The results of using hydrolysis to help clean the burned pot.

I wondered if hydrolysis would help clean this mess.  A 12V solar panel supplied the power.

Hydrolysis then produced Hydrogen gas bubbles on the surface of the metal pot, helping to loosen the burned debris.

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I find it interesting that one terminal gets oxidized and ruined at the expense of cleaning the other terminal.

Oxidized positive terminal from this hydrolysis experiment.

Close-up of same terminal.

Rust as Fertilizer

Rust is a form of Iron and is taken up by plants and nourishes them.  Some people buy fertilizer with Iron in it.  Plants gain a richer green color from Iron.  One idea I have is to purposely oxidize scrap metal and pour the rust as a supplement into my garden beds or compost pile.  It seems better than throwing the scrap metal into a landfill where it is wasted.

Conclusion

My observation is that about an hour of hydrolysis is sufficient to loosen the burned food so that the rest can be scrubbed off with ease.

When shopping for a solar panel and you are comparing models from competing sources, there are probably two main considerations:

1.  Quality

2.  Price

You are on your own for comparing the quality of the solar panels.  But for price comparisons, I found a helpful website I would like to share, that shows the going rate for solar panels.

According to SolarBuzz.com, the current price per Watt in the United States is:

$3.47 per Watt

A friend in Texas told me he has an opportunity to buy a 220 Watt solar panel for $450.  Is this a good deal?

Let’s calculate the cost per watt so we can see if it is more or less than the going rate.

Since the going rate is $3.47 per Watt, this deal in Texas, at $2.05 per Watt, looks to be priced cheaply.

Price isn’t everything, though.  We also should look at the quality.  If you find or know of a good resource for comparing quality, let me know.

Update March 22, 2011

The price per Watt is still dropping.  It is now down to $3.19 per Watt in the United States.  It is getting easier and easier to use solar energy.

Video after the break…

This post shows the progress in my solar panel installation.

Electrical cable and conduit going into the ground.

Put a hole in my garage wall. Now the electrical cable goes from the solar panel directly into the house. Connected the cable to a charge controller, portable 12V battery, and a strip of blue LED’s.

I leave the LED’s on 24 hours a day. It feels good to know I don’t pay a utility company for that use. It’s paid for and uses clean energy.

This video is a compilation of several days of work, whenever I could find some spare time.

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RELATED

Mounting Solar Panel to Pole

Thief

Video attached…

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A single contrail probably does not reflect a noticeable amount of energy back to space, but a sky full of air traffic 24/7 might.  I do not personally worry about losing a tiny fraction of power on my solar panels from contrails reflecting light back into space.

I recorded this video when working outside.  I thought the contrails looked interesting on a relatively clean, blue sky and decided to press the record button.  It occurred to me that contrails are like clouds, and I know that clouds reflect solar energy back to space.  A cloudy day is bad for solar energy collection, so contrails must take a fraction of our energy, too.

What’s the difference between a contrail and chemtrail?

There are many references online to “chemtrails”, where some people believe that unmarked jets are spraying the population with harmful chemicals.  Why do they believe this and where is the evidence?  I have not seen conclusive evidence showing that chemtrails are real.  However, contrails are real.  Just look up at the sky and you will see how real they are.  Contrails, like the proposed idea of chemtrails, are a form of pollution and do contain compounds poisonous to life.  But so is the exhaust coming out of petroleum-powered vehicles.  Contrails from aircraft are like the equivalent of land-based smog from automobiles.  Both are harmful to our health.

Is it a conspiracy?  I don’t see any proof for that.  But is is bad for our health?  Yes, it’s bad for life because contrails pollute our air.

Toxic Sky

NBC-4’s Paul Moyer hosted a series called “Toxic Sky”.

Whether you believe in chemtrails or not, if you want clean air to breathe, we should minimize the exhaust from aircraft and automobiles burning fossil fuel.  Switching to a cleaner energy source would be good for all of us.

