From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.
Plans:
08:00 Up and sipp’n coffee. Watch instacart shopper.
09:00 Watching over our shopper getting our groceries.
10:00 Looking over my honey do list.
11:00 Wiring a solar charge controller
12:00 Nap time
14:00 Blogging
15:00 Testing 20A controller.
16:00 Dinner, fish and a salad
17:00 Listening to an audiobook “White Fragility”
Narrative: Wired a new 20Amp solar charge controller today. The previous controller was only good to 10Amp and with six 100W solar panels on the roof I can push a little more than that.
Yellow=Solar Panel, Pink=Battery, Red is power out.
These controllers can be 12V or 24V so you have to connect the battery first to set the bus voltage. Then connect the solar panels. It will assume 12V with no voltage on the battery terminals and there’s no way to force it to 24V.
This is the DC distribution box for the homestead. Technically it’s wired incorrectly with white being +24V. The NEC says that the black wires should be hot and the white wires near ground. However I’ve gotten them reversed too many times and burnt up equipment forgetting black is actually hot. It’s easy label the white wires and to reverse them after I get further along in this project. I used red/black wire for the DC wiring, according to the NEC they are both hot wires.
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.
Plans:
08:00 Eggs for breakfast
09:00 Installed additional wires on 24VDC distribution panel.
10:00 Planning…
11:00 Blogging
12:00 Nap
14:00 Planning
15:00 Moving power connections to reduce the heat load on the Air Conditioner.
16:00 Testing a new battery
17:00 Dinner
18:00 Getting ready for church and getting an update on Pat.
19:00 Prayer time with the brothers
21:00 Bed
23:00 Updating latitude laptop.
Narrative: Received a replacement battery for my primary UPS for my homestead network. I am not happy that it was separate from the three others that need to be matched pretty closely for this UPS that needs FOUR batteries. (48V)
The handle is different than the four units I bought last month so I am a little worried that the battery is old. (Which will shorten the life expectancy.)
The package was unopened and the voltage was a full charge when I got the battery. The discharge capacity was within specs and the charge capacity was good as well.
Feelings: The violence has not diminished as quickly as the police have started to pick their battles, anyone thinking a Revolution is upon us?
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.
Plans:
07:00 Up and sipp’n coffee.
08:00 Getting organized and blogging.
Scanned Picnic table instructions.
09:00 Went for a walk.
10:00 Reading the news.
11:00 Getting organized.
12:00 Eating lunch, slice of Ham.
13:00 Drive to Stone Mtn.
14:00 Getting organized
15:00 wired fuse block for garage.
16:00 helped with dinner
17:00 Dinner
18:00 Installed fuse block in the homestead for 24VDC
19:00 Cleaning up
20:00 Getting ready for bed
Narrative: Need to clean up homestead DC wiring. I have four different buss voltages, 12VDC, 24VDC, 48VDC and Solar 32-44V. The house distribution is red/black even though I’ve identified the buss voltages by color, red 12V, Orange 24V, Purple 48V and solar is Yellow.
Yesterday I accidently connected the solar to the 12V buss when I repurposed a wire used for the driveway IR illuminator. I lost a couple 12V items because of that. 🙁 Most everything in the house can run on 24, it’s just less electronic noise to run it on 12V. The 12V is “converted” from the 24V buss and has a 10A capability with redundancy. After installing the fuse block I was still short three connections that had to be temporarily patched onto one fuse with cords I was using before.
Feelings: We’ve still not dealt with the 6 blocks in Seattle?
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.
Plans:
Narrative: We had our morning planning meeting then worked our Instacart shopping. We had to schedule an additional shopper because the last one stole our dozen eggs. (They are 1dz limit, so you can’t just order two on your next order.)
Cleaned off the Livingroom couch of all the stuff we piled on it since I quit work. It took the better part of a day.
The four batteries I pulled from the refrigerator UPS are in great shape, I got worried when the batteries from the primary UPS were well below replacement threshold. Most of the 35AH batteries were purchased between January and March of 2019. I paralleled the two matched batteries to equalize the charge before putting them back in service.
I changed out the primitive solar panel connections that used a standard extension cord to a MC-4 to SB50 connector which connects to the house with a PP45 connector.
Feelings: The rebellious crowd is still destroying property…
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.
Plans: Send off three boxes to get mailed to mom.
08:00 Omelet for breakfast.
09:00 Still trying to navigate Daniel 9:4 confessing the sin of our parishiners.
10:00 Church services.
12:00 build a couple backup cables for mom and box them.
14:00 Handed off the boxes to get mailed on Wednesday, Nap time.
16:00 93 Degrees outside, Garage was actually cool until I opened the door.
17:00 Dinner
18:00 Pulled four batteries off the refrigerator UPS and testing them for capacity.
19:00 Break down boxes in the Livingroom.
20:00 Cleaning
21:00 Bed Time
Narrative: I have had 200W of solar panels on my homestead for a couple years. They don’t generate enough consistent power to do much energy saving efforts. With my efforts to build a solar charger for my mom’s golf cart I have gained appreciation for having solar panels that face East and West. It is a reality at this point that these solar panels will not produce the same KWH/Day as the South facing panels. But they do give me a plus-up in power early morning and late afternoon when the chimney casts a shadow on the south facing panels.
End of the sunny day about 5:40, the shadow of the trees is visible.
