This is basically what I have now. I also have a temporary line (not yet buried) running from the pole to where I'm building with multiple outlets for working on the house.

What they installed were new overhead lines from the nearest electrical pole (not on my property) they installed poles & wire to bring it to the edge of my property. They put a pole on my property which has a transformer at the top of the pole to reduce the voltage to something I can use. On that same pole they put an electrical meter housed in a large grey metal box. The box has a large circuit breaker and from that circuit breaker I ran temporary outlets and basically a long extension cord.

Couple more battery questions. And thanks again for all this info.

The "smart charger" when I tell it to just charge "optimally" instead of 2/10/20A, tends to settle into 4.2 .... Any idea why? Could be to do with my power coming out, maybe?

Once the battery reaches "full" and I began using it, what is the best way to determine how much energy remains? The GZ charge indicator will show it 100% initially, but fairly quickly drops to 80% and then takes a long time to drop to 60%.

When I begin charging again, the smart charger reads "low."

Was thinking about going ahead and chaining a 2nd battery--could I still buy a twin of this battery or is the use I've put on it going to negatively impact life and capacity?

Is it possible and would there be any reason to do all this with lithium ion batteries?

What difference does smaller loads and charging make? Running a 15 watt bulb, say, v. a 50 watt draw. Does the battery draw down faster?

Oh, and one more: Can you charge a battery from multiple chargers? The solar connection installed in the GZ, for instance, or theoretically a second AC charge?

Just finished my first readthrough of Issue #1.

First things first: do you say "ampersand" or simply "and" ranch? I've been mentally ampersanding it.

Second, it's a quality publication, better than I was expecting -- photos and color art especially. You've definitely got a unique thing going on here, very wild and weird. I don't like the poetry, but I'm a ****ing snob and I never like the poetry. Acid trip sequence is probably my favorite part.

What's the deal with the library cards? Suggested reading? Nice touch in any case.

Looking forward to my next dose....

"Ampersand Ranch"

Thanks! Much appreciated. Yeah, one of the things about & is there's a lot of different genres and forms in it all at once. Which I think can be good and bad. There's a "variety show" aspect that I dislike. And we've all read books where only half of the story interests you and you jump back and forth ...

On the other hand, if someone doesn't like poetry there's plenty of other things to find to like....

I'm excited to put together #2. There are a bunch of ideas kicking around in my head, and I don't feel particularly beholden to #1, it doesn't have to be the same...

So far sales have been slow (Etsy store link) ... I wound up with 2,000 of them due to a printing mistake. So it prices out that I could almost give them away, but you still gotta find the peoples.

May need a storage unit for all these boxes

Oh, like a note or something? I use library card catalog cards in a lot of stuff I do. I got a few thousand from a library several years ago and I love the vibe and style of them. So I write notes on them, send them as postcards, and often use them in projects or pieces I'm working on.


From a set of postcards I did.

ok, picked one up from etsy

Very cool, thanks!

I'm not a big watcher of YouTube videos, which is probably why starting The Lazy Homesteader stalled immediately. But Binksy just sent me a link to this guy's stuff--this is someone who I could actually watch.

Around 17:00 he talks about how everything is paid for, so he doesn't go "backwards" if money isn't coming in .... definitely where I'm trying to get to.

I could possibly be debt free by the end of August, which would be pretty awesome.

I was looking back at old credit card statements to see when my debt peaked. I think around August '15, when I'd just finished the cabin and had things more or less in place, I was in for about 35k.

In some ways that seems like a very rapid rate of paying down debt, but at my last apartment in D.C. ($1400/month), three years living there would have cost more than $50k. At one point I was paying as much as $1,850/month for a fairly nice 1-bedroom apartment, which would have been 65k.

I've been thinking about what to do next. Having this place paid for, I have some options.

1. Make very little changes and save money.
2. Move out to the PNW for a time. Just an experience I want.
3. Move back to D.C. for a time and reconnect with some friends there.
4. Buy a new place.

I've been thinking about purchasing something in Puerto Rico. Have been more than a half dozen times as a tourist, and I like it there, the culture mix, beach-urban split, and so on. What with Hurricane Maria and their economy and a likely exodus, could be opportunities to buy a winter home.

Actual land seems to be pretty $$ there, so it wouldn't be buying acreage. But a condo or small house that needs repairs could be doable. I've read that buying property in Puerto Rico is more akin to buying a car stateside. Seems about my speed. Gonzo might have to learn Spanish.

There are also some improvements/capital outlays that I've been putting off.

