Turquoise Energy News #184 - September 2023 Report
Turquoise Energy News Report #184
Covering September 2023 (Posted October 13th 2023)
Lawnhill BC Canada - by Craig Carmichael
[CraigXC at Post dot com]

www.TurquoiseEnergy.com = www.ElectricCaik.com = www.ElectricHubcap.com


Month In "Brief" (Project Summaries etc.)
 - Just Thinking About Home Heating - Cabin Construction & Troubles - A Different Car Motor Project - Magnetic Variable Transmission/Miles Truck - Nissan Leaf Turns 100 - Fake "Copper" Wire - EV Fires

In Passing (Miscellaneous topics, editorial comments & opinionated rants)
  - Life on the Moon??? or ??? - Scattered Thots ( Updates: - Tinnitus - Hair Loss/Gain: Mites gone! - Eyelash mites - Population - Changing Borders: China, Ukraine ) - ESD

- Detailed Project Reports -

Electric Transport - Electric Hubcap Motor Systems
* Miles Truck & Magnetic Variable Torque Converter - for now: Fixed ratio Drive

Other "Green" & Electric Equipment Projects
* Cabin Construction
* September's Gardening

Electricity Storage: Batteries [no reports]

Electricity Generation
* My Solar Power System: - The Usual Latest Daily/Monthly Solar Production log et cetera - Monthly/Annual Summaries, Estimates, Notes


September in Brief


   This month my excuse for such a late report is that relatives came to visit for the first week of October, my sister in law and my nephew, and I did my best to show them around Haida Gwaii and make space & time for them. We all enjoyed our time together and outdoor exploring very much.


Just Thinking About Home Heating

   I have solar in the day... then I want heat in the bedroom at night and have to buy the power. With only 4.3 KWH of battery storage it would be a bit futile to simply run an electric heater off it... still, if one could save even a couple of KWH per night and recharge the next day, it would dampen the electric bill a bit - at least in autumn and spring. When I get the 300 AH LiFePO3's I've ordered it'll be 10.8 KWH. That's about all the solar system is recharging in a day even in September anyway.
   Heating off solar/battery would be more feasible if I ever get that open loop air heat pumping working and getting anything like that projected COP of around 10. The "R" of this among several projects is well ahead but the neglected "D" of "R & D" wants time and effort if things are to be made actual rather than just theoretical or sketchily tested...


Cabin Construction & Troubles

Sheathing 2nd Last wall section, Sept. 4th

   (Apparently this is all about me, down to the next image...) Early in the month the drill slipped and put the screwdriver bit into my thumbnail, hard, right at the cuticle. (I'm usually careful to keep my other hand well clear, but I was on top of a ladder trying to put in the first screw in the top board while holding it up. and pressing really hard to try to keep the bit from jumping out. It jumped. The good news was I didn't fall off the ladder.) I'm still not sure what will happen to the thumbnail. half of it looks good. Then on the 11th I ate a piece of chicken from the freezer - the second one of two from that bag, butchered and plucked in 2021. The first piece was delicious. Probably I didn't cook this one long enough. On the 12th I got diarrhea and lost over a week on most everything while the weather got colder and wetter fr outside work. (Oddly a couple of others were saying similar. But surely for me it was the chicken?)
   I finally went back to work on my cabin on the 21st, and it quickly turned into "one of those" work sessions. Suffice it to say that after 5 hours I had a 2 by 4 screwed into place.
   On the 26th I looked at my thumbnail with a powerful magnifying glass with a light on a stand (a "milliscope"?) and discovered that it had split into four sections. The left half was fine as was the rightmost end. In the middle there was a crack that went half way along the nail toward the front. Second to the right was a piece growing out next to but cracked away from the right and from the part farther grown out - nothing holding to the rest. In the middle was a short piece of nail growing upward out of the thumb instead of forward from the most damaged part of the cuticle, and of course a wide gap in front of that between the two halves. I pushed everything into place as best I could and glued it all together with cyanoacrylate glue. Here's hoping...

   On the 27th I finished framing the last main wall section with a 7 by 9 foot opening for a roll-up garage door. I spaced four 2 by 4s over the door frame to get relatively even spacings. But they were badly mismatched for sheeting with 4 by 8 foot plywood, so I took them off and redid them. Then a deluge of rain stopped me from putting up plywood. It turned out that was just as well.
   I found a double-glass window pane that looked suitable for the second floor gable end window at the refuse station.

   Somehow I wrecked up my tennis elbow/tendonitis/whatever again. Just snapping my fingers or something. I'm about ready to cry! Using the staple gun or anything with a sudden snap or hit seems to do damage. (In October I found out about "Ulnar Nerve Flossing" with videos for exercises on youtube. They seem helpful.)


   If the garage door was 7 feet tall, the ceiling had to be 8 feet to accommodate the rails and hardware. That extra foot would make the upstairs too low to stand up in except near the peak of the roof. Presently my thought is to chop about 11 inches off the bottom of the door and rails, and maybe use 4 by 4s for the upstairs floor joists over the rails instead of 2 by 6s. That would give a foot more height upstairs, and still 7 feet in the garage except for the doorway (6'1") and where the rails were. That would be tall enough - for me. (Sigh, I need to frame above the door for a third time, 11 inches longer?) Trespassing on October since it's half over, I finally ordered a door on October 10th after much looking around and being quoted prices of 2000 to 3000$. It was at Home Depot in Prince George for just ~900$. In September the website had said "5 in stock" until I went to order one. Then it said "out of stock". On October 10th I looked again and it said "1 in stock", which the sales clerk verified. I ordered it, having meanwhile figured out that I could get "Dun Rite Dave", the guy who was delivering the LiFePO4 batteries, to also pick up and deliver the door on the same trip at the end of October.


A Different Car Motor Project

   The unipolar axial flux BLDC motor and 6-phase controller is a somewhat daunting project. A less innovative one but simpler, with better short term prospects for completion, sprung to mind in early September: Rewind my old 7.5 HP, 3600 RPM sawmill motor for 36-40 volts instead of 230, and run it in the Chevy Sprint with the 550 amp Curtis AC motor controller (from the Swift, sitting all this time idle in storage). No doubt it could do 15 HP for short bursts of acceleration or hill climbing, and 3600 could be stretched to 4000 RPM. The car should have sufficient torque to start and go up hills with the present 5 to 1 planetary gear. Since each phase has six slots and 230V/6=38V, the change would simply be to put all six sets of slot wires of each phase in parallel instead of in series. For 7.5 HP, 24 amps at 230V would become 144 amps at 36V. 15 HP would be 288 amps, still doable by the motor controller, which in fact at such a low voltage should be well under its power ratings. The present forklift motor is about 5-1/2 HP at highest power. 15 wouldn't make the Sprint a "muscle car" by any means, but with such a light car I think it should put it on the road, and I expect it would average well under 7 HP on the highway.
   4000 RPM / 5 is 800 RPM to the wheel, which is 80 Km/Hr for the highway. (Another possibility is to put this motor and controller on the right rear wheel of the Toyota Echo via a chain and sprockets and turn it into a hybrid. I did once buy a special 120 tooth #40 chain sprocket gear to put on a wheel for just such a project. Hmm!)

(In 2006 I rewound the motor as single phase with starter circuit to plug into the dryer plug for the sawmill. The handheld bandsaw mill [see TE News issues from 2018 and a few 2019 or 2020] is better so I really have no more use for the old mill. This reminds me of a UVic [Mechanical Engineering?] project in (?)2008. I just happened to be at the counter in Troy Electric when they brought in a motor to have Troy rewind it to a lower voltage for an EV project! Wouldn't it have been better to have students learn how to do it themselves like I did?)


