White people things

Things like this can be printed out in 4x6 and laminated to make a quick reference handbook for in the field. I usually bring a few wild plant references with my HAM freq list and stick it with my map; all waterproof and easy to read.

Folks, I don’t mean to turn this into the solar power with Wes group.... I’ll shift my writing as time goes on... but for now, I’m trying to break this down into bite sized chunks. I’m so emphatic about solar because, well, it runs silently on sunshine. I’ve lived thru enough hurricanes to know that you don’t want to run a generator at night for fear the noise will attract a thief.

Today I want to discuss battery inverters. Aims makes a series of inverter/chargers that act like huge UPS power supplies. They will run part of your house off a bunch of golf cart batteries and recharge the batteries when the power is on again or your fire up your generator. This allows you to run generator during the day to recharge and have lights and the fridge run as needed thru the night.

Some of you might be tempted to get the largest inverter you can afford, but I want to caution you that larger inverters have larger standby/idle current. For example the Aims 4kw inverter uses 52 watts on idle. That’s a little over 1200wh per day... 8 golf cart batteries have 5kwh usable capacity... so you end up using 25% of your batteries if you leave the inverter on all day.

A better option is to get an inverter with a remote control so you can turn it on easily as needed. Also you may consider a small 300-500 watt inverter for standby use... for example TV or lighting. A 300watt inverter might use up 5watts on standby, 125wh per day.

The aims inverter remote uses a standard Ethernet cable for wiring... but it is NOT Ethernet... it’s just a place to connect two wires together to tell it to turn on. If you wanna get very fancy, you can buy their official remote panel and it’ll show you current draw and battery voltage over the same cable.

If you go over 4kw, please use 48v inverters. 4kw at 24v is nearly 170amps and requires HUGE wires.

If you use golf cart batteries, they will last about 5 years. AGM batteries are maintenance free but only last 3 years. Make sure you buy 6v golf cart batteries and NOT 8v golf cart batteries... the reason is that when/if they go dead you will have a hard time finding an 8v battery charger.

Keep in mind that the batteries will probably cost as much or more than your inverter. If you decide later to upgrade from 24v to 48v, you can simply reconfigure the batteries... but you will be throwing away the money you spend on the 24v inverter.... something I’ve learned is bite the bullet and buy things ONCE. I had to learn the hard way... my first system was a backup for 1/4 of the house on a 4kw aims inverter. I later wished I had gone with 48v and ended up selling the aims unit at a loss.

Ladies, do you have a stock of lady supplies? Just had a conversation with my wife about menstrual cups. They should last a very long time.