Chapter 5 - The nerd strikes back.

Today was a good day.  I woke up around 1 pm, because I read all night. I am reading Reamde, a really good, really long novel about computer gaming, computer hacking, and russian, chinese, american, and british spies fighting terrorists. It spans the world, but focuses on the pacific northwest, an area I lived in for over a decade. I was impressed by how long but still engaging the book is.

My friend wanted to borrow my battery charger to start his lawnmower.  After we did this a neighbor mowed the front part of my lawn and I moved my car to a mowed area for him.

I had bought a second, more elaborate firepit just before I had the stroke and I finally sat down and finished putting it together today.

Oh yeah, had a couple of french bread sandwiches with unrefrigerated box cheese and a thin slice of peperoni on each sandwich, along with a layer of mustard. Very tasty.

Once this was done I went over to my friends house and helped him clean up after taking down a giant dead tree in his yard. I got him to cut one section of the log up into giant round chunks about 3 inches thick to use in the firepit.  My plan is to cut a hole in the center to allow air to come up from below and burn the chunks.  He showed me how to sharpen a chainsaw. Will have to get a file and try this on my electric chain saw.  I may have brushed it against a metal corner brace when I was cutting the 4x4 legs for my workspace.

I am planning to cut a hole in the center of one of the wood platter chunks tomorrow and burning all the peices of the pallet I tore up for the plyboard for the greenhouse shelves.  This will clean up all the chunks with nails through it that are scattered all over in front of the workshop.

As the sun was going behind the western hills the temperature dropped quickly.  I noticed my phonewarning me earlier about a frost warning tonight, so I turned the pilot light on in the heater in the workshop to protect the green house sprouts I have started.

I doubt they would freeze anyway being inside an insulated space, but better safe than sorry.

The microgarden is really sprouting up fast and so are many of the plants, but many are not either. I think some plants just take weeks to even sprout.  After I lit the pilot light, I put on a long sleeve sweat shirt with a hoodie.

Before it got cold I went for a walk up a hill on a gravel road with my friend.  He was showing me where he was maintaining another neighbors road and talking about what else he needed to do to keep the long gravel road frome washing out.

I did the same walk a few months ago and it wore me out.  I am much stronger today,  Wasn't even tired. Coming off the hill we walked for a bit down the lane and went strait where it turned along the old railroad tracks in the woods. It is amazing how open these long ago uprooted rail road tracks were removed. You can still basically walk with no problems from where one tressel crossed a stream to the next. Few trees block the path. There is almost no undergrowth. I wonder if the railroad used something like agent orange on these right of ways.

I went home because it was cold and I was able to get my car very near the tiny houses. I stopped by the grocery store in town on the way home and got some Conn's BBQ potato chips.  I just buy the 2.5 ounce bag once a week now.  I used to buy the pound bag before the stroke.  It takes me two or three days to go through the little bag now.  I just eat a few chips a day.  I have been working my way through a bag of jelly beans the same way one or two or three a day.  No more, because age and excess led to my body betraying me.

The french bread and cheese and pepperoni has lasted a week now. Almost using none. I had to buy the new shirts and pants becauase I went from a 2XL to a large.  The large is just a touch tight, but I lose more as it warms up and I am becoming more and more active.  I won't buy clothes unless they are on clearance.

I am hoping with the longer hours of sun as we go from winter to spring will let me start running the refridgerator again.  I just have a small college fridge. I was planning on buying a specialized fridge that ran directly off 12v and was very insulated, but with no job that looks unlikely this year.  I would have had to save up one and a third paychecks to afford one.

Failing that I am looking at switching over to a 24v battery set up and connecting every two solar panels in series  into a solar concentrator panel.  I already have the 24v inverter and 24v lights and 24v usb adapters.   I could easily add 4 more harbor frieght solar panels to the system then.  Not the best systems on the market. But they would be affordable.  I could afford to buy one of the harbor freight panel kits every month, if they were on sale. I think going to the 24v system would give me back the 30 amp charge I should be getting from my panels.

I think I am feeling the walk now.  Tomorrow morning I am going to change over the last three sets of solar panels to the industry standard connectors.  I am also going to fix one solar panel, the solder pulled loose from a circuit board, wire up this last set of 4 panels to the solar charge controller. I may have to buy one more panel kit to get all these panels hooked up to the solar collectors.

Saturday I am looking at rewiring the battery pack to being 24v and wiring the solar charge controller into the solar concentrator.

0nce I get the solar charge controller back upto 30 amps I will start building up a second set of 10 batteries in a second battery pack.  This will double the time I can run off batteries without sunlight.

I am also looking into getting a 400 amp wind generator, but I would have to get a different solar charge controller if I did that.

Danm I really wish the harbor frieght solar charge kits had come with industry standard solar connectors.  This would have saved me so much work and worry.

The last thing I need to do is to connect all 12 panels together into a single raised platform of 4x3 kits or 3x4 kits. Since each kit is 4 panels what we are looking at is 16x3 panels, or 12x 4 panels.   Then by changing the panels angle to the sun every 2 weeks I could optimize the power generated. Probably moreso than if I swung the panels towards the sun every minute.

So, it looks like I am in a solar optimization kick the next few days. Might add a single panel kit, depending on if I already have an even number of kits already. 

I may not have talked about why I am doubling up the solar panels for a 24v system.  Quite simply, it reduces the amps by half.  This means the same solar charge controller can support twice the panels now.  The inverter will draw half the amps.

I also have 3 volt and amp monitors, somehwhere around here, so will also try to wire in those as I build the new system. 

Will move the batteries out of the tiny house and into the back space of the tiny house.

While I am doing this will probably have time to jack up the back of my current tiny house and change that corner to a 4x4.  This will let me close a large gap in the bottom of the enclosure. I will also be able to finish the insulation in the back of the house and put two trimmed 4x8 panels in place.  I will be able to put some plyboard in place to totally enclose the underneath of the tiny house.  This will allow me to finish framing in the two extended panels underneah the tiny house and put a hinged angled roof in place over the space afforded between the 12 foot long tiny house and the longer garrage door lengths.

This space wll house the solar charge controller, the battery packs, the inverter, and the charge monitors. I plan in putting the 3 system monitors and the interter controller inside where it is easily seen. 

I want to mount the solar charge collector and a cut off for the solar panels where it is easily found by fire fighters right onto the side of my house, below the solar charge array.