I have a friend who's mother has a cabin on the West side of Shelter bay. A month ago we went up there ice fishing on Lake Superior Munising Bay. We stopped by to visit his mothers friend who lives on the East side of shelter bay. She has a big new house on Lake Superior, and a cabin on 130 acres about ten miles away. She let us use her snowmobiles to go out to her off grid cabin but the snow was to deep and the sleds kept getting stuck. We were over our hips when lifting the sleds back up to get another run at the deep snow. It was 4:00 pm when we decided to turn back. I wanted to go look at her hydro system. The West branch of the Laughing White Fish River runs right through her property about fifty foot from the cabin. She has this little 100 watt geny (Ampair 100). The unit is submerged and runs all year long. you can see the unit at this site. It's from England. The river doesn't freeze because of the current.
http://www.boost-energy.com/ampair/products_product5.asp
The guy who installed it for her ran the run wires 300' to her pole barn where he put the batteries and controls. The Xantrex 3624 inverter runs the 110 to the cabin. She said the geny was running fast and her dump load was going off a lot. She says that the hydro quit spinning and the batteries wont hold a charge anymore. She said the run wires were supposed to be # 6 but it looked like he just hooked up extension cords to it. He ran them across the ground. She wants me to see if I can get it going again with new wires, new batteries, and add 250 watts of solar. She wants me to build a bump out cantilever on the cabin to hold the batteries and controls. This will be about fifty foot from the geny and cut down on line loss. Hopefully the hydro geny isn't burned up. I'm hoping that it is just braked from dead batteries hooked to the other side. I'm thinking she drained the batteries way to much to many times with only 100 watts feeding them. She doesn't know how to work the controls and knows very little about the system. She knows that she has a C-40 but doesn't know what it does. She didn't know that her geny was rated at 100 watts either. It's rough on a system if there is none to look after it. I told her I didn't want much to do the work. I told her she would have to pay for my gas and expenses and she said she knows of a cabin where I can stay and she knows of good places I can use my boat to go fishing. Plus there is broke trout in her river. There are also bears and wolves too! I just hope that their favorite fishing spot isn't the hydro dam. I haven't been there yet but am leaving as soon as I can get everything around my home caught up like mowing and cleaning. I am leaving the boat be hind but I will take my waders and a fishing pole. It will be fun living off grid for a week or two. It will be even more fun when I get her system working. I wont be able to comment for a while be back soon, John. I will let you know how it went when I get back. You can see where I'll be if you want by clicking on this link. Her house is just to the left of the 28 that's on the right red star, and her cabin is five miles below the red star. http://www.mapquest.com/maps/Deerton+mi/#a/maps/l:::Deerton:MI::US:46.4744:-87.041901:city:Alger+Cou
nty/m:hyb:8:46.476854:-87.048709:0::/io:0:::::f:EN:M:/e
