Wow, been a lot going on, where to start?

Last post I had the generator loaded and was bravely headed off into the world of light switches, running water and semi automatic toilets. After touching base with Mad Al Yankovic (no relation to Weird Al Yankovic) I learned that I could return the generator to the place of purchase. So the next morning I set off on the nearly 600 mile round trip. Later that evening and nearly $300 dollars later I pulled back into the campground with a brand new generator in the back. Many thanks to Al as I could have never pulled this off without his help.

The pig tails for my solar panels came in. Now I have to decide whether to mount the panels on the floor of the balcony, build a skeleton structure to mount above the balcony, or put in a full tilt frame and roof. Right now I’m leaning toward a skeleton just to get the ball rolling with a roof added at a later date. At least with the skeleton I expect it to leak so I won’t be disappointed when it does.

I bought a used 120v/propane refrigerator that appears to be in excellent shape. I had to transport it on its side so after unloading this morning we leveled it and are allowing it to sit at least 24 hours before testing the 120v for cooling. Right now it’s sitting in a friends shop in town under a camo tarp until we get back to it. I just hope we can find it when we get ready since camo hides everything.

These refrigerators were designed to go in RVs so they aren’t really easy to install as free standing. No problem, I called the manufacturer. They were incredibly unhelpful. I was warned that I had to do it correctly or the stars would come out of alignment, chaos would ensue, then the earth and all life on it would be consumed by a rogue super massive black hole. I’m thinking that possibly they overstated their case but I took their point to heart. Don’t hook a nuclear reactor up to it and not expect a melt down I guess.

I picked up a pair of led solar powered shed lights while Al and I were off the leash in the big city that promise “up to” 8 hours of light from a full sunny days charge. So I can expect maybe four hours at best which is OK since I’m rarely up more than a couple of hours past sunset when out in the swamp. A nice feature about them is that the panel to light cable is 15 feet long. With it I can pretty much mount the panel on the balcony then mount the light just about anywhere in the shed that I want. At some point I need to take all my solar lights apart, replace the leds with super bright leds which are 10 times brighter and draw much less current.

I also returned the charge controller I had for another. The one I had was giving me trouble with the buttons not actuating properly so I figure I would head off a failure. At some point I need to dedicate some dollars to a quality controller but hey, when you are boot strapping a project with only one boot you dance with what you brung.

I ordered two 110 ah batteries which are scheduled to arrive next week. Crunching numbers and doing battery calcs I’ve decided I should be able to charge batteries, run fans and power the 12v control circuit on the fridge during the day. At night I should be able to run the air conditioner for about four hours before I hit a 50% discharge level. There’s a very good chance I might run the ac during the day then run fans at night since I’m comfortable sleeping in 70ish temps. However I have several options available once I get the solar up and running so I’m getting a bit more optimistic about this particular project.

Back in the swamp and still a lot going on. Got the new generator unloaded, put together and ran for about four hours. So far so good but I’m still watching it with a suspicious eye. I started the framework to mount the solar cells only to realize that it isn’t large enough. I haven’t tried to put the cells up yet so I’m not positive that they won’t all fit. Naturally the mounting hardware I had bought wouldn’t work so I had to go back to town to exchange it for new material. Tomorrow I’ll find out if I can fit all the cells so I’ll know if I have to expand the frame or not. Since I dearly hate working with wood I’m hoping I can figure out how to fit everything.

My batteries were in when I got back to town so they were loaded in back for the trip out. On the way out I ran into McGuyver who wanted to see the batteries. We opened a box only to discover that the attaching hardware as pictured on their website was nowhere to be found. There were just two empty threaded holes in each battery. So back to town I went for the third time today. Need I say it? They aren’t a standard battery post thread. Thankfully the sweet young lady helping me solve this problem had no reservations about describing the low life idiots that would ship a naked battery with non standard threads and no fasteners. I was so infatuated that I bought some extra cable I really didn’t need but will put to good use.

