Back to work. Electrical extension components selected.

After being on vacation the last couple of weekends, it was back to work this week.  

A lot of this past week was spent updating my battery and generator research.  My list of generators is now updated on the solar spreadsheet I have been working in (https://drive.google.com/file/d/16g0W-_9pEH2vaUiGeYPaBuW3A21ksxqL/view?usp=sharing).  More importantly though is I added a tab called Camper Power.  I put all the power consumption information in there that I collected on my last trip to KY, and I also put in a few different component selections and estimated how long they would last on battery.

You may recall I was rather surprised at the high power consumption of the camper, so I took two approaches.  The first is to get a tiny (and very quiet), 2kW or less, generator that can't run the whole camper, but use it to supplement the battery setup so I don't need to buy 8 grand of lithium or 1000 lbs of lead acid.  The other approach was to buy a very large monster inverter generator that can run the whole thing, leave it in the back of the truck and run it when I want to use the AC, allowing me to keep the battery setup really small.  Those generators are very expensive (but arguably not more expensive than a large bank of batteries), but they are also rather noisy (even the inverter generators are up around 65-68dB), which means I could potentially have trouble if I am in a state that doesn't allow idling.  There may not be many states like that today, but that is something that I would expect will spread.

I looked at several different options, all of which are located at the link above.  At least for the first iteration, I decided to go with small generator as a supplement.  The benefits of going with this approach: the small inverter generators aren't outrageously expensive (<$1k), they are very quiet (<60dB), and they are small and easy to move around.  On the downside, they typically don't have long runtimes courtesy of typically small gas tanks.  I would have that generator hooked up to a couple of power supplies, which I would then use an MPPT (solar) charger to put power in the battery bank.  Honda is the king of quiet inverter generators, but are exorbitantly expensive, so I went with an Energizer (the AA battery company) generator that on paper at least is competitive to the Honda for noise and literally half the cost.  I intend to pair it with 3 large lead-acid batteries and a 4kW inverter.  I am going with a 12V system, which while not ideal, for a small contained unit should be fine, it just means building it will require very large wiring.  Here are the components I chose, though I am considering adding another power supply and charger.  It will last a half day if I run everything from the battery, and a whole day if I run the fridge off of propane (which I will most likely do).

I might look into getting one larger MPPT charger instead of 2 (or 3 if I add another power supply) smaller ones just to make it more cost efficient.  Otherwise it is time to pony up the dough and start building.  I have also briefly started looking at truck caps since this will not be outdoor rated.

I have done a few other odds and ends this week.  I made a new switch for the generator earlier in the week.  It is too small for the hole, but was what was available.  

I installed the switch last night.  It isn't lined up well, but oh well, I am already over it.  

I don't know how I ever worked on the deck without impact tools.  They were expensive, but easily worth it.  

I pulled off the pulleys.  The first one was pretty much destroyed.  There are supposed to be teeth in the middle.  

I had forgotten when I went to sharpen the blades that I needed a new set.  Oh well, it won't cut nicely, but if it cuts, that is an improvement over the nothing it did all last year.

The new pulleys are installed.  It only took me 5 minutes with the impact hammer, compared to the hours of struggling with it last year ending in failure.  

The blades are sharpened and the deck is ready to roll.  The tractor itself is kind of buried in the corner and my carport is overstuffed at the moment, but it just needs an oil change and a new battery.

I also went up and picked up my dad's saw the other day, it is all fixed up.  I fired it up, and it seemed to run well.  I intend to run a tank or two through it before I bring it back down to make sure it doesn't just get gummed up again.  Plus I now have a meaty saw for taking down trees, mine is just a little 40cc limbing saw.  

I also borrowed a magnetic sweeper to try to find the other deck spring along with the tub of gray screws that ended up on the ground in the carport.  I would be very sad if I got a flat on my tractor because of that.  

When I went up to the shed for the grinder, it looks like I might need to add replace the doors on the shed to my list of projects this year.  Or definitely next year.  My current doors are peeling apart.  I should have enough T1-11 leftover from the south wall to do the one that is peeling real bad.  

Work is progressing (as much as it can when it rains every freakin' day) but nothing is completed yet.  The lit carport is very nice to have.  

