Turquoise Energy News #189 - February 2024 Report
Turquoise Energy News Report #189
Covering Research & Development Activities of February 2024
(Posted March 9th 2024)
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.)
  - Five Years of Solar Power - "Everlasting" Cu-Zn Battery Development - Terminology: Anode, Cathode & Electrodes - Open Loop Air Heat Pumping: Making the heat exchanger - Better Peltier Coolers Project - Cabin Construction

In Passing (Miscellaneous topics, editorial comments & opinionated rants)
  - Scattered Thots (Viewpoints, Citizen Participation in Governance) - ESD

- Detailed Project Reports -

Electric Transport - Electric Hubcap Motor Systems  (no reports)

Other "Green" & Electric Equipment Projects
* Making indoor-outdoor heat exchanger for Open Loop Heat Pumping ("OLAHP")
* Cabin Construction

Electricity Storage: Batteries
* Much work and several experiments - 'everlasting' Copper-Zinc cell looks closer

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


February in Brief


On the morning of the 28th it had snowed overnight (or was it hail?),
 covering solar panels - but the more vertical ones under the eaves were producing.
(It stayed cold and hailed again in early March.)


The steeper ones on the carport were shedding it,


as were the steep ones on a pole.


But the shallower angled ones on the roofs stayed covered until mid afternoon.
If it wasn't for the snow, the black panels would have heated up and melted the snow!
Notwithstanding the last days, this was the sunniest February with the highest solar collection yet.

Five Years of Solar Power

   Readings from five full years of solar power from March 2019 to February 2024 are summarized under Electricity Generation below. The last year has been the most successful yet, with 3891.35 kilowatt-hours of solar electricity generated. That is about half my entire electrical usage over that same year (partly because living alone now I seem to have used less than in other years). 'Theoreticly' then 36 solar panels instead of 18 and battery storage could have supplied all needs, but it doesn't work out this far north because the highest use is in winter when there is little production. I am sending excess power to the power grid in the four summer months, making more than the electric car uses in the spring and autumn months, and using much more than is made in the three darkest winter months of November, December and January when there isn't even enough for the car, let alone electric heat.
   The overall annual power bill would be much reduced, mostly in winter for heating, if I had the open loop air heat pumping system working as planned and installed in all heated spaces. (I did a write-up on the theory of operation for that last month. [TENews #188 - search for "Recap" in Month in Brief]. With the efficient air compressor-decompressor design, I'm working on the project again.)


"Everlasting" (Cu-Zn) Battery Development

   Over the last four months now I've concentrated heavily on the battery project, and with freezing weather toward the end of February and well into March, I kept working indoors on it. And I finally found out what a problem I've been having for years has been. Right at month's end and the start of March I thought I had a working battery that didn't seem to degrade with cycling. Each cycle seemed roughly comparable in running time. But in fact the initial voltage was dropping gradually - just much more slowly than before.

   The problem that I had been oblivious to all along I finally discovered in a paper specificly covering zinc electrodes: zinc can passivate. More or less non-conducting zinc oxide solidifies from dissolved zinc ions during recharge and covers the surface of the electrode substance more and more densely until it blocks electrolyte flow. That's surely what's been happening to my cells, so much frustrating me for years because I didn't know what was happening. I had thought zinc was supposed to be "perfect" in this regard and so I continually misattributed the cause to the positive electrodes (even of different chemistries - including copper at the start of the month!) and of course nothing I did to them helped.
   There's yet another problem with zinc? I started thinking I had been doing better with metallic manganese negative electrodes in 2013!
   I added quite a lot of graphite powder to the zinc (19 wt%, ~40% by volume) to give it conductivity regardless of its state of charge, zinc metal or oxide, and the cycle after cycle deterioration was much less. But not zero.
   However, knowing what the problem is makes it possible to start looking in the right place for the solution.

   My cells also still have the problem of very low current capacity - unit milliamps per square centimeter instead of tens. Zinc usually has high current capacity. The doped osmium sheet and the SDBS gel seem to slow current flow down quite a lot, but without those the cells would have short cycle life. (...regardless of passivation) The positive electrode boxes are useful for making the cells, but the copper oxide being spaced away from the zinc and behind a second separator sheet surely doesn't help either.
   So I started thinking about other ways to put everything together... ways that are still doable by hand... and in early March came up with a plan for electrode "trays" that stack together with just one common separator sheet between trays.
   And perhaps a solution to the passivation problem will entail a remedy to the low capacities at the same time.


