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busfreak_71
Flat 4 Junkie
Joined: April 29, 2007
Posts: 1191
Location: Sherwood Park, Alberta
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 Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:24 pm Post subject: Off grid. |
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This thread is kinda related to the "green home" thread, but I'm just curious as to if there is anyone else on the samba who has an off grid home. If so, what is your system like? Solar? Generators? Wind? Micro-hydro?
As for me, I am off grid and have a small 6.5HP gas engine which runs a delco remy alternator which charges a bank of 6V batteries in series and parallel to produce 12V, an inverter then inverts the power to 120V AC for our house. We also have a 4300W gen set and a 15KW diesel generator. In the future we hope to get ourselves an engine like this one:
Its a 6HP diesel engine designed to run at only 650RPM They come out of India. They can run on almost any flammable liquid heavier than Kerosene, and burn about 1/2L/hr; we'd run ours on veggie oil, the only thing is that you would have to start and stop it on diesel and have to heat the oil when it is running.
Feel free to share & ask questions.
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'71 Tin Top Westfalia
'99.5 Bora TDI
'85 Jetta Coupe
'85 Mercedes 300SD
Resident Off-Grid hippie and diesel advocate. |
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&Dan
Samba Member
Joined: January 29, 2008
Posts: 1787
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| Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:26 pm Post subject: |
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That's a really cool piece of equipment.
Down here in the West Texas desert we have a surfeit of wind, and a few brainy folks have cobbled together wind generators out of parts from microwaves, exercise treadmills and other obtanium plucked from junkyards and landfills. They put out some impressive volts and amps!
My gal is doing a design/build for a fellow down the street that will incorporate passive solar and rain catchment, among other features, and is a hybrid papercrete structure as well.
The kind of mindset that's catching on down here isn't a fuzzyheaded hippy approach- we're more pissed-off bluecollar punks than Earth Children- it's more a common-sense approach to accomplish much on little, and kinda balance out the greedhead/too much square-footage/profligate water-user assheads that 'discover' places like ours. |
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dms
Fred G. Sanford
Joined: August 05, 2007
Posts: 493
Location: At large. . .
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:25 am Post subject: |
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Im kind of off the grid in a way , I am using mostly wood , I cook often on a 1910 Majestic wood cook stove I restored a while back , It will also be the main heat source and also be heating hot water , rather than a electric tank .
This one is somthing like mine except this ones a bit newer .
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If you don't like the way I drive , stay off the sidewalk . |
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Mr. Electric Wizard
Samba Member
Joined: August 07, 2003
Posts: 2846
Location: Smyrna, TN
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:50 am Post subject: |
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| DPicasso wrote: |
That's a really cool piece of equipment.
Down here in the West Texas desert we have a surfeit of wind, and a few brainy folks have cobbled together wind generators out of parts from microwaves, exercise treadmills and other obtanium plucked from junkyards and landfills. They put out some impressive volts and amps!
My gal is doing a design/build for a fellow down the street that will incorporate passive solar and rain catchment, among other features, and is a hybrid papercrete structure as well.
The kind of mindset that's catching on down here isn't a fuzzyheaded hippy approach- we're more pissed-off bluecollar punks than Earth Children- it's more a common-sense approach to accomplish much on little, and kinda balance out the greedhead/too much square-footage/profligate water-user assheads that 'discover' places like ours. |
If you don't mind me asking where abouts in the big bend area are you?
I would love to move out there someday!
That is the "real" Texas as far as I'm concerned...
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"Saying what we think gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know."
~ Cullen Hightower
(T)exas (C)oalition (B)uses
(H)eidenhammer (B)ully (B)oyz
--1966 De Luxe Camper |
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&Dan
Samba Member
Joined: January 29, 2008
Posts: 1787
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:54 am Post subject: |
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| Mr. Electric Wizard wrote: |
| DPicasso wrote: |
That's a really cool piece of equipment.
Down here in the West Texas desert we have a surfeit of wind, and a few brainy folks have cobbled together wind generators out of parts from microwaves, exercise treadmills and other obtanium plucked from junkyards and landfills. They put out some impressive volts and amps!
My gal is doing a design/build for a fellow down the street that will incorporate passive solar and rain catchment, among other features, and is a hybrid papercrete structure as well.
The kind of mindset that's catching on down here isn't a fuzzyheaded hippy approach- we're more pissed-off bluecollar punks than Earth Children- it's more a common-sense approach to accomplish much on little, and kinda balance out the greedhead/too much square-footage/profligate water-user assheads that 'discover' places like ours. |
If you don't mind me asking where abouts in the big bend area are you?
I would love to move out there someday!
