Category: Blog

Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies.

Plans: Put away groceries and take a walk.

• 07:00 Get up, have coffee, read the paper.
• Changed out portable battery connectors from Red/Blk to Pnk/Blu.
• Change UPS connector from Pur/Blk to Pur/Blu.
• Labeled all ten portable 20AH Deep cycle battery packs.
• Installed Red/Blk connectors on new DC power meters.
• Checked bathroom sink drain.
• Dishcharge test on two portable batteries (2 Yrs Old)
• 10:00 Walked around the block
• Attempted to run Inverter on Club Car charging port, OBC disconnected it.
• Left a message with Golf Car service center to get an SB-50 pigtail installed.

Narrative: All that tests that I’ve done with the 48V Inverter have gone very well. Other than just being HUGE, it’s very efficient and continues to run without fault.

In the homestead I have three prominent voltages, maybe four. When I built the 56V battery bank and accidently connected it to the 28V bus destroying a 12V regulator, I knew that I needed to color code the voltage on the wires. The first is a regulated 12V (Red/Black), then I also have a battery voltage of 14.2 (Pink/Blue). There’s 24VDC Orange/Black also unregulated battery voltage 28V (Orange/Blue). For the 56V unregulated voltage for the UPS I’m using (Purple/Blue), I don’t have a regulated 48 volts anywhere (Purple/Black). Two solar panels in series is Yellow/Black. AC voltages are Grey/Grey.

If you were wondering how I came up with that color code it was a long road. When I decided to run a DC line to every room in 2012 I was thinking low power with solar backup. (CPAP and emergency lighting.) I bought two 500′ rolls of Red/Black wire and ran them across the attic to every room from the garage. At that time I only figured on using 12V, so the connectors on the homestead were red/black just like the wires. The NEC by the way says that Black is a “HOT’ wire above ground and that I should have used a “White” wire instead. The plan is to run a white wire in addition to the Red/Black ones to satisfy the requirement. (+12 Red, Return White, -12 Black ) which supports all the requirements of the homestead with those three colors. (I don’t foresee running 56V across the house.)

The CPAP didn’t like the voltage drop at 6A @ 12V so I needed to push 24V for that purpose which used the same Red/Black wires. Very little in the homestead cared whether it was 12V or 24V so it didn’t matter the wires stayed the same color. When I added the solar panels I really needed to separate the 42V from the DC distribution and the color code was started with Yellow/Black. I had to buy a significant amount of connectors to interconnect the batteries and power distribution. Pink/Blue arose out of having 14.2V portable battery banks that needed a separate charging circuit. The homestead had a pair of power supplies that used the 14.2V (Pink/Blue) and regulated it down to 12V (Red/Black) It also has a pair of power supplies that regulate the 28.2V (Orange/Blue) down to 24V (Orange/Black) When I bought the 1500VA 56V UPS units I needed a third color which became purple/blue. (Blue being battery at this point and black being a regulated return.)

Feelings:

Tomorrow:

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

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: Keep repairing / improving on the house.

• 05:00 Writing in my blog.
• 06:00 Connected new cable on Inverter, run test.
• 07:00 Looking for a 28V power supply.
• 08:00 Called mom, groceries are being shopped.
• 09:00 Shower and Nap time
• 11:00 Up
• 12:00 Walked around the block
• 13:00 Planning time
• 14:00 Organizing, inverter still running, Club Car cable is out for delivery.
• 15:00 Nap #2
• 16:00 Repairing TV
• 17:00 Dinner, Soup and crackers
• 18:00 Watched a movie.

Narrative: Long emotional day today.

Ran the new Inverter ALL day on battery occasionally loading it to 300W, it never got warm and I didn’t hear the fans kick in either.

Outside lights that were on a timer are now on an Internet connected Outlet that has a schedule for Dusk to Dawn. Been working great but I am at the limit of the 2A power supply. (need to upgrade to 3A PS.)

Feelings:

Tomorrow:

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

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: Celebrate Mother’s day and the Lord’s Communion.

• 07:00 Eat breakfast and celebrate Mother’s day.
• 08:00 Prepare for church today.
• 09:00 Shower and Call mom
• 10:00 Church
• 11:00 Build box for Inverter
• 12:00 Nap
• 13:00 News and FB in my Pajamas
• 14:00 Walked the house with a camera
  • 5 Tires for Ford Focus
  • rake
  • Aluminum bar for solar panel
• 15:00 Building 48V cable.
• 16:00 Dinner

Narrative: I’ve built a lot of projects over the years and there’s always something in the project that makes it difficult. For example, I wanted to have a backup power source for a refrigerator, that should be simple enough right? As it turns out (10 years later), it has a lot of variables and significant requirements.