Terminology: Anode & Cathode, Negative & Positive Electrode

   I took the trouble the actually think about this. (Long overdue) I've had the concepts of "cathode" and "anode" reversed in my head. In vacuum tubes the cathode, the negative side, emits electrons toward the anode, the positive side, which absorbs them. It only emits electrons. It doesn't absorb them from the circuit as such, and so I always thought of cathodes as electron sources. But that's inside the tube. Inside a semiconductor diode the cathode also emits electrons toward the anode, the positive side. However it receives these electrons from the external wire that powers it, and the anode transmits the electrons that it got from the cathode to its external connection. In both cases the cathode is the negative side and the anode the plus. Viewed from the outside the cathode absorbs electrons and the anode emits them.
   In battery usage then the anode also emits the electrons it got from the electrolyte to its external wire but as the negative electrode instead of the positive since the battery is sourcing power rather than using it. The cathode pulls electrons from the external circuit into the electrolyte as the positive.

   But I think the reason people use these otherwise rather obscure terms instead of the more obvious "positive electrode" and "negative electrode" has to do with length: "anode" and "cathode" are each two syllables instead of six. (As in "Metric System Length Problem: the real reason English Imperial measures are better", eg, "inch" is one syllable "centimeter" is four. [TE News #125 for more examples - scroll down from link])


Open Loop Air Heat Pumping (OLAHP)

   When it wasn't too cold out I managed to get a bit of work done on the indoor-outdoor heat exchanger component. I put together the 24 x 60 x 7.5 inch box, cut some insulation and got together fittings to join the pipes together.

   There isn't going to be much insulation above and below the zig-zag rows of pipes. I discounted in my mind how much room insulation takes up until I actually tried fitting things. The big faces, front and back, do get 2 inches each - leaving only 3.5 inches for the finned pipes, which are up to 2.5 inches square - just 1/2 inch front and back, much less top and bottom.

   I suppose when it's warm enough to work on it I won't really need it until next winter and I'll have many other things to do, so it might not get done for yet another year. I think I need one in my shop so I can heat the shop and work in cold weather without it costing a fortune. (In fact I think I actually need 3 or 4 of them!)


   I found I had a 3-1/4 inch hole saw, and PVC pipe that outer diameter as well. A building supply store had the matching 90° elbows. So I picked that size for the uncompressed air ducts through the wall.

Future Vision

   Obviously many would have these units installed in their homes to replace older, energy gobbling heaters, and just as obviously, there would be similar units designed for air conditioning in warmer climates.
   But it also occurred to me that the air intake and outlet pipes could just as well go through a window with a cover if one was reluctant to drill big holes through an outside wall.

   So ultimately we will probably see 'portable', 'retrofit' production units: single piece, plug-in OLAHPs with all three main components in one housing, supplying perhaps 3000 watts of heat with 300 watts of electricity at freezing temperature outdoors. Bring it home from the store, drag it into the house (it will inevitably be bulky), connect the two pipes or flex hoses through the window fittings, plug it in and go. Not quite as simple as a plug-in resistance heater, but not needing professional installation.

   Of course, first I need to demonstrate that it works. The theory certainly seems good. Condensation and water freezing in the pipes, especially where the air exits colder than outdoors, is probably going to be the toughest issue.
   If my six finned pipes don't passively raise the incoming air temperature enough to get high coefficient of performance (COP) for 3000 watts heat or whatever amount is required from the system, some larger or longer or more effective heat exchanger pipes would, because the same amount of air as comes in goes out - the exchanger need only reverse their relative temperatures, or as nearly as feasible.

   With a theoretical potential heating COP hitting 20 or more, if 10 isn't attained, maybe it'll only be COP 7 or 8. OTOH, maybe carefully designed production units will achieve COP 12 or 14 in freezing weather - and in weather above freezing but where heat is still needed?



Better Peltier Coolers Project

Well, duh! I searched AliExpress for "nitride ceramic" and came up with a number of choices of aluminum nitride, .6 and 1mm thick wafers, for a fraction of the price I paid. Many were quite small and had a hole in them - they were intended as heat sink insulators for power transistors. Wow! How could these have made it into power electronics but not into the absolutely most valuable place for them: Peltier cooler modules?

   I came up blank before, but I did a web search again, this time on 'nitride ceramic peltier' and came up with a couple of hints and a company that actually seems to have aluminum nitride Peltier modules: tec-microsystems.com . They have obviously taken this project much farther than I ever could. Instead of being the usual 40x40mm & "12V", they started off 'miniscule' (6x6mm) and worked their way up to 'tiny' (7x14mm). The ceramic was just .5mm thick instead of about 1mm. Voltages were way lower obviously due to the small sizes and hence small numbers of thermocouples (known as "pellets"). Thicknesses went from 1.4 to 2.6mm. (I don't know what the advantages of thinner are, but the thicker ones had higher "Qmax" ratings.)
   They also have aluminum surfaced modules. I had thought these would be impossible or impractical to make. They have some sort of flexible, electricly insulating adhesive inside holding the copper 'buses' (thermocouple interconnects) to the aluminum plate. Because of the flexibility they claim a million heating-cooling cycles of operation, and one of my two main disappointments (other than poor overall cooling performance) has been the notably short life of the regular modules.
   These don't seem to be available from any of the regular dealers AFAICT - only on their website. I hate to imagine the prices. (In fact, I think I searched the usual electronic components suppliers in my previous search rather than a full web search, so I didn't find makers who don't go through them.)

