Category: DIY
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Heating A Well House With Simple Clean Solar Electric Power! Thermal Energy Storage / TES
I made a video about this project – blog article continues below: Stopping A Well House From Freezing When I moved to a homestead farm in the country, one of the things I dreaded was the well house freezing. A well house is a tiny wooden “house” built over the top of the well head,…
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PV2L-MG: My Low Voltage DC Residential Micro Grid Goes Live! Direct Solar Photovoltaic
It’s live! After several years of testing and research, then a long and grueling move to the countryside, I installed the first Low Voltage DC wall outlets in my house. A full length multi-episode video documentary is in production to document the system. Within hours these outlets were powering up one of my DC cooktops,…
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Don’t Have Matches? I Started A Fire With A Lithium Ion Solar Generator – Was Just Curious!
High Tech Survival In this high-tech age, it seems people often lack the most basic survival gear, but yet they have a “smart” phone, wi-fi and many different gadgets. What if they were stranded out in the woods with only a solar generator or portable power station? Could they start a simple campfire to keep…
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Electric mowers actually work! My 80V DC lawn mower “brush hogging” the weeds
Years ago when electric mowers were relatively new, I bought my first one – but with deep hesitation. It was an 80V Kobalt push mower with lithium ion batteries – and I did NOT think it would work very well. It cost a lot of money. But as a battery and solar enthusiast, I thought…
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No More GASOLINE! 48V Riding Mower Helps With Homestead Chores
For years I used a 48V Ryobi ZT480e zero-turn mower converted to LiFePO4 to mow my grass. But after I moved to a new 35 acre homestead property, I really wanted something cheap with a normal steering wheel (not lap bars). The zero-turn had a trailer hitch, but for transportation, pulling small trailers and other…
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My Simple Solar Pump! and a gray water recycling project starts
I really love water… and pumps… any excuse to play with them I will take. For years, I have wanted to build a gray (grey) water recycling system. Gray water means from the sink, dishwasher, laundry etc. and not sewage, which must never be discharged without proper treatment – that would cause a major health…
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My New 35 Acre Solar Powered Homestead!
After many years of wanting a piece of land so I could scale up my experiments and research, that day has finally come. I have been at this for over 6 months since January 2025, packing and moving my stuff to the new land. Actually, it’s almost the end of summer and I’m STILL moving…
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Solar Hot Water! Semiconductor Immersion Heating Elements – my research project
Solar panels do so many things very well, but there is always room for improvement and new ideas. One application I find interesting is to directly drive a Hot Water Heater (HWH) heating element in a water tank with PV DC solar panels. But are there better ways to do it? I made a video…
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How Much Power Are You Losing? A simple introduction to voltage drop in wires and cables
Have you ever looked at an extension cord and wondered “how much power is it wasting”? And how about those cheap skinny solar MC-4 cables – maybe they’re not such a bargain either. Or perhaps you never gave any of this a single thought! It is a fact that using the wrong cable or cord…
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A Quick Post On LiFePO4 C-rate – charge, discharge and treating storage batteries right
What is C-rate and why is it important? Recently, I tested a 200 amp-hour LiFePo4 12v battery for a video review I did for my YouTube channel (Timeusb 200ah, posted on this page). Although it was not the main focus of the video itself, during the review I made some comments about C-rate and decided…
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14 Watts Can Do WHAT? Getting smarter about solar power, efficiency and high-tech survival
Hi folks, most survivalists know how much food & water they need to survive “X days” in the jungle”. That’s because they are smart and take time to think things through! But have you ever wondered, how many slices of toast can that 12-volt 10 amp-hour lithium battery make?? Note: this article is about an…
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Solar panel has voltage but no power – what’s wrong? DIY Solar Troubleshooting Skills
Introduction Hi folks, in this blog post (and associated video) I am sharing some of my first hand experience in over a decade of working with solar power and electrical systems. A problem that a DIY solar power enthusiast may someday face is to find a solar panel [or a whole solar panel array] has…
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Boiling Water with 14w of Solar Powered Induction (plus video) EXPERIMENTAL
It’s that time again… another solar powered experiment at the outer edges of “feasibility”. Part of my work and research in solar power the past few years has been about finding ways to do “more with less“. Often I try to accomplish a task using only the solar panel itself, using minimal to no electronics…
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Mini Peltier Freezer Powered by Solar – solid state refrigeration prototype (plus video)
For the longest time, I’ve been fascinated by those small Peltier based fridges and coolers for sale on the internet. They generally drop the temp to something pretty “cool” but they often fall short of an actual “refrigerator”, let alone freezer. (Video of my test freezer – article continues below) What I’d really like to…
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24 Volt car radiator fan, 50 watt solar panel – A Perfect Match for Solar Shed Ventilation?
Are 24 volt car radiator fans a good option for solar shed ventilation? Sheds tend to get very hot in the summer, and my two sheds are no exception. For the past several years, I’ve been using simple configurations of solar panels connected to fairly powerful DC fans to cool them off. This video shows…
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Video: PV-to-Wall – Direct DC Solar Power – Direct Drive Solar
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Solar Air Conditioning – Direct PV DC – Project Updates and Video
Note: ongoing project updates will be posted towards the end of this page. Thinking in terms of a grid-down scenario, besides food, water and shelter, air conditioning is one of the most important modern benefits to society. There is nothing that can boost morale like a good cold AC and a place to rest after…
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How Many SOLAR Watt-Hours does it take to cook? (Documented Experiment plus Video)
Kitchen-Grade 12 Volt Cooking Appliances are an untapped industry in my opinion. There is a pressing need all over the world for simple, durable and affordable 12v cooking appliances, but most of the ones available are not designed for the rigors of daily use. After years of searching for alternatives, I could not really find…
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