The Obama Democrats’ Cap and Trade bill will raise taxes on American families by nearly $3,100 a year and is the height of irresponsibility in the middle of a recession. Republicans can stop this massive tax hike, but we need the support of every Republican grassroots leader to do it. Please help Republicans stop this job-killing, bigger government, higher taxes legislation by making a contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500 or $1,000 to the RNC today. Thank you.
I finally have Prototype 1.0 of my DC-2-DC converter installed. This converters runs off 12VDC nominal which allows use of conventional battery charging with inexpensive off-the-shelf chargers. It’s a basic, simple 1000 watt converter I came up with using inexpensive parts. The most expensive part is the 1000 watt Toroidal Transformer seen in the picture. So far testing is going well, the converter only supplies 4-5 amps into the OEM Traction Battery so it does not function the same as the setup I had using 20 small 20Ah Pb batteries. The main thing is it IS transferring power from the added battery pack to the car assisting the ICE using electricity which is the main reason for the PHEV conversion.
I still have some more tweaking but it works using the CAN-View system that was installed with the 20 battery setup. For testing I’m using two DEKA 55Ah AGM batteries. The final setup will have six of these.
The LG repairman that finally came out to fix our melted light housing, he said the LG “Legal Department” sent him out. All he did was to replace the melted lamp holder with a new one that has a thermo-switch on it. The lights are working with the door switch again. I’m thinking what happened is the lights are controlled by a Microprocessor and it got hung up and kept the lights on until someone discovered everything melted. Power-cycling the unit, i.e. unplugging it probably resets the MPU. With our house totally solar powered and the LG fridge on the solar inverter setup the power never gets removed from it. I put two Lights of America “40″ LED lamps in it, they use 1.5 watts each and run cool but they too are disappointing as they are quickly falling into my POS basket.
I couldn’t keep the “Yard Chickens” from eating the young plants we grew in the raised “Bucket Garden” so I decided to go back to raised rows with a fence around the garden to keep those veggie destroyers out. I ’tilled in a generous amount of chicken & goose manure that I scooped off the ground around the chicken coops. For years, to keep the mud down I would layer the leaves I raked up on the grounds around the coops. The geese would stomp it, the chickens would dig in it, the rain would wet it, repeat. This made a nice, rich soil mixture. The plants seem to love it!
The Assortment includes:
Radishes, 30 ft row of Green Beans, Red & Yellow onions, Carrots, Brussel Sprouts, Cucumbers, Roma Tomatoes, Better Boy Tomatoes, Romain Lettuce, Lima Bean (one plant), Asparagus, Horseradish root, Blueberries, Red Raspberries, Black Berries, Concord Grapes and the trees in the far back are Mulberry.
I installed the last six KC-130’s on Tracker #4 this past Saturday in 40+ mph winds, boy was that hairy but I got’er done.
I setup a temporary ground rack to hold the now orphaned Siemans SR90’s that just feed some power into an old Advanced Energy GC-1000. I’ll be moving the GC-1000 to a tracking trailer mount I’m putting together with eight old Photowatt 90 watt panels I have.
I have installed Nema-3 rain tite disconnects on post near all my trackers. The tracker assemblies are connected to the system through Multicontact MC-4 latching quick connectors. I’m calling the posts with disconnects “Renewable Energy Access Points”. I had to separate the tracking mounts from the “Inspect-able Electric System” due to the fact if the tracking assemblies were “Permanent Installations” my building department would require very expensive “Engineered, Signed, Stamped, Sealed Blueprints” with wind-loading of over 120 MPH. Not really do-able for home-built mounts. I don’t plan on leaving a single PV panel out in the Hurricane if one does hit anyhow. I did pick them up and spread them farther apart as I discovered this past winter they were a bit too close with some shadow overlapping.
Friday the 27th of February I was ask to help with a site survey on the roof of a home in Sarasota, FL. A total 15KW Photovoltaic setup on a 5 million dollar home on the water.
