What's new
By:
DiscussionHQ - General Discussions

DiscussionHQ is a general discussion forum that has opened December 2024!
We provide a laid back atmosphere and our members are down to earth. We have a ton of content and fresh stuff is constantly being added. We cover all sorts of topics, so there's bound to be something inside to pique your interest. We welcome anyone and everyone to register & become a member of our awesome community.

What are you doing right now?

Jacob Petersheim said:
I keep thinking about people who mount panels flat onto an RV roof. That RV sure must get hot!
Click to expand...
How do they orient them to the sun? Maybe they could be raised and lowered as the parking of the car faces them to the right angle?
That could allow for some airflow underneath.
 
Mary Stetler said:
How do they orient them to the sun? Maybe they could be raised and lowered as the parking of the car faces them to the right angle?
Click to expand...
I watched a couple of videos.

Simple installations do seem to just attach panels to surfaces, often using slightly flexible panels to follow curves. Larger RVs tend to use cheaper large rigid-frame panels and triangles made of angled aluminum stock and bolts, lying flat for travel and raised when encamped for a better sun angle.

There must be some safety standards. Imagine going down the highway at 75 and a panel rips loose on the RV ahead of you and comes flying into your windshield! What a nightmare. I worry about bicycles strapped on the backs of RVs enough as it is.
 
Specially when you think about the fact that the majority of RVs are parked in storage or a driveway for 2 - 4 weeks a year, and the people driving them are certainly no experts. If I'm driving in a National Park with large wildlife, such as Elk, Moose, Bears, etc., I keep at least 4 or 5 car lengths between my car and an RV, even more if it's a rental. They see an animal, they just stop in the middle of the road. That's why park employees typically refer to Tourists as Tourons. Because they're part Tourist, part Moron.
 
Axel Slingerland said:
Specially when you think about the fact that the majority of RVs are parked in storage or a driveway for 2 - 4 weeks a year, and the people driving them are certainly no experts. If I'm driving in a National Park with large wildlife, such as Elk, Moose, Bears, etc., I keep at least 4 or 5 car lengths between my car and an RV, even more if it's a rental. They see an animal, they just stop in the middle of the road. That's why park employees typically refer to Tourists as Tourons. Because they're part Tourist, part Moron.
Click to expand...
LOL. You are right.
Here it should be mandatory to have bumper stickers for those people that says "I stop for rummage sales."
 
Very true, but I have to admit, I've found some great stuff at yard sales. In Eureka, I was just about to get home from one of my bike rides and passed one. The guy had two Pioneer speakers that looked brand new and all he wanted was $20 for them. I only had $10 on me, and I told him I needed to run home and get my car. I gave him the $10 to hold them, and I was back in 10 minutes with the other half.

I had previously bought a small RCA SA-155 Amplifier at a different yard sale for $5. I plugged them into it and they sounded great. Great for a PC desk stereo system. It wasn't all that loud, but it was enough to make ears ring after guitar jams. Ya cain't beat that for $25.
 
Kyng said:
About to go for a bath.
Click to expand...

Write it down on your calendar, thats what I do for shampoos. Damn if I feel like jumping in tub after a hard days work, I do have a bidet for quick hygiene.

I bet too if all these bath 'shampoo folks now had to draw and haul the water they wouldn't be so obsessive.
 
It's one of Cindy's supposedly "Simple Recipes" we called Clam Beach Soup. As she would say, it's what she "used to hook me and reel me in" on Clam Beach the night we met. I guess it's true what they say about the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. And she knew the way to mine quite well. Specially after living on Clif Bars, Stax Chips and fast food burgers for two months as I rode my bicycle to Eureka from Flagstaff.

She took a couple of pounds of hamburger, a bunch of potatoes, some tomato sauce and a half gallon of water, threw it in a big pot on medium heat for about an hour. And I loved it.

I did exactly the same thing and it didn't taste the same. I have no idea what I did wrong, but it didn't have that robust flavor it had when she made it. Maybe she used spices I was not aware of or something? :(
 
Settling into my morning routine. Brewed the coffee, got my cooking going early to have it over for the (hot!) day. Now watching the livestream from Michigan Storm Chasers.

Woke up from odd dream. It was 5 AM, and looking up Saturn was in the sky and so close that it appeared nearly as large as the Moon though for some reason rather dark though distinct, rings not quite edge-on. No idea why I was naked outside but that seemed normal.

Earlier another weird one. Somehow I had taken a long drive south and through some devious process had driven all the way to Cuba. No idea why, didn't go into town, and didn't linger much before heading back.
 
I’m currently drinking an iced cold glass of water. I just finished up eating lunch. I had some fish sandwiches.
 
I just woke up from today's morning #2, and I'm trying to kill the stiffness with copious amounts of tea. But then I realized you can't drown it. 🪵
 
Pouring stored buckets of solar power harvested today into my "peak rate" power station that runs my refrigerator 5 hours each day.

90F outside now at almost 8:30 PM and I'd let the house rise to 80F, so running the A/C off and on to bring that down at current off-peak rates.

Hotter day tomorrow, so I'll do it all again. At least on Tuesday things begin to moderate a bit.
 
Another hot one here but I'm collecting solar power despite the heat when I have to be in the sunlight. Wow, those solar panels get hot! I'll knock off that by Noon today, my "buckets" should be full by then anyway. Staying out there as little as possible, ducking back into the shade. Focusing on keeping the house cool and sipping ice water.
 
I can't remember where I saw them, but awhile back I read a couple of articles about hybrid solar panels. (Don't ask me why, I can't use solar panels.) Every row of solar cells on a panel has a small tube running between them on the back side of the panel array. Thus you would get electricity from the front side and hot water from the back.

Later I read an article about water-cooled solar panels, where water pipes that come from a central AC system run between rows of solar cells to cool the arrays. In other words, use solar power to run the AC unit, and water pipes from it to cool the solar panel arrays.

My question then is could the AC cooled water, which gets heated by the solar panels then be collected and stored in a tank for your home's hot water needs?

Another article talked about solar thermal heat pumps but I didn't really understand that one because I've never really seen a heat pump and decided to go back to it later, but I forgot to bookmark it. This of course is the first time I thought about that since then.
 
It's a thought, and would surely seem to have efficiency gains.

But I'm just chasing around the yard with "camping" type folding panel arrays and power stations myself, trying to follow the sunlight through the day.

These "power stations" include the battery, battery-management unit, an inverter for AC power output, DC to DC converter that takes battery voltage to several DC voltages out, and a "solar controller" that can take the varying voltages and currents coming from solar panels into something the BMU can charge the battery with. There is also some sort of overall controller to display data and accept button inputs to conduct the symphony to different goals. Some of these also have Bluetooth and/or WiFi so you can monitor and control from a phone app.

Permanent roof or ground-mounted solar isn't practical here. I have far too much shade for such a large operation.

Whole-house solar can involve hundreds of volts and amps, so the wiring and junctions/connections are pretty critical and can be very dangerous. But since they have to deal with rain... that can't be why domestic hot water isn't part of most home installations.

So I don't know. Expense? Complexity? Zoning and permits?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top