I QUIT!!!!!!!!

[Birdmmjb]

Rural I have a small controller that I no longer use as my system has out grown it contatct me and we'll see about getting it to you.  When I have the time I'll go through all the parts and peices and see what else I have laying arround.

Jan

[TomW]

I am in a similar situation with my visiting step daughter [~30 years old] Apparently doesn't realize appliances and lights have an "off" option. One concession is she does not watch TV so thats not on for her. We heat with wood so the tea kettle is on the woodburner from morning on to preheat or boil depending on the fire rate in the stove. I tried explaining this but she will take it off the heater, dump out the mostly heated water to get "fresh" then puts it on the electric range to boil. Uses one cup of it then dumps it down the drain.

She is no dummy and talks the talk how she cares about energy conservation. Also seems to require at least 1 and up to 3 showers a day while sitting around working online. Our shower has a manual flow control inline with the shower head and we usually use a very small flow to get clean the kid has to crank it up to full flow every time. If I bring it up the wife thinks I am being overbearing. Wife does real well herself and is behind me on the plan just not our guest. With this all electric house [except heat] hot water is  a major resource hog. Maybe I will get the OK to institute wood burner preheating next year. Solar preheating proved very effective last summer.

So, I feel your frustration. But not with the spouse just guest.

I am somewhat stubborn when I get ahold of something so I won't be quitting just yet.

Cheers.

TomW

[Norm]

Hey Jan....little horses? they probably could

use a little bit of exercise once in awhile...

treadmill hooked to a generator or generator

hooked to a little cart that they could pull??

Honestly you didn't quit....you just needed a

little inspiration didn't you?

We all do ....from time to time....

[DamonHD]

Don't quit.

My partner is very understanding, and as long as I don't force her to sit in the dark and cold I think that she'll be fine.

But I do consider myself very lucky in this.

Not wanting to play marriage counselor (no rate low enough to match my skills!), is the RE antipathy actually an expression of some other issue?

Rgds

Damon

[Norm]

  That part about getting fresh hot water was

hilarious....I thought I was the only one that

had relatives with that kind of logic.

[bob g]

ok at the risk of being soundly lashed by the admin

i will try and word this in a family appropriate way..

there is a common rule in most homes,

"if momma ain't happy, nobody is going to be happy"

and

"she who controls the #$@%& "IS" the boss"

perhaps things might get a bit colder than he likes until he is ready to

meet you on some middle ground?

i have no idea how things work in your house, but

perhaps his soup will be a bit watered down for a while, with the explanation being

the electric bill is so high you had to cut back somewhere. or even better than that!

tell him that your hobby has changed,, you want to start cooking different recipe's

and start cooking with alot of tofu, and other crap that he won't like...

as they say the path to a man's heart is thru his stomach,,, maybe the path to his brain follows the same trail?

i suspect that you are a sharp gal and can figure more than a few ways of getting this job done...

i just wish my luck with women was as good as your hubby,,,, most i have been involved with have had no problem getting their way, using whatever form of manipulation that was within their imaginations  

good luck,, don't give up

we are all pullin for ya!

bob g

[HomegrownPower]

Jan

I do not know you but can appreachate your frustration , " After working YOU put in the window " wow does this guy realise how lucky he must me

Insulate your barn and work with your miniture horses or any other RE project that makes you happy and ignore his complaining. But by all means keep your RE project stuff . Someone summed it up very well , quiting is taking the easy way out and from what I've read thats just not you .  

I do have a hard time understanding anyone who complains about another persons failed / not so impressive  attempts to do anything while setting back trying nothing for theirselves .

Best wishes and keep your stuff Lonnie

[Birdmmjb]

Norm, I have both two wheel carts and 4 wheel waggons what type of motor would you use?  How would your transfer power from the wheels to the gen?  I could then use the battery to power the lights in the barn during night feeding.

Now look at what you have started. ;-)

Jan

[JW]

"Your sister must be related to my husband."

Are you guys kidding?

Birdmmjb,

 I really like the idea of making the barn self-sustaining, perhaps you are on to something.

"So to the next project I've wanted, is,  hot water to wash the horses, so thats what I want to work on this week.

Sounds good.

JW

[zeusmorg]

 I LIKE it! A 1 horsepower treadmill generator.. wonders what your output would be.

Suggestions, maybe a PM treadmill motor, or maybe even two I'm sure a horse could crank over that much.

Or you could design it like an old sorghum grinder. Have the horses walking in a circle. you are talking some gearing somewhere, but totally feasible.

  You could even salvage 4 treadmills, one for each foot? I doubt getting a horse to walk in place would be easy though.

[TomW]

Jan;

A deal like those carousel exercisers with the center hub driving an alternator? At least I see those used by horse arenas here. Seems it would work for a small amount of generation? If they are walking anyway might be worthwhile to make some electrons.

Just dumping raw thoughts here. Details are left to the reader.

With a cart, wheel drives a genny that charges batteries in the cart which you jack into when the cart is in the barn.

Cheers.

TomW

[Norm]

 Ametek motor?  Chain drive  too late tonight to

be more explicit....tomorrow.....

[ghurd]

Now you're talkin'!

