Happy Renegade Colonial Hoodlums Day

Today a few years back some renegade hoodlums threw some tea in the harbor and considered that by breaking free from Britain they’d make themselves tax free. Hardly - America is now on its way to being one of the most heavily taxed nations on the planet. Taxes will soon have to rise as all the baby boomers retire and due to having worked for next to nothing all their lives and having no pensions will need to live off welfare.

Anyway, today I pulled the suspect SAE to cigarette lighter adaptor apart and found the problem. One of the contacts had slipped out of place inside the plug part of that adaptor. That’s now wedged into place with some wood. The end result is that the plug now works. So, will I now go ahead and buy extra SAE sockets? I don’t think so - it’s extra expense.

Today was a pretty cloudy day and I struggled to get more than 2 watts from my two 30 watt panels. I wasn’t out there early. I had a bit of a lie in this morning. Heaven knows why but I woke at 7 then felt very tired an the next thing I knew it was 10.

As can be seen by the lack of a point source of light, the sky was pretty overcast. The morning might have been sunny but as said, I didn’t know too much about the morning.

Just as I put the portable panels away I put my suspect meter on the battery connection. It seems I’m up from13.1v to 13.4v. That’s encouraging. I did see it briefly in the green earlier today but I’m wondering more whether the batteries are out of charge because the fans suck too much power. I might have miscalculated the amount of time I can have the fans switched on.

This is a video of what my watt meter says. Apparently the two panels have pulled in between the pair, about 1/4 of an amp hour. That was from the time I put them out which was probaby some time after midday until about 8pm. That’s not greatly encouraging.

I can see that I’m probably going to have to upgrade my solar capacity further. I looked to see how some people have attached their panels and wasn’t impressed. One guy simply riveted brackets to the roof panels and riveted brackets to the edges of his solar panels. Personally I think it would be better to mount two rails on the roof, attached to the roof supports then attach the panels to the rails. Riveting is good but the rails will have to be spaced off the roof in order to allow flexing and to stop the beams from causing stress fractures. In fact it makes sense to have some kind of bracket riveted to the roof and the rails just bolted to the brackets and the panels bolted to the rails.

If I can get the same size panels as I have now then I could probably put up to another 7 on the roof - along the very top, behind the air vent. That would give me a grand total of 305 watts of power. Perhaps enough to merit a second battery. On a poor day like today with just 1 watt per panel I’d still only get 10 watts total. Oh for a small generator! In fact, it would be possible to run a line from the front to the back and put a split charger connection where I could charge the battery straight from the alternator. That would help on a run but not if I’m parked up for a few days as I’m planning for September.

Those ventilation fans are the killer. Everything else will happily run off solar. My circulation fans use hardly any power. My lights use hardly any power. My shower pump isn’t on long enough to make much difference. Without the ventilation fans, everything would run perfectly off my existing 35w of power. I can tell you now, hefting those panels in and out is beginning to be an issue. I’m very  opposed to poking holes in a perfectly good roof but it’s looking like I might have to roof mount some panels. I could use stainless steel brackets riveted using stainless steel rivets then bolt galvanized slotted still angle. That’s available in both 6 and 8 foot lengths from the hardware store though it’d probably be cheaper in 20 foot lengths from the local metal supply place. Food for thought!