GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Tag: solar

Cheap Solar Panel System Runs Your Cabin or Small House – GF Video

A cheap solar panel system to run most of your small house or cabin. This video walks you through a simple solar installation we did for a friends cabin in the woods.

A Cheap Solar Panel System, How We Did It:

This small weathered panel powers lights and electronics in the cabin.

We talk about a simple solar installation on the GardenFork Radio podcast, in this post I want to show you how I built a cabin solar system. There are many options for what to buy, but if you want to keep it simple, here are the items we have used.

Solar Panel & Controller: https://amzn.to/2sPEi6c
Inverter: https://amzn.to/2M5KSOI
Battery: https://amzn.to/2kTHqKJ
Kill A Watt meter: https://amzn.to/2sJLlgE
12 Volt LED bulbs: https://amzn.to/2yf9TnR
HD Outdoor Extension Cable: https://amzn.to/2t1qtT7

You can get a smaller solar panel than the one we link to, but it will cost about the same amount of money, and its good to have the extra capacity for dark days.

Our solar panel is mounted on a DIY pole consisting of plumbing pipe and some scrap metal parts. It is pointed toward the ideal part of the sky for maximum power generation. If it points in the right direction you can also mount the solar panel on a roof or shed. A heavy duty outdoor extension cord is connected to the panel.

I cut a slit in the grass about 2″ deep for the heavy duty extension cord going from the solar panel to the basement of the cabin. In the basement the extionsion cord cable from the solar panel hooks up to the charge controller. The charge controller is wired to the batteries.

How many batteries you buy will determine how much power you will have on hand. If you don’t run a lot of stuff, you can get just one battery. This is very easy to set up, and its very simple to do.

Regular car batteries will not work here. You need either locally purchased deep discharge batteries, aka golf cart batteries, or sealed solar batteries purchased online. Pictured below are two 6 volt golf cart batteries, you would normally purchase one 12 volt battery.

Here is a still frame from the YouTube channel The Weekend Homestead’s vid on his solar setup showing the inverter and battery. The inverter converts 12 volts to 110 volts. (Full vid at end of this post) Be sure to read the instructions that come with the unit.

Inverter and battery from The Weekend Homestead YouTube video.

110 volt powered by generator, 12 volt outlet runs on solar

This cabin can be run simply because we are using 12 volt LED lights and the fridge is propane powered. A solar powered fridge would require a larger panel setup.

You can now buy 12 volt LED bulbs with what’s called an Edison base, this is the regular silver screw in bulb type. This means you can use any regular lamps, and just drop in the 12 volt LED bulbs. Neat!

Laptops, radio, stereo all run on 12 volt. You can buy a 12 volt car adapter to charge many laptops. Or you can pick up a small car inverter and use your regular computer’s cable to charge up the laptop.

A portable generator runs the well pump and any power tools needed.

While making dinner at the camp we sometimes want to use a hand blender or a mixer, so for that we fire up the generator, which is hooked up to a few electrical outlets in the house. Be sure the generator is grounded, OK?

My main point here is that you don’t have to make this complicated, and you can probably do it yourself if you follow directions. Watch Will’s video on how he set up his cheap solar panel system.

June 15, 2018
DIY Solar Beeswax Melter Video by Rick

Solar Wax Melter plans here. Rick built this DIY solar beeswax melter out of a cooler and stuff you probably have in your garage.

Beeswax is made by the honeybees, and when you harvest honey, the cappings on the cells of the honeycomb are cut off, and you can save these wax cappings, melt them down, and make candles, soap, and all sorts of beeswax products. In this how-to video you’ll see how honeybees make beeswax, and how they build honeycomb in a beehive.

A solar beeswax melter will melt and clean beeswax without using electricty. Its very hands off, you don’t have to do much with it, just leave it in the sun and the solar power takes care of it. This wax melter uses a cooler and a piece of glass, its important that the glass not be double glazed, according to Rick. A few pans from the store and you are good to go.

With the melted and cleaned beeswax, you can make all sorts of beeswax based products. Some of the most popular are candles, soaps, and lotions.
Some interesting facts about beeswax: bees eat honey from their hives to produce beeswax, and the ambient hive has to be between 90 -97 degrees F.

Do you use beeswax? let us know how below:

August 12, 2012
Before I put this dog down…

I am closing out the books on that dog of a year, 2011. We’ve been working on passive solar renovations for the last several years. While weather plays some part in our utility usage for our home from year to year, I thought I’d report on our general progress.

The Results of our Passive Solar Renovations

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. If solar panels are your goal, you’ll go broke trying to “solarize” a lossy house.

Proper windows, doors, insulation, CFLs, Energy Star appliances, and shutting down drafts will save you big when it comes time to buy solar panels.

This isn’t sexy work, but it’s important.

January 4, 2012
Food Dehydrator Plans, a Solar Dehydrator from Encyclopedic Cookbook

The original book is from the late 40s

I’ve been talking about this book Tony loaned me, The Encyclopedic Cookbook, a lot lately. We even filled up most of a GardenFork Radio show about it. Link Here.

This book is truly encyclopedic and while we may snicker at a lot of the recipes, like Stuffed Crown of Frankfurters ( this is a Must Make on GardenFork ) the book does have some really interesting stuff in it.

I stumbled across a few pages of food dehydration techniques that I had not seen before, and I thought a few were pretty smart in their efficient use of heat and simple design.

A Solar Dehydrator, simple to build

The chapter is titled Drying Foods; today we would title it Food Dehydration.

Here are plans for an outdoor solar dehydrator, they call it a Sun Dryer, and its brilliantly simple, I like the simple tilt mechanism. Just use wing nut to tilt the solar food drier toward the sun.

The Range Top Food Drier

On the next page was something I had never seen before, and I know my wife would not let me build in the kitchen: A Range Top Dryer . The text was a little vague on this one, but it did say ” Strong flavored foods should not be cooked while food is being dried since odors may be absorbed” OK.

I’m guessing you have the burners on to dry out your food? Or does the heat from the pilot lights give off enough heat to be an effective food deyhrator? Not sure. Anyone know? A quick web search turned up nothing. Still, its quite fascinating to me.

A laundry stove food drier

This design uses heat from the Laundry Stove. I’ve never heard of a laundry stove before, but it looks like you would use it to dry clothes.

This chapter in the book list all the usual vegetables and fruits one can dry, but it also lists some I never considered.

Spinach:

“Steam 3 minutes, Remove excess moisture. Arrange in a thin layer. Start drying at 120F increase gradually to 140F. Stir the spinach carefully from time to time so that it will dry quickly thoughout. … Greens are likely to be of inferior quality if not carefully dried and stored. They dereriorate after long storage.”

January 23, 2010