Sources:

1.  The importance of the diurnal and annual cycle of air traffic for contrail radiative forcing [ abstract ]

Department of Meteorology, The University of Reading, Reading RG6 6BB, UK

2.  Ministry of Defense, Publication Date 8 April 2008:  Turbine Fuel, Aviation Kerosene Type, Jet A-1, pages 8 ~ 11

PDF:  http://www.dstan.mod.uk/standards/defstans/91/091/00000600.pdf alternate link

3.  Wikipedia:  Jet Fuel [ Wikipedia ]

I show how you could charge a cell phone in an emergency, if you get cut off from grid power.

I am using a 10 AWG extension cord to carry the power from the solar panel to my house.

The connectors came from a local auto parts store and are easy to crimp to the cables. No soldering required.

It's easy to connect to the solar panel. Only tool needed is a screwdriver!

Sunforce 60012 7 Amp Charge Controller

I bought the charge controller from Amazon.com back in August 2008 for $25.  It will handle a maximum of 7 Amps. [ Edit, Dec-9-2010: Amazon has been found enabling Internet censorship, so I will not buy from Amazon again. I am joining the boycott against corporations that enable censorship and hide the truth. I recommend that you look for charge controllers elsewhere. ]

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Related Post:  Mounting Solar Panel to Pole

Updated Jan-02-2011

Surging Batteries

I save my defective batteries in a box.  These batteries will not charge any more and have a voltage of 0 Volts.  A 12V solar panel, which  provides a relatively safe voltage, brought these batteries back up to a normal AA voltage with just a few seconds of surging!

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After surging the batteries, as shown in the video above, I looked for an application where I could use just a single battery to provide power.  In order to test the capacity of the reclaimed batteries, it seems best to test each one on its own and not mixed with other batteries.  There aren’t many electronics that use just one AA battery, but here are some:

• Flasher LED’s

• Newer LED flashlights  (I don’t have one of these, though)

• Clocks

This clock uses a single AA battery for power.

I have a couple clocks that each use a single AA battery.  So I popped reconditioned batteries into them and they are working!

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The clock above ran on a reconditioned battery from July 8 until August 5, so almost one month.  The interesting point here is that the batteries used to be at 0 Volts and would not charge up, so were destined for the trash or recycle bin.  But after zapping them for a few seconds with a solar panel, the batteries are again back to work doing something useful.

Battery Charging after Surging

The results are not perfect.  I waited a couple days after surging before doing anything with these batteries.  The result is that more than half the batteries went back to 0 Volts.  I believe if I had tried using the batteries or charging them right after surging, the results would have been better.

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As shown in the video above, since I waited a couple days before doing anything with the batteries, many of them returned to 0 Volts.  I performed the surging experiment one more time and had much better luck with the batteries, as shown in the video below.

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The good results continued.  After most of the batteries charged up, many of the batteries became useful.  I am using some of the reclaimed batteries to power:

• Wireless headphones

• LED flashlight

• Clocks

• Cordless laser mouse

• Microcontrollers [ powering a TI Launchpad MSP430 ]

VIDEO

Conclusion

Surging the dead batteries brought many of them back to life and gave them new purpose.  However, they are not good as new and probably have some issues with charge capacity.  But for me, I’m glad to have many of these batteries back to work instead of sitting in a box as scrap.

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Freezing Batteries

I froze a battery pack and saw the voltage of the pack climb from 6.9V before freezing to 8.4 V after freezing.  I did not surge the pack.  Freezing by itself improved the voltage.  The battery pack came from a Spykee robot.

Related post:  Repairing and Replacing Batteries on a Spykee Robot

It’s OK to freeze NiCd, NiMH, and Lithium batteries. I think freezing disrupts the crystals that are causing the plates to short together. After freezing, hit end of battery with soft hammer to break crystals?  [ Source:  ysuusy.com ]

It might not work with Lithium batteries [ source ], although Lithium batteries should be safe from damage even as low as -40C [ source ].

Lithium batteries will not be damaged in freezer as long as they are allowed to warm again before use [source].

A well-written procedure:  Hackaday.

