Semi sunny day

After receiving a year’s worth of moisture in two weeks, it is finally sunny here in the high desert. Not enough to do any solar cooking, but enough to melt some of the ice that has formed. Anxious to make some ghee in the solar cooker, but the Sun is not strong enough. That is one problem with solar cooking in the winter, maybe it’s time to pull out the parabolic and make some ghee quickly?

More uses for alcohol lamps

From last blog alcohol lamps can be used for many things, and burning incense is a great one.

Shown above is some frankincense, a wire screen to hold the incense , alcohol lamp, and some myrrh. Frankincense is reputed to be a calmitive, relaxer, and it smells pretty nice. I burn enough to fill my small room and it’s noticeable for sometime. Wire screen should be made of iron, and I use old window screen. I don’t use aluminum. The myrrh puts out a nice scent too.

And don’t run off and forget that it is burning like I have done.

Workshop alcohol lamp

A handy addition to your workbench is a nice clean-burning alcohol lamp. While a good gallon of denatured alcohol is fairly pricey at $16, it does put out a very clean burning flame with no odor, and a gallon lasts a long time. Other alternatives are cheaper kerosene which burns really nasty and smells bad, and isopropyl or rubbing alcohol, high proof it 90% or so, but it also puts out a strange smell and I don’t like breathing its vapors. So I prefer ethanol, because it burns so cleanly, and also this is something that one can make at home – – A sugar wash with 13 pounds of sugar and some yeast will produce in theory a gallon of good high-quality ethanol. That should run about seven bucks. Of course to use it as fuel you have to distill it, and there are plans on this blog for making a simple solar still to do that. Of course you need a federal permit to distill alcohol for fuel, but I imagine that in times of disaster or long emergencies there would not be much problem doing that.

Back to the lamp. Mine’s glass so I can see the fuel level, it’s fairly lightweight and very portable and quite easy to light. One disadvantage is that it is hard to see the blue flame in bright light, but you can always wave your hand over it to see if it’s on or not. Ha

It’s handy for many things and so far I use it for burning incense, and melting glue sticks without having to plug-in a stupid AC device, softening & shrinking plastics, quick heating the tip of a soldering iron, and here is a little piece on using it to replace the cover of a lithium ion battery.

I have recently gotten into lithium ion batteries, and while they are a lot of fun and a great learning experience they are dangerous. Top left photo shows the battery which has had its insulating ring degraded. The problem is that at the top of the battery the anode and cathode are very close together. If you accidentally shorted them together the battery will suddenly discharge. There’s a danger of it getting hot and even catching on fire. First I stripped off the old plastic outer cover and removed the old bad insulating ring. Next I put on a new cover and a new ring and fired up the alcohol lamp. After a little bit of practice you learn just where the sweet spot is in the flame and by waving the battery over it quickly you can shrink the outer wrapping. Works great.

Using PV solar when the grid goes down?

It is my understanding that when the grid goes down our newer solar PV panels will stop producing electricity. On one hand it makes sense because we don’t want people working on them to get electrocuted, but in the event of a prolonged power outage then what will we do?

Shown is a modified grain grinder running off of a 12 V panel to grind up some freshly roasted coffee beans. The coffee came out not too bad.

I suspect it is possible in the event of a collapse to disassemble those banks of panels remove them from being grid tied, and use them individually off grid to power at least some of our appliances.

Current panel prices are dropping to now under $100 for a 100 W panel. While it is very hard for someone like me on a fixed income to put out thousands of dollars for a PV roof, it is possible to buy a single panel from time to time throughout the year. And no you do not have to put up an expensive array on your roof, you can play with them in your yard off grid and use them to run many small appliances.

I have gathered about a dozen PV panels from various places, and while they are not tied into the grid I am finding that they are very usable. I use them to charge my 12 V lead acid batteries, to recharge my small but growing collection of old used lithium ion batteries, and can even use them directly to power 12 V and 24 V motors.

Below showing modified pasta maker running off a 12v motor and solar panel to make crispy crackers in solar oven. Need more salt…

Using panels direct you can Play with electrolysis, remove rust from old tools, make colloidal silver, in theory plate metals with other metals, and directly run fans, etc. I am working on making an evaporative cooler powered directly by solar panels which will use old computer fans as the air movers. This will include a small 12 V pump to trickle the water on to the cooler pads. It kind of makes sense to power a swamp cooler when the sun is shining, because that is generally when it is hot.

Making CBDs with the Sun

Originally I created this as a photo since I am not well educated on blogging yet. The idea was that this is something you can download as a picture and either print out or copy onto your memory stick survival library for use after peak oil or any sort of emergency or disaster situation . Fortunately I just joined word press and I’m now reading through the material to learn how to blog. Rather than re-write the above I thought it would just be a good idea to paste this photo here.

I’m finding that learning how to blog is kind of like going back to school, and at 70 years old this is quite a challenge. And a lot of work. Thank you.