Shop Truths, Phrases, Tales; and Outright Lies

[Frank S]

Pj, I'm glad to hear there is a fellow devotee of alt energy. From past and sometimes present I keep several alt energy projects on the table.
OK I'm going to do what I do best and hijack this thread for a moment.
While in Kuwait I designed several wind turbine generators mostly these did not get much further than building a small scale model in my home workshop. I did find and buy 200 surplus gr 40 1"x 2"x 2" neodymium magnets that I planed to use in constructing various sized axial and radial fluxed generators out of some day.
Then after we returned to Texas and our stuff somehow never got shipped these ideas got put on hold .
As a temporary quarters we bought a 1968 GMC buss that had been converted into a motor coach in the early 90s that had toured with the Nascar circuit until sometime around 2006 when a friend of mine bought it. After we bought it from him thinking we might use it as a means to search out a parcel of property in west Texas. Things changed and we only drove it to another friend's place where we parked it and had been living in it until we found our place where we are currently trying to get things moved to.
Right off after we started living in the RV I decided that I wasn't going to tie it to the grid not wanting to establish a permanent grounded Diggs in the thing. I wanted to remain semi mobile but didn't want to have to rely on pouring nearly @ the time $4.00 a gallon diesel in the thing every week. So I bought an array or solar panels 1.2 KW worth then set up a bank of 6 used T105 Trogen and 6 new Continental GC2 batteries and a 1800 watt 3900 watt surge dimensions PSW inverter. that way instead of having to run the main generator 24/7 we only ran it for an hour or 2 every day and sometimes not even that if we happened to have days of full sun and instead of making our meals on the stove we used the induction cooker we might not run the 14 KW Kubota generator for 3 or 4 days sometimes on 100% rape seed oil diesel. So now 3 1/2 years later the bank is aging to the point that I have disconnected 4 of the batteries that have failed due to the 1000s of charge cycles sometimes as many as 3 charge discharge cycles in a single day and since we don't stay in the RV more than a few days to a week at a time now instead of replacing the aging bank we run a much smaller 6 KW Maxim diesel generator for as much as 12 hours a day. with a 3.6 hr per gallon consumption @ $2.00 A gal it is not worth the cost of new batteries at this time.
Other things I have in ALT energy is I have a Listeroid 8 HP diesel with a 6 KW generator mounted with it that I got a couple years back that had been running for the past 8 years exclusively on diesel made from used motor oil. I also got the processor and 400 gallons or oil to reprocess into diesel. the engine only turns @ 600 RPM which means it will run for nearly 4 1/2 hrs per gallon This unit will be incorporated into my backup generator system at the house we are moving into. plus I plan to double or triple the size of my solar array to use at the house after I possibly go grid tie. But for an inverter I will most likely build my own torrid 10 to 15 KW transformer based on the design of a mate down in AU or NZ. the exception will be I want to build it as a 3PH 240v which will mean I will either have to power it off of a very large bank with much larger solar and possibly some wind gen as well or get the energy from the listeroid. or other means as a back up source for either the house or the work shop
END of Hijack we can now resume our regular programming