Long day of work...

Been a long day...

We now have all the solar panels hooked up, along with all the batteries. In total we now have 8 deep cycles, and 9 panels, all totaling 345 watts of solar and close to 8k watts of battery bank. When the system went live we had 14v even in the old 5 and 13.5v in the new three, 12 hours later we are at 13.8v total bank. Given a few more days of good sunny weather, and I'm sure we are going to have all the power we're gonna need!
All said and done we have close to $3200 invested. Not a bad amount of money, for what we have...

Too round out the day we worked a bit on the saloon project, finishing the back three walls. With vacation next week, it's gonna be exciting to see how far we can get to completion. This has been an ongoing project for almost a year now, but has been a dream for as long as I can remember.
We are going to need a name for it though, any good ideas? Winner gets a free round!

My insanity on display www.pioneeringaz.blogspot.com

A bit of a wasted day...

We had a nice rainy day here in Arizona, when I woke up at 7 it looked as though it had rained all night, and it continued all day! The storm total was 3/4 of an inch here, now we have clear skies, and the temperature is dropping... We were going to get some work done on the Saloon project, but with the weather the way it was we decided to do what we could with the new battery and solar array, but all we could do was install the buss and hook up the inverter. So it was an early day...

After that I headed into town for some supplies, slipping and sliding the whole way, now back at home... So with a fire in the stove, cup of coffee by my side, I think I'm going to drive into the book of Acts this evening. Then off to bed. I do hope it is a little better weather tomorrow... (but just a little, I love these rainy days, they really don't happen that often, just when you want to do something outside!)

My insanity on display www.pioneeringaz.blogspot.com

We have success!

After battling a leaky roof for several months, I'm glad to report that it is fixed! we've had a lot of rain the past couple of days, and it appears that all the leaks in the main room are now fixed. We even made improvements to the awning around the bedroom door and the front of the conex, which also appears to be bone dry this morning.
Another great thing, the electric car batteries that have not been charged or really used all that much for the past two years, have been plugged into the new panels for a few days, and even with all the clouds and rain, they are showing improvement. When we first went live we were at 12v flat, and now we are 12.6v. It doesn't seem like much, but they are large batteries on a trickle charge, especially with the clouds. It we can get a week of sunny skies I'm sure they will get to 13.5 in no time. Which I'm going to wait for, before I lookup the rest of the battery bank, just to make sure that these batteries are going to perform right.

Now some coffee this morning, and to get something done...

My insanity on display www.pioneeringaz.blogspot.com

Teaching little one the joys of soap box cars...

At least a red neck version!

We took the batteries out of this custom electric car the other day, so now it's just gravity powered, and with our steep driveway, a little person could get some good speed, and she did! Drifting into a long sweeping turn, she was driving like a pro! I think I created a monster... But I really missed a good science opportunity, next time we are going to put a light on the motor, and see how bright we can make it.

My insanity on display www.pioneeringaz.blogspot.com

Well today got us one step closer...

Today we finished up on the roof project, and installed the new solar panels. We also started (have a lot of work to do still) on the new battery array. With two charge controllers and the three new batteries, well have a week test to see how well they will perform.
Weather wise, what a great day! A bit warm for a short time, but mostly partly cloudy, with rain all around... Some even hit the ground!

My insanity on display www.pioneeringaz.blogspot.com

Our morning rituals...

Feed and water 5 wild horses... Two goats, four dogs... Oh and a bunny.

My insanity on display www.pioneeringaz.blogspot.com

Long day...

I really don't have much to show for today's work. (which by the way was one of the hotest days this month, reaching into the triple digits!) We had to finish building a roof over the Conex, and me being the bad little blogger I am, I forgot to take a before picture. So the after won't make much sense. As many as you know the Conex was the first thing out here, and because of the that, the house was built around it. When we did that, we rested the headers of the roofs on top. That made the roof of the Conex 6 inches lower than the roofs on three sides... Nice if you want to make a roof top pond, not nice if you want to stay dry inside. Not to worry now, we built a small roof that is at the same level as everything else.
Now that roof will support our solar panels, and since we are relocating the batteries into the Conex, the shorter distance will really make it more efficient. On that note, I just wrestled 3 more big batteries out of a custom electric car built by my father-n-law. Adding those into the system will boost our storage big time!
So now its off to sleep...

My insanity on display www.pioneeringaz.blogspot.com