Magnetic Variable Transmission/Miles Truck

   I replaced the magneticly troublesome steel weight with a copper one. But when I put it back on, again there was a lot of vibration. I mounted a camera to get a video of the mechanism working. The vibration was different this time: as I pressed the pedal and the truck started moving, I could see the magnet rotor/body of the planetary vibrate around radially, as if it was getting more torque some rotations than others as the copper disk and the magnet disk turned WRT each other. Magnetic torque ripple! But more like torque "breakers" than "ripples". No such phenomenon was observed with the smooth alume alloy rotor. The poured copper rotor is nothing like smooth, but with six magnet poles per rotation and "random" lumpiness I thought it would all balance out. Instead I think if I tried to drive anywhere it would surely shake until something came loose or broke.

   A good sign was that as the truck just started to move at "idle" speed, the planetary body was largely stationary instead of turning backward. (Well, at least averaging stationary as it shook back and forth.) That seemed to indicate that with just ~1/4 inch copper instead of inadequate 1/2 inch alume alloy, the magnetic coupling to the Hallbach configured magnet rotor is balancing well with the torque needed to move the truck. The RPM of the slip would be lower at all points and the motor would never be turning so much faster than the input to the planetary - that magic "78 RPM" maximum slip I was mentioning. (I don't think that could be brought down to "45" or "33-1/3 RPM", or that that would even be desirable. Or that young people will know what these RPM references refer to.)

   This rotor at least has demonstrated that the magnetic force interactions can easily be made sufficient in production and the magnetic torque converter should thus be practical in actual use.
   Also learned: the excessive vibration from the magnetic cogging eliminates the idea of having steel pieces cog to magneticly lock the rotors together at lower torques: the radial vibrations from that would doubtless be much worse than those from just thicker and thinner regions of copper. Anything to lock and unlock the rotors would have to be an active control - or perhaps centrifugal. Oh well, 1078 RPM (78 RPM slip) at 1000 RPM of the body (city street) is theoreticly 93% efficiency anyway. At 2000 RPM (highway) it's 96%. (Actually, a centrifugal lock should work quite well and make it 1 to 1 ratio and 100% theoretical efficiency driving at roadway speeds, but I don't intend to try making a mechanism for it on my prototype.)

   I'm running out of steam for this project. Too many things to do! I've proven it works and should be practical in production. What next? Well, duh! I could just put the 5 to 1 planetary back on, with the body clamped stationary. At least the truck would be running again and could go places. No matter how I do it I think I'd be reluctant to drive this truck over about 65 Km/Hr, which speed doesn't actually need the torque converter with this motor although the RPM would getting up there, around 7000 RPM.
   That should be good until such time as I have a new copper (or pure alume?) rotor to try out. That won't be changing hardware to something incompatible or making it any harder when I get to it, but it will be putting it off until some more propitious future time when I have a decent rotor to install. Who knew that a simple metal disk would be a big stumbling block?
   I'm thinking about making a special furnace with propane or oxy-hydrogen [per TE News #183 or was it #182] to cast a whole 10 by 10 inch rotor inside itself, in a single melt, and then just let it cool inside the furnace. No pouring liquid copper. Still the question is, when?
   Having now made the housing with the steady bearing holding the shaft, the 5 to 1 gearbox shouldn't start that awful vibration that I had mistaken to be imbalance in the shaft assembly when I first put it on. I pulled the assembly out from under the truck - yet again - and and removed the gearbox and then the copper rotor. Then I dug out the 5 to 1 gearbox. The only new thing it would need would be a mounting to prevent the body from rotating in the housing. Later I found the two original mounting pieces, which I should determine the alignment of and weld together rather than bolt.

[23rd] I put the drive shaft with gearbox together and into the truck, and put in a long C-clamp across the body of the gear since there was nothing to stop it from spinning. It was all I could do to hold the "idling" truck stopped with the brake. It hopped over a 2 by 4 blocking the wheel even with my foot still on the brake. Okay! When I pressed on the pedal it bent the C-clamp and pushed it away.


   After it's mounted, I'll definitely need to find why the programmer won't connect to the motor controller, and then change a few important parameters in the program - like reduce the idle torque as well as allow higher motor speed. (I suspect Miles deliberately cut a wire to keep anyone from altering the settings. If so, yet more stupidity on their part.)


Nissan Leaf Turns 100

   My 2015 Leaf EV now has 100 megameters on it. In the summer weather and as the Bridgestone Ecopia 'low rolling resistance' tires have 'worn in', the car has definitely been using less energy per kilometer. On my most frequent trip, driving to town and back almost 55Km, with the old tires the most the car ever had was "58%" battery charge left - usually "52" to "54" in summer, more often well down into the "40%"s in winter. Now sometimes it has been even over "60%", notwithstanding that the "battery health" on the 8 year old car is down from "12 bars" to "11 bars".
   The "Km per KWH" reading used to surpass 8.2 or better while I was driving in town, but it would drop to maybe 7.5 by the time I had driven home on the highway again. Now in warm weather sometimes it's still over 8 when I arrive home. And it's higher up in the 7.x range (well above around 6.8-6.9) on a pure highway drive.

   The new record this summer is "66%" left, obtained twice after driving to town again shortly after recharging from the first time. (Perhaps the battery performs better when it's still warm from charging?) "57%" to "62%" left is more common, at least partly depending how fast I drive on the highway. And of course it uses more battery if I do much driving around in town, like to the building supply store toward the far end.
   As I've noted previously the rolling resistance seems to rise markedly below about 12°. So the economy reduces considerably as the weather cools and the pavement is often wet. Last winter it was often down into the "40"s ranges going to town and back. But it's done so well this summer that I'm expecting some economy increase this winter. I now see the economy dropping a bit as the weather cools, but it's still pretty good - in temperatures that are still two digits so far.

   In spite of various "pickup truck" type uses, the car still looks very nice when washed and vacuumed, and everything still works except a new tire pressure valve-sensor isn't set up, so a light comes on on the dash. The tire was leaking at the original valve. I also had to change the rear brake pads and disks a year or so ago. The inner and outer pads on one side were apparently reversed causing them to press diagonally - seemingly a factory mistake that probably wore it out prematurely. Then again, they use a lot of salt and gravel on this highway in winter.
   No doubt it's well that I've had no other trouble, since there's no Nissan dealer or electric car garage on this island.


Fake "Copper" Wire

   A couple of years ago I looked on line for #18 or so wire for various hookups. It seemed to be about 12$ for 50 feet including on AliExpress. But the local "Your Dollar Store with More" had it for 6$. I bought 4 or 5 packages. One day a length of one went near a magnet... and stuck on! The wire wasn't copper! It looked like copper because it was copper plated. Of course it never occurred to me anyone would make wire that wasn't copper unless it was clearly stated. I guess I got what I paid for, but the deceit can be more than just "so what?" if you're expecting low resistance.
   I've made a couple of 36V cords from it, including a 7m extension cord. I measured its resistance at about 1.3Ω. This makes the #18 wire about 57Ω/1000 feet instead of 6.4Ω/1000 feet. The flat panel work light I usually power through it isn't as bright as it should be - 15W instead of 20W. It was only sold as "speaker wire", but an ohm or two is a notable percentage power loss even going to an 8 ohm speaker.
   The price of copper is rising. Might other "fake" wire start appearing?


