Green-Trust.Org

A while back, Robert Saunders sent us an article on a steam turbine he was working on. Then he sent another on solar energy steam electric. Well, here is his third chapter in this continuing quest. Hope you enjoy:

http://www.green-trust.org/wordpress/2008/12/07/solar-powered-steam-generators/

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.

Melvin Martin was over last night. He’s greatly recovered from his accident, but still has a ways to go. We were discussing home built NiFe (Edison) batteries and how to make your own. These batteries have the ability to last 50+ years, and we have a bunch of info on them in the files section at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/12VDC_Power/files/. We were also discussing human powered devices, specifically pedal powered water pumps, grain mills, and electrical generators. I have had a very good resource for this for 20 years called “Pedal Power: In Work, Leisure, and Transportation”, and just picked up a wonderful companion to it produced in 2008 called “The Human Powered Home”. Detailed drawings and parts lists for mixers, pumps, grinders, and many other projects where fuel or electricity may be in short supply, or you just need to lose 50 lbs. These books and more can be found it the Human Power section at http://www.green-trust.org/bookshop/.

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.

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/.

Cob is an ancient and simple building material. Made of soil, sand, straw and water, it can last for decades, sometimes centuries, and is an inexpensive, local, green building material.

The Cob Builders Handbook says,

“The three most common forms of earth buildings are adobe, rammed earth and cob. In the southwestern United States, the five hundred year old Taos Pueblo, as well as many homes and churches, are made of adobe. Adobe is a form of building using unfired earth. Dirt, straw and water – the same ingredients as in cob – are made into bricks which are then sun dried and built into walls with a “cob-like” mortar. Some very old Native American structures like the Casa Grande ruin in Arizona are made out of cob. These are described locally as being built of “puddled or coursed adobe”.”

This spring, Green-Trust will be building a generator and wood boiler shed with cob, in preparation for building a few homes as well.

Resources:

http://beckybee.net/
http://weblife.org/cob/index.html
http://www.housealive.org/
http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/cob.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cob_%28material%29
http://www.cobcottage.com/

A reader on our 12v group brought up this topic, and it started the idea engine. There were a few models available in the past, of lawn and garden tractors, that used electric motors instead of fuel driven engines. Quieter, easier on the environment and your lungs, and arguably, on your wallet, it’s apparent that they are attempting a comeback. Appropriate on a off-grid homestead like ours, we are researching the availability, and possibility of converting our Sears mower to electric. See the following resources:

http://www.electrictractor.com

http://electriclawntractor.com

http://www.modernelectrictractors.com/

Please let me know if you find more of these units available or even DIY conversions.

Convert your gasoline generator to clean burning propane. We document the steps, and it’s a easy 45 minute process. See http://www.green-trust.org/ebooks/ for details

Our guide to installing your own power system is finished, and available on our eBook page at http://www.green-trust.org/ebooks/

Covering Sizing, siting, installation, and battery maintenance, it’s a good guide to putting together your own inexpensive system. Includes private discussion group and free updates.

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/.