Author Topic: More panels!  (Read 29758 times)

merkland

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #45 on: April 17, 2018, 06:24:20 PM »
Hey glort if you are considering and Aga or similar unit, try to find one that runs on heating oil. They have a gravity fed wick burner that will run real good on WVO, hell of a lot easier and cheaper than an electric version.

ajaffa1
Are you speaking from experience? I have had an oil(Kerosene) Aga for some 47 years and, knowing how fussy and temperamental they can be over the fuel they will use, I am extremely dubious of them being able to use wvo as a fuel. The wick burner they use is entirely dependent on the fuel readily vapourising.

merkland.

BruceM

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #46 on: April 18, 2018, 03:01:41 AM »
Alas, double pole switches (AC commercial grade ones which I tested on 120VDC) have the same problem on DC. I only found one out of about 6 or so that worked, and only at current below 3 amps at 140 VDC.  I hord them for special project needs since that model is no longer in production.  Ditto for my Cooper brand 150VDC rated wall switches (a duplex switch).

High voltage DC relays do exist.  Here's a german company that makes them starting at $132. each.
https://www.spselectronic.com/us/products/details-us/relay-rl-42-l-1/
There may be better suited ones out there.  The problem is that once you leave standard, high volume products, prices soar. 

The issue with higher voltage DC at currents in the 10-20 amp range cannot be solved by trickery and using a $3 AC relay to the best of my knowledge.  You can buy a suitable solid state relay for $200 at Digikey, or make one for about $20 in parts; an opto isolated gate driver and a few 600V IGBT transistors in parallel plus the smallest (<50 ma) 12VDC power supply. 

What you CAN do with cheap AC mechanical relays is provide zero current switching of DC; you can redirect from one load to another with the current off.  Just do it in steel enclosures so that no matter the failure there won't be a fire.

It might be useful for you to play with some switching at roughly 230VDC from some panels using resistive heaters or heat lamp loads to see what DC arcing is really like.  Just get one Midnight Solar DC rated breaker to use for a reliable kill switch.  US AC outlet plugs and sockets were originally designed for DC, and can also be used for a kill switch...just use a high current one and don't pull the plug out slowly! The contacts were designed to be "self cleaning" with a good wiping contact surface.  I don't know how your plugs/recepticals in Australia are designed.







« Last Edit: April 18, 2018, 03:58:23 PM by BruceM »

ajaffa1

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #47 on: April 18, 2018, 12:06:18 PM »
Hey Merkland, yes I speak from experience. In the early 1990s I was married with three daughters, all horse mad. I was talked/bullied into buying a farm for their hobby. The four bedroom property in Herefordshire England came with an oil fired Aga, for cooking/hot water and solid fuel heating Coal/wood for everything else.

I set about modernising the property, I installed a new oil fired central heating boiler feeding heating radiators in each room and the old Aga was dismantled and sent away for restoration. The new kitchen I built and fitted had an electric fan oven and an LPG cooktop, The plan being to only use the now reinstalled Aga in the winter months.

That year we had a very cold winter and surprise/surprise the cost of heating oil went through the roof. To add insult to injury the government also decided to start taxing heating oil driving the costs even higher.

I experimented with a lot of cheaper fuels including WVO. Basically these vaporising burners are little more than a glorified candle and they will burn just about any hydrocarbon (I never tried animal fat) The tray at the bottom contains the hydrocarbon which then flows up the concentric wicks where it burns. The heat generated heats the tray full of fuel to the point at which the hydrocarbon fuel in it starts to vaporise (imagine a deep fat fryer on fire). The temperature control is achieved by increasing/decreasing the level of oil in the burner tray. There is an electric thermostatically controlled float chamber normally mounted on the left hand side of the Aga which controls the level of the fuel. If I remember correctly the static/unlit level in the tray is supposed to be around 6mm of fuel and can be adjusted/levelled by winding the mounting bolts up or down. The control unit has adjustment screws which allow you to determine the maximum and minimum rate of burn. It is imperative that once lit and hot these adjustments are made to ensure a clean burn. A clear blue flame on the top of the vaporiser on maximum and a clear blue flame inside the vaporiser on minimum.

I had a lot of problems with this and found that a smoky flame would quickly cause clogging in the flue pipe. Experimentation and constant vigilance overcame these problems. I also found some fuels difficult to light, a mixed air and propane gas blowlamp sorted the problem.