EV Fires

   According to a video on YT by "Tech Charge", an EV has a .3% chance of catching fire, while a gasoline vehicle has a 1.05% chance. That should make EV's safer but for the fact that battery fires are so intense and so difficult to extinguish. The intensity means they will light up other closely parked vehicles, or a building they are in or near. The difficulty extinguishing is owed to the fact that both components being consumed are inside the same battery cell. Pouring thousands of gallons of water on it may cool things and prevent spread but it won't stop the combustion. (AFAIK they just might even burn under water.)
   The biggest cause of EV fires is said to be short circuits, leading to catastrophic currents and rapid heating of the cells. Next is other reasons for overheating, including starting a charge while the batteries are already hot from hard running. (I imagine the worst would be if you live at the top of a mountain and always plug in when you race home. Or maybe living just off a 120 KmPH highway in a hot climate.)
   The worst cars are Chinese models, for various failures related to quality and reliability as well as fires, led to my surprise by BYD. In 2017 BYD's proud policy was to use somewhat heavier but safer lithium iron phosphate cells they produced themselves, maximizing cycle life and reliability over performance. They considered lithium ion cells too dangerous. They were making industrial vehicles (buses & "cube vans" and fleet cars) then, not yet cars for consumer purchase.
   Now their cars have "blade batteries". These are lithium iron phosphate, but rather huge cells: almost a meter long by 9cm wide (thickness wasn't specified where I read it.) They passed all safety tests, but in actual use have proven dangerous. But at least one of their car fires was in the driver's seat, suggesting bad wiring (seatbelt? seat heater?...) and hence shoddy design or workmanship. Bad wiring could make shorts that start fires anywhere, or cause the batteries to overheat. (Where are the fuses?)

   I had hoped that when Miles went out of business the worst of Chinese shoddy vehicle manufacturing had gone down with it. I guess not! (But Miles never made "regular" cars.) Japanese - as well as European and North American - car quality just looks all the more fabulous when contrasted with Chinese.

My Chinese Miles ZX40 Mini Cargo Van EV
(Why is Miles out of business?...
I can't leave it outside because the body rusts so quickly.
Motor controller doesn't connect properly with programmer.
12V battery charger continuously drains main 72V battery pack!!!
...and several other electrical wiring mistakes!
and... replacing leaky brake lines by 2019 on a very low mileage 2009 vehicle? Really?)




In Passing
(Miscellaneous topics, editorial comments & opinionated rants)



Life on the Moon??? or ???


   ISRO put its Chandrayan III space probe into lunar orbit and landed the Vikram lander with the Pragayan rover in an "Antarctic" area on Earth's moon. There has been much congratulation to India and ISRO and much description in videos of the amazing technical feat accomplished.

   A temperature probe stuck into the lunar soil measured the surface temperature as +10°C but by a mere 10cm underneath it was something like -30° (IIRC). This indicates that the surface of the soil is a really good insulator.
   The only other mention of the actual ground was that the elaborate "stamps" built into the tread on the rover's wheels didn't make nice clean imprints in the tracks because unlike the dusty or gritty equatorial areas visited by the Apollo astronauts, the "soil particles" in this antarctic area "cohere" together.

   There seems to have been amazingly little interest so far in what the cameras actually showed of the strange lunar ground.



Surface of Earth's moon at -70's degrees latitude from Chandrayan III's Vikram lander, which here has
just completed a short hop-over to half a meter from its original landing point - a successful extra
experiment in taking off and landing again. The tracks of the Pragayan rover where it left the lander
are seen on the left. The right wheels broke something long and thin like a "branch"(?) at
the rim of the crater it passed, which was visible in the "before" images.

   Okay... What is it? There are craters of course. But does the surface look like rocks and or dust to anyone? And is it all as drab as it looks in monochrome, or are there brightly colored individual features?
   To me it looks "mossy", tho only vaguely similar to a patch seen close up on Comet 67P by that lander. But I would expect any temperature where ice would melt would be much too warm for what would seem to be "Ganymedean" type airless world life, which seems to have migrated to so many airless worlds in the Jupiter-Saturn areas and beyond. Also it can't be ice crystals -- at +10°C they would have melted and anyway water was not observed in the surface spectra. Some other crystals that grow in lines, perhaps? But they don't look very "crystaly" to me either. Predictably but too bad the lander didn't come back to life the next day (an Earth fortnight later). If it had lasted another lunar day or two, would we see that some of the material squashed down in the wheel treads had sprung back up, or was it all delicately formed by some process that ended long ago and will sit right where it is for millennia?
   Quite a lot of sulfur was found (as on Ganymede etc), but carbon and organic material haven't been mentioned. Certainly no mention of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and "stretched" CO2 like on those outer worlds and especially Iapetus, which was spectrographed by the Cassini's more advanced instrument than the Galileo's inspections of Ganymede and Callisto. But what were Vikram's and Pragyan's instruments equipped to identify? They were really looking for water ice. And why should this apparently fluffy covering have such a high thermal insulation value? Is it in any way similar to "fluffy" Ganymede, Callisto and "very fluffy" Iapetus? (Only the non-irradiated leading hemispheres on Callisto & Iapetus are fluffy. Ganymede has its own magnetic field with Earth-Like auroras protecting both hemispheres from Jupiter's ionizing radiation.)

   Yet again I must lament what a pity it is that ISRO, like NASA/JPL, can't seem to afford proper color cameras (like I have several of myself) to give us a clear picture of what we're looking at. And how unfortunate that Russia's lunar lander (also this month) miscalculated somewhere and became a lunar meteorite making a 40 meter crater. At least the Soviet Union put color cameras on their Venus landers and I would expect Russia today would do likewise for the moon.

(Think of this: the only reason the famous Voyager probes to the outer solar system worlds had color cameras was because the the imaging team found out there were two surplus color cameras left over from another mission, and NASA couldn't think of an excuse not to allow them to use them - even those bold pioneering missions were intended to have been monochrome! Think of all we would have missed of the exciting outer solar system worlds, of how little interest those probes and missions might have generated without the color images! The images are the meat in the sandwich of all the other data - why skimp; why gloss over them?)

"A color picture is worth 1000 monochromes." -- me



Scattered Thots


* Tinnitus (followup from TE News #183) The Nicorette gum, chewed twice a day for two weeks, had no discernable effect on my tinnitus. Only things related to damping of the ubiquitous electric power line fields made any difference. Since I couldn't avoid the fields full time (or even close), they had reduced it notably but not stopped it. When I stopped using the mesh and the helmet, the piercing high pitch tone was soon as loud as ever. (...and that was a couple of days before I finished the last of the gum. I should have known the gum sounded too good to be true. But it seemed worth a try!)
   Grounding to my skin with a wire (plugged into the ground pin of an electrical outlet) when lying in bed seemed to help a bit, but grounding with an "Earthing Pad" I bought didn't, probably because while it did technicly "connect", the measured resistance from the surface of the pad to the ground pin was over 100,000 ohms - surely pretty useless.

