In This Issue
Specific tasks require electric power. The better we know our appliances, the better we can estimate the amount and type of electric power we need. The emphasis here is on planning ahead and this saves thousands of dollars in overall system costs. Deciding which appliances are appropriate for electric power, and which are not. Selecting the most efficient appliance to perform a particular task is critical. Efficient appliances cost more to buy, but they are much cheaper to OPERATE. Before all...
Outlet 1
Another path to a similar result is to heat wood in a closed container until it is hot enough for the chemical bonds holding the hydrogen and carbon together to break. This is destructive distillation, a quite different process from that of combustion since no outside oxygen is introduced. You might think that such a device would produce only hydrogen gas and carbon But that is only because I have kept this explanation oversimplified for clarity. The products of this process will depend on the...
How To Read Your Mailing Label
The second line of your mailing label contains your subscription type amp the number of the last issue in your subscription. For example- 21. This will be a and a number. means your subscription type is 3rd Class 10 . The number is the last issue number of your HP sub. First class subscribers will find the words First Class Mail, followed by their last issue number. If your last issue number is followed by a G then some good soul has given you a gift subscription. If you haven't subscribed yet,...
Walter Gallacher
The Pan American Health Organization is committed to eradicating polio in South America before the turn of the century. Solar energy is playing a major role in this campaign. Here is a story of how three Colorado solar educators are helping introduce photovoltaic technology to improve rural health care. PV powered refrigeration is the key. Polio once took the lives of hundreds of American children each year and left thousands crippled in its wake. That was until a vaccine was discovered in...
John Drake
Here are some photographs of our photovoltaic setup. Currently we use PV power for ventilation in our house, workshop, washhouse and photo-lab. The building supporting the arrays is a close-up photography studio using low voltage DC for lighting and a 500 watt inverter for fluorescent lighting and electronic flash operation. Our motorcycle shed and photo-lab uses its power for battery maintenance, lighting, and radios. Since the modules are a mix, I had to custom fabricate the support...
James Davenport
When I slid off to the hinterland of western Wisconsin in the mid-seventies, I didn't fully grasp how long of a break I would be taking from the highfalutin contrivances of the twentieth century. The first couple of years were strictly wood heat, wood cooking, and lots of kerosene lamps. The water was carried up the hill in two five gallon glucose buckets. We dug the outhouse down the path off in the woods. In time, as money put ahead would allow, the tech gap between Shady Hollow Farm and my...
Michael Potts
I live in a small town on the North Coast of California. We joke about being on the edge of the continent, but power lines run down Main Street and I get most of my power the easy way from the grid. We get some weather up here, and it takes the power out regularly a dozen times a year, sometimes for a day at a time, and so I put quite a bit of thought into surviving the times we are on our own - gas cooktop, passive solar and wood heat, gravity fed water, solar hot water. Kerosene lighting is...
David W Doty
It is possible to install code-required safety equipment on low voltage systems without excessive voltage loss. I will use my own photovoltaic system as an example. The System My photovoltaic system consists of 8 Hoxan H-4810 modules, 8 Trojan L-16 batteries, a Trace C-30A charge controller and a Trace 2012 SB inverter. The L-16 batteries are wired in series-parallel to produce a bank rated at 12 volts, 1400 amp-hours. The parallel sets of batteries are bussed together with copper buss bar 1.5...
Home Power Tshirt
j High Quality, All Cotton, J Heavy-Duty, T-Shirts with the words HOME POWER and our Logo on the front. Electric blue t-shirt with sun yellow logo. Shipped First Class anywhere in the known Universe. Please specify size S,M, L or XL . Allow 4 weeks for delivery. Home Power Magazine POB 130, Hornbrook, CA 96044 Small Print Sure HP makes a buck or two on this deal. Ya want to know where the money goes, well, you are holding it in your hand at this very moment. Thanks, the HP Crew. June 28 amp 29,...
Low Pressure Gas Storage Tank With Water Seal
counterbalanced to control the pressure of the gas inside. Fuel gas is pulled from the gas generator by a simple centrifugal bower, which forces it through the conditioning stages and into the storage tank under pressure. It is desirable but not necessary to have a storage tank even if the gas is to be immediately used as fuel. Such a reservoir maintains a buffer supply of gas to even out any fluctuations in supply and provides an even, controllable supply of pressure to the end device. It also...
Duration
resistor potentiometer networks shown in the schematic, then your Time Machine will produces pulses as per the Timing Table shown above. This means that the pulses can occur as slowly as very ten seconds 0.1 Hz. , or as rapidly as one hundred thousand times per second 100 kHz. . This also means that the pulse can last as long as ten seconds, or as short as ten millionths of a second 10 js. . And this covers the frequency and pulse duration ranges needed to efficiently control even the most...
Clifford W Mossberg
For most of us who live in secluded areas and who employ alternative energy technologies to provide us with a contemporary standard of living, looking for more efficient alternatives is second nature. Most of us have wondered about an alternative to the use of fossil-fueled engine generators to back up our more desirable energy sources. Photovoltaics and wind energy are intermittent or diffuse technologies which require storage to be effective and are limited in output. Hydro power is site...
Kathleen JarschkeSchultze
From a woman's point of view I have found that a lot of people mostly women are surprised that an elegant home may be maintained on renewable energy. Somehow the idea that renewables mean primitive or spartan living has been accepted, mainly by grid users. Comfort, style, amp function are all possible. Home power systems are available for every style of living, from small to full-sized family uses. This home is located 2.4 miles from the closest grid power. To bring power in would cost...
Powerhouse Pauls Stream Engines
Recharges 12 Volt batteries on heads from 5 to 50 feet. Works on flows from 3 gpm to 100 gpm. Model DCT-1 Direct Current Turgo- Model 1 425. US 500. CAN. Other models available. Prices include shipping, toolkit, five nozzle inserts and manual. Energy Systems amp Design POB 1557, Sussex, N.B. Canada E0E 1P0 CHECK YOUR MAILING LABEL FOR THE EXPIRATION NUMBER OF YOUR SUBSCRIPTION MANY OF YOU HAVE SUBSCRIPTIONS THAT EXPIRE WITH THIS ISSUE RESUBSCRIBE NOW AND DON'T MISS AN ISSUE. Attain...
Stan Krute
Though my home is in the country, I generally cultivate ideas, not plants or animals. Every winter, however, I do turn farmer, and bring in bushels of one of nature's hardiest crops ice. Ice farming is one of the finest forms of agriculture. It's easy, fast, foolproof, inexpensive, and pest-free. Ice-farming lets me turn off my propane refrigerator around Thanksgiving, and not turn it on until spring. I put a few coolers on the north side of my house, then fill 'em with ice and food. In...
Copper Cricket Solar Water Heater
Keep It Simple, Stupid. I have only one design principle apart that it should work whenever I engineer anything it should be simple. Thus I was deeply smitten by the concept of the Copper Cricket Solar Water Heater when it was first described in these pages HP 8 . It was the design I was waiting for to substitute the sun for our water tank's electric heater. No pumps, no electricity, no wires, no relays, no solenoids, NO MOVING PARTS -- and it would pump from the roof 30 feet above my tank in...