Of course I got to the swamp just as it started raining. Not hearing any thunder or seeing any lightning I went ahead and unloaded in the rain. I didn’t want the new batteries which go for $200 plus each sitting around in soggy boxes and possibly shorting out.

I checked on one of my science projects and have good news to report. I started with a precision grade blue plastic toy bucket and wrapped it in precision grade fly paper in a precision grade manner. Don’t mind the wrinkles, you guessed it, they’re precision grade wrinkles and worked out to my benefit.

I’ve noticed that the local yellow fly muzloids love that shade of blue. I have a blue Lowes bucket that they like to hang out on, smoke, joke and launch terrorist attacks from. So I decided to give them another mosque in which to gather. After about four days somewhere around 50 of the evil little jihadis had got themselves stuck which has to be some kind of world record for flypaper in that period of time. I need to check with Guiness on that. The wrinkles work well since they will land on it and strut around going “Dirka, dirka, jihad, jihad!” hoping for some action then get stuck behind a wrinkle. Soon it will be time to send them on to aloha and set up another snack bar. It’s not perfect but until I can develop a final solution it’s the best I’ve found so far. Just think, if Hitler had gone after yellow flies he would be a national hero in every civilized country today.

Okay, this month’s post is not going to be a rant about how the world is falling apart. Nor is it likely to really fit into the “Living Off the Grid” category. This one is about passing on information to the next person in hopes that they do not end up with the mess I have.

The topic is Blower Motor Resistors.

First let me state that I hate working with anything that greasy & oily. Give me a piece of wood and there is not much I can not do with it and I am in hog heaven, but I detest machinery. But because I am cheap, I have a grand desire to learn anything new, & it is very difficult to find someone you trust to work on your vehicle. I tend to do a lot of work myself. My newest endeavor into the world of auto mechanic is a blower fan that stopped working. I figured the blower motor itself was fine, there was sickening sound that you hear of metal on metal when a spinning object is about to die. My first assumption was that it was the control switch in the cab going bad.

I had lost the first three settings of the fan control some time ago. And yes, I should have researched the issue back then, hence why I am telling you all this in hopes that you gain an advantage from my stupidity. I finally lost the highest setting a couple of days ago. Not wanting to be without the mighty blast of northern cool air that usually baths me like the music of an Ice Cream truck coming down the street. I jumped into researching how to replace the control panel.

I quickly found out that the most common, and easiest to replace, problem when a blower motor stops running is a burnt out resistor. Now, if you are like me and have limited auto mechanics experience, but have computer knowledge. A resistor looks like this:

Well, to my surprise, and a new lesson of the day, they come in other forms. My blower motor resistor looks like this when all shiny and new:

According the various YouTube videos I watched, these thing have tendency to burn out over time due to heat build up, use, and moisture. I learned I made two mistakes that I can determine from what I have learned from the videos and web forums. If you go back to image 1, you can see that to shut the fan off, the right most control needs to be pointing towards Santy Claus, North, or straight up to the “Off” position. Well, even on times when I was not actually using the heat or the ac, I would never move that control to the off position, I would just turn the fan control to the lowest speed. This was not good. This allowed the fan to operate, thus allow electricity to flow through the resistor and shortening its lifespan. So the lesson here is clearly, shut of the fan when not using it. Do not be a lazy bastard like myself who refuses to acknowledge the existence of that elusive far right control (it’s a lefty thing). My second mistake was not looking into the issue when I lost the first fan setting. This was the resistor telling me it is not feeling well, it could a check up, a little love. But I ignored it, which caused it to work harder, thus get hotter. The end result to all this is a welded mess of metal and plastic.

Removing the resistor from its location was easy enough. For mine, two small screws, resistor and wiring harness come right out. Now, removing the resistor from the wiring harness, not so easy. This was the results of tearing the resistor from its plastic male base;

After the resistor itself was drawn and quartered, leaving the male base:

which pulled right off of the female harness without a single cry of objection;

leaving the female wiring harness. This was the failure point;

Being that my beautful baby is working on her 17th year, finding parts tends to lead me to RockAuto.com because local auto stores tend to not have anything but the most replaced items in stock. Waiting a few days for parts to come in is nothing to cry over, but i could have saved myself having to replace the wiring harness end had I checked on why I lost fan speed when it was first indicated.