   The relationship between power line fields and tinnitus is by no means clear or direct. I'm probably wrong to think of it being similar to radio reception where the ear mechanism is somehow picking up the 60 Hz tone electricly (or acousticly), because the low tone can appear whether or not I am in an electric field. When I heard it in bed, I put on my metal helmet (grounded) and it continued, apparently undiminished, just as in the cabin and in the woods test late in the last report. So... not direct reception of anything detectable.
   But some relationship is evidently there, since my tinnitus did diminish with use of the mesh and the helmet over weeks, and with two anecdotal stories of it disappearing entirely when far away from power lines. (There was also a lady commenting on youtube that she had had her bedroom made into a Faraday Cage to block electric fields because she couldn't take the ringing all day and at night too. She didn't say, but it was implicit in the comment that it worked.) The closest I see it is that the field agitates something inside the head or inside the ears, which then causes something in the head or ears to start generating high, mid or low pitched ringing tones which are perceived as audio - seemingly similarly to having been exposed to too-loud noise for too long, but in the absence of actual noise. And that hearing loss somehow seems to make one susceptible, or far more susceptible, to this process or phenomenon.


* Hair Loss/Gain - Mites gone! (followup from TE News #183 -- scroll down to article) When I first started using alcohol on my scalp in 2019, areas on top where there had been hair loss became quite tender and 'sore' to the touch. I assumed this meant inactive follicles were resuming activity and growing hairs with the demodex mites gone. The sensation faded in a couple of weeks but my hair never returned to full thickness. And the mites just seemed to keep coming back and coming back if I didn't keep treating them.
   Wikipedia said that the mites can't live off the host, but that turned out to be misleading. Someone (on youtube) who seemed to have done much research said they could live up to 52 hours! This explains how they spread so readily from person to person, and puts a different complexion on what is needed for treatment. That meant that I would treat my scalp and kill all the mites, then soon after reinfect my entire scalp at once when I put on my tuque, or lay down on my pillow!
   So I started also taking steps to disinfect pillowcases, tuques, hearing protectors, chair backs, hair brush and anything else that contacted my scalp at the same time as I treated my scalp. The areas where there had been hair loss became even more tender.  "Disinfecting" items can be by spraying them with alcohol or simply by setting them aside for 3 or 4 days until the mites have died by themselves before contacting them again. At the end of August I started doing this twice a week, but I only did it twice. I was very careful about everything - bedding, tuques, ear protectors, top of chair backs and hair brush/comb. Then, not feeling well for a while I put off further treatments. But the "tenderness" in the "thinner hair" areas of my scalp started and didn't go away in a couple of weeks. In just the two careful sessions of scalp treatment and cleaning, replacing or setting aside (4 days) everything my head touched, I seemed to have already got rid of them entirely! After all these years! Hopefully I'll recognize if they start coming back. (At a millimeter long I would think the mites should be visible with a magnifying glass - "milliscopic" rather than "microscopic" - but your own head is a most inconvenient place to look for anything small. A couple of commenters said they can see them in a mirror and are bothered by them, but that the doctors tell him they're crazy and imagining things.)
   One good and pretty sure sign: my fingernails can't find any little "scabbies", little hard raised bits of dandruff/skin that I could pick off my scalp with a fingernail. Those decreased greatly after I started using alcohol once a week, but I could always find one here and there. Now none. I think I will assume that the mites are gone until and unless I start finding them again.

   Well before the end of the month the tenderness diminished and I became quite certain they were gone. What a relief! No more 'scabbies'. No more keeping my head extra warm by wearing a tuque everywhere even in summer, shampooing as often as possible and covering my head in bed (as I was doing before the end of 2019) or frequently spraying alcohol on my scalp (2020 on).
   By early October I can say my hair is getting thicker and pretty much covering even the rather bare area at the top at the back. (BTW: A mirror to see behind you in the bathroom is a valuable thing!) It's all but a full head of hair now. If I part my hair in the middle it now looks like a regular part. I no longer see a wide patch of skin under sparse hair.
   All is well until the next time I sit in someone's infected sofa or easy chair or have close body contact with an infected person (apparently most people) - and now I know what to do about it! (I certainly wouldn't use someone else's comb or hat!)

   I mentioned killing demodex folliculorum mites with alcohol and reversing hair loss to a couple of guys, one bald and one well on the way, who said they didn't care. Now I'm becoming reluctant to get too close to people. I foresee a day, however far off, when having the mites and thinning hair will be as socially unacceptable as having lice. Alcohol seems to work great, but those who have taken the trouble to rid themselves of the mites won't want to get too close to those who might reinfect or even repeatedly reinfect them. Hopefully they will become extinct.


* Eyelash mites: The related Demodex Brevis mites (1/2 a mm long) are also easily contracted. After my relatives visited I noticed little twitchings in my eyelashes when lying in bed. I had a fairly long shower in which I closed my eyes and applied shampoo to my eyelashes, and I left it on for the entire duration before I rinsed it off. Then I changed my pillowcases and sprayed the head end of the sheets with alcohol (not caring to change them at that point) to prevent re-contamination.
   No more eyelash twitchings, so I guess those steps got them.


* Population Africa presently has around 1.4 billion people. Depending on the criteria, 140 million to 275 million of this burgeoning population - 10 to 20% - are now "food insecure", "malnourished" or starving, especially in certain Sahel countries and the horn of Africa. There are also major problems with food in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and other highly populated regions. China is buying food globally with its serious crop failures, which makes China's food problems everyones'. These shortages were already starting to show before Covid and before the Ukraine conflict, tho of course those have made it worse. By and large there don't seem to be large stores of excess grains in prosperous countries to fill the needs of the desperate - and the majority of the people of most countries aren't very prosperous any more themselves. As weather disasters continue to intensify and randomly destroy crops left and right, and as we start running short of the non-renewable resources that have enabled "green revolution" big agriculture, shortages seem to be beginning to gradually but inexorably become global.
   Some are saying the population is leveling out, and the fact of birth control allowing all families to be wanted families with fewer children instead of accidental with more children than desired does indeed bring great hope for a prosperous future with a stable population. But that's looking past the immediate future. Nine billion people is probably triple what the planet can sustain in the long term, and it looks like we are now starting to pay for having such a human algae bloom. The coming years and decades are bound to be severe.


* More Changing Borders I recently found/showed a map of what Canada looked like 100 years ago. Here's one showing all the lands incorporated into modern China since WWII. We see that communist China has actually been quite imperialistic having doubled its territory and more. It has just now drawn a new map claiming new lands on their borders, including Kazakstan or part of it, bits of India and an island in a river between Russia and China previously agreed to be co-owned. (Let's not think about Taiwan!) PS: Shingjiang is also known as East Turkestan. A lot of people there have resisted becoming and being part of China. (I'm not sure why neither China nor Russia have taken Mongolia. I think there are videos explaining it.)



Then we might also look at Ukraine, which grew over the centuries from a small region of Russia into a very large territory with that name - not by conquest or even assertiveness but simply for the administrative convenience of successive Czarist and Soviet administrations. The Eastern territories transferred to Ukraine by Lenin and Khrushchev were and are mostly populated by Russians. The Western piece added by Stalin was mainly Polish. At the same time Stalin transferred to Poland part of Eastern Germany, took German East Prussia for itself and called it Kalliningrad, and there was much migration.
   Of course one also notes that the purple portion is mostly inhabited by Russians and is essentially the area of the present dispute, which intensified in 2014 when the elected government was violently overthrown, Russian language was banned by Kiev in schools and public offices, and three provinces including Crimea broke away along with a third of the Ukrainian army.



* Why are "0" keys next to "9" instead of next to "1", as if an afterthought? I thought we had abandoned Roman "no such number as zero" times.