After the job I returned to the Solar Source building to meet with the company owner, Wayne Wallace to discuss the possibility of me working for Solar Source as an Instructor for the courses offered by Solar Source University. I met Wayne around 2002 when I asked him to inspect my original Photovoltaic System, Progress Energy’s First Grid Interconnected system. I accepted and I’m proud to be working in the renewable energy field helping train everyone from Inspectors to Contractors.
I was asked by Wayne to attend their 3 day training Seminar which I enjoyed a lot. I really think I have found my “Solar Nitch”, teaching.
I’m waiting on six more KC-130’s to finish off Tracker #4
Then I will move the four SR-90’s to another temporary tracker with the GC-1000 Grid-tie Inverter.
UPDATE: The six brand new KC-130’s have arrived and will be mounted on Tracker #4 when I get back from a brief trip to New York next week.
SMART? SIMPLE? SAFE? What the hell does that mean?
My 19 yr old son, in his 2nd semester of college, working tword an engineering degree, was just told by GMAC bank “you can’t open a Money Market account with us”. He worked over the summer and saved up almost $1000. They called him and told him he didn’t have any credit so they would have to decline his request for an account with them.
They did offer him a “safe deposit” box to hold his cash.
As of today, we are pulling all our money out of GMAC bank. Every last dime. HOW DOES THAT WORK FOR YOU GMAC BANK??
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
What a FARCE, seems GMAC BANK has all the money they need now, TAX PAYER’S MONEY!
I received my Solar Pathfinder site analyses tool last week. I opted for the cool software for an additional $129 that has a simple to read report.
Here is my Tracking Array #3, which is my NE most tracker. It’s in the back.
#1 #2 #3 #4
The first is a simple summary, the second is where in relation to the Array was the Solar Pathfinder setup. A top-down picture is taken over the Solar Pathfinder then imported into the software where you trace the reflections of all obstacles. The software then creates the digital shading data picture. You can see at the 12N position on report #3 the tracker that is directly to the south of this one.
The system was entered as a two-axis system, which means in this case East to West tracking and seasonal tilting.
Kinda cool. Most fixed roof arrays give 4-6 “solar hours” per day, trackers kick that up to 7 to 8+ solar hours per day. The solar hours are listed on the bottom of report #4 as “Sun Hrs.”
NOW I’M MAD AS HELL!!
Here in Florida, our Governor worked hard to get our property taxes reduced. To this I say thank you Governor Charlie Crist. We live about as far in the country as you can get in Pinellas County, FL. We have 5.5 acres we purchased in 1996. Two things we have here to keep our county taxing authority in check are SOH (Save Our Homes) cap, which limits come much each county can JACK UP our property taxes and Homestead Exemption. Our Homestead exemption was doubled to $50,000 this year. The old exemption of $25,000 did little to reduce property taxes on a $500,000 home, even the $50k does not do much but I guess it helps on a $100,000 home.
Now comes the counties in Florida, complaining about property tax revenues falling short of meeting present budgets. Pinellas County, FL is no exception, they are “talking” of closing Parks and Libraries, reducing county services like Animal Control & Code Enforcement.
To put this in some “real” numbers, our property taxes for 2007 on 5.56 Acres purchased in 1996 for $207,500 was about $3,000. We have a few easements that help reduce our taxes, one being from the power company for some power lines across the north running the full length of our property and another from CTX Railroad who still has an easement across our property. My neighbor, on his 2.43 Acres purchased in 2004 for $300,000 paid $5000 in 2007.
As you can see, property taxes are horrendous here in Florida. Now to what is PISSING ME OFF!
Pinellas County was out mowing the road sides along my property this morning. Now, we have not had enough rain this month to even keep the dust down, It’s January in Pinellas County Florida, the grass on the road sides is NOT GROWING THIS TIME OF YEAR!!
Look here, roadside – my yard.
Now, does this look like it needs mowing? I’m on the right side of the fence, I have not mowed nor watered this zone yet this year!
Here is the waste, look close, 3 mowers and a guy in an orange vest supervising. Mowing WHAT?? The DIRT? Or maybe THE ROAD NEEDS MOWING?
This is a TOTAL WASTE of my TAX DOLLARS! How about “THE HELL WITH ROADSIDE MOWING” and use this wasted tax money to keep a few Libraries open?
