Tsunami!

I can never enjoy a crappy movie in peace.....sheesh.

So it appears there's the possibility of a tidal wave interfering with my zombie watching. *Probably for the best*

Here's a site with tons of ads on the right side: Crappy website

Here's something a little more scary: wow

Good news is we're all safe.

Updates soon.

Tonight's Best Worst (Really Worst) Movie

Rise of the Zombies
(A SyFy Original)

Holy crap. I'm 10 minutes in and it's nearly unbearable.

EDIT: Full cast has been revealed: Blind Guy from Star Trek, My Name is Earl's brother, the weird on from 3rd Rock from the Sun, and Machete star with some equally B-List ladies I don't recognize.

Also there are commercials.

Next Edit: Zombies have learned to swim. Awesome.

Next edit: lost the plot a bit with the tsunami and all, but we just had an emergency zombie roadside c-section, followed by a little infant baby zombie.

My guess is its first word would have been "braaiiiinsssss".

Weekend Project #308 - Hydroelectric Power (Part 2)

Here's the latest update:

It's time to mix electricity and water!!!  Good times!

Not our wiring, but close

We got the wiring sorted out, and a new charge controller for the setup, and away we went.  System hooked

up, pipes in place, and raring to charge up some batteries!!!   Here's what happened:

Very very cool.  400+ watts.

Sadly, between the leaks and the low-ish stream level, it'd only run like this for about half an hour, and then start sucking air and drop to less than 50 watts.  Usually closer to 30.  Unacceptable.

Our next step was to line the box with plastic to eliminate any in-box leaks.  That initially worked great, except my poor box structural design couldn't handle it, and the front popped open.  

My bad.

I put the thing back together, added some extra support to the front of the box, and continued testing.  

Know what happened then?

The back popped open.  And part of the bottom fell out. (picture not included because of shame.)

The next day, it was kind of drizzly - oddly opposite our current weather - and I decided to give it another go.  I yanked all of the plastic out, I shored up the back and bottom, added a lot of structural support, and put in all new plastic.  All of that brought the in-box leaks down to almost zero.  That work, plus our one day of light rain, had the thing running at about 350 watts for over an hour.

It finally started to drop off, so I figured that it would run out sooner or later, but that it wouldn't hurt to leave it running overnight.  The next morning I saw that it had been putting out between 200 and 300 watts all night long.  It covered all of our asleep time loads (fridges, modem, and routers, plus whatever other light odds and ends), the power to run our power system/controllers (50± watts) and still put another 30 amp hours into the batteries.  I was stoked!

That day, despite the rain being gone, the hydro generated 6 KWh of power, averaging 250 watts for 24 hours.  A person can't ask for more than that. (Well...a person could, and will, once rainy season starts.)

The rainy day was on a Tuesday.  I heard from Gary the Neighbor that we got about an inch of rain that day.  The 6 KWh day was Wednesday.  The hydro continued to continually produce power until 10:30 am on Saturday.  The lesson from this is that it doesn't take much rain at all to bump the stream up to production level.

Of course, we haven't had any rain worth speaking of since, but you know Hilo....it's only a matter of time.  Although in the interim, we've had several of what I'm now calling "Angry Weather Days" - not because the weather is angry, but because it makes me angry.  If there are heavy clouds giving no sun and no rain....that's an angry weather day.

In the meantime, I'd say this box design (just the shape, not the construction) has proved itself, and it's time to start plans for a permanent structure.

And when that starts, I'll let you know.  Until then....

Weekend Project #308 - Hydroelectric Power

(The second part of my new ancient elements series: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water - How to Have Fun, Save the Planet, And Usually Not Mortally Wound Yourself in the Process)

Hydroelectric Power (Part 1)

**Not the farm system**

I know my last Weekend Project post was a bit dry, pretty rambling, and more than a little bit too long.  So I'm going to try and keep this one a little less wordy, and a little more fun.

For those of you who don't know, the farm is basically off of the grid.  The only utility we're hooked to is the internet.  Right now, all of our electricity is generated by solar panels.  This often works great, but as we're just outside of the rainiest city in the U.S., there are days (and weeks and months) where we don't get a heap of power off of the panels.

Therefore. we're now working on a pico hydro system.  Kalewa bought a turbine from ES&D that operates under high flow/low head conditions.  After that arrived, we were ready to go.  The plan was/is to build a temporary box to test the system for location, function, etc. and once that proves itself, we'll build a permanent box to house the system.

Of course, I had to start by drawing up some high tech plans.

That's right...  blueprints, baby!

After that, it was time to scrounge up a bunch of scrap wood and get the thing built!

Cross-section of my masterpiece

Oh yeah....  I'm thinking we won't even have to build a permanent box at this point!!

Then we ran the pipe, set it up, and let the water flow!

Ok.....    As you can see, it's a bit leaky.  Great Stuff to the rescue!  We shut it down, sealed it up, and ran it again.

Looks just like the plans!!

After 20 minutes of letting the Great Stuff set, we opened it up again, and it ran great!!

Stay tuned for Part 2, where we get to the great part of actually mixing electricity and water (always safe) and have fun with wiring!

Tonight's Best Worst Movie

(to see how this new mobile blogging app does)

Logan's Run

If you haven't seen it, you're probably smarter than me. But FYI, it's horribly awesome.

Weekend Project #247 - Biochar

(Part 1 of my new ancient elements series: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water - How to Have Fun, Save the Planet, And Usually Not Mortally Wound Yourself in the Process)


How to (Sort of) Make Biochar (Fire, fire, FIRE!)

Careful! This could happen to your potato rake!

Intro:

First of all, you may be asking yourself the usual question that comes along with every post I write: "What the hell is he talking about?!?"  Good question.  As in most cases, I really don't know either.  But, for those of you who are (like me) not yet familiar with biochar, here's the skinny: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar

Holy crap!  There's a lot of science in that article!  You should totally skip that. I'm certainly more comfortable with wikipedia articles that are more along the lines of anything on this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_really,_really,_really_stupid_article_ideas_that_you_really,_really,_really_should_not_create (I really like #13, #38 and #39)

Seriously though, here's the way it works:

A Death in the Family

I know it's been forever since I last posted and I especially hate the idea that this is what I have to come back with, but sadly we lost one of our own last week.

It is with great sadness that I report that Luana (aka Lulu, aka Lu, aka Red Leader) unexpectedly passed away on Thursday September 6 at around 11:30 pm.  She'd been having seizures for several weeks and the medication wasn't helping much.  She had her last one around noon on the 6th, and never really came out of it.

She was a dear sweetheart, ornery and stubborn, gentle and energetic, and loved by everyone whose chickens hadn't been killed by her.

She will be missed.