I need a second vehicle--love the jeep, but it's completely impractical. The obvious lack of cargo space, you can't really camp out of it unless you dig tents, and the wheelbase is so short that it's just a hilarious/dangerous mess on roads in the winter.

The dirt road, as it froze, snowed and thawed, it's about four inches of mud right now.

So, second vehicle. ... Been thinking about a shipping container for storage/garage, also.

But there's still 6+ months before I can really think about that stuff. This game of shifting around credit card debt to avoid crazy interest has gotten old, and stresses me out.

Yes, it has.

I've had a couple of days where I never fired up the generator, but when I do it's for shorter periods of time now.

No bites on the GoalZero for sale on CraigsList. I see units on ebay that are sold for a wide range of prices, most shipping without the battery. I use ebay a fair bit, but always get nervous shipping large/expensive items, so I've been hoping to find someone local.

May just keep it, also. It is a nice, small, portable-ish (heavy) unit and I could see using it on the road.

Cool.

I could definitely see it being useful if you decide to do some traveling and camping out West. That's exactly the type of thing it was designed for.

Debt is the mind killer.

If you want to do PR, then go for it. The island needs people coming in. This exodus is cooking up to be Cuba 2.0 for the rich ****s.

My motherland is a beautiful place with beautiful people, for some reason tourists ignore it and go to other Caribbean islands (which is dumb because you don't even need a passport for PR). You can always bail, but I bet you'll love it. Just be ready for the debilitating 2 weeks when you suffer your requisite bout of Chikungunya.

Puerto Rico really is fantastic, and like you said, I don't know why more American tourists don't visit. I always enjoy going because you've got an actual urban area in San Juan with great music and restaurants and food. And then you've got the surfer towns and the even more remote islands, and it's all a quick nonstop flight from lots of airports. And like you said, no passport needed, your cell phone works just fine (well, pre-Maria) ...

Arecibo, Vieques, Rincon ... not far outside Rincon there is this small town with absolutely beautiful art deco architecture, classic stuff and it's all in total disrepair but still amazing ....

I took Cape Air to Vieques on my first trip, a 6-seater, and wound up sitting next to George Pataki, former NY governor, who has/had a place there with friends. He talked about how he could feel all the stress release when he was there. ... Over the next few days we'd see him occasionally, walking around the plaza there.

We didn't actually figure out who he was until later. ... Amazing trip, swam in the biobay, next time I went back you couldn't do that. Someone said they had a shark attack but someone else told me it was bc all the people in the bay was killing the organisms that made it glow.

Haha, you can still swim in the bio bay. Just have to make friends with the people who work there ;D

Last time I took a dip, a dozen or so of us ate a bunch of shrooms and all swam night. The glass-bottom kayak tours are still cool too, we took my mom on one the last time she visited.

And yes, Vieques is possibly my favorite place in the entire world. Although, I do believe my days of sleeping on the beach are done.

These are great, it's like I have a British twin or something. He explains all the mistakes he made and early stuff, and it's a lot like my setup. Around 11:30 on that video he explains how he didn't understand lead acid batteries at first, much like me.

Yeah man, glad you're enjoying the vids.

Ive met Max a few times at music festivals, super humble & very talented guy.

Peace

Of nice! Didn't know you really knew him. Yeah, digging the videos.

Oh, de captain, is it too late for me to purchase another batter to chain to this? You said they need to be very similar and even the same age, I think?

I love watching videos like that. Its quite different but in the "same" category I love Primitive Technology as well, this guy builds basically everything from scratch caveman style;
https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com/

You should be fine. You haven't had the other one very long. Yes, they should be the same size.

nit: 240 volt single phase really has two waves running from like +170v to -170v to ground and 0 to 340v to each other. Root-mean-square of a sine wave is dividing by sqrt of 2, giving you 120/240.

'Splain three phase. I've always been curious.

These things are easier with pictures. It's 3 sine waves though, all 120 degrees out of phase. Generally all the sine waves have the same amplitude, but there are some that have one higher than the others, called a "high leg".



(What's shown is generally described as voltage against time, but it's the same graph for current as well.)

In 3 phase the amount of power is the square root of three times current times voltage*

In single phase (either 120 or two 120 volt circuits 180 degrees out of phase) the power is current times voltage.

So, 3-phase is more power at the same voltage.

*there's something called power factor which lowers the amount of power if the phases get out of sync which is caused to some degree by large motors or anything with high inductance or capacitance.

Pretty slick. Is three the limit at 60 hz?