Donor power fail: Yeti 150

I have a little power donation setup just inside the side entrance.  2x USB and a ciggy plug.  I figure folks with more advanced 12v outlets don’t need help.  🙂 Neighbor Cindy has a Yeti 150 that needed charging so I invited her to plug it in.  It shows it’s taking a charge but no

DC water heating FAIL

I’ve been planning on heating water as an opportunity load.  The intent is not so much to heat water (though that is a nice side effect).  I really mean to bring down controller temps associated with overpaneling. I was thinking something like a couple hundred watts. So anyhow I was at the local Habitat for

good marketing demo, bad test

This video has always bugged me.  I would rather it be conducted by a 3rd party vs a vested player: It would be more informative to test them with traction control both on and off.   And include

Cheap PWM as LVD/HVD

Yesterday I was thinking about needing a High Voltage Disconnect.  These are much harder to find than Low Voltage Disconnects, where are everywhere on amazon and eBay. Then I remembered the $8 cheapie controller from the shallow cycling experiment.  The LOAD output has a LVD and HVD setting.  Hmmmm….. It’d be cheaper (and easier) to

Shallow cycling at Vabs = 14.4v & 14.2v

The 20AH controller I ordered for the experiment came in first so that is the one I am using. It is is connected to some ancient HF 45W panels (3 x 15W in parallel). The panels are in a worst case scenario: out of direct sun most of the day, partially obscured by weeds and

Shower thought: shallow cycling for car dwellers

I was thinking about solutions for car-dwelling folks with minimal resources:  not much room, starter battery only. Seems to me quality of life for car dwellers would likely go up if they had an inexpensive/automatic/easy system for charging small devices through USB and running a fan or laptop off a ciggy lighter without hurting the starter battery (much).