Production in waiting

Since yesterday was a flop, today I think I gonna talk bout solar stuff.

 Boy howdy Billy Bob, what ya gonna do, sleep your life away? After get'n up 3 or 4 time last night for numerous reasons, I suppose I got a total of bout 4 or 5 hours sleep. Yep.....7:50 this morning.

I read so much about "my batteries go dead" what it makes me wanna just shake somebody till they listen and understand. Batteries are a "power house" storage device. Not like them little thingy's in your flashlight, but a big plastic box full of voltage and wattage. Let's take the typical "golf cart" battery what most RV'ers, boondockers and offgridders use to power up all them appliances, charge their cell phones and operate a computer or two. All at one time. These wonderful devices will hold right at 205 to 230 amp hours of romp'n stomp'n power for a set of two....wired in series and all that good technical stuff.....12 volts ya know. In case ya don't know it, you never let your battery voltage go less than 12.10 to 12.20volts. What is 50% capacity for most deep cycle batteries. There are only so many cycles, so every time you "kill" a battery, it costs you a cycle....then your battery is finished, kapoot, no good....bury it.

Of course you could rejuvenate a battery using some "secret" formula you found on the internet. All is fine with this approach if you have no appliances, own only one light bulb and have an super energy efficient PC. Rejuvenated batteries have a very short lifespan...the reason they were chunked in the first place...and will only have 20 to 30% of the original capacity. Another reason for "my batteries are dead".

One of the first problems I see is the batteries are not charged to full capacity. Well how do you know when your batteries are charged? You surely ain't gonna know with a voltmeter while the batteries are still on charge. All that tells ya is the voltage from the charging device, not the voltage of the battery. A battery has to "rest" with no external voltage or load applied to it for no less than 2 hours to get an accurate voltage reading...what will tell ya the state of charge. Fully charged the voltage reading will be no less than 12.70 volts. Anything over, the battery has not rested long enough. By the way, batteries were designed to run on sulfuric acid, not salt, not Draino, not gasoline, not dishwasher safe Dawn....nitrous oxide is of no help. The only true indicator of a fully charged battery is by the use of a hydrometer....little floating ball thingy you can but at any Walmart for a couple bucks. All cells must be checked, not just one in each battery. All readings should be very close. If not....your entire battery bank is in jeopardy of being "murdered" little by little.


Well, how do you charge a battery? Tomorrow, I may just give ya a few hints...that is if I can remember.



Since I ordered new reflective material for my solar oven and it's coming in today.....take a wild guess what I work'n on. Took the 2 reflectors off, sanded all the little burrs off that might tear or puncture the new material and got them all washed up ready to be covered. Then, and then, when it's all back together, I gonna fire it up and bake me something. How bout them chunks of vinison that guy brung me way back in April? Think it would be too tuff to eat?


Oh yeah, broke out the remote control pick'em up yesterday what I put a brand spank'n new motor in. Holy cows, that sucker runs now. Must'a been a hunert mile a hour....well maybe more like 20. When them quail see that thing com'n at them, they was gone....pooof, just like that. I chased a road runner with it one time....yup, road runners do fly. Took off like one them F something fighter jets....right up in a tree.

Speak'n of remote control stuff, I ordered a motor and belt drive system for "da boat".
In case ya forgot about my boat.....

 

 Gonna be continuing work on this project when I get to the slabs. Ain't no place at the slabs to run a riverboat, but maybe when I get to "da pond" in Yuma, it will be ready. You do remember the pond, right? That where old Billy Bob catch enough rainbow trout to fill the freezer and eat trout for months. Legal? I don't think so. Legal would be like 56 fishes in 2 weeks if'n ya caught the limit every day, what ya ain't gonna do. You gonna do like I do, catch a whole passel one day and take the next day off to rest from clean'n them suckers.