The surge from the compressor starting was probably the largest hurdle to overcome. Inverters are pretty efficient within ranges of power. Less than 200W 12V is preferred, less than 1000W 24V (40Amps) and over 1KW 48 Volts. Keeping the four batteries evenly charged was also an issue which I solved with an equalizer. After weeks of searching I realized that the 32V Automobile fuses I’ve been using for years is not rated for the 56V on a 48V battery bank. In fact most fuses outside the Automotive type are not rated for a DC voltage at all. (3AG/3AB glass fuses) I ended up buying a high voltage fuse holder and ceramic cartridge fuses for the center bridge between the four batteries dividing the 48V battery bank into two 24V batteries. If a failure occurs across the bank, the ceramic fuse (Fast Acting 14A) will open the circuit. If a short happens within the bank then the 20A ATOF 32V automotive fuses will open the circuit.

Another problem that presented itself was trying to evenly charge 24 lead acid battery cells in series. Further, adjustable 48V power supplies over 150W that can reach 56V also are uncommon. I ended up with two 24V bench power supplies that are connected to charge 12 cells each of the 48V battery bank.

Its important that if a fuse opens that the 56V doesn’t appear across the 24V power supply! (Fire!) So each 24V power supply is across two batteries and the fast acting high voltage fuses are BETWEEN the two power supplies!

The last piece of engineering is running this refrigerator from a generator. Yes we could run the generator for 24Hrs a day, but the low power requirement of a fridge doesn’t justify running the engine all the time. A better solution is to run the fridge from a battery and charge the battery with Solar or a generator. My fridge needs about 2200WH/Day which is too little and too much. I have two 35AH 48V battery banks for the fridge, that’s 3360WH of storage for the homestead. The ideal charge current is 1/10C or 7 Amps which would take almost 12 hours to charge them up. 80% can be reached at 6 hours or less. If we size the generator to the load (100% load is most efficient) 7 Amps @ 56V is 400W and the generator should be able to run 7 hours at that power. My five 860VA generators can support 400W for about 5 hours on .4 gallons of gasoline.

Feelings:

Tomorrow:

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

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: Help mom get farm mowed and assess work to do on the house.

• 09:00 Be ready for Mom to call.
• 10:00 Grocery shopping and had lunch.
• 11:00 Pulling DC power wire through the attic
• 12:00 roll up the remainder and tie up the ends.
• 13:00 Check on neighbors lawn
• 14:00 Nap
• 15:00 Installing light in Eve
• 16:00 Testing camera and light
• 17:00 Cleaning up the back porch.
• 18:00
• 19:00 Dinner and a movie, Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

Narrative: I still haven’t gotten a handle on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Instructables and one other I’ve forgotten. Twitter is text, Instagram is pictures. Facebook family happenings, Instructables yes, Pinterest maybe.

Pulled the power wire for the crest of the roof over our bedroom. Terminated the wires, added a 3A fuse and connected the IR Illuminator to the 12V buss. This relieves the 12AWG wires to be used for two solar panels on the roof.

Feelings: Finished my first week of retirement. I have been learning to “Let Go” of the things at work and I ended up blocking certain people from reaching me on my phone.

Tomorrow: Sunday, Zoom church.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

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: Ship a cable I made yesterday to Florida.

• 08:00 I’m up and sipp’n coffee, it’s FRIDAY and rain is predicted.
• 09:00 Refrigerator is connected to Inverter and startup Watts is 1,335W.
• 10:00 Headed out to ship a cable to Florida.
• 11:00 Checking my refrigerator and inverter, it’s been on the new Inverter all day.
• 12:00 Nap time
• 13:00 Reading how to use Instagram.
• 15:00 I am still haggling about how to use this Blog, Facebook and Instagram.
• 16:00 Digging up technical information on SLA batteries.
• 17:00 Eating Din Din.
• 18:00 Movie Night…?

Narrative: Now that I have more time on my hand I opened this Instagram account to share pictures. It feels like Facebook followers want pictures of family things, not technical things. Some of my projects have gotten some negative results. The guide says to post different pictures about once a day. (And that’s about where I am.)

Instagram is almost impossible on the desktop, I don’t seem to be able to make posts. Posting to Instagram on the phone you have to be pretty picky about the pictures since editing the picture is about impossible. I guess that I am back to detailed things here in my blog, Instagram with one captioned picture per day and Facebook about life. For Instagram i’ll be posting late in the day since I won’t know what the most important picture I took for the day until it is over.