2021 Projects:

• Prepare summer equipment
• Carport repair
• Windows in shed
• Shed supports
• Table
• South wall siding
• Bridge over creek
• Review options for house (mobile home vs stick built vs modular)
• Trailer hub
• Rebuild smaller trailer
• Level back yard
• Level side yard
• Level front yard
• Clear trees to creek
• Remove dead/dying beech trees
• Retaining walls?
• Eliminate pile of crap in back
• Camper Electrical extension (portable AC power source and generator)
• Clean up/level area down by second parking spot
• Driveway round three
• Fix shed door.

Short post, more wildlife

I added a new animal to my wildlife.  I had a ruffed grouse running up my driveway when I came home the other night.  I tried to take a picture of him, but he blends in almost perfectly.  I circled him in red.

I also awoke to turkeys yesterday morning.  

I also went and poached a new switch for the generator.  I will get this installed soonish.  I found some fuel tank grommet and shut off valves, but I need to check the fuel line sizes.  

I also did the math on the camper power.  My numbers came up pretty common according to the internet, but scary for the purposes of what I was going to build.  The AC alone draws as much power as my entire tiny home does in a day in July.  I might consider dumping the battery idea since I am looking at upwards of 8 grand for batteries, and the numbers I need make lithium batteries a must.  I came up with 16kWh a day (though I could get it down to 10 by running the fridge off propane), while most internet averages say 15-20kWh a day from what I saw.  

I am going out for this weekend, so I won't get much done this weekend, but will start re-investigating generators upon my return since a lot of the ones I looked up previously are no longer available.  I might also investigate a hybrid approach with a little super-quiet 1kW inverter generator that should be able to run a day on a tank of gas and a battery or two to make up the difference. 

No movement on the project list for 2021.

2021 Projects:

• Prepare summer equipment
• Carport repair
• Windows in shed
• Shed supports
• Table
• South wall siding
• Bridge over creek
• Review options for house (mobile home vs stick built vs modular)
• Trailer hub
• Rebuild smaller trailer
• Level back yard
• Level side yard
• Level front yard
• Clear trees to creek
• Remove dead/dying beech trees
• Retaining walls?
• Eliminate pile of crap in back
• Camper Electrical extension (portable AC power source and generator)
• Clean up/level area down by second parking spot
• Driveway round three

Lots of new toys and power measurements

I went down and visited my family last weekend.  The weather was kind of crummy (aided by my terrible windshield wipers).  By the time I got to PA though, the weather broke up and it looked kind of pretty.

It was kind of nice going south and seeing all the stages of spring.  By the far end of PA everything was in full bloom.

I also took speed test results at the rest areas on the way down.  With one exception in WV, which had no cell signal, they were all adequate.  Barely adequate in one case.  Working remotely with 3.4MBit down and less than a half megabit up would not be pleasant, but it is theoretically adequate bandwidth for remote desktop.  

At one of the stops in PA I got blazing speeds.

One thing I noticed while I was down there is that his carport has major dew issues, I only noticed because I was in and got dripped on.  I don't think my carport does this, but I have a bit more pitch on my roof and the ribs go the correct direction.  I had the expectation that everything under my carport is dry, and at least with his carport that is not true.  It isn't much, but still violates expectations.  

The main project work I wanted to do while I was down there was measure the power consumption of the generator.  So the first thing I did was beef up my dad's exterior outlet.  He had installed a basic cheap NEMA 5-15 outlet, even though the breaker and wiring were good for 20A. So I bought a 20A outlet and brought it up to code.  The wiring is 10 gauge exterior grade, so in theory the wiring is in place to upgrade it to 30A in the future if he needs it.  One thing I noticed when I pulled it apart though is that his exterior box didn't seal worth a damn and the wires were corroded and the outlet had begun to rust.  When I put the new outlet in, I siliconed the crap out of it.  It better not leak now.

I brought down two devices to measure the power.  The first was something I built.  I snagged some 12 gauge stranded (better conductor than solid core) wire from work so I could build a little extension cord that had the hot lead with a couple of loops in it and I borrowed a clamp on ammeter from work to measure the current.  

The first set of plugs I had were inadequate and you couldn't put 12 gauge wire on them, so I went to Lowe's and grabbed a new set of beefy ends, but when I found the male NEMA 5-20, I assumed the female right next to it was its matching pair, and ended up with this.  Doh!  This is the 240V plug, not the 110V.  Ugh.  At that point I was running short on time, since I waited until the last day to do the testing since it was the nicest and the testing included AC so I ended up not using it.  

