turning a 150 ac into a super efficient geothermal unit s 41uf02

How to save money on your power bill... 1)go on ebay and buy a used utility meter.
2)install a 2nd meter base in your house and run *something* on it.
3)next time the power is out, swap the meters

Or get solar.

My power bill came in today.... to quote Louis Rossman, Hi and welcome to how you're getting fucked today".

My power company used to hold my power "on account". If I had a short produciton month, I borrowed back from my over production account. At the end of the year, they squared up with me at wholesale rate, usually 5.5c/kwh.

How it works today....
They say you will always have a $30 bill. If your total charges don't add up to $30, they will round up to $30.
This past month we had a "super critical day" where they tripled the price of power. They noted that I delivered power to them during the critical super day.... but they put that power into one lump sum that totaled 483.95kwh delivered to them "overall". For this, they paid me 4.01c/kwh. They did not pay me triple the going rate for hte power I delivered to them during their critical time. They did not pay me double for the ON PEAK power I delivered to them. They paid me less than the wholesale rate for ALL the power I delivered to them.

So.... they credited my bill $19 for 483kwh... but since their average rate is 13c, but they resell it to my neighbors for $62. AND they zero out my overage each month, so I have no carryover into the winter.

In the past 30 days we used 653kwh in all the cars and I over produced 483kwh. Since I export power to hte grid during the day and import it back in at night... but even importing it at super off peak at night, they charge me 9c but pay me 4.01c each day..... So despite me exporting more than I use, htey are still charging me 5c / kwh to buy back my own power to charge cars at night.

At this rate, I have to export 750kwh a month to break even.

It's really getting close to time to shut off the grid here.

I finally got around to installing antenna on a fiberglass box and flashing some meshtastic hardware with meshcore software. I played with meshtastic a few months ago and found that individual users are flooding the network with their egos but I can't reach them when I try to message them.

What I'm seeing as I read the details is that meshcore addresses this with a hammer. Beacon advertisements are limited to one per hour locally and min of every 4 hours "hopping" outward. This enforces keeping the network clear of superfluous traffic and available for messaging.

I'm an old hand from back in the day in APRS and despite the developer trying to say it was for messaging it simply became a GPS tracking app with so many users propagating out 7 hops.

I see specific choices made in Meshcore to keep it as a messaging app.

I set my litle meshcore box on top of the golf cart last night to keep the dogs from messing with it. It is literally 6ft off the ground. Today I'll climb my radio tower and put it up 80ft 24meters. The next node to me has not shown on my map yet but it is 30 miles at 400ft. I'll have to do a line of sight analysis , but I think my tower is over most of the trees around here and 400ft on the other end is certainly over the trees.

We'll see how this goes in the coming weeks.... but for hte purpose of off grid comms, meshcore seems to favor a static network of known routes. The users can move around but the network should be static.

Same hardware works for meshtastic and meshcore. they just run on two different frequencies in the 900mhz band (868 in EU).

and here is the line of sight from my house to the 400' tower in the next city over.... clear path.

And this handsome fellow just strolled by to say hello. I've seen a lot of elk in my life, but this guy is enormous.

Join @davidavocadowolfe 🥑

Morning view out the back bedroom window. Man it’s good to have no regrets stepping out of society.

​​🌿 ƬƦΔƝƇƑǑƦMΔƬƟƦ 🌿

What a way to visualize packets moving though the meshcore network. This is eastern Tennessee and north Georgia.

Harvest Guard reusable mason jar lids are NOT good. We canned tomatos yesterday and 40% of cans didn't seal. Additionally, my wife has been dehydrating squash and she's had trouble with on of the harvest guard lids staying sealed... so I put olive oil on the rubber gasket and it stayed sealed for about a week. Guess we're back to one time use lids.

I've been tinkering with this how-to document for a couple of weeks. I realized that I go though the same steps each time I do a consult with someone about getting solar. This document isn't glitzy or polished but it contains the steps I take to specify a system.

Standard terms and conditions may apply, I have not covered all the gotchas but this certainly will get you going in the right direction.

One of our group members has just returned home from a quick trip to Houston TX. He saved a lot of money on shipping by driving there. He has just returned home with 90 580w panels, 5 16kwh batteries and a pair of 12000xp inverters. I can't wait to see this system up and running.... it's a monster. 54kw of panels and 24kw of inverters.

Edit: Panels were $6045.00 for 3 pallets. 93 panels. Batteries were $8800 for 5 of the docan 16kw batts.