I eventually converted everything to run on red diesel because as a farmer it was the cheapest and tax deductible. Bob one/ government nil.

For those of you who have no idea what red diesel is it is a tax exempt fuel for farmers, industry and construction machinery, it`s also used by the military. If you get caught using it on the roads expect a very large fine, repeat offenders go to jail. The military also use a red petroleum. These fuels contain a dye which stains the inside of fuel systems and is easily identified by government inspectors during routine road side inspections.

Strangely enough my experiment with farming worked out very well. At the time the British government and the technocrats that run the EEC had the common agriculture policy in place. This was a system of subsidies which assisted farmers in producing foods that were in short supply. No surprise then that we ended up with beef and butter mountains, lakes of wine all being stored at huge expense to prevent a fall in wholesale price.

Rather than reduce or redirect the subsidies, which could have adversely effected farm revenues and votes, the gubermints decided to introduce the set aside scheme where they paid farmers not to produce anything. We were expected to maintain our properties and destroy weeds but grow nothing.

60,000 dollars a year to not farm is the sweetest deal I have ever had! I also received government grants to plant trees and hedges. All capital expenditure was tax deductible as were machinery/fuel purchases and the costs of any outside contractors. Bob two/government nil.

At the time I also ran a construction business and the cost of machinery hire became negligible as I simply purchased the equipment through the farm and claimed it back as tax deductible expenditure. Bob three/government nil

I probably drove my accountant to a near nervous breakdown but there is a huge difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. No farmer that I ever met ever paid the government a cent in tax on any profit they made, It was all redirected back into their business. A call from the accountant and we would run down to the local agricultural supplier to by a new tractor, even if we didn`t need it.

Bob 

BruceM

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #48 on: April 18, 2018, 05:19:16 PM »
"I was thinking today I might put a meter in the kettle as well. I try to limit myself to about 10 Coffees a day and I'm wondering how much power that adds up to. I'm thinking it's going to be a surprising amount. Mrs has a habit of filling the kettle every time she boils it and I cannot get through to her to only boil enough for the cup she wants, not fill the bastard with 3L of water. "


My off grid 120VDC home/lead acid battery bank was powered by just 875 watts of panels until recently.  On sunny days I do mostly electric cooking, and very quickly I learned that excess water heating is your energy enemy. For tea, I use a 300 watt immersion heater.  Works fast and efficiently, even faster if I start with 130F solar heated hot water.  For cooking, I have crock pots and a small modified 600W toaster oven, and a 500 watt hot plate.

My favorite for general DC cooking is a modified  Aroma brand 300 watt rice cooker. I added a mechanical timer and changed the wiring so that the magnetic scorch switch on the bottom of the stainless cooking pot turns it off.  (The magnet looses strength and releases from the bottom of the pot if it gets hot, which opens a switch.) A single 250V MOSFET and resistors do the power switching, the timer and magnetic scorch switch control the MOSFET. This rice cooker is my favorite, as I can add just barely enough water in the bottom (1/2 cup) to cook/steam.   It also has a steamer pot that sits above the 6 cup pot.  I have serious short term memory problems and the biggest plus for me is that I can never burn up a meal with it, and even if I go out to the yard or shop and forget, when I come back there will be something edible and not a mess.

I've also learned that there is a good 10 minutes worth of slow cooking for free after the power times out. For a bachelor meal the timer is set for 25 minutes and food is ready in 30 minutes.  Just under 1/2 cup of water in the 6 cup cooking pot is sufficient.

300w x 25 minutes= 125 watt-hrs  or about 1 amp hour at 120VDC  for a meal.  My battery bank is 110 AH at modest current draw so both early breakfast and evening meal on battery power is not a problem.  I use the gas range on dark days and for most baking and cooking for groups.

It really doesn't take much electrical power to live on very comfortably if you are heating with solar hot water space heating and have no need for air conditioning due to super insulation with enough thermal mass and cool night time temperatures despite 100F days.








BruceM

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #49 on: April 18, 2018, 11:21:20 PM »
Thanks, Glort.  Now that I am no longer able to help disabled individuals with their homebuilding issues as I did for many years,  I would like to try and leave some sort of "leg up" for others so they don't have to learn it all the painfully hard way as I did.  Most people with seriously disabling MCS and/or ES have a unique pattern of brain damage (clearly visible on SPECT and FMRI) and have a hard time learning and visualizing complex things, so I think video clips with a more "hands on" demonstration might be more effective, though some sadly have no computer access at all. 

