Post by cheapo on Jan 16, 2010 15:13:54 GMT -6
so i spose i'll start at the ginin. all this re stuff "renewable energy" that is, got in my head with a school project to power a radio with a solar panel. a kit bought from radio shack. it was a cool toy. kept me mind boggled for bout five minutes. so then i grew up and started payin an electic bill. made me think about that radio again. at the time we were livin in nm. so i dove into makin lectric with a wind generator. funny thing the one i bought was made and shipped from mo. so along with two 125amphour batteries from walfart i started powering my shed with lights and radio. this is when i learned that things draw power even when there not on. anything with memory draws power to save your favorite station or channel. this leads to a big problem overnight. although this is a small drain it is still a drain, and enough of these things can hurt a small system like mine. enter the surge strip. a handy and cheap tool. you can run almost any small stuff off of my system as long as you remember to turn off the strip when you are done. since we moved to mo. i have added a 130 watt solar pannel to the system, now a hybrid was born. this made all the power that we used the first three months we were here. after useing that time to clear land we moved out of our tent and into our 8ft. by12ft. cabin that we are still in untill summer hits. now back to my point. once all our cool gadgets were unloaded, tv,vcr,dvd,stereo and computers. the overnight drian from the memory and light displays are a big drain. then you have to waite for the sun to come out so the batteries can charge enough to kick your inverter back on. so don't waste what you make because your batteries only have so many charge cycles. the more often you have to charge them from almost empty to full shortens the life of your batteries. and we know that a new battery bank every year is not as cheap as doing it every five years. just remember those little lights on stereo look cool at night but just think how much cooler a 4watt nightlight over your pee-pot would look at 3 in the mornin. just don't forget to turn it off.
