Wednesday, November 9, 2011

This is a test…


Not the one the FCC ran at 2 o’clock this afternoon. 


I just did a very small test of my batteries and inverter.  After moving the batteries to the top of my generator’s frame so I could get at them easier than leaving them on the shop floor, I got out my good meter and checked them both.  I was surprised to find they both are showing 12.46 volts!  They are actually charged!  I has assumed (I know I shouldn’t) that they most likely wouldn’t be.

Having juice available I hooked up the inverter to one of the batteries and tried running my air mover fan.  It worked as if it were plugged into the wall.

This actually leaves me with something of a quandary: Having both batteries charged and in good working order and having the brand new inverter that we’ve now proven actually works and hopefully having the solar panels installed this weekend to keep the batteries charged – what should I do with this power?  I bought this equipment to be able to power an appliance or two, mainly the refrigerator and the furnace, for a few cycles a day in the event of the grid going down as it did last week.  Living where we do that is a fairly uncommon thing, particularly for as long a time as it was out this last time.  In the mean time is it a waste to not use the excess power that will be left over beyond what’s needed to maintain the charge on the batteries?

Hmmm…  You know, I think this is a good quandary to find myself in.  And that’s a nice change of pace!

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