That is the "real" Texas as far as I'm concerned... |
Wiz,
You got that right- it is. this is Brewster County, biggest county in Texas. We're in Marathon, about 40 miles north of the entrance to Big Bend National Park. When I got here, a fellow could buy a derelict adobe house and lot for what you'd pay for a used pickup. It's changed somewhat since then, but there's still donkeys, goats and chickens in backyards. 30 miles to the next grocery store in Alpine, but it's just about the prettiest 30 miles you'll have to drive.
Down in Terlingua they've really got the off-the-grid mindset, as a matter of necessity; there are plenty of places where you simply can't get the power company to hook you up, the distances are so vast. Out there, well, you're on your own. |
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Mr. Electric Wizard
Samba Member
Joined: August 07, 2003
Posts: 2846
Location: Smyrna, TN
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:37 am Post subject: |
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I always like to stop at that gas station at the turn off to big bend.
There is always a ton of cool old cars for sale there.
I found a pretty solid 914 there once and was tempted to try and make a deal...
No kidding about Terlingua being off the grid.
That's a different kind of place for sure.
_________________
"Saying what we think gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know."
~ Cullen Hightower
(T)exas (C)oalition (B)uses
(H)eidenhammer (B)ully (B)oyz
--1966 De Luxe Camper |
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&Dan
Samba Member
Joined: January 29, 2008
Posts: 1787
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:23 am Post subject: |
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| Mr. Electric Wizard wrote: |
I always like to stop at that gas station at the turn off to big bend.
There is always a ton of cool old cars for sale there.
I found a pretty solid 914 there once and was tempted to try and make a deal...
No kidding about Terlingua being off the grid.
That's a different kind of place for sure. |
Good grief- that's Talkin' Ted's place. He is full-blown bat-guano nuts pricewise and possessed of no particular mechanical ability. He had a perfectly restorable old Ghia he tried to fix with glue or something. That whole lot is gone now, sad to say- it was The Island of Misfit Toys.
Only person I ever saw make a deal with him was RoadBabe, a travelin' porn writer who sweet-talked him out of a derelict '57 DeSoto, which ended up in my alley for a week after she rolled it off his 'lot'.....it's a loooong story. |
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Ollie W
Samba Member
Joined: May 20, 2004
Posts: 844
Location: Portland, OR
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:38 pm Post subject: |
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| My cousin's off the grid up past Seattle. He drives a rabbit diesel on vegetable oil. I helped him install the kit. He uses a diesel generator and a micro hydroturbine dam that we setup to feed a little out building of 12 volt batteries. Works pretty nicely. |
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Redd73
Samba Member
Joined: March 05, 2007
Posts: 836
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:58 pm Post subject: |
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can you post a link to those diesel motors.
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"...theres nowhere to go but everywhere." - Kerouac
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73 Westy 2000cc w/dual solex (engine code GE) + aftermarket AC |
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runslikeapenguin
Samba Member
Joined: August 07, 2005
Posts: 4674
Location: Federal way WA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Redd73 wrote: |
| can you post a link to those diesel motors. |
x2
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never forget 1-31-07 |
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busfreak_71
Flat 4 Junkie
Joined: April 29, 2007
Posts: 1191
Location: Sherwood Park, Alberta
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_monkey_
Samba Monkey
Joined: April 11, 2005
Posts: 1584
Location: New England
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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So the power company was called King? |
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Da TOW'D
Samba Member
Joined: December 25, 2005
Posts: 1385
Location: Bella Coma Canada
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 9:08 am Post subject: |
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this site has some interesting things going on http://www.otherpower.com/
homebuilt power using rare earth magnets
We are on the grid now but for our first 5 years here we had some homebuilt power plants .
A buddy brought back from Japan 50 diesel motors
1-2-3-4-6-10 cylinder engines from 8hp to 450hp
we have built diesel powered hydraulic power packs- gen sets - and run planners and saw mills . His brother repowered his 1958 JAP crawler tractor using a Kubota 3 cylinder motor.
Mr Briggs and Stratton could only hope to build a motor as tough as these little diesels.
cheers
hank
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'57 type 1 Blackberry
'58 SC Ruf
'62 type 3 Notch
'92 Eurovan Willy
'99 Eurovan Winnie
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Gary
Person of Interest
Joined: November 01, 2002
Posts: 17069
Location: 127.0.0.1
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 11:07 am Post subject: |
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Are you guys actually saving any money with these little generators running on diesel/veggie oil? My electric bill has averaged around $35/mo over the winter and will climb just a bit when the summer comes unless it gets really hot and I decide to run the A/C.
