Hi all, returned from the work cabin yesterday afternoon. I got there on Thursday around noon, unloaded and then went straight to work raking the pine needles away from the cabin. I finished with that around 5pm. In the morning at first light I started installing the 2- 3.5KW battery packs, it took longer than I thought to make up all the battery cables, all the ends are shouldered on. It made a huge difference in the system, I had to first discharge the new packs by turning on the hot water tank to get them down to 30.1V that matched the existing batteries at full charge. The battery packs at full charge are 32V but if you don't charge a lithium battery to 100% and don't discharge them to 0 you can cycle them 100x more. another words a lithium ion battery like the one in your cell phone will cycle 6,000 times before its shot, if you charge it 80% and discharge to 20% it will cycle 60,000 times. After everything was hooked up I ran the hot water tank until 2pm, the batteries did not lose voltage in peak sun while heating water. The picture of the controller screen was taken the next morning after using electricity in the evening and night. ( lights, microwave and coffee pot in the morning ) still at 28V. before adding the extra batteries it would be at 22V and may or may not have enough for the coffee pot in the morning. When I add a refrigerator, TV and more lighting, most likely will add 2- more packs that will bring the batteries to 21KW. I am happy with they system so far. The rest of the day was spent dragging the Suzuki from its parking spot out onto the driveway so I could load it. I got it on the trailer about 20% before dark.
Saturday morning I finished loading the Suzuki, ( was a real bitch ) I pulled it on with the winch on the Dodge but without wheels it snagged and fought me every inch of the way. Took 4 hours to get it on and tie it down
then me and the little boy went to lunch. After lunch I started cleaning up the burned shed with the generator in it when I noticed a wet spot in the dirt. The wet spot was another burned spot in the pipe underground. ( 2 hours to fix ). I went down to the neighbors to get more water to top the big tank and ran into the neighbors daughter, they have been up there there whole lives. She told me some pretty interesting stories of their encounters with the wild life up there over the years. like in the 1980's when she as a kid they got stalked by a big mountain Lyon and were trapped in their cabin for a 1/2 day with no weapons until it went away, and other stories too numerous to list. She seemed to be much more concerned about the Lyons than the bears. While filling the little tank then draining to the big tank I cleaned up and organized for leaving in the morning. Things took longer than I thought but I got it done. Work is picking up and I'm not sure when I can go back. Hopefully I can average 1 trip a month or so thru the winter.