On Thursday 09 May 2019 11:10:03 pm Erik Christiansen wrote:
> On 09.05.19 09:16, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > Good thinking Erik. I suppose the next Q is how far down is it to
> > the water table? And thats a job for a wind mill tower... But you
> > knew that. What would be neat is a big remote switch rod running up
> > the tower to a clutch to disconnect the wheel from the pump jack
> > when the tank is full, and connect it to an alternator for battery
> > charging. A dog clutch could handle that as the normal water pump
> > fan doesn't turn that fast. About a 10x gear up to an alternator
> > ought to give some usable wattage for the batteries.
>
> Although a mill and a lathe help with maintaining a windmill, they're
> scarily expensive here in the 21st century, and susceptible to the
> increasing energy in our atmosphere. A high velocity microcell can
> wreak havoc in a small area, and Murphy can smell an expensive
> windmill at forty miles, I figure.
>
> The electrical engineer in me thinks an electric pump and a few more
> panels on the PV array are a darn sight less maintenance effort in the
> long run. Turned on only when there's good sun, the only required
> storage is in the water tank. (No extra battery cost.)
>
> There's over 200 Ha (nudging 500 acres) of eucalypt forest on site, so
> steady wind is a good bit less than right out in the open.
>
If you don't get some precip, those will be greasy firewood, waiting for
the first lightning strike. Ashes in 20 minutes.
> > I spent a couple years of my early life on grandpa's farm in Madison
> > County Iowa, several miles "off grid" as that was long before the
> > R.E.A. It was just how it was in those days, a farmer was self
> > sufficient or starved. We ate well, very well in fact. Big glass
> > single cell lead acid cells, about 5 gallon size, 10 of them gave us
> > a bit if light in the evenings, lights in the barn to milk the cows
> > by and ran the maytag washer after the put-miss-put backfired and
> > broke grandmas ankle, first electric washing machine in rural
> > Madison County by quite a few years. Yeah, that Madison County, made
> > famous 80 years later by Eastwood and Streep in Bridges. I was over
> > quite a few of those bridges in a team of horses drawn wagon back
> > then. A simpler, but not always easier time back then.
>
> There's quite a comparison between that "can-do or do without"
> upbringing and city kids now sitting indoors in a big house on a 300
> m² (0.074 acre) block with no back yard, playing video games and
> watching "Bluey", a serialised cartoon in which dogs play the roles of
> children playing in back yards, which the real children don't have. I
> don't see this "progress" progressing to a happy conclusion.
Neither do I, but I figure it will take rope and bullets to fix it. I'm
hoping I won't still be around.
> Wouldn't
> trade my farm upbringing for modern childhood. (My father used to say
> "A good kite flies best in a headwind." Well it taught some resilience
> as well as what elbow grease could do, and where to find it.)
Amen.
>
> There's an old "32 Vdc" lighting generator somewhere in Dad's old
> shed. They must have had matching light globes back then.
Yes, often carbon filament, not very bright, and often radio reception
killers. I had a shirttail aunt who lived in the house next to the
school in Redfield Ia. Had a radio for the news but it was buzzy. I
went looking for the buzz when the first 4 transistor pocket radios came
out. Found it in a 15 watt, carbon filament bulb in the attic which had
no switch to turn it off, so it was likely 35 years old then, but she
wouldn't let me unscrew it. I suppose it could still be burning and
buzzing. Hard to tell, they both passed in the next decade, and I've
not been back to Redfield since 2007 when I stopped at our old home
place I helped my stepfather build in '46 and intro'ed myself as the
electrician that had wired the place on a used shoestring when I was 12
years old. The folks living there now got a kick out of that. They had
finally rewired it with some yard sale stuff in about 2005. Had
somebody do it for them that is. 'sfunny how life makes you drive 20
million miles and pull up in the same driveway 70 years later.
I was coming home from saying goodbye to my oldest daughter, who passed
about 28 hours after I got home, and the wife had us packed and we got
up the next morning and drove another 450 miles to her nieces dairy farm
in New York. Got in about dark, had some eats, adjourned to a pair of
couches in the basement, but was startled awake about 2 AM by somebody
or something that wasn't there, but I could feel their presence. Gave
up, recycled some water and went back to sleep. Up the next morning, my
cellphone burped once them rang, normally theres no coverage there,
answered it and it took 10 seconds of noise before the cell tower put
enough power in it to get to me, its was my son-in-law, advising me that
she
