I was at a loss how to calculate bus bar capacity for interconnecting batteries. Here you go.

https://youtu.be/XudtqDiyG5U
Paracord idea.

Why we prep. The hedge against inflation is hard goods. Buy things now... they will only cost more later or not be available.

Another work day today for my new battery. Presently the house is running on my first prototype battery which is NOT as neat as this. First of all the bus bars that come with LiFePO4 batteries are typically 2mm thick and are not suitable for the full amp capacity of the battery. So I bought 3/4 x 1/4 x 6’ lengths of 110 copper alloy. You need a BMS and the BMS needs to have a wire attached to each cell of a battery to keep a watchful eye on them. In my first prototype, I used crimp on ring lugs and didn’t route the wires neatly at all... I just wanted to see the thing work. In this battery I have made massive bus bars and even soldered the BMS sense wires to the middle of each bus bar. No need to stack ring lugs on the battery posts.

So I drilled them on my milling machine to get a really good consistent spacing on the holes. Never mind the few that are crooked... the vice came loose on the table. :-) I also drilled a shallow dimple in the middle of each bus bar to give a place for soldering the BMS sense wires on.

I placed a terminal strip up top in the BMS space on top of my battery. Each of the 17 sense wires comes to that terminal strip. This should make it really easy in the future to swap out a BMS or add an active balancer. I also ran an extra terminal on each end for 0v and 48v so I can attach 48v things without having do disconnect the BMS.

Note the shelf that the BMS will sit on has all thread down both sides that clamp the batteries in place. Also note that I build the battery from the bottom up and attached each bus bar as I went. This is to allow each battery to jockey around as I tighten the bus bars. You see they aren’t exactly true...they have a little warp in them (they are extruded). So if I had stacked all 16 batteries and then tried to tighten the bus bars, they might not have pulled the bottom batteries enough to make excellent contact on the terminals. So after all the bus bars were snug, I then used a nut on the shelf and all thread to clamp the batteries into the case so they won’t slide around. I have a little headspace at the top of the box above that shelf for hte BMS and contactor. Also there is a front cover and a top cover so I can keep it safely covered up.

Tomorrow I’ll hook up one of the two BMS units I have for testing and see it it is better than the chargery that I’m using on the prototype. Eventually, I’ll rework the prototype with bus bars like this one and I’ll have three identical units... 45kwh of LFP batteries.

Any of you building batteries for your house, cabin or camper may find this useful.

Chicken tractors make for happy/healthy chickens

In times of uncertainty, and without modern infrastructure to aide us, its imperative to learn how to take care of your hide. Modern shampoos and body washes contain heavy metals and sulfides, becoming more of a detriment in the long run. With this information here, you can learn how to create and utilize your own safe and effective means of maintaining good hygiene. A simple recipe I found online will do just that.

From https://www.survival-manual.com/homemade-soap.php

You will only need five ingredients to make basic soap.
1) Wood ash
2) Water
3) Animal fats
4) Plant oils
5) Salt

As for shampoo, which I believe is a necessary aide to preventing scalp dermatitis and lice; another recipie follows.

How to Make Natural Homemade Shampoo

I’ve made natural alternatives to most of our household and toiletry products, but homemade shampoo was by far the toughest.
I tried the “no-poo” method, which has great results for some, but did not work on me at all (and I have some terrible Christmas pictures to prove it!). If you have coarse hair that isn’t naturally oily, this method may be great for you! I have baby-fine hair and it didn’t work for me.

I also missed the foaming aspect of shampoo (I know… the “foam” in regular shampoo is made by chemicals and detergents…)
I tried plain liquid castile soap, which left a tangled mess, and I tried a bunch of homemade recipes that didn’t work well at all.
Finally, at the inspiration of a natural coconut milk (scented) shampoo that I love, I’ve finally found a recipe that I’m happy with and that doesn’t leave my hair tangled, oily or both.
It works on kids hair too (that’s a picture of my daughter’s newly washed hair) though it isn’t tear free, so watch the eyes!

Natural Shampoo Recipe

It’s such an easy recipe that I can’t believe it took me this long to think of it…
Secret ingredient: Coconut Milk!

What You’ll Need for Homemade Shampoo

Coconut milk (UPDATE: a couple of readers mentioned that the canned stuff did not work well for them, but that homemade coconut milk worked great… Depending on your hair type, homemade may be better for you)

Liquid castile Soap (like Dr. Bronners)

Essential Oils of choice (I’ve used peppermint, lavender, rosemary and orange or combinations of those.
Homemade Shampoo Recipe

This homemade natural shampoo smells great, works well, and lathers!


Ingredients

¼ cup coconut milk (homemade or canned)

¼ cup castile soap

20 drops essential oils (such as peppermint, lavender, rosemary, or orange)

For dry hair:

½ tsp olive oil (or almond oil, optional)

Instructions

Combine all the ingredients in an old shampoo bottle or jar. Pump soap dispensers and even foaming dispensers work well for this. If you use a foaming dispenser, add ¼ cup of distilled water.

Shake well to mix.

Keep in the shower for up to a month.

Shake before each use and use about a teaspoon every time you shampoo.


