Author Topic: Solar Powered Woodshed (Read 20854 times)

ChrisOlson · « **on:** October 21, 2014, 10:44:15 PM »

We put up a new woodshed because the old one was getting a bit ratty. The new shed holds 24 cords of firewood - plenty to get us thru a tough winter. I only got our shed about 1/3 full right now, but I'll finish filling it this week.

Gotta have lights in the woodshed. Always used a flashlight in the old one, which was a PITA in the middle of winter. And I'm not about to bury power to this shed from the next closest building when all that is needed in there is decent lighting to load the wheelbarrow at night and split some of the bigger chunks that the wood processor let slip thru.

So I dug around in the shop to see what I had to put in a standalone off-grid lighting system in the new shed. I found a Everstart 14ah motorcycle battery that was badly sulfated and only had 11.53 volts in it. So I put that on the charger for the last week and EQ'd it for 5 days. It finally came back to full capacity on a load test after 60 hours of EQ charge at 15.5 volts. I found two Attwood marine LED's in a box - perfect for lighting in there. And I found a VW solar panel that has the plug thing gone off it that used to plug into the cigarette lighter in the car. Volkswagen put these solar panels on cars that were shipped to the US to prevent the battery from going dead, and IIRC they're like 11-12 watts or something like that. It puts out 22 Voc and about 800 mA @ 12.5 volts. The lights draw 700 mA and light it up bright as day in there at night.

All the wiring is fully off-grid approved - as in whatever you can find laying around the shop to make it work. The only thing I have to buy is a 1A fuse for it, which I couldn't find in any of my boxes of stuff.

Frank S · « **Reply #1 on:** October 22, 2014, 12:16:00 AM »

Nice , thinking about the cold temps you get up there do yu have plans to encase the battery in an insulated jacket ?

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #2 on:** October 22, 2014, 08:57:28 AM »

Hi Frank,

No, I didn't plan on that. I think it will be fine. The LED's only draw 700 mA, which is pretty minor. Even when the battery is down on capacity when it gets real cold it will still work OK. Fully charged, at close to freezing temp I left the lights on in there all night because I forgot to shut them off a few days ago. The battery was still at 12.23 volts in the morning and the little solar panel got it up to 14.86V during the day.

greenenergyexperimenter · « **Reply #3 on:** October 22, 2014, 06:03:19 PM »

Now that's a woodshed! I like the repurposing of materials to create this lighting system.

Frank S · « **Reply #4 on:** October 22, 2014, 08:12:51 PM »

Chris the reason I asked was because I know your area sees some extreme cold weather periodically.
Back when I taught winter survival at point Barrow we had a freak cold snap while out in the boonies the overnight temps dropped to -70Â°f overnight and I know that it has been as low as -64 in Embarrass Minnesota .
Some of the batteries around camp literally froze near solid I think it was because they were discharged to start with

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #5 on:** October 22, 2014, 09:14:44 PM »

Quote from: Frank S on October 22, 2014, 08:12:51 PM

Chris the reason I asked was because I know your area sees some extreme cold weather periodically.
Back when I taught winter survival at point Barrow we had a freak cold snap while out in the boonies the overnight temps dropped to -70Â°f overnight and I know that it has been as low as -64 in Embarrass Minnesota .
Some of the batteries around camp literally froze near solid I think it was because they were discharged to start with

Yeah, it's gotten to -59 here before. I'm not sure what temp a battery freezes at when its fully charged. But let's just say that if it gets that cold we got bigger problems than worrying about whether or not an old motorcycle battery in the woodshed is going to freeze.

Frank S · « **Reply #6 on:** October 22, 2014, 10:51:33 PM »

I know your right, we convoyed to just West of P.B. from Ft Waynewright near Fairbanks a balmy -15Â°f when we left. everyone was told not to shut off their vehicles some did though not a pretty sight burning a spare tire under the crankcase to warm a cold engine enough to turn over jumper cables to a frozen battery makes funny noises and smells too.

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #7 on:** October 23, 2014, 08:07:15 AM »

We generally don't go anyplace when it gets to -30 or below. We just stay inside and enjoy the beauty of it all, with a 100F temperature difference from inside the house to outside.

tanner0441 · « **Reply #8 on:** October 23, 2014, 12:17:40 PM »

Hi Chris

Couldn't you put a passive IR sensor so you don't have to worry about switching it on and off, it is sheltered so you don't need serious weather proofing. I have several little units stripped from old intruder alarms, 3 wires 12V supply and a switched wire...

