Hi Guys....
Another weekend in paradise is over...Sore muscles, aches and pains to show for all the fun I had...
The BJG1 (Blow-Job-Gennie #1) is up and running, not doing anything more constructive than charging batteries x 2 (638 Tractor/Car batteries) at the moment... It is scaring the living sh!te out of me at the moment though... We are currently experiencing winds of around 60km/h gusting up to about 120km/h... The pucker factor is...well...XP (Extremely Puckering)... This will test out the installation a bit, I reckon... The damn thing sounds like a C160
prop when the wind hits a decent rate!!
I have just ordered another 2x 638 batteries to parallel onto the existing two, the system uses a 24VDC buss... That will allow me to disconnect 2x batteries at a time, or 2 + 2, as and when I need to, to use them in the farming toys, but still have them for added reserve when they are not running mowers, augers and bush cutters etc...
I am currently pondering the easiest way to integrate this mess of cabling and fan into the household wiring, the inverter I have on hand is non-grid-tie, so an interesting solution is being thought up... What I am looking to do, is to stick this inverter onto the "Server/DVR/Pabx/Alarm" household circuit, dedicating it to that (it has a nominal 24/7 300W draw), but, as always, the wind is not a "reliable source" for energy... At some stage its going to fall short (pretty soon too, I would think!)...
My idea is pretty simple... Stick a 24VDC intelligent charger onto the batteries that can hold around 20A max... Turn the charge voltage down a wee bit (By adding a couple of heavy duty diodes in the line to the battery to drop the voltage) and let it idle along, only coming into play when the BJ drops a bit and is not making enough for the output draw... This takes care of the incoming side to the batteries quite well, I would think! The outgoing side is easy... one by 500W true sine wave inverter, directly coupled to the required plug circuit, and Bob's your uncle... (Or was it Aunty? Has he been for that op yet?)
Any of you bright lads done similar maybe?
Aaaaah.... A lull in the wind.... It's suddenly gone extremely quiet.. Scary!!
At the moment out data/telephone lines are down, giving me a chance to catch up you lads on the things happening in darkest Afrique...(Typing this "offline" to be updated later.)
On a slightly different note, the oil burner/heat exchanger that I made up seems to be running quite well.. The only problem that has really been experienced is that, as it's middle of winter and evening temperatures are "brisk" (Right down to about 10C at night, eat your heart out you chilly buggers in the rest of the world!), the WMO in the tanks tends to thicken a bit, causing a few minor problems with the gravity return lines, a problem soon to be remedied by installing the largest rubber hoses I can get cheaply! Consumption of fuel looks to be in the order of between 3 to 5L per day, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, depending on how cold the users are and how long they sterilize themselves in the wash bays!!
Combustion through the burner, once warmed up, yields only a slightly visible grey smoke, more evident at night in the cold air, leading me to believe that most of the output is water vapour...
One minor change I have made to the burner set is the addition of a stainless steel "swirler" in the fire tube - Once up and running, glowing a nice yellow, any vaporized oil hitting it, combusts immediately, and this seems to have evened out the burn quite nicely. I have found though, adding a bit of distillate thinning to the WMO 90W gunk, makes a huge difference to flowability, combustibility and carbon output... I am currently running about 2L distillate to 5L gunk for a reliable output... This is quite high, but until I can get a thicker return line on the burner, I will have to stick to it.. No matter, I can distill 2L in an hour of running the Crackernator (Thanks for the name, Glort), and I still have a couple of hundred liters batched up anyway...
On the Lister front, TM1 is still sitting there sans head, head on the workbench,
ready to be assembled and pressed back into service....
Right, Enough rambling...
Keep it spinning, cooking, blowing and.....
Cheers
Ed