Tornado watch
Sunshine kitty is with me watching the dark clouds of nourishment roll across the great sky above us. I have finished gardening and ready for the infusion of the greatest molecules of life...and here comes the rain! The dark clouds are covering us now and the solar system has kicked into battery power for the night. It is so beautiful here...back into our sturdy #tinyhouse
Yeah riiiiiiight--homeless people go around buying farms. If you believe that I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I could sell you.
♲ Simon Brooke - 2022-10-30 10:34:41 GMT
#introductionSimon Brooke, crofter, ex #Lisp hacker, still dabbles in #Clojure.
Lives at Standingstone, which is not a commune but a conspiracy: what happens when a bunch of homeless people buy a farm.
Posts mostly about crofting, living #offgrid, #LandReform, Scottish #politics, mental illness.
he/him, #autistic, cis male, #transally.
I've been off grid solar for a few years and forgot how much people pay for electricity every month.
My utility bills continue to be $0 per month....
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/
Working from home.
We've been doing some chainsaw milling recently, quite close to the cabin, meaning that we can move the tools with our cargo barrow & more importantly pop back for a coffee or lunch. The Logosol portable chainsaw mill is ideal for small & medium trees, which is good because we have a lot of them & we're reluctant to cut the really big pines that remain here. The timber will be used for our own projects, it's not for sale.
#KM 0 #offgrid #DIY
This is an open-source solution that works with inexpensive LoRa radios, and your mobile phone or laptop, to be able to pass messages directly, or in shared channels, between the various nodes with no Internet or mobile phone coverage required.
The intention of this video is to give a non-technical overview of what it could be used for, how it works, and what you can expect from it. This is not a “how-to configure it” or a field demo video. Hopefully the video helps motivate some new users to set up these nodes in their own cities, and thereby help this form of mesh off-grid communication be more effective across entire cities.
Watch https://youtu.be/tNZdVxIIQ58
#Blog, #Meshtastic, #offgrid, #opensource, #technology
Myself and two other ham radio operators have established 3 Meshtastic nodes that will operate 24/7 to help build out more connectivity across Cape Town.
We are using license-free 868 MHz radios, so anyone can buy these cheap (ish) devices and get connected. The more nodes we have, the better the connectivity gets across the whole city. These radios will keep messaging going regardless of whether there is Internet or not. So, if we hit Stage 8+ load shedding and cell towers and Internet starts to go down, this messaging network will still work.
This means that citizens can message for assistance needed, and this can be relayed to City or Provincial Disaster Risk Management. Or in cases of loss of communications during a disaster we can also send out messages to everyone on the network as to where water tankers will be deployed etc.
Apart from the public channel (which is much like CB radio’s Channel 19) anyone can also create their own private channels (with passwords) to stay in contact with groups of friends or family. The connections between all radio nodes are encrypted with AES256 encryption, so private messages will stay private even though they bounce across 3 or more other radio nodes to reach the recipient.
You have a phone, so all that is needed is the free Meshtastic app, and a Meshtastic compatible radio device. This is probably bad timing, as right now there is a global shortage of Meshtastic radio devices. The massive global uptake has also made this situation even worse. But the point of preparing for disasters, is to do that well before a disaster strikes.
I’ve documented a lot of my lessons learnt, as well as given some context to the situation in South Africa for this service at the linked web page below.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/hamradio/meshtastic-in-south-africa/
#Blog, #capetown, #Meshtastic, #offgrid, #southafrica, #technology
I got kicked out of an "off-grid prepper group" for noticing this article is misleading. The guy in the article didn't "build" a cabin - he simply "renovated" an existing #cabin.
https://offgridlivingsurvival.net/how-to-build-a-log-cabin-for-10k/
The admin is a fake. He's never built anything but a following. All talk. it's all "what I'm gonna do when I...." But be sure to subscribe to his glossy online magazine..... ;)
I kept thinking, eventually, he'll post something about what he's done as a #prepper ......but....nothing. His daddy was mean to him, so now he knows bush survival....and that's it. no chickens, no garden, no tools, no land, no solar power, nothing.
@reparaRe
♲ la tierra de nuestros nietos - 2024-01-24 01:28:35 GMT
#offGrid #solucionIsla #solar #DIY #hackerSpace #solarPunkAlgunas imágenes para ejemplificar una instalación/constelación en desarrollo para cargar baterías de herramientas portátiles de 18/20vMAX.