I figure they don't have brake drums?

Too bad, because that's easy.  Belt can ride on the drum, but the PMA needs to be kind of low cut-in speed.

No idea the dia of the wheel.  One guy used a bike rim fastened to the buggy wheel spokes. The belt rode in the rim. The PMA could be faster cut-in speed.

Might be able to connect a pulley or sproket to the hub. Somehow.

A couple hints,

-Use a brushed motor for the PMA.  A brushless PMA (or car alt) will shake everything appart.  The violence from something brushless is amazing.  A treadmill type motor would be nice.

-Use a very high voltage diode, like 1000V.  Someone is going to push it backwards out of the barn... fast enought to pop a 100V diode.

-Don't try to get too many watts or the horse just plain stops.  Like a PO'd mule.  Track horses didn't like more than 500W for a short time, maybe 200~250W for longer, IIRC.  Might try for 50W with minis?

Back to topic #1.

Just because you can not conserve as much as you would like, doesn't mean what you are doing doesn't count!

My wife will deal with 69'F OK, but 68'F and her toes turn red.  She didn't like CFLs because of the non-instant on, or half-second to full brightness, but she got used to it.  She hates my redneck mentality of wet Levi's and free Camel T-Shirts over the front porch railing is normal, when we live in the city.  It took her a while to understand black Dan Post boots are what I wear to weddings.  And funerals.

Be happy with CFLs, and whatever else you can do.  

Just because you can't go off-grid doesn't mean you are failing!

If 746W = 1HP, how many watts is a mini-HP?

G-

[Norm]

Like Ghurd says,I'm pretty sure he's been there,

done that or watched it being done.

[hvirtane]

I'm going to take some of the advice from some of you and move the RE stuff to the barn. He never goes there and when the power is out I'll be comfortable and warm in my insulated barn playing with the little horses.

I like the idea. If the power goes out, you might be ready to get some power to the house as well. You might need only a big cable ready to pull it from your inverter to the house? If you'll manage to do that you might get later a deal to build some system for the house, too.

- Hannu

[Birdmmjb]

One Mini Horse power is = to one horse power.  The little guys are tough and don't know that they are not as big as the regular sized horses.  If fact the day I bought my first mini stallion he broke out of his pen and took a full sized aribian down several times before we could get them seperated.  Flying hooves everywhere.

The tires on the two wheel cart that I would be willing to mess with are 20" heavy bike tires there is room on the hub for a sprocket to be added on the outside or inside of the wheel.

Got to go now I'm picking up a load of hay this morning and the hay guy gets upset if your late.

Jan

[Jeff]

Just remembered to stick this on here. If anyone orders something from HF, tell them you want their catalogue mailed to you. You'll start getting them about once a month. Anyway, they usually have a 15% off coupon on every 2nd or 3rd catalogue. I have 2 or 3 now. That would put those $200 solar panels at $170!

[wooferhound]

If you could get a bicycle frame mounted on there

then you would have 10 speed gearing

Might not be a bad idea for a VAWT too

[Norm]

Jan:

Here is how I did it Once upon a time out in the

shed.





Treadmill motor (make sure it normally turns CCW)

so the pulley doesn't unscrew and don't back it

up too often...that's a Toro snowthrower flat

mult-grooved belt which just happens to have

the right number of grooves...(lucky me)

This will spin the motor about 10 times faster

than the wheel.

an alternative would be a clothesdryer mult-groove

flat belt with the bicycle rim from a 16

inch bike fastened to the spokes of the 20 inch wheel

 .....then goes directly to the pm motor shaft,  

make a hardwood hub to put on the pm motor shaft

turning some grooves that fit the belt( got an old

bowling pin or rolling pin laying around ? (hard maple)

  Just a couple ideas for now (and now back to

my human powered generator projects)

  That little cart sounds like fun....how far is

it to town where you live? How many miles per

bale? Probably doesn't make much difference city

or country trips with something like that...LOL !

[Birdmmjb]

Norm, It a short 28 miles to town from the lovley Vinyard Hill Miniature horse farm.  But more fun than trying to get to town on the state highway are the miles and miles of timber company fire roads in back of my house.

As soon as deer season is over the horses and I will me making trips all over back there.  I have only lived in this house for 3 years and still have no idea where most of the roads lead.

I think that what ever design is used on the cart gen it needs to put equal pressure on both sides of the cart or it will have the horses pulling side-ways and that would not get us points at the shows the opposite would be the case.

Thinking a wheel behind the cart on the ground with the motor getting its power from that so as to not case the cart to pull off center.

Could the shaft from the gen set directly on the rubber wheel?  Sure would be simple to build.  That is the key with my limited shop skills.

Jan

[Norm]

Well not the shaft but a wood hub would have to

try different sizes maybe about 3 inch diameter

to try at first then go smaller....if you

design it right, the generator swings into the tire and almost wedges....then

the more the load the more the hub grips the

tire and yes one wheel in the middle for the generator would work best.

[Jeff]

Jan,

I tried to email you. Maybe your service sent it to a junk/spam folder? You may need to add my adress to your list so it doesn't think I'm spam.

ruralmcguyer at yahoo dot com