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Windy Days at Green Trust

Steve Spence — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:10:28 +0000

We finally got the AIR-X (400 watt) wind turbine raised today, just in time for a windy mini blizzard. It sits on 30′ of 3″ galvanised pipe, bolted to the side of the house. We used a backhoe to pull a rope, connected to the tower at the 20′ mark, over the top of the house, as we didn’t have the manpower to pull it ourselves. We put two other ropes on either side of the turbine to keep it from sliding perpendicular to the direction we wanted to to go.

I don’t have my anemometer up to check wind speeds, but the turbine is peaking at 300 watts and singing like a stool pigeon. I have the output of the turbine (the negative) running through a shunt connected to my FLEXnetDC battery monitor, so my Outback Mate tracks the power the turbine collects. My solar panels connect to another shunt, and my inverter to the third shunt. This gives me detailed information on my production and usage.

I have some of pictures of the process posted at http://sspence65.jalbum.net/AIR%20X%20Install/ and more coming shortly.

The Whisper (500 watt) is the next unit to go up, followed by the rebuilt 24 volt (was 12v) 1000 watt Axial Flux Turbine.

Setting the posts for the solar array

Steve Spence — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:08:32 +0000

Today we are picking up two 10′ sections of telephone poles for the posts for the new solar array. The phone company removed a pole that was broken at the base, and gave us the rest of the pole, cut in 10′ pieces. We will dig a hole 4′ deep, drop in the post, and fill the hole with concrete. a rock at the bottom with some concrete put in first will keep the post off the dirt at the bottom of the hole.

The top of pole array mounts we received are too small for the new panels (there was a mix up somewhere), so we wll mount our old Mitsubishi 110 watt panels first, and then when the second array mounts come in, we will mount the new Sanyo 195 watt panels. In the meantime, we will put the Sanyo’s on the old wooden fixed array mount that currently holds the Mitsubishi panels. We have a second Outback MX-60 charge controller coming in to handle the second array. This will bring us up to 1720 watts of pv, from 550 watts.

Top of Pole Solar Mounts

Steve Spence — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:21:40 +0000

The Pole Mount for our new solar panels just arrived. The UPS driver took one look at the panels that were laid out, and commented as he handed me the boxes, “Toys for boys?”. Oh Yeh!

The pole mount is from Iron Ridge, and will hold up to eight panels, but only six panels of this size. Next year, when we get another six panels, we will put up another pole.

The pole is a 10′ piece of used telephone pole, courtesy of our local phone company. It has yet to arrive.

Solar PV Upgrade

Steve Spence — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:47:40 +0000

Our new Photo Voltaic Solar Panels arrived this week while we were in Ft. Benning, Georgia. We were there attending our Son’s graduation from Infantry Training.

The six Panels are 195 watt Sanyo Hybrid panels. These panels have a amorphous layer over top the mono crystalline layer, and work well in cloudy and overcast weather as well as bright sunny weather. It was in the high 20’s last night, and the sun is low on the horizon, so a 1200 watt boost to our existing 550 watts will be appreciated. This will greatly reduce our propane usage and generator run times, and keep our house batteries fully charged for longer periods of time. I’ll be posting pictures and desciptions as we install them, and will be updating our DIY Solar Power Installation ebook at http://www.green-trust.org/ebooks/.

Monitoring your off grid power system

Steve Spence — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:12:47 +0000

We use a multifunction display from Outback called a Mate to monitor the operation of our charge controller, our inverter, and our battery bank. We have another shunt coming in so that we can monitor the wind turbine and solar independently. But what about logging and historical performance. It would be handy to be able to compare monthly and seasonal performance. Our Mate has a serial port on the side for connecting to a computer, so we are evaluating 2 software packages that will allow us to track and record the complete operations of our system.

The first is WinVerter-Monitor OB from http://www.righthandeng.com, and the other is WattPlot from http://wattplot.com/index.htm. We will let you know about the strenghts and weaknesses of both.

Anguilla Solar

Steve Spence — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:11:00 +0000

We just got back from our trip to Anguilla. We helped Francoise set up her new solar power system. Two Kyocera 130 watt PV panels, a Xantrex C35 charge controller, a Trimetric Battery Meter, a Morningstar Microsine 300 sine wave inverter, and a 70 ah AGM battery, power up 3 Compact Fluorescent Lights, A LG WP-680N Washing Machine (260 Watts) and a Shurflo 12v pump. Two weeks of testing, and we were never able to pull the battery below 12.4 volts. The system consistently output 1.5 kWh’s daily. More pics at http://www.green-trust.org/Anguilla Solar/.

All About Batteries

Steve Spence — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:21:00 +0000

Off grid homes, RV’s, and boats use a house bank, a bank of batteries used to store the energy from solar, wind, and backup generators for times of no sun or no wind. These are not car batteries, these are specially designed deep cycle batteries that can handle repeated deep discharge and charge cycles. Learn about the following and more from Living With 12vdc and Wiring For 12vdc, on the Ample Power CD at http://www.green-trust.org/products/

What happens inside a battery when it discharges and
charges?
How much energy can be stored?
How is storage capacity measured?
How can capacity remaining be determined?
When is the best time to recharge?
What charging techniques yield optimum performance?
How fast can a battery be charged?
How should a battery be discharged?
What kind of regular maintenance is required?
What pitfalls must be avoided?

Watermotor – Simple Mechanical Drive

Steve Spence — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 01:19:00 +0000

Most of the common machines used in workshops, industry, and farms are driven by motors of only .5 – 5 horsepower. The Watermotor will produce this amount of power at an extremely low cost and with a minimum of ecological disruption.

High energy efficiency means that the quantity of water necessary for operation and cost of installation is greatly reduced, while on the other hand the number of actual locations where waterpower on this scale is available increases exponentially. In effect, every small fast-flowing stream becomes an important local energy resource, perhaps in many cases the only practical one available. In the world’s hilly and mountainous areas there are often few roads and even fewer electric power-lines. While frequently rich in small scale water-power resources, the people are poor.

The Watermotor is a practical means of utilizing one of the easiest to use and most efficient sources of natural energy.

http://www.watermotor.net

How much energy does a product use?

Steve Spence — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 12:03:00 +0000

When we buy electrical devices, or we need to test one we have, we use a special meter called a watt-hour meter to see how much energy a unit uses over time. The meter we have is called a Kill-A-Watt, and it reports volts, amps, watts, watt-hours, power factor, frequency (important for tuning a generator), and time. Approximately $30, this is one tool no conserving household shoule be without. Take it when shopping for appliances for comparing energy consumption.