Truth is my writing skills are not great, besides being very mentally challenging for me.  I don't know how to write for non-engineers.  Over 20 years ago I wrote a 16 page condensed article on home EMF mitigation for a friend of a friend's book. (University professor writing about coping severe MCS disability.) She found it too complex, she had hoped it could be like a cookie recipe!  Some years later I was contacted by a newly disabled electrically sensitive guy (Phd in Biophysics who worked at Los Alamos). I sent him the article and worked with him via phone for first home and car EMF mitigation. He was able to improve his home situation by 90% and got back some health and is able to do some contract research work now, though he can't work full time in a typical office anymore.  A few years ago he wrote me to tell me how every time he reads the article, he has learned more and can apply more of what I wrote. 

This was intended as a compliment, but since I had attempted to write the article for lay people, I was pretty discouraged. 

I have attempted to find a co-author to help humanize my writing but so far they lacked enough technical savvy and so could contribute little more than correcting grammar and spelling.

I do have a digital camera that does video and sound that is exceptionally low in emissions and I can tolerate it for short periods.  I made 3 short videos about my prototype ultra low EMF inverter design for a civil engineer who has moderate ES and was interested in how it was even possible to have an inverter be low EMF.

I now have upgraded my rear projection workstation to a WXGA (1280x 800) projector over the last couple months; I had to add an external IR remote controlled focus adjustment since the Qume Q5 optics aren't temperature stable.  My old SVGA - LED pocket projector in a shielded enclosure would not allow me to use any video editing software at all- they are all designed for XGA as the minimum display.

I would much appreciate any advice and/or assistance in getting me going in a fruitful direction. I'll PM you with my email address.

 







BruceM

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #50 on: April 19, 2018, 06:09:53 PM »
"Amps from elbows" pretty much nails the problem. 

I'm not sure how tackle that problem.








LowGear

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #51 on: April 20, 2018, 08:24:48 PM »
Panel Price Alert:

I saw previously installed 250 Watt panels in the local craigslist (Big Island Hawaii) for $100 each.  I phoned and found the seller had eight inquiries in the first hour.  Not the screaming deals glort reports from Australia but still pretty darn good.
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BruceM

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #52 on: April 20, 2018, 09:39:39 PM »
sunelec.com often has panels at 0.50 to 0.60/watt.  Decent outfit.
solarblvd.com used to be the bargain king but they seem to have fallen on hard times lately. 


BruceM

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #53 on: May 20, 2018, 04:12:10 PM »
13KW per phase is brutal.  Heat pump for heating when outside temps are 0C is a joke; most systems are on resistance heating at that point as I suspect yours was.  The duct losses are huge; often R1 insulation on leaky attic ducts above the insulated envelope.  It's as if most homes where designed by the power co. to maximize their profits, as well as the HVAC guy to sell the largest, most expensive unit, instead of designing the house to minimize energy use.  It's as if insulation was very expensive, and had to be maintained and replaced, so we must use as little as possible.

I think you're on the right track with night time zoned resistive heating.  Checking heaters with an ELF magnetic field meter and the AM radio will show you that the best heaters can be 100x lower.  The lowest EMF are typically the oil or water filled radiator type, or electric-hydronic baseboard types.  They have the smallest current loop area with a small element.  If they use diodes to create a low wattage, that screws the deal and you get lots of diode generated EMI since they didn't bother with snubber EMI supression.


 

 

mike90045

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #54 on: May 31, 2018, 06:16:51 AM »
AC Heaters ?   Does your air conditioning use thermal coils for heating, or a heat pump?   Simple resistance heating has been surpassed by heat pumps, easier to move heat, then to create it.

BruceM

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #55 on: May 31, 2018, 07:35:31 AM »
Most air heat pumps get piss poor efficiency below 40F.  They promise the world but I've not seen one yet that is worth a hoot here at 5600 feet elevation.  A friend got conned- and what he really got was resistive heat strip heating with forced air (the highest cost heating on the planet) all through the typical 15F winter nights and colder days. His electricity bills were hideous.

In the Phoenix Metro area, air exchange heat pumps worked great for our minimal winter heating needs.  It was very rare that the resistive heat strips ever kicked in.

