A new source of power on the horizon

      Well the solar array and batteries are holding up quite well and performing well above my expectations. But that will be changing soon as we head into shorter and rainy days. We already had our first rainfall and it was telling. I will definitely need to come up with a new method of power generation, and I have!

      So the story goes like this, we have been making some additions to our cabin as the wife FINALLY is starting to accept we are not going to get the main house done anytime soon. So we are making our cabin a bit more livable for a family of 4 +1. We have added a room for her son and another room that will attach to the shower / bathroom area. In the new adjoining room we have installed a small wood stove to heat the cabin with, thereby eliminating the propane heater from the power equation.

      Well, while I was installing the wood stove I started thinking "There has to be some way to generate power from the heat this thing puts off." And lo and behold, someone at GlockTalk (a forum I enjoy frequenting!) posted this link:

http://shop.biolitestove.com/BioLite-CampStove_p_15.html

      And so that link sent me on a crazy search to find out how the hell they are doing that and, the technology is space age yet so simple to build!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator

     Anyhow I kept digging around, wanting to learn as much as I can before I pursue this and I found this nugget!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzEK5eODr6I&feature=related

     So that got me to thinking even more. I do that a lot... thinking. Gets me into a lot of trouble sometimes. Anyhow after watching how the fellow in the above YouTube video was able to create a generator using nothing more than some dissimilar metal, a candle and his hand I figure I can do the same thing but on a larger scale. The idea I have is to take some copper rods and stainless steel rods (those are the metals he used in the video so stick with what I know to work) one of my 55 gallon drums and I can poke the rods though the drum, make the connection internally and have the other end out in the cold weather.

     This would give me a greater potential for voltage using the larger pieces of metal while also giving me a natural method for creating the thermal difference needed. I have a friend that I will work with to get this up and going and I believe I should be able to get one up and running this weekend if not sooner. While the idea I have does not use the wood stove we have installed (although if it works well enough I might be able to adapt to the wood stove in the future) it does use what I have on hand to generate literally free power.

     I say literally because there is the cost of some of the components plus my time invested into the process. But if I can get this designed right and get a reliable 28 - 34VDC from this set up, then I can connect wires and run this to my charge controller on the wind side. My Trace Xantrex PWM charge controller has connections for solar and wind. The solar is already connected and the wind side could be used for my thermoelectric generator.

     The key here is getting the voltage range I need. Because on nasty days I can easily start a fire and let it burn untended for up to 2 hours before I need to add fuel (I know this because of experience with another burn barrel we have set up for heating water for the kids red-neck pool).

     So the resources I have on hand right now are two 55 gallon drums, plenty of heavy duty aluminum electrical wire (gift from a friend) the charge controller and at least one stainless steel bar. So I would have to get a similar sized copper bar and connect the two together. I can also use bricks to create an additional thermal barrier between the barrel and the cold side.

     I will need to get a thermometer gun so I can measure temperature of the hot and cold sides and compare those to voltages and amperage generated. Doing this will allow me to chart out the performance of the components and gauge what I need to do to hit my voltage range needed. Also I can then start trending for run times versus performance. If I get this dialed in really well then I can potentially create one of these generators to run our well pump thereby eliminating the gasoline powered generator for all but extreme emergencies. My research has shown that this is theoretically possible, but I haven't really found much on the large scale other than industrial.

     Well, that's all for now! I will keep you posted and of course as things move along I will take photos and post them up with the performance numbers I get.

Peace Love and Five Finger Death Punch!

System Performance Load Testing

      Hello! So the last week I have been conducting a system performance load test. The idea is to see how well my batteries hold up while being loaded and charged simultaneously. So I have isolated bank 1 of batteries and currently have bank 2 of batteries on load and charge. Now the days are getting shorter and the last couple of days have been hot as hell (over 100F.!!!). So that tends to decrease efficiency due to increases resistance from the excessive heat.

      Well, the system is performing perfectly! I have 4 - 380AH 6V deep cycle batteries in a 24V configuration with 1.28+kW of monocrystaline panels for input. The load as noted in earlier posts are my deep freezer, refrigerator and TV/DVD combination with some smaller charging loads (cell phone for wife, laptop and battery pack for drills).

      Now if you remember in previous posts I set the system up to have one bank on charge and one on load. Well the wife challenged me and my systems capability to carry the load. So I took bank 1 off charge after it was topped and equalized (love these new charge controllers!) and placed bank 2 on charge and load. And we are not only carrying the load but when I get home the batteries are showing between 96 - 99% charge, meaning they were topped and floated by the charge controllers.

      The problem we will be running into in the near future will be cloudy days and shorter charge times. Fortunately the panels can recover an unloaded battery bank with moderate cloud cover. But we are heading into our winter and while it's short, it's almost like being in Seattle. So I have been "selling" the wife on a wind turbine for winter power production. Where we live we get a great deal of wind during the winter and what I noticed is that if it's cloudy... it's windy. We really do have an off-gridders piece of prime real estate!

      Well that's all for now... have to get back to work but just wanted to post an update. And yes, I do have some performance data that I will post as well. It's getting more accurate as I establish my routines and now that I have a thermometer in place I can start tracking weather and temperatures as well. This is all information I will use for the main 48V system I will have to design and build sometime in the future when the house is actually ready. And the data I collect might be of some use to any of you that actually are reading this blog!

Peace, Love and Five Finger Death Punch!