How the Ukraine Conflict Might End? All summer Ukraine has been throwing its lifeblood, and that of various foreign mercenaries, into the much hyped counteroffensive against the by now well prepared Russian defenses. Neither side has gained or lost much ground. But the Ukrainian army and its lavishly supplied Western equipment are now well depleted and there are signs that the Russians may soon launch their own offensive in the northern area, at least up to the Oskil river.
   But the Russians have adopted a new tactic: dropping leaflets on the front lines and opening a radio channel. The leaflets give the Ukrainian forces a procedure for how to surrender and assure them of humane treatment and good food. That's more than they're getting on the front, where tens of thousands have been killed this summer. (Total since February 2022 may be 300-450 thousand, and many more wounded and unable to fight.) The radio channel (or was it actual radios?) is so they can contact the Russians and tell them they wish to do so any time.
   About the end of September I heard that 10,000 had surrendered en masse, which is a few percent of the entire force. Most of Ukraine's original force is long gone. Certainly not all of these new and semi-trained "cannon fodder" conscripts are ardent nationalist neonazis! Perhaps soon the issue may be out of the hands of the warmongers and arms merchants in Washington, London and Kiev? Ukraine has now become panicked about mutinies and doesn't allow large concentrations of its troops to come together.
   (But so far there have been no more mass surrenders, and I even wonder if the story is true or if I really read it right?)


* Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said "we" need to "crack down on freedom of speech". If ever there was such a thing as blasphemy in the modern context, surely this is it! This is treason, not against a specific nation or group, but against the rights of all men as a whole. Many have fought and died for the right to speak their mind - and be heard - without fear of retribution.
   Unfortunately she isn't alone. It brings us the whole war against journalists, bloggers and indeed many highly qualified scientists and doctors - anyone who doesn't tow the hypnotizing "mass formation" political narratives lines, shutting them out from all the channels they should be able to use to make their views known to the public and even jailing and murdering some of them.
   Who is "we"? Why do these people think they are qualified to be arbiters of what is permissible to be thought and said by others, when everyone's knowledge and views are ever changing? Why do "we" give such manipulative people the right to trample on our rights?
ESD
(Eccentric Silliness Department)

* What happens in a pharmacy? Pharmers are busy pharming.

* Dad's Cookies "since 1929"    ----    Shouldn't that be Great Granddad's cookies by now? (How stale are they?)

* Today's Special: Rabbit Soup    ----    Customer: "Waiter, there's a hare in my soup!"

* Funding Gnat Seas   ----    Why should gnats need so much water? And what do we care about gnats anyway? Anyway, no doubt our government has our real best interests at heart when they fund those instead of trying to solve Canadian problems.

* What does "exorable" mean?

* Why is "pie" just a piece of "piece"? Something is backward.

* The unsuspected cause of global warming. It is said that in the 1500s they burned witches who were suspected of causing bad weather. In the past century sea level temperatures have been rising and lately extreme weather events have been occurring with with accelerating frequency. Why? Obviously because we stopped burning witches! Cause & effect. QED.



   "in depth reports" for each project are below. I hope they may be useful to anyone who wants to get into a similar project, to glean ideas for how something might be done, as well as things that might have been tried, or just thought of and not tried... and even of how not to do something - why it didn't work or proved impractical. Sometimes they set out inventive thoughts almost as they occur - and are the actual organization and elaboration in writing of those thoughts. They are thus partly a diary and are not extensively proof-read for literary perfection, consistency, completeness and elimination of duplications before publication. I hope they may add to the body of wisdom for other researchers and developers to help them find more productive paths and avoid potential pitfalls and dead ends.
Electric Transport

Miles Truck & Magnetic Variable Torque Converter
- for now: Fixed ratio Drive


[11th] In the evening I pulled the transmission mechanism out from under the truck (determined not to let yet another month slip by). The next day I replaced the magneticly pulling steel weight with a copper one. Suddenly realizing I could not only trim the added weight but also grind the ugly back face of the copper disk to change the balance, I got it done and quite well balanced in a couple of hours. Just a very few grams set on top of the rotor will cause it to turn and dump the piece, so I probably had it balanced to within a gram or so. That's the mass balanced. The small bolts holding the copper block on won't make significant magnetic imbalance -- I trust.
[13th] I put it back on. Again there was a lot of vibration and noise. Again quite different from the previous. I think the noise was just that I got the copper disk too close to the magnet rotor and they were rubbing a bit in spots. I mounted a camera to get a video of the mechanism working. The noise mostly quit. The vibration was different this time: as I pressed the pedal and the truck started moving, I could see the magnet rotor/body of the planetary vibrate around radially, as if it was getting more torque in some rotational positions than others as the copper disk and the magnet disk turned WRT each other. Magnetic torque ripple! More like torque "breakers" than "ripples". No such phenomenon was observed with the smooth alume alloy rotor. The poured copper rotor is nothing like smooth, but with six magnet poles per rotation and "random" lumpiness I thought it would all balance out. Instead I think if I tried to drive anywhere it would surely shake until something came loose or broke.

   A good sign was that as the truck started to move, the planetary body was largely stationary instead of turning backward. (Well, at least averaging stationary as it shook back and forth.) That seemed to indicate that with 1/4 inch copper instead of alume alloy, the magnetic force balances well with the torque needed to move the truck. The RPM of the slip would be lower at all points and the motor would never be turning much faster than the input to the planetary - that "78 RPM" maximum slip I was mentioning.

   I think I've taken the "cast a copper rotor at home" idea about as far as it can go unless I can do it much better. I need a piece of copper plate that will make a smooth and uniform rotor once I've turned it true on a lathe. I think I've also eliminated the idea of having steel pieces cog to magneticly lock the rotors together at lower torques: the radial vibrations from that would be much worse than from just thicker and thinner regions of copper. Oh well, 1078 RPM (78 RPM slip) at 1000 RPM of the body (city street) is 93% efficiency. At 2000 RPM (highway) it's 96%.

   However I have all along been suspicious of buying "copper plate". When you buy copper wire it's pure, annealed copper. And evidently plumbing pipe is pretty pure. Then I found "copper" pennies were 2% zinc (Can.) or 5% (USA). (Later Wikipedia changed its mind and said Canadian pennies had .25% zinc but 1.75% tin.) How much zinc, lead and other metals are in "copper plate" to make it harder and more easily machinable, and how much trapped air is inside, all of which which might considerably detract from its electrical conductivity and magnetic performance? Most people buying flat plate wouldn't care. On line I saw "deoxidized copper bar" that sounded more promising. 8 inches wide. I figured I could buy 12 inches and silver solder 1 inch pieces on the side to get it to 10x10 inches. I asked for the price for 12 inches of it. There was no reply except an auto-acknowledgment that my message had been received. Do they want to sell stuff or not? Do they really have it?


[20th] I'm running out of steam for this project. I've proven the concept. Barring any unforeseen problem that might come up in actual street/highway driving with a well built unit with good rotors, it's a great system! (However sure something seems, true certainty only comes from actual use.)
   What next? I could just put the 5 to 1 planetary back on with the body clamped stationary. At least the truck would run and could go places. No matter how I do it I'd be reluctant to drive this particular truck over about 65 Km/Hr, which doesn't actually need the torque converter with this motor although the RPM would getting up there at that speed, around 7000 RPM.
   Or I could try something else: I could make a flat mold for 1/2 the rotor (if I'm silver soldering to join pieces anyway) and no doubt it would fit and Mike could melt it "in situ" in his propane furnace. The copper chunks (pennies again? wire? pipe?) would melt into the mold depression, then the heat would be turned off and the pool of copper allowed to cool. After soldering the two halves together I would do the center mounting stuff and then turn it on Ron's lathe. (My own lathe being just slightly too small.) That procedure at least wouldn't need anything not available here.
   Hmm... To have the mold right in the oven would need a heavy steel box to hold the sand mixture, and I would have to try Mike's idea of cemented sand. I suspect it would work. Or I could make a clay mold and fire it first? I should try a smaller sample piece first.