Notes

If you use a foaming dispenser, it also makes a great shaving cream.

Some people find that a 50:50 mixture of apple cider vinegar and water used as a rinse helps get hair cleaner and increases shine.

from https://wellnessmama.com/3701/homemade-shampoo/

An update on learnings this week about Battery Management Systems for lithium batteries. This week I learned there is a BMS made by JBD in china that is rebranded and reworked so freaking many times that it’s just normalized. If you find a BMS that isn’t Daly or Chargery, it’s going to be JBD. I find that the voltmeters on these (A/D converters) are remarkably stable and accurate.

Many times these BMS circuit boards have space for MOSFETS and in that case they can individually control charging and discharging. Overkill Solar uses this type of JDB BMS with the MOSFETS on board. I have blown up a few mosfet contactors and will prefer a real mechanical relay going forward. The issue is that MOSFETS fail shorted and so just when you need your BMS to protect your battery, you’ll find that it cannot disconnect the load.

So a JBD variant I’m using is QUCC. It has a small’ish circuit board and uses an external mechanical relay. Yes, it’s from China and this relay is a knock off (not waterproof) of a gigavac GV241FAX / GV241CAX ( water proof). In either case these relays use two coils, one to pull the contact in and the other low power coil to hold it. They use 2w to hold the contactor in which is on par with the power draw of mosfet type circuits.

So to get into the JBD type BMS, you’ll typically use a bluetooth module that often comes with the unit. Be aware that this bluetooth is a glorified serial port but it is NOT compatible with Windows as a serial port. IT is compatible with tablets and iOS devices as a serial port. It is Bluetooth Low Energy and damned it I’d don’t know why there isn’t a driver for it for win10. The iOS app is free, but only for viewing. If you want to edit things you have to buy the $7 upgraded version. The Android version is XiaoxiangBMS with an elephant icon. The android version allows you to change many more parameters than the iOS version of the same software. For example you can change the bluetooth name. In my case I changed from their cryptic name to “battery 1”.

Additionally, if you disconnect the bluetooth module, you’ll find the connector has ground, 10v, RXD and TXD. 10v should be enough to run a rs232 converter. RXD and TXD are TTL compatible not RS232 compatible (the ones and zeros are inverted). You can get an RS232 converter for a few $$ on amazon.

So one caveat of this JBD / QUCC / overkill bms is that they have been designed to use in scooters and so if they don’t see occasional spikes in current (amps) they will go to sleep after 18 hours (65000 seconds). I’m experimenting tonight to see if setting to 65535 seconds will completely disable the sleep function. Fingers crossed because I really like this little BMS.

So if this works out, I’ll end up installing a small WIFI ESP32 module for $1/each or perhaps a serial to Ethernet converter. This will allow some software running on a raspberry PI to mange and monitor the batteries. Eventually the Raspi will keep tabs of if an individual battery has disconnected from the group, or keep tabs on inverter usage to do some load shedding if my HVAC compressor needs to start. I also hope to integrate the electric car chargers into this scheme too so I can charge the cars when there’s excess power from sun and gradually throttle them back as the clouds come and go.

Hey on a side note, check out YouTube “off grid garage”. He’s often a little long winded but gosh the info you can glean from his videos. Just put out one this week comparing top and bottom balancing LFP batteries. Really good info.

And there’s a young family on YouTube “Wild wonderful offgrid”. In their early episodes they installed a solar system to a small shed to be used as a power house as they moved forward building their real house. Fantastic idea. They have LOTS of details on their system and the inverters.

Seeing all these cucks drinking beer and overeating, thinking they were being patriotic over the weekend while their country is essentially a rotting corpse being eaten by maggots was a little disheartening.

If you want to truly be a "free patriot", here's what you should do:

- stop masturbating. Jews give this porn away for free because it steals your life and energy. Cut that shit out.

- instead of "living for the weekend" i.e. working your shitty job only to get shitfaced every Friday and Saturday, find productive and useful hobbies like our forefathers did. They worked on their cars, did wood working, messed around with electrical shit etc. There was no vidya or night clubs.

- financial freedom, abandoning the consumer cuck debt cycle. Don't buy expensive brand new vehicles that give you $1000 payments. Learn to work on cars and find a reliable model to keep running. Don't "keep up with the Joneses" by buying new shit on credit constantly or an expensive tract home because in reality the Joneses are broke ass race traitors with tranny kids.

- strengthen or restore your personal relationship with God. The world is pushing you to be godless with no identity. This is so the kike powers can enslave you and take away what makes you strong so that you are a miserable soulless consumer cuck like them. Don't go with the flow, read the Bible and look around at churches in your area.

- physical fitness - don't demoralize yourself by immediately setting a goal to be navy seal ripped within a month. If you're out of shape, start out by simply cutting out the majority of bad foods and exercising 3x a week 30 minutes a day. Fat, sad people consume and don't fight back. This is what the banks would prefer.

Take these steps and you'll be more "free" than the flag waving potbelly cuck who drove his $100k debt purchased boat to the lake only to sit there and drink bud lite while his wife gets pounded by niggers.