Posted by Scott Willing on February 4, 2004, 4:40 pm
>On 3 Feb 2004 19:13:30 -0800, dj_macintyre@hotmail.com (DJ) wrote:
><snip>
>>Just passed the "one month" mark, myself, or, should I say, ourselves!
>>And yes, that means we moved into an off grid home over the Christmas
>>holidays ;-). It's an adventure for sure!
>> And yes, one does get aquainted with what odd bits draw, some of
>>them, quite surprising!
>June this year will be year 5 for us being totally off-grid here in
>the Meadow. It's amazing how low our actually consumption is. It's an
>adjustment but our pockets aren't full of the green stuff so we do
>what we can afford.
>We have an Air 403 wind genny (which as was commented picks up the
>load in winter when it's gray ceiling around here) and 4 Photowatt
>solar panels;
If you don't mind my asking, how close to the house is the 403, how
tall the tower, how long the wire run/guage and primary voltage... and
what does the thing *sound* like?
>10 golf cart batts, a modified square wave inverter of
>3k watt surges to 6k. Everything is more than adequate for what we run
>here - lights (cf), computer, microwave, tv, dvd, backup propane
>furnace blower (dc), pressure tank with dc pump, etc.
>I wouldn't go back on grid for all the tea in China! <g>
Amen to that.
-=s
Posted by Solar Guppy on February 3, 2004, 1:29 pm
PV really isn't an option in your price range , it's also generally more
expensive than grid power.
If you think your computers are a large source of the draw it might be worth
upgrading/investing in computers
based on the mini-itx (via) motherboards. Also get rid of the CRT and
replace with LCD for monitors
The power draw is in the 10-20 watt range (excluding monitor) for 500
mhz-1ghz speeds .. Fine for any web-server and most business applications
http://www.mini-itx.com/faq.asp
http://www.solar-guppy.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f &t
><snip>
>>Just passed the "one month" mark, myself, or, should I say, ourselves!
>>And yes, that means we moved into an off grid home over the Christmas
>>holidays ;-). It's an adventure for sure!
>> And yes, one does get aquainted with what odd bits draw, some of
>>them, quite surprising!
>June this year will be year 5 for us being totally off-grid here in
>the Meadow. It's amazing how low our actually consumption is. It's an
>adjustment but our pockets aren't full of the green stuff so we do
>what we can afford.
>We have an Air 403 wind genny (which as was commented picks up the
>load in winter when it's gray ceiling around here) and 4 Photowatt
>solar panels;