[21st] Well, duh! Actually, I could do both! I could put the 5 to 1 planetary back in until such time as I have a new rotor to try out. That wouldn't be abandoning the variable torque converter idea, diverting my efforts to some incompatible "other" technique or making it any harder when I got to it, but it would be putting it off until some more propitious future time when I have more time to make a decent copper rotor to install. In the meantime the truck could be running.
   I didn't need to change the motor-to-planetary shaft when I changed the gearbox. They are very similar. I only had to add the rotors. The magnet rotor stays on the 10 to 1 gearbox; the copper one can easily be removed from the shaft.
   And having made the housing with the steady bearing holding the shaft, it shouldn't start that awful vibration that I had mistaken to be a slight imbalance in the assembly when I first put that gearbox on. Yet again I pulled the assembly out from under the truck and and removed the gearbox and then the copper rotor from the shaft. Then I dug out the 5 to 1 gearbox. The only new thing it would need would be a mounting to prevent the body from rotating in the housing.

[23rd] I ground a couple of flat faces on the 5 to 1 gearbox output shaft to match what I had done on the 10 to 1, and mounted everything. This gear was a bit shorter (and the output shaft 5mm shorter - grr!) so the shafts were a bit short, and I had to have both the input and the rear drive shaft on the output not fully "jammed in". Ug. I put in a long C-clamp across the body of the gear since there was nothing to stop it from spinning. It was all I could do to hold the truck stopped with the brake. It hopped over a 2 by 4 blocking the wheel with my foot still on the brake. Okay!
   Next I found one of the pieces that I had used before to fit the planetary body to the frame of the truck. I don't remember what happened to the other piece and couldn't find it, but I would have to change it anyway. I found a bar of alume to make a new piece from.
[24th] I tried the truck out again this time I pressed on the pedal a couple of times. When I did that, it bent the C-clamp and flung it away. (Did I say alume for a mounting piece? Nah, too soft! I need a good chunk of steel.)
   After that, I'll definitely need to find why the programmer won't connect to the motor controller, and then change a few things. (I suspect Miles deliberately cut a wire to keep anyone from altering the settings.)

[29th] I looked for a piece of steel, and in the scraps turned up the original piece, all carefully cut and shaped! If I weld it to the other piece (or drill new bolt holes to adjust the position) it'll probably work fine. Yay!


   At least the truck will be running again, soon rather than later!




Other "Green" & Electric Equipment Projects

Cabin Construction


   The far end, already walled, was pretty plumb, and it was straight front to back, but the middle and open end posts were leaning a bit to the south (here to the right). I pressed in some 2 by 6es at angles to push them straighter. (The bottoms have pins to the footings, so they wouldn't budge.) But it was a bit problematic since the roof would have to twist for just one end to move, so I compromised with "a little straighter", not pressing things too far, and put the diagonal braces back on with the adjustment, then did one of the outer wall sections.


   After I got most of the studs in I realized I could quickly put in two full and one already cut half sheet of plywood. Then I would feel better about removing the diagonal brace. I finished the window frame part and above it later.



Soon I had finished the framing and plywood and the next day I was stapling up tyvek in the rain to keep it dry.
   I bought some scaffolding from someone who was moving. I still had to use the ladder on the single-level scaffold to reach the high area.

   There was a penalty: the sharp "clack" of the staple gun brought back my "tennis elbow" or "tendinitis" with a vengeance. Of course I only noticed it afterward, not while I was doing it. I wished I had just let the wall soak! OTOH it did have to be done. (Maybe if I had just done 5 staples or so a day? Haha - it would have ripped off and blown away before it was up.)


   Finally I got to the last wall section. I decided to put a roll-up garage door in it with the floor level with the ground (concreted over at some point), and to have a room above it. That would be the only spot with a second floor. I made the opening for a 7 by 9 foot door.


   I put the short studs above the doorway. Then found that they lined up badly for plywood - a 4-1/4 foot area and a 7-3/4 foot one, requiring three sheets of cut-up plywood instead of two whole ones, 4 and 8 feet.
   So I unscrewed them all and redid it. The 4-foot could be a vertical sheet extending up to the rafters. But I didn't get any plywood up. It started pouring rain, a real deluge. Then other things intervened.


   Thinking "out loud" here. There is a lot conspiring to make the second floor's floor as high as possible, leaving very minimal headroom up there. Over most of the area will be the wooden floor, 2 by 6s resting on 4 inch tall blocks and that high up the outer walls. That's a foot gone. With just 7 foot height on the lower floor, the ceiling is thus at the 8 foot mark. In the garage section there's no raised floor, but roll-up doors needs 8 feet headroom for the track, making it the same.
   Then the second floor joists need to be at least 2 by 6s, so that's about 8 feet 8 inches. The top is 16 feet, so 15 feet 4 inches to the 2 by 8 rafters. That's only about 6 feet 8 inches at the peak - and that drops down to about 5 feet 2 inches by the middle and 3 feet 7 inches by the outside wall. I would only be able to stand up straight near the peak of the roof.
   Looking at my present roll-up doors, I might manage to shave about an inch or two off that 8 feet. Every inch counts! And the tracks only go 7 feet along the ceiling. If I used (say) 7 foot long 3 by 3s for floor joists above the tracks (garage ceiling can be lower elsewhere with 2 by 6s), 2 + 3 is 5 inches lower, leaving 7 feet 1 inch height at the peak and 4 feet at the outside wall. still horribly short. Hmm, what else can I do...?

  That leaves the top gable end area to frame. The second floor room needed a window. I had found a double-glass one that looked suitable at the refuse station, in a large frame (with the other pane missing) that I would take it out of. I would love to leave it until the second floor is in, saving a lot of being on ladders, but the outer walls should doubtless be done first.

[Later] My present thought is to cut about 11 inches off the bottom door section and the tracks and reduce the opening to 6 feet 1 inch or so. I hope that's not too hard to do, but I don't have the door yet. That will add the badly needed 11 inches headroom upstairs. I guess I'll have to put another top frame for the door 11 inches under the one I've just made twice!
   I may also use 4 by 4 floor joists upstairs instead of 2 by 6s to gain another 2 inches of headroom. By that point perhaps a narrow closet along the outer wall would leave full standing headroom in the room itself - at least for me.

   Now not only is the weather getting cold and wet, there are a bunch of things that should wait until I have the door to see how low I can fit it in and thus where the upstairs floor should sit. Perhaps I should start on the NE corner of the downstairs floor and use up some 2 by 6s from that big pile?

   A view from the inside. Of course all this clutter - lumber, insulation, gyproc, tools & supplies - will eventually be replaced by other clutter. Er, I mean, will be gone.