For Canadian style winter heating needs, ground source heat pumps are king.

 https://dandelionenergy.com/

ajaffa1

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #56 on: May 31, 2018, 10:39:35 AM »
Hey BruceM, I`m interested in your experience of sensitivity to EMF. Recently a Telco build a telecom tower overlooking my property(approximately 400m and in direct line of sight). Since it went operational I have suffered depression and fatigue. Today my wife drove to town and reports that she does not remember the journey and had no idea as to why she had driven to town. We have also recently lost several of our chickens to cancer. Could these symptoms associated to the tower?

Bob

BruceM

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #57 on: May 31, 2018, 06:29:07 PM »
Bob, your response to the new tower is well within the types of changes that others have noticed.  All radio emissions have the effect of being a stressor,  which the US VA researchers Becker, MD and Marino reported in the early 1970s.  On military bases getting new high power, high frequency transmitters, residents of base housing showed elevated cortisol levels and other markers of stress.  Of course the military and telecom response to this was predictable.  Marino at LSU, ran the definative study proving that Electrical Sensitivity is real, physiological, and that effects of EMFs can further be detected via special QEEG even in those not consciously aware of it; other studies have shown profound brain effects from brief cell phone use, but there is big money in cellular communications. 

Those with brain inflammation from autoimmune, toxics, or head injury are often accutely aware of effects. Recent evaluations of those self reporting electrical sensitivity consistently show via FMRI and SPECT scans  brain damage much like that of a closed head injury. 

Your own home wiring and wireless use is also often a contributor, so I encourage those without OCD or panic disorders to get the appropriate meters and see if major improvements can be made there.  Often, the new cell tower is just the tipping point, and the underlying culprit is the EMI radiating 24/7 from the home wiring, as well as magnetic fields from wiring and grounding problems.  Both are readily correctable with some time and effort but very little expense.

Shielding of the home or at least portions of the home is possible but is much more of a technical project and expense. If done well it can have the effect of moving you 5 miles or more away from the tower.  Avoid the use of expensive shielding materials such as conductive paints, and instead use things like breathable foil barriers, wire mesh, or aluminum foil.  Many people have been fleeced and spent tens of thousands and accomplished such a small improvement as to be unnoticeable.  My own home was built as an experiment to see what could be accomplished re: shielding of a home on a small budget.  The house has been tested and provides -110 dB of shielding at 2.4Ghz. This is limited by the leaky front door, and would otherwise be 120dB.  I have "overscreens" of 47 thread per inch stainless steel wire mesh over all my windows.  Materials plus labor for the shelding added only about $10K to the cost, as I was already planning on using a foil laminate system over drywall which I had developed for those with severe chemical sensitivity.

I can send you an article I wrote over 20 years ago on practical, hands on home mitigation if you'll send me PM with your email address.  I'm happy to help those who are willing to take the bull by the horns, learn and do for themselves. For many, the whole notion of unseen forces (radio waves, radiated EMI, magetic fields) is so disturbing that they are afraid to do anything or lapse into denial.  (I was in the latter group myself.)

For normal folks without severe electrical sensitivity, Cornet makes a single combined broadband RF, ELF magnetic and E-field meter (ED-88T) which is adequate along with an AM radio- the old Radio Shack 12-467 or Sony ICF-S10MK2.  Learning to use the AM radio as a poor man's near field sniffer for detecting and locating home wiring EMI is especially important; in less than an hour you can both find and identify offending sources in the home by simply holding the AM radio as you switch off circuit breakers at the main panel.  Often the fix is as simple as unplugging something unless in use; for example I have found many electrical stoves have such unbelievably bad quality switching power supplies that the entire home wiring is radiating and can be heard via AM radio within 6 of any wires in the wall, ceilings, and floors. Adding a switch to turn off this portion needed only for the oven solves the problem, as the burners do not require it to be on at all. It only needs to be on for oven use.

I am very glad to help those who are trying to learn about this, and reduce the unnecessary health stress of their home electrical system on themselves and family members.  It is the cheapest health insurance you can ever buy.  Most problems are readily correctable!!!