The second was an in-line device similar to a Kill-a-watt (though this one went up to 2kW while my kill-a-watt maxes out at ~1600W.  I ended up doing all my testing with this.  The back rack was very useful as a table while I was doing the measuring.  

I couldn't do a direct measurement of everything running all at once, since it was more than this could handle, but I have the numbers of the pieces and can add it up.  I noticed that their power down there is technically running out of spec according to the meter I brought.  Standard power in the US is nominally 120V (even though it is often called 110) with a 5% tolerance, which makes 126.0V the upper bound and it read 126.4V.

I started with the battery run down a little (and the furnace turned up so it could duel the AC), so I would capture power measurements with the battery in the absorption phase of the charging cycle.  This should hopefully ensure that those readings max out the converter charger.

I also ran the tests without the battery connected, since they were surprisingly unstable when I was measuring with the battery connected. Here are all the results.  In the duel between the furnace and the AC, the furnace won.  Not surprisingly considering it is 17k BTU vs 13.5k BTU for the AC.  The numbers for the battery disconnected are what I will use for my calculations.  I still need to look up some other things, like what kind of duty cycle can I expect for the AC, and so on.  The AC measured the same power on high and low, so I only put one of them in the table.

I also got a bunch of goodies while I was down there.  The first is a generator.  This isn't an inverter generator, so it is only for house backup.  It is a 5000W, 5500W surge.  It is a pretty barebones unit but should be fine for me.  While I was down there, my dad showed me how to clean the carb on it, which is something that frequently happens on generators because they sit so much, and was something I have never done before.  Turns out the process is actually quite simple and the hardest part is getting the stuff apart and lined back up.  It is a good thing to know how to do.  This one was actually pretty clean already, this generator almost looked like it had never been used; there wasn't even discoloration on the muffler.

Turns out the unit had a bad switch in it.  So we pried out the old one and I hot-wired it to be on.  Sprayed in a little starter fluid and it fired first pull.

It will need a new gas shut off valve and tank grommet (I don't remember the technical term for the part was that Dad used) since the old one was crumbling and the gas we poured in to test the generator poured right out on the ground.

The generator came with a wildly overbuilt carrying wagon/caddy.  All the lumber in this picture is 2x4, and there are runners on the bottom as well as what you see here.  The casters on this thing are seriously beefy.

The problem with casters though is they don't work off the concrete.

For now I put the generator in the carport, but I need to come up with a way to get it in and out.  The carport is looking overstuffed at this point.  

I also got some boards.  These are shelf sized, and I will probably use at least some of them to put more shelving in the shed.  

I brought back my dad's old saw so I bring it to Barry to get it looked at.  Interestingly the saw didn't leak a drop pretty much the whole drive home, but when I hit the MA state line on the way back, it all of sudden started leaking all its fuel out.  Very strange behavior.  It spent the rest of the trip back in the bed of the truck.

So the storm that was rolling in when I left was supposed to dump a ton of snow.  Despite the forecasted 14-16" of snow, the warm weather that followed and the fact that the ground wasn't frozen meant that it vanished very quickly.  There was a decent sized pile where the carport slides off, which indicates that we did get a lot.

My yard is bare again though.  It is even greener now than when I left.

No completions on the project list, though the camper electrical extension is now in progress.  Since I have a house backup generator now, I don't need to worry about over-sizing the generator I select for it.  In fact, a little 1kW tiny inverter generator is now in play since there is a 0% chance it will ever have to power the house (it would be plan D now: wait, regular generator, camper power wall, new guy; itty bitty generator that can only run lights and the fridge)

2021 Projects:

• Prepare summer equipment
• Carport repair
• Windows in shed
• Shed supports
• Table
• South wall siding
• Bridge over creek
• Review options for house (mobile home vs stick built vs modular)
• Trailer hub
• Rebuild smaller trailer
• Level back yard
• Level side yard
• Level front yard
• Clear trees to creek
• Remove dead/dying beech trees
• Retaining walls?
• Eliminate pile of crap in back
• Camper Electrical extension (portable AC power source and generator)
• Clean up/level area down by second parking spot
• Driveway round three

No real work, short update.

I haven't done much the last couple of days, mostly cleaning out the truck and stuff like that, getting ready for my next trip.  As I was headed into town last night though, the sunset was really pretty.  I really need to find a new camera app though, the stock google one has been completely neutered in terms of capabilities; why would anyone need to adjust exposure levels, their average exposure calculation is perfect...

