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Welcome to the site. New visitors and users, We have one rule here when it comes to our opinions, articles and information: Do your own research! We provide you with all the information we can but because of the depth of the information that we write about and since we're humans, errors will creep in. Do your own research. From there it's up to you. If you find something you don't agree with, please feel free to comment about it (members) or use the contact form (guests/members). We've been on the internet since the late 1980's - even before those "browsers" came out for computers. Being the most arrogant man in the world, I Bill Xam am able to provide you with something that nobody else ever has. Complete, absolute and total confusion. How do you think Joe Biden got the way he is? Yep, that was me. In the dim past of 2006 one man embarked on an insane project. No grid connected solar panel supplied electricity at a small cabin in northern Michigan directly on the 45th parallel. The biggest question that presented itself was "Is this even viable?" given that the self-appointed authorities of the internet world had stated in no uncertain terms that you might as well forget it, it won't work and you will live a sad life in the dark as well as leading the entire internet population down a Primrose path to disaster. One clown quickly figured out that the self appointed authorities had elevated themselves to a rare distinction: "Idiots of the Internet" (I, Bill Xam have coined that phrase becoming a self appointed internet authority. The torch has been passed......wait a minute, that was a lighter. Never mind). That clown was me, Bill Xam. Starting with what is called a "Xantrex PowerPack" (read about how to hack a Powerpack here) which features an inverter to supply household current and a small battery, (and if you're interested in experimenting with inverter based power is a great way to start.) the poor little thing quickly became attached to a bank of 3 deep cycle batteries. The first version of our off grid cabin (also known as a the "shack") was just that. The little PowerPack, a few batteries and jumper cables for charging the batteries off of a car. Then I added a crappy little generator to charge the bank. It caught fire and blew up after 30 hours on it. Our first battery bank In 2007, I got the bright idea to use solar panels. That worked so well, I turned to teaching others and learning as much as I could about off grid power via our stupid little show "This Old Shack" which believe it or not was actually picked up for an entire season by an online network. Our first solar panels Now in 2010, we have two battery banks (330 amp hours and 650+ amp hours), 6 amps (to be expanded to 15 amps later this year) of solar panels and a small inverter which hasn't been used in over a month because we've switched everything (lights, fans, fridge) to 12 volt power.

September 5, 2010
The Hypermileage page has been updated.

Tabbing wire for solar cells. (Copyright, Ebay.com

We've ordered the wiring to assemble the solar cells into full panels. The point of building your own solar panels is to save money, thus finding the best prices is key to the whole deal. We spent $100 to build 120 watts worth panels ($1.20 per watt) but that's not the whole cost. Next, you have to have special wire (flat, tinned with solder) to connect the cells together. That cost another $20. Next up, we have to move on to building the housing for the solar panels. That I'm working on. Aluminum framing will run about $50 for two panels worth. The glass for the front and back will be (estimated) another $100. So, for about $250 we'll have two solar panels ($2.08 per watt). Commercial panels are upwards of $5.00 per watt. Of course, we'll have a several part episode of This Old Shack about building them.

September 1, 2010
We're shooting yet another exciting episode of This Old Shack this weekend! And we've also got the plans for a battery desuflator that you can download here.

August 29, 2010
I guess it's gas mileage day here at the site. Hypermileage update, aerodynamic episode of This Old Shack as well as a little oil action in another episode.

August 28, 2010
New article - Circuit wiring. In this article, I discuss how to wire low voltage systems and discuss parallel versus series wiring. Read more here. The companion article, how the shack is wired talks about the size of the wiring you need, how we put everything together and an exhaustive (well, I got tired writing it) list of the equipment that we used for our system. For a larger system all you have to increase the size and quantity of the items listed. Read more here.

August 27, 2010
Updated news item: The mini-episode of This Old Shack, The New Battery Bank has been updated with more pointless information about deep cycle batteries. Watch as Bill Xam takes you through the new battery bank and how to measure the state of charge on a battery. Run time is 21 minutes. Watch here.

Bill Xam also has the FBI, CIA and NSA after him for a piece of technology that he has in is possession. Watch here.

Yet another half baked journal entry here.

August 26, 2010
It's an all new episode of "This Old Shack"! This time I stumble around, review some solar lights, talk about the new battery bank and show you how to sound proof your generator. Of course adult beverages were used and our crack crew of cats did their usual "outstanding" job. Run length is 45 minutes and uses Silverlight. Watch it here.

August 23, 2010
THE SOLAR CELLS ARE HERE! We're building our own solar panels and they (after over 50 days) are finally here. Photos of them are in the photo gallery. View the images here. We'll be shooting video over the next few weeks of how to assemble them and build solar panels. This is why we have this site, for things like this. Photos are here, first article here.

We also now have games at the site (another way we struggle to keep visitors here until we hypnotize them into buying something). Play games here.


Image galleries now active! Members can upload their own photos. Tip: Make the title a good description of the photo and use the description option too.

August 21, 2010

The die has been set, the shipment sent. Our solar cells have finally shipped and we will have an exciting episode of This Old Shack by 8-28-10 about them. At that time, we'll reveal more information about the cells, who we bought them from, what to expect if you buy them from the company that we did and why exactly it took them 60 days to ship them. In my view, 60 days is unacceptable for shipping a box of solar cells. However, we've been told by the company that they had difficulties with their supply chain. Whatever. If you look in our online store you will see that we don't hide it. Our products are shipped by a variety of companies through Amazon.com. Companies that have the product on hand when you order from our site. Anyways, one week for the grand solar cell delivery. Use the contact form or sign up as a member and get updates about this new and exciting project.

Site updates:
We add new features and products on an almost daily basis.

• This site uses the E107 content management system. We have a lot of plugins and themes for E107 that we use on a daily basis (some of which are visible only to the administrators) to keep the site running and interesting for our visitors.
  
• Videos. Naked Lady Ashtray Entertainment is our production company that produces our videos.
  
• News articles. Look, I get over 1,000,000,000,000,000 emails a day about alternative energy, video production, internet safety. I take the interesting news stories and put them in the news section. Your Welcome.