La idea es en lo posible de crear un soporte para un banco de trabajo que aprovecha pilas de packs de baterías averiadas, permita cargar packs que aun están en buenas condiciones e incluso usar herramientas portátiles enchufados al sistema mientras las placas solares produzcan electricidad para prolongar el tiempo de uso real sin necesidad de cargar las baterías o cambiar las mismas.
Parte del sistema:
* Torre de metal de PC para alojar:
* pilas y packs de baterías
* controlador solar CMTD 20amp 12-24v
* transaformador de 12 a 15,16,18,19,20,22,24v
* cables y enchufes SCHUCO.Los enchufes SCHUCO son modificados para tener un solo borne (pin) de los bornes para corriente de 220v para el polo positivo y los bornes de tierra para el polo negativo de la instalación 18-20 voltios DC.
@permacultura @diy @marieverdeil
I looked up the property taxes for my old house in the city I sold, $5,000. I would estimate the utilities there cost at least $7,000 this year. Insurance was about the same cost as property taxes.
#Offgrid this year in the country, my property taxes this year, $200. Utilities, $0.00. Insurance, $0.
My new #solar #tinyhouse is much warmer this winter than that big house in the city. It's freezing outside, toasty inside. I'd say my quality of life increased and yearly carbon footprint profoundly decreased.
Looks like everything here already paid itself off! There's no way I'm going back!
My Solar Exploits
Well.... I'm kinda very disappointed and discouraged at this point.
I had another Under Voltage Error that shutdown/switched the system to Grid. This is the second one of those.
Checking the 5 batteries directly on their displays I find numerous Under Voltage and Over Voltage errors many of which must have been momentarily and not enough or brief enough to not shut down the entire system.
But my take-away from this is that "The System is only as Strong as it's Weakest Link" which is in this/all? cases a single Lithium-ion cell!
One cell not performing properly can shut down the whole system. We Need Much More Robust Error Management!
The system/battery should have the ability to bypass a single bad cell or lock out the battery from the system without completely stopping/switching/blocking system operation.
Beyond that the support and assistance from SunGold Power has been abominable. This is mostly due to language barrier and their lack of serious customer support (even worse than American Companies!! which is saying something!!) they will do just about anything to avoid replacing or warranting their products unless you threaten to Charge-Back via your credit card company. (not my direct experience but an acquaintance in the Solar Community with this same Inverter as mine). And they've stonewalled/ignored me since last week on the battery issues I'm having - #2 Undervoltage Error and #5 not charging/discharging in the same manner as the other four batteries.
Bottom line is Cannot recomment Sungold products by an stretch, but beyond that I'm feeling that this whole industry of DIY Solar (possibly barring the extreme highend systems) is just NOT READY FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION.
No where near plug and play. So far I've had to almost constantly babysit this system to keep it running. Very Disappointed.
There is good news though....I just got my latest Xcel Power Bill and I actually saved approximately 50% on my electric bill compared to last year's same bill. The average temp was slightly higher so that resulted in a lower Natural Gas bill but that is not factored into the 50% savings which is electric only.
Given this that "only a 16 year payback" term! LOL! Sheesh is this even worth it? Dunno.. Having fun but ...taking too much of my time, and I'm expecting knock on my door any minute from the City Code Enforcement people saying I have to stop. :)
We'll see. Onward and Upward. Two additional solar panels due to arrive at the end of the month ... that will complete my collection I believe. :)
Enjoy!
Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!
My Solar Exploits
Been having an issue or some confusion wrt one of my five batteries. It's not acting like the others and either hogs or supplies extra power to the system and as a result ends up with a significantly lower SOC - State Of Charge. Maybe it just needs a few full cycles but I'm a bit unsettled by it and the vendor (Sungold) I'm working with is a bit difficult both in communication and in support/returns/etc. I think Amazon has spoiled everyone though they too are getting a bit tougher...have refused to cancel a couple of my high-end orders of solar panels so I'm a bit upset with them as well. (even though the panels worked out and I have two more arriving at the end of the year). Should be getting my Xcel power bill in the next day or so. Should prove interesting even if I had two unscheduled/wanted solar issues that caused the system to switch to the grid (not even noticeable when this happens :) :) :) ) for some 10-20 Kw of grid power but I also got two near full charges of the batteries when this happened. (but also revealed the problem mentioned).
I wired in my breaker/cutoff for the batteries so now I can quickly disconnect them if needed and have breaker protection for the entire string and the inverter in addition to the individual breakers on each battery.
also, my six solar panels in the snow from last night.
Girl Living Off Grid, Build The Most Beautiful Bamboo Villa in the Wild, Girl Solo Bushcraft
Primitive Survival Life
