Re: [papercreters] Re: MIXERS;

I originally planned on a 24 v motor for a swamp cooler and upgrading to a 24 v system (12 volt now).  But then we didn't really need cooling at all except for a ceiling fan after we added an adobe addition on the south side and the house stayed a lot cooler.

I think one a major problem would have been that the batteries would have been totally drained if we forgot to turn the cooler off at night and you always have to monitor the batteries.  It happens with the inverter too occasionally, but at least it has a low battery protection and shuts off.  I suppose you can add low battery protection to anything that's direct wired too, but it all costs more money.

And when it comes to BIG loads, you have to be careful not to fry the batteries too.  Our off grid neighbor is determined to have A/C and he finally spent a ton on a new inverter.  We went to check it out and he happily reported how well it worked and that nothing was on fire when I looked at the batteries and one was smoking.

In summer we don't have much if any extra power because the freezer runs 24/7, fan, etc.  but I sure wish I could think of something to do with the extra power the other 8 or 10 months, hate wasting it!

And thanks for the pics.   I don't think I've seen the mixer roller yet, that's kinda cool.  Wouldn't have thought that you'd get enough traction.

We do have a 1 ton truck and are just learning how to fix it ourselves.  I'm 53 years old and there's still so much to learn!

Christine

At 06:44 PM 3/17/2012, you wrote:

 

I empathize with your struggles, Christine.

Imagine if your maytag and your water pump ran on a DC motor so that you didn't have to use the inverter to power them.

I have nothing against inverters, but big ones that can reliably power large loads are very expensive. The bigger the load the more sense it makes to power it straight from the batteries using DC.

I suggest you take a look at mixers similar to:

spaceman's no-tow mixer,
(I'll let him supply a link to photos and other informaton about it.)

or bornofthehorse's rollers,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/papercreters/photos/album/1280044292/pic/1166578714/view?picmode=&mode=tn&order=ordinal&start=1&count=20&dir=asc
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/papercreters/photos/album/1280044292/pic/2135462547/view?picmode=&mode=tn&order=ordinal&start=1&count=20&dir=asc

or ericbrandell's pto mixer
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/papercreters/photos/album/911306290/pic/list
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/papercreters/photos/album/208278397/pic/list

Some of those ideas could be a good papercrete option for you, assuming you have a vehicle, tractor, or some other big machine that can power it.

I'm a big fan of maximizing the benefit of resources that you already have available to you, or will need to acquire regardless of whether you make papercrete or not.

--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, Christine Baker <christine@...> wrote:
>
> Jay, I don't think it's relevant how long it
> takes to charge a battery, or 8, or whatever.
>
> We have a very SMALL system, so small that we
> have our fridge on a timer so it only runs a few
> times a day or once a day in winter.
>
> However, we frequently have EXCESS power in the
> afternoon. So that's when we run the food
> processor to make fudge, the skill saw to cut
> firewood and the washer. Speaking of which, be
> just fried the second Maytag washer after running
> some old full size washer for years without
> problems. It seems that the Maytag waterpump or
> moving to the spin cycle caused the problem as washing was fine.
>
> We've tried running it off the 3000 watt
> generator, the inverter with the generator
> charging the full batteries and whatever else we
> could think off, on sunny days while the solar
> panels were also charging ... still no go for the Maytag.
>
> So the bottom line seems to be the INVERTER. Our
> 3000 watt inverter just won't do it. We got a
> small Toshiba washer now that runs fine.
>
> We also can't run our 1/2 hp water pump for the
> house water off the inverter unless we repeatedly
> try and eventually the pump will come on before
> the inverter overloads. We obviously only do
> that in emergencies when the generator won't run.
>
> We have a little 400 watt electric mixer I got
> from Harbor Freight years ago thinking we might
> use it for small jobs. We used it to "clean"
> caliche rocks and used the clay / caliche to
> improve the adobe mix on days when the batteries
> were full. Only had to run it a few minutes at a
> time and then we let the rocks soak some more.
>
> Last fall I put some shredded paper in the mixer
> for some papercrete testing but it got cold and
> well, it still looks like shredded paper and it
> would take FOREVER to build anything with that
> mixer. Maybe if we had some blades welded on it would work better.
>
> The stucco guy had a full sized mixer he ran of a
> little generator all day long, but gas isn't cheap these days.
>
> I don't know about RPMs and torque, but we've
> learned some hard lessons with the washers and
> obviously STARTING any mixer filled with paper or
> worse, cardboard, is going to be the tough part.
>
> Anyone off grid SHOULD have plenty of extra power
> on sunny afternoons and it's not like we need a
> lot quickly, but we'll start looking for a
> trailer as Terry has. Not ideal here either
> since the roads SUCK, but it seems like still the best option.
>
> Christine
>

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