Give a Lithium Battery a New Function

My notebook computer uses a Lithium-ion battery.   This kind of battery typically lasts between 2-3 years.  I have one in storage now after it got too weak to keep the notebook powered for long.  Why do Lithium batteries stop working?  Oxidation inside the battery increases the internal resistance. The oxidation builds up over time and eventually, the cell resistance reaches a point where the pack can no longer deliver the stored energy even though the battery may still have ample charge!  For this reason, an aged battery can be kept longer in applications that draw low current.  [ source ]  So, while my old battery pack might not be suitable for the notebook computer any more, maybe I could use it to light up a few LEDs, power a portable radio, a portable media player, or a micro-controller (like an Arduino).  I’m glad I didn’t throw the battery pack away.  I’ll have to try using that battery pack again for a small application.  First, I have to figure out how to tap into the power connector of a Lithium-ion battery.

Store Batteries at Low Temperatures

Lithium batteries keep their storage capacity better if stored at 0°C and at a 40% charge level.  Some reserve charge is needed to keep the battery and its protection circuit operational during prolonged storage.  [ source ]  This means we could store Lithium batteries in the freezer for improved longevity.

NiMH and Lithium Are Different

Lithium batteries do not like to be fully discharged and fully recharged.  They prefer partial discharges with frequent recharges.

Exercising Batteries – My Personal Notes… Work-in-progress (might update later)

Using an Arduino microcontroller, I exercised some batteries by having them turn LED’s on and off until their voltage dipped below a threshold voltage.

Used this NPN transistor:  ON Semiconductor BC547B.  Data sheet:  http://www.chipcatalog.com/ONSemi/BC547B.htm

The BC547B transistor can handle a maximum of 100mA.  The LED’s I’m using fall below this limit, so this transistor is OK for this application.

My red LED consumes 15mA.

Blinking LED takes up to 13 mA

Blue LED:   up to 65 mA

From the summer of 2008 when I started to get serious about solar panels.

I chose to use aluminum angle to construct my solar panel frame.

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I cut through the aluminum angle using a hacksaw.

I drilled the holes into the aluminum using a drill press and a hand drill.

To protect the steel pipe from the elements, rust, and corrosion, I sprayed it with a cheap, $1 can of black spray paint.

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Concrete

The pole is concreted into the ground with rebar.  I used 230 pounds of concrete.  The pole is plumbed to keep the pole perpendicular to the ground, letting the panel naturally balance on the pole without putting strain on the pole to either side.  But when the wind blows, it pushes on the large panel, so to keep it safely secured in the ground, I used concrete.

How do you know how deep the hole should be?  How big should the hole diameter be?  I referred to a chart at homepower.com.  PDF File

Chart from homepower.com

VIDEO – Putting the pole in the ground with conduit and concrete

Conduit

Conduit shields the electrical cables going from the solar panel to the house.  How do you get conduit out of the boxes anyway?  I think I spent way too much time trying to figure it out, trying to find the end of the conduit so I could pull it through the box.  It may be easier to cut the box all the way open and remove the entire coil of conduit from its box.  If you plan on using all the conduit for one job, why try so hard to preserve the box?

VIDEO – Frustrating Conduit Box Dispenser

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In the next video, the solar panel is finally mounted to the top of pole and locked with a chain.  The solar panel can be manually rotated on the pole and aimed at the sun. To demonstrate that the panel is producing power, I show in the video how it can charge a portable 12V battery and power an air compressor. The air compressor performs useful work, inflating the tires on my son’s bicycle.

VIDEO

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VIDEO – Using an extension cord to transfer power from the solar panel to the house.

Related Posts:  Charging Cell Phones in Emergency – Plus How to Add Connectors to Solar Panel Cables

Using Wolfram Alpha, you can find your longitude and latitude coordinates on Earth. Wolfram Alpha also has average wind speed data for your location. You can get weather forecast data to help determine when the best times might be for your wind turbine.

How do I find my latitude on Earth?  See the video below to see:

Lock up your solar panels to prevent theft

These panels cost a lot of money and they would make an easy target for a thief to steal for some quick cash.  An article at insidebayarea.com documents how a guy climbed up on the roof of a school at night and stole $70,000 worth of solar panels and then attempted to sell them on Craigslist.  We need to make more of an effort to protect our investments in off-the-grid power.

Here is one idea for securing panels that I am implementing using locks.

Drill a hole in the solar panel frame to attach a lock.  Then drill holes in a pole concreted to the ground.  Attach locks with a chain to make it harder for theives to take the panel.

The drill bits are titanium coated.

Drill press was used to drill holes into a steel pipe.