If
you have any questions,
contact us. I'm always happy to provide a convoluted
answer to a simple question. Updated:07/08/2010
ENTIRE SITE IS COPYRIGHT 2010, MC
PHOTOGRAPHY
Learn
about alternative energy, hybrid systems and watch
pointless videos!
THE NEW SEASON
OF THIS OLD SHACK HAS BEGUN! THIS YEAR'S EPISODES
CAN BE VIEWED EXCLUSIVELY AT OUR SURVIVAL BLOG, SURVIVALTHROUGHINFORMATION.COM.
If you have something to say or
would like to appear on the show as a guest, email
us or contact us at our bug out phone,
734-945-1547.
We now sell the Xantrex Powerhub 1600 with two
solar panels, deep cycle batteries, generator automatic transfer switch, wind
turbine ready. This is a house ready alternative energy product. Click
here for more.
You are viewing the old site. Visit the new
site. Become a member there and contribute your input, thoughts and hangover
information. - Bill Xam
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.
I can sit around smoking a cigar because I'm an energy mogul!
Drawbacks:
Maintenance.
Installation.
Bunch of black glass panels sitting around.
It's a hybrid thing, you see
If you're wondering about our system, it's a long story but what the heck,
let's have a whack at it. It's a hybrid system using solar power, a catalytic
converter equipped generator and several off beat devices.
In 2005 using some convoluted reasoning, I decided to have a whirl at using
batteries to power items at the shack in order to save on having an electrical
service installed.
Charging and whatnot
For charging the the battery banks we use a Xantrex C12
solar charger, a Schumacher smart charger and a Schumacher manual charger
as well as the 10 amp 12 volt output from the generator.
As of June 2010, we are building a brand new battery
bank in addition to the older group 31 batteries (we've retired the group
27 bank). The new batteries are made by East-Penn battery company and are
part of our 6 month testing cycle to see how well they work.
If they work out well we will purchase several more for
a total of 1000 amp hours of capacity.
We first used a "Xantrex 400 powerpack". This is a thing with a little
inverter, deep cycle battery, a light and an air compressor. After discovering
that you could use the battery jumping abilities to hook it up to a battery bank
so we got some trolling batteries and used them to power lights and a laptop
computer. To charge it we used the alternator on a car. Worked out pretty good.
Since the car had a V6, it worked out pretty will as far a fuel consumption
went. However....
As time went by, I started to explore using solar panels and bought a 45 watt
solar panel kit (it came with the mounting brackets, 12 volt CFL bulbs, a little
power distribution box and the wiring). Well, this worked pretty good and by now
it was summer of 2005. That's when I had a few adult beverages and decided to
host a show about this whole thing. After a few more adult beverages, we came up
with "This Old Shack" since, well the thing is old and it is a shack.
In the spring of 2006, I purchased a second solar panel kit and went on up to
90 watts. By this time we also had a bank of 4 group 27 batteries (79 amp hours
each) and 3 group 31 batteries (110 amp hours each).
Of course, 90 watts of solar energy isn't going to charge that size of bank
so we got a small 1000 watt generator. That dumb little thing lasted about 3
months before it blew up. It really blew up with parts everywhere and a small
fire. After that, I went out and bought a 2.4 kw generator and man does that
thing run good! The engine in it is a rip off of a Honda engine (the parts are
exactly the same down to the air filter) and runs for 14 hours on 4 gallons of
gasoline. This takes up the slack that the 90 watts of solar energy doesn't
supply.
We also use some real odd solutions for lighting. We have a home brew LED
lighting system that runs off of 12 volts as well as 3 solar LED lighting
spotlights that illuminate the shack.
Plugs
and ads
If you're here you'll
probably be interested in using all natural garden pest control from The
Beneficial Insect Company!
This product is simple and works
great. If you use a lot of canned food either in your home or cabin, the
can organizer rotates your food from the oldest to the newest; no more
checking expiration dates!
We've teamed up with Amazon
for our product listings after some really bad experiences with an online
auction site.
There 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.
A simple examination of the specification sheet for a line of 6v and 12v
off grid batteries will tell you quite clearly that there is no one single
best solution for all circumstances. It is not accurate to say one is
best.
Our system has been using the much maligned Harbor Freight 45 watt solar
panel kits for 4 years. Over these years, we've moved them back and forth
from the main home in Saline, Michigan to the shack in Gaylord. They've
been dropped, exposed to heavy rain, snow, sleet, hail. One even has even
had the glass on it shattered from a tree limb dropping on it.
Look,
using testing equipment is all well and good but those spec sheets don't
mean squat if you can't run YOUR stuff for as long as you want to.
So what I do (so you don't have to) is get the equipment (batteries,
inverters, solar panels) and put what I run on it. Usually about
30-50 watts at 12 volts - few amps of draw. You know, turning lights on
and off, running a computer (a laptop) and whatnot.
Throughout
the test, a digital meter is run on the bank and a hydrometer is used once
an hour to determine whether the meter is reading the correct voltage.
During the sunlight hours on the panels, there is another digital meter
installed at the primary junction box (where the panels feed into the 10
gauge cables that feed to the charge controller) that measures panel
voltage and amps.
One of
the things that I like the best about alternative energy is that you can
make it as complicated or simple as you like. Some people, even though
they use alternative energy simply don't have a good grasp on the entire
substance that goes into the makeup of an engineered system that has been
built from scratch.
Don't ask me why, but I've recently become
interested in studying earthquake/volcano activity around the world; ash plumes
and such. I've added a page with RSS
feeds and links to satellite imagery.