I also saw my old buddy on the way back.  I didn't get a good shot, but that is my porcupine.  He didn't like my headlights and ran away.

One thing I forgot when I did the south wall siding is that I never sealed the piece that I did get in.  Oops.  We are supposed to get a pretty major snowstorm, though thankfully I won't be here for it, but I will want to do at least some of the sealing work before I leave.  I will also want to undo some of the summer things, like my hose is all hooked up but it will be dangerously cold to leave it that way.  I will do that tonight, but that means no more project work until after I get back.

More work, more problems.

It turned out to be a pretty nice weekend.  Saturday was nice and warm, and I started off by changing the oil in the Cub.  It took me a little while to figure out how to get the stupid valve to open.  

Pretty much everything about the Cub is among the stupidest design I have ever seen.  Apart from the stupid valve, the filter is sideways over the frame guaranteeing the oil spills on the tractor, and the hood doesn't open far enough to use a funnel effectively.  It didn't help that the jug of oil also ran down the side 

I also swapped the blades over to the spare set.  The impact hammer I bought to fix the Craftsman worked very well for the task.  

Getting the deck back on was a major chore.  Despite there being only three things, it doesn't go on nearly as easily as the one on my Craftsman.  Even though in the end, most of what it took was to just get a bigger hammer and beat on the pins.  I am not sure how Dad used to do it so easily, I have seen him put the deck on in 5 minutes.  I needed one hand pulling the deck backwards, wrapping my leg behind the tractor so it didn't roll away while I was pulling on the deck, and take a hammer and beat on the pins.  After I took the tractor out and tried it.  I hit the PTO, and got absolutely nothing.  Then I was sad.

It started to drizzle a little in the afternoon.  I also realized that I didn't have an empty jug to put the used oil in so I had to reinflate an old milk jug.  

Sunday started off cloudy, so I decided to work on the south wall siding.  I got the first piece pulled out and disappointingly the T1-11 got wet despite being tarped all winter.  

I got it all marked out and then the sun decided to come out, and the clouds all disappeared so I walked around a bit.  I have been trying to avoid working with the T1-11 in direct sunlight because it curls really bad and really quickly.

I think I might dig up some of this fill that I put down last year.  It is the only part of the yard that is still mush.  The silt is straight up junk.

One of the biggest places I put it was to fill in the dip where I put in the drain pipe.  I might dig it out, since it seems to be causing the rain to run off instead of draining into the drain pipe, which will be a problem if I ever finish leveling the backyard.  

Then I lowered the deck on the Cub and pretty quickly identified what was wrong, and I should have noticed it when I put the belt on...  The spring for the idler is missing.

I also took the chains off the Kubota and sprayed them down with WD-40; I don't think that I will need to do any more snow clearing this year.

I also removed the old seized up coupler, and re-primed it.  I have the new kit ready to go after painting.  

After that the clouds returned so I returned to the siding.  I got the first piece cut but apparently when I built the wall extension we missed with one of the studs?

I got the second piece cut, but was unable to install it by myself.  I have become major wimp and couldn't get it lined up by myself.  Mostly because I couldn't stand where I needed to, I had to hold it from the side standing on the trailer frame and couldn't quite get it in underneath the lip at the top and still line up around the window.  I tried adding a board at the bottom to sit it on, but the siding has warped too much for that to work effectively.  I don't really want to remove the board at the top but might have to do that if I can't get a second set of hands.  

But the first piece at least is up and looks nice.  

Progress was made and the south wall siding is in progress, but nothing completed.  When I stopped at Home Depot to pick up paint for the trailer, I looked and they didn't have the plastic sheets I got last year in stock, though most of the acrylic section was reasonably well stocked.  I might go and remeasure, see if I can use smaller pieces since I don't have to do the top this time around unless I wanted to use the top pieces on the other side, which is an intriguing option.  

2021 Projects:

• Prepare summer equipment
• Carport repair
• Windows in shed
• Shed supports
• Table
• South wall siding
• Bridge over creek
• Review options for house (mobile home vs stick built vs modular)
• Trailer hub
• Rebuild smaller trailer
• Level back yard
• Level side yard
• Level front yard
• Clear trees to creek
• Remove dead/dying beech trees
• Retaining walls?
• Eliminate pile of crap in back
• Camper Electrical extension (portable AC power source and generator)
• Clean up/level area down by second parking spot
• Driveway round three