Day 811. It did not get quite as cold as predicted last night which is nice. The extended forecast is not calling for any more freezing temperatures so perhaps if it is accurate the worst is over. I do not so much mind the cold weather this time of year because it combined with the long days of bright (or mostly bright) sunlight have been keeping my solar panels operating at above 'normal' performance levels and in turn I have had plenty of electricity to not only meet my needs but to also be able to listen to music throughout the day.
Speaking of solar I used some of my birthday gift funds to order a fifty amp MPPT charge controller for use with my big solar panel which is going to hopefully be a game changer during the winter when the days are short and it is often cloudy. The only real drawback to using an MPPT controller (at least the inexpensive kind that I ordered) is that I will only be able to use it by itself to charge a single battery (or battery bank if I had one) at a time. The way I have been doing things is using two (or three until I fried a unit the other day) PWM charge controllers to charge three separate batteries off my single big solar panel which works fine because the PWM units set the charging voltage by determining the voltage required by the battery. With an MPPT unit the charging is determined by the panels output voltage so if there are multiple units attached to the same panel they will get stuck in 'tracking mode' as they attempt to determine the voltage from the panel but can't because they are all utilizing the voltage and hence causing the voltage to fluctuate.
It might sound complicated but really it isn't because basically MPPT controllers are designed for precision charging and turning excess voltage into amps while PWM controllers are designed to just use whatever electricity is available and shunts the excess voltage to the heatsink or ignores it entirely. It is kind of like the difference between having a well designed sprinkler system that efficiently delivers water to all areas of the yard and getting outside yourself with a garden hose and spraying the water across the lawn. While both will do the job one is precise and easy and one is laborious and not all that precise and ultimately is going to waste some water. That is the best analogy that I can come up with for it but I think it is a rather simple way of explaining it.
Anyway I am pretty stoked that I have an MPPT charge controller on the way and can perhaps get some better performance out of my big solar panel even if I have to just charge one battery at a time with it until I get more panels. Another thing that I like about the unit that I ordered is that it can handle up to fifty volts DC as it's input voltage which means I can not only eliminate the over voltage problem that I have with my current rig but also it opens up the possibility of using any solar panel that outputs fifty volts or less.
All that stuff aside I have been thinking about my little twelve volt wind turbine and how I don't really use it because I don't get enough consistent wind for it to charge a battery or keep a battery charged before it can discharge itself. So that has lead me to thinking about perhaps connecting the turbine directly to a very small DC water pump that can pump water uphill when the wind blows. I am not all that certain about how well it will actually work but I like the idea nonetheless and am looking forward to experimenting with it. I did consider building an actual windmill water pump but that just seems like overkill and a bit wasteful considering how seldom the wind blows strongly here. Water pumping windmills also tend to be noisy which is something I want to avoid but the main thing is that I want to keep the things I do simple and if possible elegant in design. Often working with junk makes that last bit hard but damn I try as much as I can to achieve it.
Anyway the sun is finally starting to make it's trek over the mountain and I need to get this edited and posted and figure out what I am going to do with my day. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a pleasant day/night.
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