   I had decided R3 per inch lawn grass wasn't good enough and I lavishly used up most of the bags I collected last year for garden mulch and chicken bedding. I had decided to use R4 per inch cellulose fiber instead. It was on the web sites at Home Depot and Home Hardware. Now I find I can't buy it! Period. Seemingly no one in all Northern BC wants to sell it unless you order an entire truck load! What?!? It's much cheaper and better than (R3.6 per inch) fiberglass, and environmentally benign. Even if it doesn't come in batts you'd think it would be very popular for attic fill, where everyone wants really, really thick insulation and it's much the most affordable. Perhaps too many people think it's too flammable, when in a wall it's actually less (because it keeps air out of the stud space). And how many of the same people don't hesitate to use more flammable styrene foam insulation?
   Apparently I shouldn't have wasted all those bags of grass after all! Now I can't get more until next summer. I may be unwillingly forced to buy uggy, itchy fiberglass after all.



September's Gardening

   My corn plants never grew much. My squash plants grew painfully slowly over the summer, and while they spread out in August, one well over ten feet, there were no squashes, even little ones, in September. Just one squash started early enough, but it rotted and fell off without growing much, and after that the flowers just bloomed and then fell off.
   It seems they both need the most favored locations to grow around here. Corn seems to need to be under cover - cold frame or whatever - until it is knee high and the weather warmer, then with the cover removed to get enough sunlight.

   These weren't the only disappointments over the summer. A squirrel nipped all of the very few just-started pears off the pear trees. (zero pears in six years so far!) There were just 10 little scabby apples between three trees. A deer crashed a feeble wire fence and ate a bunch of leaves and the three best apples. The potato patch in an unfenced garden kept getting trimmed down by the deer and produced few and small potatos. (I was hoping the deer knew potato tops are poisonous!) By the time the tops died down it was just a field of grass again. I planted three rows of carrots but romaine lettuce came up. (from last year's saved seed. I either mislabeled the bag or used the wrong one. Why didn't I recognize them?) I sold some lettuce at the Tlell farmers market, but by the time I planted carrots they were pretty small by fall, barely worth saving. The garlic was good, but my onions didn't grow well. In September a deer managed to get under the wire fence around the main garden and eat the leaves off the beans, the hazelnut bush and a bunch of other things. Sneaky critters - I didn't think they could squeeze under tight spaces! I had raised the fence wire off the ground a bit so I could trim under it with the weedeater or rototiller and so it wouldn't rust - which also made it that bit higher and harder to jump over - but of course it was uneven and there were a couple of notably high gaps underneath. I could see where the deer bent the bottom of the wire up to get under. I put in some wooden stakes there.

   There were successes too. The lettuce grew great. Lots of blueberries and some black currents. Huge Rhubarb stems and Lots of potatos - in fact, I sold some at the Tlell farmers Market. (They pretty much paid for my lunches there.) Good cabbages, beans, peas. The strawberries and one of the raspberry varieties made a second crop into September and even October. The green grape vine in the greenhouse grew its first small cluster of purple grapes. (Huh?) I had some good asparagus from the patch in the greenhouse (4 years now?) and I left enough to grow that I was trimming it with the hedge clippers so I could get by it. It grows up to the roof then the stalks die off in the winter.
   The Tlell market ended October 1st - just when my tomatos were getting ready. I don't want to go to the bigger market in town with just a few items. (Now what do I do with them all? I'm not really a canner.)
A stalk of millet, mid September. Not ripening until October - must need a really sunny spot.  
   A couple of volunteer millet plants came up (millet seeds are in bird seed that I feed the chickens) and ripened, one in the garden and one near it. There was one a couple of years ago, too. At first I thought it was corn, then I let it continue to grow out of curiosity. I may plant millet instead of corn next year. or maybe in addition. It is said that deer don't eat millet, so conceivably I could plant it in the unfenced garden plot, maybe instead of potatos? It sounds too good to be true, but so far they haven't touched the one outside the garden, and it's about ripe. (OTOH it started ripening quite late - will I really get a crop?)


   Three sunflowers planted in mid April that then survived the slugs when transplanted out made good heads by the start of September.

   I may try out the oil press I bought a while back and see how much sunflower oil comes from a head.



The nine+ foot sunflower and some others planted and put out a couple of weeks later did grow seeds, okay but with the shells still whitish by the time I picked them in late September. Obviously they need to be started as early as possible to ensure a good, ripe crop.


   The sunflowers that got started a couple of weeks later yet finally started making smaller flowers, but by then there seemed to be no pollinating insects around. Finally on the 12th it was a little warmer and suddenly hover flies and a few other flies were all over them. If they matured, at least the shells wouldn't be empty. But would they? The solar chart (Electricity Generation) shows how much less sun there has been this month compared to August (and even compared to last September).
   I got a couple of small heads, but I'm not sure they were from the very last planted few.

The ones set out last - Early June, was it? - grew tall but were purely ornamental. The one planted in the main garden also didn't mature - not quite as warm and sunny there as by the house.



Electricity Storage

(No Reports)



Electricity Generation

My Solar Power System


The Usual Daily/Monthly/Yearly Log of Solar Power Generated [and grid power consumed]

(All times are in PST: clock 48 minutes ahead of local sun time, not PDT which is an hour and 48 minutes ahead. (DC) battery system power output readings are reset to zero daily (often just for LED lights, occasionally used with other loads: Chevy Sprint electric car, inverters in power outages or other 36V loads), while the grid tied readings are cumulative.)

Daily Figures

Notes: House Main meter (6 digits) accumulates. DC meter now accumulates until [before] it loses precision (9.999 WH => 0010 KWH), then is reset. House East and Cabin meters (4 digits) are reset to 0 when they get near 99.99 (which goes to "100.0") - owing to loss of second decimal precision.

Km = Nissan Leaf electric car drove distance, then car was charged.

New Order of Daily Solar Readings (Beginning May 2022):

Date House, House, House, Cabin => Total KWH Solar [Notable power Uses (EV); Grid power meter@time] Sky/weather
        Main      DC   (Carport)

August
31st 591.46, 4.87, 55.13, 65.07 => 19.37 [9014@20:00] Mostly sunny, warm. (Cool when not sunny)