Specifically for depression, I'd suspect that endocrine disruption is happening- your autonomic system is being affected.  Besides fixing the home situation to dramatically lower your daily EMF exposure, I'd suggest getting free T3 and reverse T2 thyroid tests done, as well as 4x a day saliva cortisol levels, and for men, testosterone.  These are all things that can profoundly affect cognition, energy, depression and/or anxiety, and are again are something that can be corrected via supplements and/or hormone replacement.  Correcting the thyroid and cortisol problem can restore you dramatically. 

Assessing the home situation via meter is always the starting point.  Without any meter, step one is to make sure the head of your bed isn't on the same wall as a power meter, and that you don't have wireless on in the home at night, and you don't have a plug powered clock/radio on your bedside table.  Meters are critical- you can't know what needs doing or if you've got it corrected without measurement.

Best Wishes,
Bruce

PS-  Your distance from the tower is alarming and depending on the antennae orientation you could be in a very high level situation.  If it has only just been installed in the last week, you may find that the accute symptoms will subside IF you and your wife are still sleeping OK.  If it has been months, uh oh.  Depression is a very serious thing, and as Glort suggested, taking a holiday from the home might be very helpful in sorting things out.  But please get a meter, as often unseen WIFI transmitters can cause microwave levels higher than the tower! For those who have developed severe electrical sensitivity, getting away from EMFs can be a serious difficulty.





 
« Last Edit: May 31, 2018, 06:44:08 PM by BruceM »

ajaffa1

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #58 on: May 31, 2018, 11:42:49 PM »
Thanks BruceM for your detailed reply. I have a mate who is an electrician and has access to an EMF meter, I`ll get him round asap. The tower went live about three months ago and I have had nothing but mental health issues since. My GP put me on an antidepressant called Sertraline, about 1 in 10,000 have an adverse reaction to this drug, guess what, I was the one. Ended up in hospital with blood pressure of 205 over 105, the ambulance cost me $800! The trouble is that Sertraline is extremely addictive so you can`t just stop taking it because of the side effects. I`ve been lowering the dose for weeks and am now free of it. Got to go back to the GP next week to try and find an antidepressant that isn`t going to kill me.

I think the attached photo should give you an idea of the view of the tower from my veranda.

Hey Glort, yes I have very nice .223 with telescopic sights. I have considered a little target practice but think the authorities would take a dim view of my blasting away at their critical infrastructure. This tower is a high power relay station, where it is it attracts a lot of  lightening strikes, I have considered going up there and disconnecting the lightening conductor/earth wire. First strike should fry all the electronics.

Bob

BruceM

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Re: More panels!
« Reply #59 on: June 01, 2018, 01:13:24 AM »
Bob, alas most electricians know nothing about EMFs except that they fully believe in the "religious training" (supported by shoddy power company cigarette science) they have had that there is no problem.  Electricians have no real technical training whatsoever in my state; they learn the rules by rote and by putting in their years under supervision but they are ill equiped to deal with technical issues outside their rules because they typically lack any technical background. Even a HS diploma is not required in my state.

In particular, I have NEVER helped with a home EMF mitigation project where we did NOT find serious high frequency EMI on the home power, radiating from all the home wiring.  Usually that is from the homeowner's own equipment.  Sometimes it is due to poorly maintained distribution lines, with arcing on loose and/or corroded metal hardware on the pole near the lines.  These can be readily located via AM radio and Air Band radio. I helped with a home of a woman with a very rapidly progressing case of Parkinson's a few years ago.  Ended up that two bad arcing sources within 2 miles were the culpret.  She had no AM radio reception in the house- the entire AM band was making a 120Hz buzz anywhere in the home and along the wiring coming into the home when home power was turned off (the tip off that it's an external source).  I had my helper walk the lines with my radio gear and he found both sources per Marv Loftness's approach in just an hours walking.  With the pole numbers marked down and poles marked with red tape wrap, the power co. was very cooperative. 

Whether this is someone's "big health issue" or is just another mild stressor is impossible to predict.  But there is no harm in correcting what are mostly simple EMI and code violations of wiring and some grounding issues.  You can't really tell by looking, the most innocent looking situations can be a horror show, and vice-versa.

It's hard for me to understand the necessity for wireless in the home. Pulling Cat6 cable is not a big deal and with a jack at each person's favorite working locations you're covered.  The idea that you must be connected at all times and in all places is telecom marketing hype for suckers.  The evidence is increasingly pointing to this as being NOT at all helpful for young people, who have a much greater incidence of all kinds of metal health and chronic health issues.