Brian..

Mary B · « **Reply #9 on:** October 23, 2014, 07:13:09 PM »

-10 and below I stoke the corn stove and read, doesn't pay to be on the road because car parts start getting brittle at those temps. at -30 even steel starts getting brittle. Breakdown and you either have a cold walk or wait for help.

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #10 on:** October 23, 2014, 10:21:07 PM »

Quote from: tanner0441 on October 23, 2014, 12:17:40 PM

Couldn't you put a passive IR sensor so you don't have to worry about switching it on and off, it is sheltered so you don't need serious weather proofing. I have several little units stripped from old intruder alarms, 3 wires 12V supply and a switched wire...

If I had one of those sensors laying around I would probably use it. But I just taped a toggle switch to the top of the battery, which also works fine. I had turned the lights on the other night, and left them on, with the idea that I was going back out to the shed to get some more wood. Didn't need anymore wood and never went back to the shed. But the battery handled it fine anyway.

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #11 on:** October 23, 2014, 10:24:53 PM »

Quote from: Mary B on October 23, 2014, 07:13:09 PM

-10 and below I stoke the corn stove and read, doesn't pay to be on the road because car parts start getting brittle at those temps. at -30 even steel starts getting brittle. Breakdown and you either have a cold walk or wait for help.

All of our vehicles are diesel except for our Honda Silver Wings. At -30 winter blend diesel fuel will still flow, but it's not far from having the wax in it start to precipitate out. In colder climates people use Jet-A in their diesels but I'm not going to the airport to get Jet-A when it makes more sense to just stay home and work in the nice warm shop when it's that cold.

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #12 on:** November 12, 2014, 01:56:19 PM »

Update - tanner0441 sent me a IR sensor for our woodshed lights. This will be kind of cool to have the lights just come on when we go into the shed!

Probably take a few days for it to get here from the U.K. Thanks Brian! I'll post another update when I get it wired up.

XeonPony · « **Reply #13 on:** November 30, 2014, 11:34:02 AM »

Man I'd love some of those sensores my self all the ones you can find are built around 120v security lights and the alarm style are rar as hense teeth.

Mary B · « **Reply #14 on:** November 30, 2014, 04:56:19 PM »

PIR sensor kit http://www.adafruit.com/product/189

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #15 on:** December 01, 2014, 12:32:39 AM »

I got my IR sensor that Brian sent me from the U.K. I just haven't had time to get it installed yet. Been too busy with the Thanksgiving holiday. And then decided to get a new inverted V dipole, resonant on 80 meters, strung up off a wind turbine tower so I can gab with the guys on the farmer's net on 3986 kHz every night. I had to build 190 feet of ladder line out of 14ga THHN with pvc spreaders to hook my new dipole into the shack, so that project took a couple days. Ever tried to stretch out a couple 200 foot rolls of THHN wire? If you happen to let go of the stuff it wants to go back onto the spool it came from, and coils itself all up in a big wad that takes one hour just to find the ends of it again, and two hours to get straightened back out. Don't ask me how I know about that

I'll get that IR sensor installed first part of this week.

Mary B · « **Reply #16 on:** December 01, 2014, 02:34:47 AM »

Hate THHN for that reason. Wish the dang power company would get out here and find that power line noise I am fighting. S7 buzzsaw on 80m, worse on 40, tapers off on 20.

tanner0441 · « **Reply #17 on:** December 01, 2014, 09:29:42 AM »

HI Chris.

Pleased you received the PIR I will be interested how you get on. They have about a 10 second dwell time before resetting.

Mary B. I have a problem locally with PLAs and Plasma TVs I went for an Off Center Fed Dipole in the end because the 4:1 balun gives a low DC resistance at the antenna socket and reduced my noise enough to notice, because a lot of the c**p is picked up by the feeder where it runs close to the domestic wiring. Also IP security cameras generate noise especially if they are hard wired back to the router.

I will have a listen around 3.9 Mhz though we only have 3.5 to 3.8 Mhz. I worked a guy in Florida
on 80m the other day so might hear something. I will shut up before I go too far off topic.

Brian

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #18 on:** December 01, 2014, 12:07:07 PM »

We're on 3986 kHz at night starting at 0100-0200Z.

We got no powerlines so the low freq bands are pretty quiet here in the winter time with no noise. In the summer though they can get pretty noisy from thunderstorms anywhere within a 1000 miles.

