Day 920 (Daily Post)
Day 920. I am getting off to a slow start this morning as I sip my espresso whilst listening to the birds sing and the sun makes it's gradual trek over the mountain. It is looking like it will be another one of what I affectionately (not so affectionately) think of as a 'pseudo-sunny' day but perhaps I will get lucky and get just enough good sunlight to keep my batteries mostly charged and mayhaps be able to listen to a little loud music if the sun gets really bright for a prolonged period of time which hopefully it will do before a thunderstorm rolls in so that I can sooth the dogs with the music or at least take the edge off the thunder overly disturbing them.
The music setup does pretty well now that I am using that other marine grade deep cycle battery to run the inverter that powers the amplifier. I previously had the inverter running off that marine grade deep cycle battery that I treated with epsom salt which worked okay when the sun was really bright but with just a few minutes of cloud cover obstructing the sunlight getting to the solar panel the battery's voltage would drop and the inverter would start beeping to let me know that the battery is approaching a voltage below what the inverter needs to operate under load.
During those times I would lower the volume of the amplifier and effectively relieve how much power the inverter would need to supply and in turn how much drain/load was being put on the battery which worked well enough when the sun was playing hide and seek behind the clouds for brief periods of time but if there were thirty minutes of clouds even that 'workaround' would not keep the battery from rapidly discharging and start the inverter beeping all over again. So putting the inverter on that other battery seems to have alleviated the need for me to turn the volume down and it can last through several hours of cloud cover without the battery's voltage reaching an unusable level.
When it is really sunny the battery that powers the inverter performs wonderfully and because I have it connected to that three hundred and twenty-five watt panel there is enough energy (amps) available to power the inverter (that in turn powers the amplifier) and still have enough energy (amps) available to also charge the battery simultaneously. In other words the solar panel is basically running the inverter but it still needs the battery between the two because solar panels are 'current' sources and not a 'voltage' source like a battery is.
There are devices designed to run directly off of solar panels but none of the gear I have is any of it but I don't think that it would be all that difficult to just add a supercapacitor (or several supercapacitors) to the devices that I want to 'directly' power from a solar panel to effectively convert them. This would be really handy especially in regards to portability because the weight of lugging around a bunch of heavy batteries is eliminated entirely. For something like my coffee cart with it's solar panel roof the overall weight would remain rather low if I install a bank of supercapacitors (or just one) in a weatherproof housing that provides me with all the outlets that I would need.
The idea of bundling supercapacitors, a solar charge controller, an inverter and all the supply outlets in one weatherproof box is rather appealing and I think that if I installed inside it a single small eight amp hour sealed lead acid battery the unit as well just for powering a series of internal cooling fans it would all work rather well and not overheat and with enough heat-sinks I could probably operate it in above one hundred degree temperatures and the weatherproof box itself being exposed to the sun. So far it is all an interesting thought experiment and I think the overall design would be pretty fun to sit down and start drawing out.
Anyway the sun is starting to really shine here and it is a rather beautiful day and I am watching one of the rabbits stand on it's hindquarters watching out around it. They are pretty good at keeping an eye out for the dogs but it is pretty neat how they come to the edge of the 'yard', stand around peering at everything around them for several minutes and once satisfied that there is no immediate danger they then totally ignore everything and start chomping away happily at the vegetation without looking up again. Some of the rabbits here have gotten really big and when they are standing on their hindquarters the tips of their ears would easily reach knee high. They are by far the healthiest looking wild rabbits that I have ever seen and given the abundance of food for them here, the large habitat to hide in and their general lack of larger predators and stress...they are doing quite well.
Well I am going to wrap this up, do the inevitable editing and get it all posted so that I can get on with my day and see what the heck becomes of it. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
@jacobpeacock I am glad you can comfort the dogs with music, thunder must be terrifying to them. I hope you have many sunny days.
Thanks @myjob! I am hoping for many sunny days as well. :)