We ended with laundry soap on the last post–but time marches on. In May/June we had two weeks of 80F temps–marvelous summer weather. And then it started to rain, but I like rain now that my hydro produces power. I’ve modified the intakes–above is the smaller of the two–24″ in width. The technology is posted earlier but after a 458′ downhill run dropping 28′ I get about 10# of pressure which translates to about 500W of power hourly. This is enough to power my “background” energy including refrigerator/freezer. Note the center part of this “wedge-wire” is “dry” as the top third is so efficient, it fill the 6″ pipe below and spill excess water back out. A 36″ screen 50′ distant is still being modified. In the end, I’ll be able to harvest between 500-1000 watts even when the creek trickles. Here’s a few plots provided by the Sol-Ark’s computer interface:
A typical sunny day:
The green line is the state of charge of the batteries and declines over time with a load. The green area from 10am to 3pm is solar input and the purple below is the same amount being stored in the battery. Purple spike at 7:30am is the coffee pot. Note the green line angles up during solar time indicating the state of charge has improved. No generator time on this day.
Here, the generator (orange/purple) generates power for about 2-1/3 hour while the state of charge goes from presets: 20% to 95%. Using lead acid or Nickel Phosphate, this charge time was 3-1/4 hours. The Discover batteries are much more efficient. The morning coffee pot comes on at 7:30am and spikes continuously to keep warm–the green line drops at a steeper rate then. At about noon, the sun comes out from behind a cloud–you must be able to see a shadow to get power. The voltage across the panels will always measure the same potential with any light at all–called and open circuit voltage–and it’s the actual photons that are converted to electrons that charges the battery. This comes with intensity of the light. The below graph is a good rainy day but note, the hydro is not graphed by the Sol-Ark inverter nor it’s computer interface–just watch the green line climb:
Can you figure this out? The purple left is a well-pump which ran for about one hour and drew a lot of amps. The bumps from there to the coffee pot is my refrigerator. Next is coffee pot and some background heat from my Rinnai propane heater (fan, etc.) coupled with some hot water heating (again propane/pumps). A tiny bit of sun pokes through and at 3:30pm a pump goes on again–making up for a pressure washing project. So why does the green line–state of charge–improve? Hydro–which is not graphed except for the green line showing this “mysterious” charge. It’s raining hard from 9am to 3pm today. Hydro is kept track of via the Midnite Charge Controller–here is the proof–almost 500W/h:
Manna from Heaven–but back to the South Kupreanof Yacht Club.
A Western Towboat pulls an AML barge past the house. There are very low tides now which makes navigating the Narrows a bit tricky. Watched one year a tug “go into irons” whereby the barge pulls the tug backwards–a lot of danger as sometimes the barge will roll the tug over. They fixed the problem–broken hydraulic line–in about 30 seconds and spun the entire barge 180 degrees and towed back to Scow Bay and again took an aim for this section of the narrows……exciting times here at the South Kupreanof Yacht Club!
My flower boxes are robust this year–but so are the weeds. I am also practicing the Largo movement of Chopin’s third piano sonata (Bm)–seen through the window–it is a most beautiful passage but what you hear belies it’s simplicity. What else?
I recently baked two pies–strawberry/rhubarb on the left an apple on the right–my fourth and fifth pie this summer. No finer breakfast can I find–especially with whipped cream, hot coffee and the New York Times. I solve all NYT puzzles before 10am and then work outside fixing stuff…..
I finally broke down and bought a new pressure washer–a Stihl–and I can’t find the determination to turn it off! Better than dentistry! It doubles as a weed-eater and in a pinch, a rototiller. I’m exploring log-splitting and even mining with this beast! Here I’ve just finished cleaning 500′ of my boardwalk system of 10 years of moss and lichen and even rotten wood sections. This whole boardwalk took only 4 hours and I got a good cleaning from the waste down! Amazing!
My 1950 Chambers model 90C cooks garden peas and shrooms for dinner. On the right–“chicken-of-the-woods” grows on rotted logs and will end up in a stew soon.
Note my garden peas–on the left photo left side–where two stalks tower above the dwarfed bush-peas below. “Two peas out of the same pod” they say. Not sure if it was Territorial Seed or me that mixed up the peas. Lots of peas this season. My carrots grow horizontal this year and I think for a salad each evening.
I’ve finally figured out strawberries–the far row was planted fresh this Spring and the closer row were harvested out of a historic garden here. I’ve a million runners with more plants and will transfer them to new beds in the Spring. Tomatoes abound also (center). When I first moved her nearly 20 years ago, my uber-gardening neighbors visited and knowing their skills, I artfully super-glued several rows of commercial hothouse tomato chains (like here) onto my scraggly vines. They did a double take……. and never let me forget his ruse. Cucumber salad tonight (right). These photos are real as I’m finally getting the hang of things.
With my new WordPress program, I can now edit smaller pics so I’ll end here with zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes that tower above me, weighing down vines. I’m off to Sitka in a few day to team up with an Italian author on shipwrecks on the MV Gyrfalcon. Stay tuned–for the next exciting post!
On to other things.