Since my 80m dipole is resonant on 3.6 MHz I have a 4:1/1:1 switchable balun at the feedpoint in the shack. 80m I get 1:1 at the tuner with the balun on 1:1. For 160m or any of the higher freq bands I have to switch it to 4:1. On 6 meter I get a 3:1 at the tuner. On 10m I get 1.5:1. But I don't worry about it much because I only got about .5 db loss in the ladder line.

Need to build a 6m beam one of these days but got no tower to put it on right now.

Mary B · « **Reply #19 on:** December 01, 2014, 05:57:28 PM »

Living on the prairie I have a major lack of trees so no wire antennas. Power company would not like me using their poles... I am stuck with a vertical on the low bands. Using a base tuned 43 footer right now that works okay on 80, pretty decent on 40, really shines on 30m, and does well on 20m. Collecting parts for 2 towers so I can get my VHF array back up plus a tribander of some sort and a 12/17m rotatable dipole I am building

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #20 on:** December 01, 2014, 08:12:29 PM »

Getting your antennas just the way you want them is a never ending ordeal. Basically I need a good NVIS antenna for the local nets on 80 and 160m. Otherwise I don't spend too much time on 20 and 40 at all. Too many contesters on there running illegal power, totally ignoring band plans, and transmitting on band frequencies they're not licensed for, just to get a stupid certificate. I think contesting should be banned, or limit them to a block of freq's about 10 kHz wide. No, better yet - 3 kHz wide from 1.800 to 1.803 MHz and let 'em walk over each other all they want and see if they can get a signal thru the noise and still keep their emissions in the band. Now that would be real contesting.

Otherwise I spend my time on the WARC bands and 10 and 6 meters. 30 meters is one of my favorites with PSK31 and Olivia. 6 meters is my favorite for phone. 10 meters my second fav. I been meaning to put up a couple homebrew yagi's for those two bands but don't have any free towers right now.

Mary B · « **Reply #21 on:** December 01, 2014, 08:13:21 PM »

Chris what is the name of the net? VHF is my love and main operating but I do chase DX on HF My call is W0AAT

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #22 on:** December 01, 2014, 09:47:33 PM »

It's the Farmer's Net on 3986 kHz. We're on right now. Every night checkin - a bunch of farmers from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. There's no websites for it. It was started by a farmer long ago that's now SK. These days it's continued by KD9WR in Fairchild as net control.

Mary B · « **Reply #23 on:** December 01, 2014, 10:15:28 PM »

Thanks, I can just hear them in the noise from the power line. If the power company isn't out here this week I file a complaint with the FCC. This is going on a month.

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #24 on:** December 01, 2014, 10:34:36 PM »

The band is noisy tonight but no problem here. Turn on your NB, set a notch filter on the receiver front end and tune your passband on the IF section a little below center for LSB. Everybody on the net is throwing me 10-20db over 9 so I got no problem picking everybody out even with band being noisy tonight. But that's why I put up the new antenna.

Some new guys checked in from central Minnesota, Michigan and one guy from Tennessee. The guy from Tennessee was an S-9, 5x9.

The band will get quieter as winter progresses.

You probably won't get the power company to do anything about noisy lines unless they can find a bad insulator or transformer, which is unlikely.

tanner0441 · « **Reply #25 on:** December 02, 2014, 01:33:37 PM »

Hi Chris.

I tried looking for you last night but all I get above 3.82 is AM broadcast stations from central Europe. I gave up last night on 80 I had an Italian station splattering over about 4Kcs. I have an Iconm 706 with a Carolina Windom.

For NVIS I use a 66ft Windom at between 2 ft to about 7ft. The interference goes down and with a friend about 120 miles away we lose about half an S point.

My details are correct in QRZ.com call GW8FSN first licenced in Feb 1972

Brian

Mary B · « **Reply #26 on:** December 02, 2014, 02:23:34 PM »

My poorlittle Ft-897d has in the filtering it is capable of, this noise is wiping signals out badly unless they are very strong.

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #27 on:** December 02, 2014, 02:49:51 PM »

Yeah, here 80m extends from 3.5 to 4.0 MHz. In Europe the 80m band goes from 3.5 to 3.8 because of those European 75m broadcast stations. Those stations come in here too and splatter themselves across the whole upper end of the band. We're not supposed to interfere with them here in the US, but nobody listens to those stations anyway. So we set a narrow filter to knock 'em out. I have a receiver with passband tuning so can usually cut my receiver bandwidth to about 2.5 kHz both on the front end and IF and lose some of the audio quality but pull somebody in thru all the blabber coming from Europe.