Feelings:

Tomorrow: Saturday

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

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. (And TP)

• 07:00 I’m up sipp’n coffee and reading E-Mail
• 08:00 Watching our shopper get our groceries.
• 09:00 Doing research on the substitution of Kroger Mini Wheats
• 10:00 Talking to mom about the farm in Florida.
• 11:00 Eating lunch
• 12:00 Looking for High Voltage Fuse Holders and fuses.
• 13:00 Building a cable to run an inverter from a golf cart charging cable.
• 14:00 Nap
• 16:00 Received 48V inverter and mounted cable, took pictures.
• 17:00 Dinner
• 18:00 Tested Inverter on 48V battery bank and two 500W heaters.
• 19:00 playing Scrabble and calling it a day.

Plans: Put away Groceries, take walk and work on mom’s Inverter for her refrigerator.

Narrative: I had fun today playing with the Inverter. One because it was larger than any previous purchases. Two because it ran on 48V (Which is really 56V) which requires special fuses. (Automotive fuses are rated at 32V) Buying fuses rated at 15A at 60VDC was a challenge some years ago when I bought my first 48V UPS. My downfall was that the Eaton 48V 1500VA UPS could not run my refrigerator like a 24V 1000VA Triplite UPS has been doing for about 10 years. This Inverter is Surge rated at 3KW which should easily start the compressor in the refrigerator. I am a little scared to try it with all of our food in the fridge and this Pandemic situation.

Engineering: Fridge part 3. It took several days to find out that the 18AH batteries were actually 1/2 a standard U1 size battery. A U1 battery is 35AH and almost as common as the 18AH batteries I have so many of, they are also cheaper per amp/hr than the 18ah batteries. 105AH of U1 batteries is half the number of 18AH batteries on my bench.

It still was quite a few wires, but much more manageable. I had to change the stakon ends because the bolts in the batteries were larger. The batteries were roughly $100 each and I have 16 so far.

If you’ve read other sections of this Blog you’ll know that I bought 4 and have 5 of these tiny 25Lb china made generators.

They get bogged down at about 500Watts resistive even though they should be able to handle 688W with a .8 power factor and 860W resistive. 364Watts is 53% of the rated capacity of the generator and about all I can get out of a pair of 28VDC power supplies to charge the batteries at about 13Amps. I’ve tried to run connect the UPS directly to the generator with mixed results. (Depends on the generator) If the refrigerator is in defrost cycle, half of my generators won’t run the UPS directly. Using DC power supplies appears to be the most effective way of running the fridge from these small generators with the high refrigerator compressor startup currents. I have total control of the amount of current and the end charge voltage with them.

Feelings:

Tomorrow:Friday, my last payday with the company.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Repairs: Pi News:

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 (Even TP)

Plans: Groceries arrive at 9AM.

• 06:00 Still sleeping… LOL
• 08:00 Get up and sip on some coffee, InstaCart in progress
• 09:00 Put away our groceries and checked for our stimulus check.
• 10:00 Walked around the block and called mom
• 11:00 Weed+Feed neighbors lawn, InstaCart is down nationwide.
  • I am glad we got our groceries early
• 12:00 Updating my blog and worked on my Solar Inverter setup.
• 13:00 Nap
• 15:00 Reading about Instacart Crash.
• 16:00 Checking my Solar Inverter, 600WH today from two 100W panels.
  • 765WH into the load and about 600WH from a power supply.
    • 1200WH from 24VDC produced only 765WH of power… Ewe!
      • Need to double check the Go Power specifications…. Something’s wrong.
      • GP300PSW Inverter is 80-90% efficient. Poor Power Factor Loads?
      • Need to try a MSW Inverter to see if the Power Factor is the issue.
• 17:00 Checking my Solar Inverter setup, it is still bewildering.
• 18:00 Dinner, church in an hour.

Narrative: I made a HUGE post on Facebook about my mom’s Golf cart UPS. Then I changed the distribution. (That way people don’t get the notification, but they can see it on my FB page.)

InstaCart website is down and it looks nationwide. There is a pretty good article on the company how they got started and how the shelter in place has bolstered their business.

Engineering: Fridge Part 2. I don’t remember the line of thinking to purchase the 800W Triplite SU1000XLA UPS, but I have three of them. I also bought three Eaton 1500VA UPS units and they refuse to support the startup currents of the refrigerator even though they (On Paper) can support 3000W for a short duration. One of the Triplite UPS units is dedicated to the refrigerator and has been that way for maybe 10 years. The “Effective” connection is simple, plug the UPS into the wall and plug the refrigerator into the UPS. There is an external 24V battery connector that I use for the two large 80Lb batteries. (100AH) for most of that 10 years. When the 100AH batteries were needing replacement I didn’t like the idea of shelling out $600 for a pair of replacement AGM batteries.

My first thought was to use 18AH batteries, they are common and relatively cheap. I could buy them as I was able to afford them. I paralleled them with the existing 100AH batteries until I had made up sufficient storage to run without them. After I had gone through all the trouble to series/parallel twelve 18AH batteries, I really didn’t like all the wires and fuses.

More about the Fridge batteries tomorrow..

