Power to the Refrigerator!! Viva la food!
Well, I know it’s been ages since we’ve posted any progress… Things have been on a kind of status quo hold for the last few months vis a vis the ranch itself.
We have fixed up the trailer a little since we got it. We replaced the roof vent with a functioning one, replaced the glass in the two broken windows, and installed crank handles on all the windows. We bought 2 new propane bottles and installed a new rack for them, after painting the tongue to look new and white. When we got the trailer, the oven didn’t work right, but a little tweaking has it running spot on temp, and we can even cook pizzas in it without too much drama.
We took the trailer out with us to the SLV Fest in Monte Vista, and things went well, but we ripped off the door on the way back into the ranch. We really need to get the new easement graded, if we ever get the money to rent a tractor for a month, and the production surplus to use it.
We then fixed up the door and took the trailer with us to Sock Summit in Portland. This trip went well, despite one of the old tires delaminating on our way into Oceanside, California. While in San Diego, we “borrowed” my brother’s 8 solar panels.
Over the following month or so, we built a jerry rigged rack for 4 of the panels (the charger he gave us will only support 4) and bought a single lone deep cycle battery (which will eventually find itself a permanent home on the trailer tongue). We tried to use this setup to power our 12v thermo-electric cooler, and it worked fine, except the cooler does not have a low voltage cutoff, so on a cloudy day it drained the battery dead, and the charger turned off, never to come on again, and our food all melted. I jump started the charger, and installed a cheep low voltage cut off on the cooler, and the cooler turned off when the battery fell to 10.5 volts, never to turn on again until I unplugged the cord and plugged it back in. Again, the food suffered.
Then we went and borrowed an inverter from Chris at Brandywine Woodworking and then bought a “refrigerator” from Target. This seamed to work the first night, but in the end (after another day) we discovered that this thermo-electric unit was horribly inefficient and didn’t’ even manage to keep the inside below 50º. So we returned that one to Target and went to Sears and bought a real 2.7 cu-ft refrigerator, and have been using it for a couple hours now, and have already had to readjust the temp setting back from 28º. 
This one also seams to be a lot more efficient, and should last longer on the battery. We will see come tomorrow morning.
In other ranch news, the shed is about the same as it was, but we have added stairs to the front, and have been using it as our wood shop for winder production for several months now. It is a bit cramped, but it is working out well. We have slowly upgraded the workspace by adding some built in shelves to organize router and drill bits, and adding more extension cords to have easier to reach plugs for all the tools. We recently replaced the 2 600w flood lights with a couple standard fluorescent shop lights. The new lights are way brighter, and a whole lot cooler. Not to mention easier on the generator, especially when one of the big tools is turning on.
The propane generator that I was using stopped working well, so I had to buy a new generator a couple months ago, which is gas powered, and has worked flawlessly. After a while of letting it sit, I decided to try adding a real pressure regulator to the propane generator’s supply line, and it has worked flawlessly ever since. We have been using it to power the lights in the trailer up until now, when we just got the inverter for the solar system. We will still use it at the trailer when the days are cloudy and the battery is low.
The animals all seam immensely happy here at the ranch. We built a little animal run off the trailer and they can all go outside. The cats, especially, are much softer and cleaner looking than they have ever been.
Well, that’s all the news that is the news. Hopefully we will have some more progressy progress to report over the next couple months.
Comment by Markus
Great to read some news again.
Posted on September 17, 2009 at 12:28 pm