Most radios these days only got a so-called "IF shift" instead of true twin passband tuning. With those radios with the IF Shift it's going to be hard to tune out the noise.

Been fiddling with that IR sensor. I put 12+ and - to it and it works. It appears one terminal puts out 12+ and I wonder if that one would drive those LED's with no relay? Those LED's don't draw much more power than the coil in a "ice cube" relay. I looked thru my junk box and I don't have an ice cube relay to measure the current draw of the coil. I think they're 200-250 mA. My lights pull about 700 mA and don't know what the current rating is on that 12+ output that comes on when the sensor activates.

tanner0441 · « **Reply #28 on:** December 02, 2014, 03:23:46 PM »

Hi Chris

The two outputs are one active high the other active low, ie they toggle.

Feed the active out signal into the base of something capable of handling the power. 12V to the collector, bias the transistor just off, and feed the emitter to the LEDs. failing that try it I can send you another insert if it dies.

The thing rats nested on the back is a TL 1431 C programmable voltage reference. The actual device is a module held to the PCB with the four pins. I haven't stripped one down yet so can't throw any more light on it.

Brian

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #29 on:** December 02, 2014, 03:33:50 PM »

Quote from: tanner0441 on December 02, 2014, 03:25:15 PM

Feed the active out signal into the base of something capable of handling the power. 12V to the collector, bias the transistor just off, and feed the emitter to the LEDs.

Yeah, that's what I figured out. I have to make a run to Rice Lake later and I'll swing into Radio Shack and see if they got a NPN transistor. I called that place the other day and asked this girl that answered the phone if they got 300 ohm twinlead. She didn't know what that is, so I explained that it is commonly used for TV signals. She then said oh yeah they got one with twin leads but it doesn't say "300 ohm" on it. I said what? I finally figured out she was talking about a rabbit ear antenna and I told her, look - I'll probably just stop in and look at what you got, then I'll have a better idea of what you got in stock than you do.

tanner0441 · « **Reply #30 on:** December 02, 2014, 04:34:52 PM »

Hi

Do you have anything with an old BFY51 or TIP something or other, you could look at old faithful 2N3055 but you may have to drive that as a darlington.

I should have put a transistor in with it I wanted to meet the early post and forgot. I find the cheapest way to buy transistors or components off ebay is by anything from 10 to 100. I can see no point in buying one transistor for Â£2 gbp whenfor Â£2.50 I can get 10 and free postage.

Brian

ChrisOlson · « **Reply #31 on:** December 02, 2014, 04:57:19 PM »

No, that's no big deal. I have to run to Radio Shack tonight to pick up a 1/4 wave 11 meter antenna that I know they got in stock because I seen it there. They got some pullout trays with various parts - diodes, resistors, transistors, etc.. I'm sure they'll have a NPN for less than a buck.

It's just that the people that work there only know about cell phones and remote control toys. I picked up a roll of RG-213/U there some time back and the guy at the counter didn't even know they had it, or what it's used for. I had asked for RG-8/U and all he knew how to do was look it up in the computer and tell me they don't have it.

I happened to see a roll of what looked like RG-8 on the shelf in the back room thru the door. So I asked the guy, "what's that?" He went and got it and it was RG-213/U. I didn't even bother to explain it to him - I just bought the 100 ft roll and left.

The quality and knowledge of the employees at Radio Shack isn't what it used to be.

tanner0441 · « **Reply #32 on:** December 02, 2014, 05:41:50 PM »

Hi

They had Radio Shack in Johannesburg when I worked out there, then they moved to to the UK as Tandy. They were good when they started but as time went on they started to deteriorate, their peak was with the TRS 80 PC then as the IBM range came about their demise set in.

We have Maplin's which used to be brilliant, staffed by enthusiasts, then they dropped to where Tandy/Radio Shack used to be but now if you ain't got a picture they ain't got a clue what your on about, and their solar is still about Â£3 or Â£4 per watt. They are good with quad copters and RC cars though. I will buy stuff from anywhere in the world, for music keyboards I look to the US at the moment they are one of the best for prices.

I don't bother locally now I go online my last resistor order was a mixed bag 1800 resistors 20 of each of the E12 series cost me less than Â£11 and free delivery from China.

Brian

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Author Topic: Solar Powered Woodshed (Read 20854 times)