Forfeiting some total power these East/West panels has given me more consistent power throughout the day. They also do a good job when it’s overcast with about 60W on a cloudy day. (Much more than I thought.)
Feelings: I am against changing legendary brand named products because they offend someone. We are a nation, it feels dangerous to yield to complaints of the protesting masses that have taken over this country in the name of racism.
Tomorrow: Monday, most of the work on my mother’s solar golf cart is in the mail.
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.
Plans: Big Amazon shipment for mom’s solar project today.
08:00 Cereal for breakfast and headed out the door for a short walk.
09:00 Back from our walk, have to deal with the car we gave away today.
10:00 Blogging..
11:00 Wasting time on FB.
12:00 Nap
14:00 Packing tape arrived, boxing up stuff
15:00 Figuring out how to ship this stuff.
16:00 Gee Wiz, there is so much anger out there…
17:00 Mowing lawn
18:00 Running Gen#1 and cleaning
19:00 Checking Gen, putting things away.
20:00 Whites are called to own the sin of systemic racism, ewe!
22:00 Bed
Narrative: If the packing tape arrives today (And it is supposed to) I plan on putting all the wiring to charge my mother’s golf cart using solar panels into boxes. Then I need to take them to be shipped.
Feelings: Found an interesting article promoting the idea of “Stop Sanctifying Criminals.” and posed it to my FB page.
Tomorrow: Sunday, not looking forward to it this time.
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.
Plans:
08:00 Up eating cereal for breakfast and a good cup of coffee.
09:00 Planning and going for a walk.
10:00 Switch computers to solar power and do some research.
11:00 Writing in my blog
12:00 Updated my planning chart and blogging.
13:00 Cleaning and blogging.
14:00 Down for a nap
16:00 Getting organized writing in my blog.
17:00 Dinner, large salad
18:00 Watching “That Girl”
19:00 Playing scrabble, I lost
21:30 Went to bed.
Accomplishments: Looks like my efforts to FB, Bing and the FTC have paid off. The fake power saving products are not being sold on any public platform I looked at today. (Except Amazon LOL)
Narrative: I realized last night there is a shortfall in my design for mom’s solar. If lightning hit nearby it could possibly travel into their home from the surface of the ground. With 400 feet of distance and insulated wiring we need to ground the golf cart if she is running the inverter AND charging with solar. The current plan is to put an inductor on the solar wires and ground the inverter with a power strip that has two plugs.
Repairs: One of my battery banks has a weak battery. The trouble with having four batteries in series is that the strong ones will kill the weak one over a short amount of time by over discharging it. (Below 10V) Especially in high voltage strings where a 2 volt voltage drop in a single battery will not be noticed. Short term I’ve paralleled a very small battery that will plus-up the capacity to protect the remaining life of the weak battery.
Long term I’m going to build a circuit that will notice when any battery in the string is almost two volts different than the adjacent battery. (maybe less.) I was hoping the battery management device would prevent this from happening, especially when the current draw is only 2-4 amps.
Feelings: We are drowning in all the amplified protesting, time for some serious social media distancing.
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.
Plans: Get groceries and ship about a hundred pounds of wire to mom.
07:00 Up and eating breakfast.
08:00 Planning meeting, Instacart Shopping.
09:00 Putt’n away the groceries.
10:00 Vacuuming the floors.
11:00 Finishing up the wiring for the solar charger.
12:00 Nap Time.
14:00 Package up the wiring to be sent to moms.
16:00 Tested solar wiring just to make sure before boxing up the last of it.
17:00 Dinner.
21:00 nibbling on an ice-cream bar
Narrative: Blog is a bit thin today, I was pretty busy all day.
We spent a great deal of the day talking about limiting the drama that we bring into our relationship. If we get emotional, it’s time to turn off the news. Which is hard since it is everywhere these days.
I never did get to mailing the wiring to mom, I’ll have to do it tomorrow….
I checked Bing tonight, none of the OKOWATT Ads are running anymore. (The complaint to the FTC may have worked.) They have also died down a little on FB, I’ve not seen the three “snake oil” power saving products being advertised for several days.
Feelings: I am discouraged by all the violence and destruction of property. I also do not know what subjects are “Safe” to talk about in mixed company anymore.
Tomorrow: Friday, hopefully I can get back on schedule tomorrow.
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.
Plans: Finish mom’s solar wiring and get it in the mail back to her.
Narrative: The latest design is to lay two “Gates” side by side and strap the panels to the top using zip ties or fencing wire. We need to support the top of the gates to about a height of 2 feet if we can.
Pretty much spent the whole day putting connectors on wires to charge mom’s golf cart using solar panels.
The sun is more than 200′ from the house so I’ve come up with wiring that allows them to put them up temporarily as they are needed. MC4 connectors are standard but difficult for most and impossible for an elderly person. I’ve changed the connectors out for Anderson SB50 (Standard Battery 50A) connectors with 100Ft sections of wire to run to the house. (can be extended to 400 feet)
This turned out to be quite a project, it took me all day to put connectors on all these wires.
This strike crimper turned out to be a life saver, a couple whacks from a hammer and the crimp is super solid.
Feelings: Atlanta police officer was charged with a long list of wrongdoing for shooting the man at the Wendy’s. It certainly feels like the BLM demonstrations have raised the bar on police use of force these days. We’ll have to see how this plays out in the courts.
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