Hope you all benefit from my life lesson.

Love & Light

Just a quick update. Well I hope it’s quick. You never can tell. One of the aliens in my head may take over and I’ll be here typing all night. I hate it when that happens.

Well the solar panels came in. I was all excited opening the first panel until I noticed that it had a special connector on the cabling. After some research I learned that it was a MC4 connector and in order not to void the warranty I had to use a matching UL listed connector. I’m sure you can guess where this went. They are expensive. And they require a proprietary crimp tool. I already have a dozen crimpers rusting in tool boxes so what are the chances that one will work? Absolutely none. In order to not violate UL you have to use the special low drag go faster crimp tool. I ordered a set of pig tails for each panel and will run my own connectors and cabling from there.

Then I got to looking for the mounting hardware for the panel. There was none. Checking out their site I found some lame assed excuse for not including mounting hardware but they would be more than happy to provide hardware at only $30 per panel. Yeah, sure. Three panels would be nearly enough to buy another panel. Let me see, hardware or a new 100 watt panel? DOH!

So I raided the storage unit to load up a couple hundred pounds of hardware. One of the benefits to being a pack rat and working construction for so many years is that I have at least a ton of hardware in there.

So I headed to the swamp a few days ago all happied up about being able to get the panels mounted so I could do the final hookup this weekend sometime after the pig tails arrived. I arrived late in the afternoon and after unloading and settling in it was time to cook and get ready for dark.

Getting set up for dark is a big thing for me. I have to bring in the solar lights and preposition everything I’ll need after dark. When it gets dark out there it is really, really dark. On a clear night you have some starlight plus maybe the moon when outside. On overcast nights walking outside is like walking into a cave and turning out your headlamp.

I’m not scared of the dark by any means, but there are bears, bobcats, panthers and raccoon out there. There’s already been reports of rabid raccoon this year so I’m justifiably wary. I’ve seen bear, bobcat and panther tracks within 100 yards of the shack so I know they come close.

The next morning I was full of myself and started the day on a most optimistic note. I had talked to the manufacturer about the generator problems so I was equipped with a short list of maintenance items to do then my generator would be singing like a canary. By noon I was so frustrated and angry I broke out the AR and sat on the porch hoping for a raccoon or armadillo.

Then I started calling the manufacturer. After a dozen calls, two phone recharges and a couple gallons of sweat, the generator locked up and wouldn’t even consider working. My last call ended abruptly when I began to describe in great detail the lineage and sexual deviations of the generator. This time I broke out the big AR in 308 thinking I would turn a critter into a red fog.

After a few bottles of water I began thinking about how to get the generator in the back of the pickup. It weighs right at 260 pounds which is about 245 pounds more than I want to try lifting. I thought of letting the air out of the tires on the truck so as to lower the bed. Good idea till I remembered I didn’t have a generator so I couldn’t start the air compressor to pump them back up. Then I thought of digging a hole and backing the truck into it then rolling the generator into the bed. Then I had it, gathering all my extensive knowledge of Star Wars trivia I looked at the generator and said “Luke, I be your daddy.” Focusing all my energy I extended my hand, concentrated on seeing the generator in the bed of the truck and got a cramp. I think I heard a silly little faggot giggle coming from the generator.

Back on the porch I loaded some tracers I got somewhere.

My next and final attempt worked much to my amazement. I built a stairway to the truck be using pallets. I laid two out for the first step, four for the second, then six for the last. I had to take the two from the first step and put them on the third once I got the generator to the second tier since I was running out of spare pallets. I placed plywood between steps to form a ramp which greatly eased getting it up, still it was a chore with many breaks and bottles of water. Still, I was concerned about falling and breaking my ass.

So tomorrow I get to take it back to where I bought it for an exchange. It’s nearly a 600 mile round trip but worth it since I have to have a generator.