September
  1st 596.26, 4.94, 58.85, 68.05 => 11.57 [140Km; 9038@20:00]
  2d  601.67, 4.97, 62.87, 71.32 => 12.73 [55Km; 9052@20:00] A few sunny periods
  3rd 606.44, 5.04, 66.61, 74.38 => 11.64 [35Km; 9060@19:00]
  4th 608.96, 5.06, 68.24, 76.01 =>   5.80 [9068@20:00] Clouds, bit o' rain late PM
  5th 614.57, 5.15, 72.16, 78.80 => 12.41 [9078@19:30] Cabin (solar) was unplugged a couple of hours when I mowed the lawn. (Not hit cord!)
  6th 618.69, 5.20, 75.05, 81.50 =>   9.76 [55Km; 9095@20:00] Electric heat in the bedroom is using grid power! (it gets worse as it gets colder)
  7th 623.34, 5.25, 78.41, 84.57 => 11.13 [9103@20:00] Finished 2nd last wall plywood. Getting dark in there! (Last section gets garage door.)
  8th 627.32, 5.28, 81.23, 86.90 =>   9.16 [97Km; 9124@20:00]
  9th 633.32, 5.31, 86.18, 90.17 => 14.25 [110Km, 9149@23:00]
10th 635.83, 5.39, 87.78, 91.35 =>   5.37 [35Km; 9171@19:30]
11th 638.71, 5.47, 89.67, 93. 26 =>  6.76 [9188@19:30]
12th 643.42, 5.55, 93.02, 96.14 => 11.02 [9197@19:30]
13rd 647.23, 5.58, 95.84,   2.53 => 10.19 [9207@19:30]
14th 651.30, 6.04,   3.44,   5.34 => 10.40 [9219@19:00]
15th 657.35, 6.11,   8.35,   9.19 => 14.94 [9230@19:30] Some sun today! Warm while it was out.
16th 659.93, 6.16, 10.34, 10.70 =>   6.13 [9239@19:00] Fall seems to have fallen. Pretty cool out now - will garden grow any more?
17th 664.17, 6.22, 13.05, 13.15 =>   9.46 [9252@19:00] Bit o' sun, later rain.
18th 667.44, 6.25, 15.43, 15.26 =>   7.79 [55Km; 9275@22:30]
19th 672.58, 6.31, 19.51, 18.25 => 12.27 [10Km; 9283@19:30]
20th 679.47, 6.34, 24.77, 23.00 => 16.93 [55Km; 9294@19:00] Gosh, sun! Tan!
21st 682.95, 6.41, 27.19, 25.27 =>   8.24 [9312@19:00] Pretty warm!
22d  684.39, 6.49, 28.11, 26.15 =>   3.32 [90Km; 9336@19:00]
23rd 688.91, 6.57, 32.24, 29.55 => 12.13 [55Km; 9360@20:00; 50Km]
24th 690.79, 6.64, 33.57, 30.63 =>   4.36 [35Km; 9385@19:00]
25th 694.66, 6.75, 36.79, 33.15 =>   9.72 [9402@19:00]
26th 698.06, 6.88, 39.19, 35.24 =>   8.02 [9416@19:00]
27th 700.14, 6.96, 40.38, 36.46 =>   4.57 [55Km; 9433@19:00]
28th 706.90, 7.04, 45.42, 39.31 => 14.65 [30Km; 9451@19:30] Sunny day! Breaker was blown to cabin owing to running a cord to travel trailer, hence lower collection at cabin. (Dang shoulda made ~16KWH!)
29th 712.77, 7.09, 49.99, 43.22 => 14.40 [85Km; 9488@19:00] Sunny again!
30th 715.79, 7.20, 52.05, 45.16 =>   7.13 [50Km; 9515@19:00]

October
1st 718.37, 7.27, 53.95, 46.65 => 6.04 [75Km; 9566@19:00]
2d  722.02, 7.37, 56.38, 48.76 => 8.29 [60 Km; 9604@21:30]
3rd 725.02, 7.45, 58.52, 50.51 => 6.37 [9626@19:00]
4th 726.53, 7.52, 59.06, 51.31 => 2.92 [9676@20:00]   --   I think there's something funny with the carport system.
5th 730.20, 7.55, 60.63, 53.27 => 7.23 [45Km; 9716@18:30]
6th 731.64, 7.58, 61.11, 54.06 => 2.64 [55Km; 9754@22:00]
7th 735.36, 7.62, 62.58, 56.01 => 7.18 [45Km; 9784@18:00]
8th 735.78, 7.65, 62.72, 56.30 => 0.88 [75Km; 9817@18:30] WOW!


Chart of daily KWH from solar panels.    (Compare September 2023 (left) with August 2023 & with September 2022.)
Days of
__ KWH
 September 2023
(18 collectors)
 August 2023
(18 collectors)
 September 2022
(18 collectors)
0.xx


1.xx

1 (power outage)
2.xx


3.xx
 1

4.xx
 2
 1
 1
5.xx
 2
 1
 1
6.xx
 2
1
7.xx
 2
 1
 3
8.xx
 2
 1
9.xx
 3
 1
 2
10.xx
 2
 1
 3
11.xx
 4
 2
 1
12.xx
 3
4
13.xx
 1
 3
 1
14.xx
 4
 2
15.xx


16.xx
 1
 1
17.xx
1
 1
18.xx
3
 3
19.xx
2
 2
20.xx
3
 2
21.xx

2
22.xx
5
 2
23.xx
2
24.xx


25.xx


26.xx


27.xx
1
Total KWH
for month
 295.65
 518.00
 406.2
Km Driven
on Electricity
  1115.1 Km
(150 KWH?) 		995.5 Km
(130 KWH?) 		 1190  Km
(~165 KWH?)


Things Noted - September 2023

* As the chart shows, last September (2022) was a lot nicer than this year's. Storms, clouds, not one whole sunny day.



Monthly Summaries: Solar Generated KWH [& Power used from grid KWH]

As these tables are getting long, I'm not repeating the log of monthly reports. The reports for the first four full years (March 2019 to February 2023) may be found in TE News #177, February 2023.

2023 - (House roof, lawn + DC + Cabin + Carport, Pole) Solar
Jan KWH: 40.57 + 3.06 + 28.31 + 21.85 = 93.79 Solar [grid: 1163; car (these are very rough estimates): 130]
Feb KWH: 59.19 + 2.70 + 38.10 + 32.47 = 132.46 Solar [grid: 1079; car: 110]
(Four years of solar!)
Mar KWH: 149.49 + 2.72 + 53.85 +    92.08 = 298.14 Solar [grid: 981; car: 140]
Apr KWH: 176.57 + 2.71 + 121.21 + 108.34 = 408.83 [grid: 676; car: 160]  --  The three "Lawn" collectors moved to South "Wall"
May KWH:266.04 + 2.04 + 194.13 + 180.31 = 642.52 [grid: 500; car: 175]
Jun KWH: 237.55 + 3.70 + 172.56 + 126.31 = 540.12 [grid: 464; car: 190]
July KWH:236.99 + 1.95 + 169.16 + 155.21 = 563.31 [grid: 343; car: 180]
Aug KWH:223.61 + 1.78 + 158.31 + 134.40 = 518.00 [grid: 305; car: 130]
Sep KWH:124.33 + 2.33 +   92.76 +   76.23 = 295.65 [grid: 501; car: 150]


Annual Totals

1. March 2019-Feb. 2020: 2196.15 KWH Solar [used   7927 KWH from grid]
2. March 2020-Feb. 2021: 2069.82 KWH Solar [used 11294 KWH from grid] (More electric heat - BR, Trailer & Perry's RV)
3. March 2021-Feb. 2022: 2063.05 KWH Solar [used 10977 KWH from grid]
4a. March 2022-August 2022: in (the best) 6 months, about 2725 KWH solar - more than in any previous entire year!
4. March2022-Feb. 2023: 3793.37 KWH Solar [used 12038 KWH from grid]

Money Saved or Earned - @ 12¢ [All BC residential elec. rate] ; @ 50¢ [2018 cost of diesel fuel to BC Hydro] ; @ 1$ per KWH [actual total cost to BC Hydro in 2022 according to an employee]:
1. 263.42$ ; 1097.58$ ; 2196.15$
2. 248.38$ ; 1034.91$ ; 2069.82$
3. 247.57$ ; 1031.53$ ; 2063.05$
4. 455.20$ ; 1896.69$ ; 3793.37$

   It can be seen that the benefit to the society as a whole on Haida Gwaii from solar power installations is much greater than the cost savings to the individual user of electricity, thanks to the heavy subsidization of our power owing to the BC government policy of having the same power rate across the entire province regardless of the cost of production. And it can be insurance: With some extra equipment and a battery, sufficient solar can deliver essential power in electrical outages however long. (Feb 28th 2023: And it's probably well over 1$/KWH by now the way inflation of diesel fuel and other costs is running.)

http://www.TurquoiseEnergy.com
Haida Gwaii, BC Canada