What most people don't understand about solar is that, A) solar panels are very expensive, and B) they don't last very long (as in around 10 years), so the cost and limited lifespan negates any so-called savings. Some of you who live further into the boonies than I do would benefit from generating your own power; however, most people in town wouldn't.
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West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943) |
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USMCbug
Samba Yoda
Joined: April 29, 2004
Posts: 2573
Location: Wichita, KS
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 11:08 am Post subject: |
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I pay my electric bill on time.
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72 Super Beetle
73 Standard Beetle
79 Baywindow Bus
65 Split Window Bus
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71 Super Beetle (current)
"When war does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the
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66busman
Samba Motorcyclist
Joined: September 14, 2006
Posts: 1166
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 12:22 pm Post subject: |
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| busfreak_71 wrote: |
I should also add that we heat our home with wood and heat water and cook with propane, we go through about 400LBS/year, which aint that much... And I even built a wind turbine, shaped my own blades, built the fame and hub, and run a delco-remy alternator; I should have it up this spring/summer.   |
So, your turbine just turns an automotive alternator, or ? I love the idea of recycling stuff like that to help save energy.
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'66 SO-42
'73 Bay
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faster
Samba Member
Joined: September 25, 2005
Posts: 1386
Location: Ga.
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busfreak_71
Flat 4 Junkie
Joined: April 29, 2007
Posts: 1191
Location: Sherwood Park, Alberta
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Icy wrote: |
Are you guys actually saving any money with these little generators running on diesel/veggie oil? My electric bill has averaged around $35/mo over the winter and will climb just a bit when the summer comes unless it gets really hot and I decide to run the A/C.
What most people don't understand about solar is that, A) solar panels are very expensive, and B) they don't last very long (as in around 10 years), so the cost and limited lifespan negates any so-called savings. Some of you who live further into the boonies than I do would benefit from generating your own power; however, most people in town wouldn't. |
Around here power is $0.06/KWH + charges and junk; and we also have to pay somewhere around $25,000 to even get the line here since the nearest pole is 1 mile away. Our neighbors bill is usually ~$150. And the power goes down regularly in the winter too... If we were to run on veggie oil it would only cost us maintenance and stuff to operate the gen.
As for the solar, I think people are very ignorant to think solar will never catch on. Panels are getting cheaper, and most come with warranties lasting 20+ years, and even then they only loose 8-12% of their total output compared to new. A fellow up here is also off grid since the power company was over charging him and some other BS; he has some panels that are some 30ish years old and are still working. He has somewhere around 1000 watts of solar power and he has a 6GA wire (about around as a pencil) going from the panels to the batteries and on a sunny day that wire will get VERY hot to the touch and will over charge his (rather large) battery bank. So now he has a dump load to bring down the volts and protect his battery bank. They are powerful stuff! If he did not have to run his shop he would barely have to run his gen set...
| 66busman wrote: |
| busfreak_71 wrote: |
I should also add that we heat our home with wood and heat water and cook with propane, we go through about 400LBS/year, which aint that much... And I even built a wind turbine, shaped my own blades, built the fame and hub, and run a delco-remy alternator; I should have it up this spring/summer. |
So, your turbine just turns an automotive alternator, or ? I love the idea of recycling stuff like that to help save energy. |
Yep, the alternator is one that came out of a Chevy if I'm not mistaken, internal regulator type. I just have it belted to the blade shaft with a large pulley to up the RPM's to operating speed. Probably the hardest and most time consuming thing in that project was to shape the blades, about 2 1/2-3Hrs each, and I made 6, 3 are for the turbine now, and the other 3 are spares.
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'71 Tin Top Westfalia
'99.5 Bora TDI
'85 Jetta Coupe
'85 Mercedes 300SD
Resident Off-Grid hippie and diesel advocate. |
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Zeen
Samba Member
Joined: July 24, 2004
Posts: 1310
Location: The Sunny Part of Michigan
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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No discussion involving energy is complete until someone posts a perpetual motion machine. You forgot to add that the Conspiracy of the Global Elite is keeping us down with those bogus laws of thermodynamics. |
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busfreak_71
Flat 4 Junkie
Joined: April 29, 2007
Posts: 1191
Location: Sherwood Park, Alberta
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| Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Zeen wrote: |
No discussion involving energy is complete until someone posts a perpetual motion machine. You forgot to add that the Conspiracy of the Global Elite is keeping us down with those bogus laws of thermodynamics. |
Laws are meant to be broken...   "The gubberment man! Theys putin' LSD in our water man!"
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'71 Tin Top Westfalia
'99.5 Bora TDI
'85 Jetta Coupe
'85 Mercedes 300SD
Resident Off-Grid hippie and diesel advocate. |
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