charge the bank. At the 20 hour mark, I will be switching to synthetic motor oil. I haven't changed any power consumption rates. Normally, now that the bank is at 400 amp hours, I use less than 10% of the total capacity of the bank, some of which is put back by the solar panels and the rest made up from the generator as needed. My goal is to run the generator as little as possible (of course). Thus far, I've been able to keep the running down to 30 minute sessions twice a day. After a solid 4 hour run, the generator consumed 1.75 gallons of gasoline under a 5 amp load (25%). The generator house (which doubles as a storage shed) kills about half of the noise this thing makes.

The 12 volt output is regulated, so it's good for the battery bank. For equalizing, I can still use my good old manual charger battery charger.

I've also trimmed some tree branches which should allow for another 45 minutes of direct sun on the panel array.