Feelings:

Tomorrow: Another Shopping day and walk around the block.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Repairs: Pi News:

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 (Even TP)

Plans: Work on the homestead, maybe make a budget.

• 06:00 Up and making coffee, checking E-Mail, lights and cameras.
• 07:00 Writing in my blog.
• 08:00 We went for a walk around the block.
• 10:00 Talked to a friend about “Prepp’n”
• 12:00 Down for a nap
• 14:00 Writing in my blog.
• 15:00 Run another generator and do some soldering.
• 16:00 Dinner
• 17:00 Crimp connectors on a bridge rectifier.
• 18:00 Test bridge rectifier running Television on 24V.
• 19:00 Call mom and look for a heat sink
• 20:00 Writing a post in Facebook and my blog

Engineering: My refrigerator seems to draw more power when we get groceries. I know we leave the door open, but it’s surprising to me how much more power it uses on those days.

Narrative: I had a long talk with a friend today and it occurred to me that maybe I could blog about my backup system for my refrigerator.

We don’t have to fear our food may spoil during a power outage. For a number of years our fridge is plugged into a special outlet that is powered from a Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) with fairly large battery bank in the garage. It remains running when the power fails for more than seven hours unattended. (No need to run extension cords or flipping switches.) It is about 12 yrs old and has a standard compressor in it.

More Tomorrow…

Feelings:

Tomorrow: Grocery order is in, it should arrive around 9AM tomorrow.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

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. (Even TP)

Plans: Groceries should be delivered at 9AM.

• 03:00 Tried to get a status of our Stimulus check and got locked out.
• 07:00 Got and sip’n on some coffee, GMAIL IMAP is down worldwide.
  1. How does that happen?
• 08:00 Running generator #1, Assisting our “Shopper” get our groceries
• 09:00 put away our groceries.
• 10:00 Ran generator again.
• 11:00 Walk around the block.
• 12:00 Read E-Mail and the news, no stimulus check today.
  • Running generator#2 so I can change out the gas.
• Enabled the Hue Skill with Alexia
• 13:00 Took a Hue hub and bulbs to the neighbor.
• 14:00 Took banana bread to a neighbor.
• 15:00 Calling mom
• 16:00 NAP
• 17:00 Talking to mom about the Inverter.
• 18:00 Mow the front lawn.

Narrative: I have to come up with an adapter from a #10 eyelet on a cable and a 1/4-20 bolt for Nancy’s Inverter.

Feelings:

Tomorrow:

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

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: Shelter in place, we have plenty of food and supplies

Plans: Church services and work on the house

• Get up around 07:00 and prepare for church services.
• 09:00 Take a shower and get dressed.
• 09:30 I just realized I didn’t have my coffee this morning.
• 11:30 Eating Lunch
• 12:00 call mom, run generators for a while.
• 13:00 Nap time
• 14:00 Look for gun safe combo
• 15:00 Running up gen #3 and changing the gas to non alcohol mix.
• 16:00 Eating dinner that the neighbors brought over yesterday.
• 17:00 Checking the news
• 18:00 E-Mail and Facebook.

Narrative: I have a Mom, a Generator, a well for water and a problem to solve. My mom lives on a farm with a well that is about 50′ from the house. She has more than 15 animals that are dependent on her. She also has a refrigerator that needs power within 8 hours of loosing shore power. I bought her a generator it has an electric start and plenty of power for the well and the fridge.

The Well: It is located far enough from the house that the generator should be connected near there to keep the Carbon Monoxide from entering the home. There is no hookup provided at the current time that they could use to connect the generator.

The Generator: It weighs 120 Lbs and the chassis is so low to the ground it cannot be rolled on it’s only two wheels on gravel or dirt. Really a poor design for such a heavy generator. The only flat cement is in the garage where it is currently stored. I have put it into a steel four wheeled cart that makes it much more transportable, however it does have a tipping hazard if the wheels are turned too sharply. It will run about 5 hours on about 6 gallons of gas depending on the load. (Good alternator.)

The fridge: Like most refrigerators it has a fairly high startup current, but a pretty low run current that could easily be supported by battery.

The Golf Cart: Mom happens to have a 48V Club Car with new batteries. I bought a charging cable and an Inverter. If we can manage to connect the cable to the Inverter without destroying it we’ll try their deep freezer first. If that is successful we’ll connect the golf cart UPS to their fridge next time the power fails. The only Hiccup is that the inverter is not weatherproof. The golf cart has to be close enough to the house to shelter the inverter. What might work is to close the side panels and leave the inverter in the golf cart. Then just run an extension cord into the house to run the refrigerator.

Feelings:

Tomorrow: First retired day, no Stimulus check and four days from my last paycheck.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accmplishments: Purchases: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs: Pi News:

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