Live and learn electric

So living exclusively at the cabin has taught me some things.  I thought my two 100 watt solar panels and three 75 aH batteries were sufficient.  And I still do.  But I did run into a problem.  I had some problems with my jeep and ran my car battery down.  I used my solar charger to charge it but it was rainy for days and didn’t charge very well.  I used my deep cycle batteries to start it, then it took a while to recharge them.  So I decided with the sun lowering in the sky it was time to redesign my solar panel mounts.  So I ran an old dog run cable and hung the panels from it.

Now they are higher and easy to move along to track the sun.  In the photo the line isn’t completely tight yet, so they are actually higher now.  It works great!  I may design a motor to slowly move them through the day.  I did notice last winter that in the winter the reflecting white snow actually makes direct sunlight not as important to get charging voltage.  Also I am now shopping for a 12v well pump so I don’t need to use the generator for water.  I can then have water pressure maintained automatically.  The next step towards indoor plumbing.

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