Solar powered internet

This morning I connected the last of the wiring for the solar panels that Camiel gave me. I had planned to do that in the dusk last evening because I was warned that I might get zapped if I did it in daylight. Maybe with more watts but it certainly wasn't a problem with my array and I have to think it likely wouldn't be a problem at 12 volts no matter how big the array. Possibly if I was wiring the panels in series so that I had higher voltages to deal with but not at the 20 or 21 open circuit volts I was dealing with this morning.

The panels may have been free but the installation certainly wasn't. I don't think I have hit $300 but I am well north of $200 and counting. The problem is that you need to use such big wires in order to avoid voltage losses along the way. Copper is expensive. And its a major pain in the ass to drag it through the crowded bowels of the bus to get the power to where it needs to be got to. That was the project for last night. I needed to get it done while I still had my helper - she's gone off to the Arctic now. At least that's where father says she is.

By the time I got everything hooked up it was getting on for noon so I thought "we should be making some serious power by now". WRONG. We were making somewhere between 0.4 and 0.5 amps at 14.1 volts. It kept flickering back and forth between 0.4 & 0.5 while I stood there thinking "I spent close to $300 for this???" Of course eventually I realized that my batteries were full thanks to being plugged in for two days and all the panels were really doing was powering the phantom loads on the batteries after the charger kicks into float mode.

Now its 7:30 and I've been off the power pedestal for about 6 hours. My batteries are still at 96% charge. I haven't tried to run them down but I haven't restricted my activities either. Time will tell but I think we need one more 100+ watt panel to enable us to live on a restricted power usage pattern. I think what we have now will likely extend the time we can run without starting the generator but we will still need to run the generator more or less every day. Maybe not for quite as long as we would use it otherwise but we'll still have to listen to it every day.

Tonight I'm parked on the Flying J lot in Saskatoon listening to the music of a hundred idling diesel engines. I think the last time we were here was when the place caught on fire. I'm parked far enough away from the restaurant that I should be safe if that happens again. If you look at the Google map you'll see that it is a couple of years out of date - Google knows that there is a Flying J here but the photograph is obviously taken during the construction of the Flying J.