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
Diary from the cabin, page 97-2-06 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.
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. |
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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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