   But if I'm going to do anything now, I'm buying. I was only going to try to make them myself because previously I couldn't find anyone who was already making them. (So much for the aluminum nitride disks I just bought!) I think I could do no better "research" than to phone them and ask a few questions.

- Which type has the best thermal specs?
- What is the thermal resistance of the flexible adhesive in the aluminum Peltier modules compared to aluminum oxide ceramic?
- Are they pure aluminum or an alume alloy?
- How much better are aluminum nitride modules than aluminum oxide ones?
- What would you recommend to get a "best performance", that is, greatest temperature drop, in a Peltier camping cooler?
- Prices

   I emailed instead of phoning and asked these questions. There was a very detailed reply and he said the answers deserved a book. I may recur to this subject in more detail another time. To summarize some key points, one consideration I had been especially ignorant about was the coefficients of temperature expansion (CTE) of the materials used. One reason for the short life span of typical Peltier modules is that the CTE of aluminum oxide is half that of the alume alloy heatsinks they are attached to. (And, I would expect, also and more criticly, different from the copper circuit traces and thermocouples inside.) One reason tec-microsystems.com's ones with an aluminum outer skin and flex insulation inside last so long is that the CTE matches that of alume heatsinks. (And surely, the flex insulation within lets the 'pellets' inside adjust position minutely with temperature.) Beryllium oxide is toxic during manufacture, especially the dust, but okay as a finished product. He said "Manufacturers like Marlow (II-VI) use it for TEC manufacturing." I haven't looked up "Marlow".
   The aluminum nitride ones do have the best thermal performance specs of those TEC Microsystems make, with very high "Qmax"es for their sizes, but their CTE is only about 4 where the oxide is ~7.1, so they are a worse match for alume heatsinks. The more power you try to put through the Peltier, the more the thermal resistance of the skin matters and hence the worse the temperature drop/rise through it. The aluminum nitride ones can have higher power in a smaller space.
   When the Peltier is turned off, they will all have about the same heat transfer between the hot and cold sides because the bismuth telluride (BiTe) thermocouple pellets inside have substantially lower heat transfer (1.5?) than the surfaces (20+) and so are the deciding factor.
   Every installation needs to be individually evaluated to find the best match. He said it's hard to make a Peltier camping cooler with adequate heatsinks, so it's no surprise that they cool better at 9 or 10 volts than 12 by keeping the hot side temperature from rising as much.

  I was thinking higher voltages didn't help when I used the fabulous copper heatsinks either, but reviewing TE News #181, I see I didn't actually try higher than 10.5V - and that's where it got coldest. I should have tried higher - and still should.) The method of attachment to the heatsink is also important. (Hence my recently buying "the best" heatsink compound, also yet to be tried. But when I was using flex graphite "gasket" instead of heatsink compound, I was probably allowing the heatsink and Peltier to adjust separately for CTE.

   Since graphite has fabulous thermal conductivity in the plane (as opposed to across the plane as I was using it, which is good but only 'pretty good' by comparison), I wonder again if heatsinks laminated from layers of flex graphite bolted together with their edges contacting the Peltier might not make the best Peltier heatsinks of all. It would also have low CTE I expect, to better match oxide/nitride skin CTEs, perhaps giving them longer life? And it's cheap compared to copper. It's also something worth trying, and surely easier with the aluminum nitride Peltiers owing to their small size. I'll probably get a few and test both the aluminum and the aluminum nitride ones, and make a graphite heatsink to match, which may not need heatsink compound at all. When I'm not busy, ha ha.


Cabin Construction



Fat garage door fitted on the cabin

   I glued the styrene foam pieces of the garage door together with "gap filler" foam. The inside got an epoxied coating of light polypropylene (PP) cloth. It's rather transparent. The outside is to have "galvanized air duct" sheet metal (new metal from the refuse station). Owing to hurting my "tennis elbow" yet again in pounding out the bends with a wooden hammer, as well as the cold weather, I haven't finished flattening it or tried to put it on yet.

   I had to grind away a bit of concrete and plane down the somewhat warped board above to get the door to fit.

   I've decided to hinge it to open outward instead of making a track and having it "roll" up into the ceiling - simpler. I only think I can get away with this on such a wide door because it's so lightweight.

(And I really need to get the metal siding on the wall before a wind rips the Tyvec off!) If only the weather would warm up above freezing!



   Earlier in the month I had made and put in stairs to the room over the garage section. The mill didn't have 12 foot 2 by 10s and I used 10 foot stringers. They turned out steeper than I had expected and I put up a temporary railing. Steep stairs with nothing to grab are very dangerous.
   (The first step is really big until I get the downstairs floor put in.)



   3 x 5 foot landing from above. It's one stair step below the floor. ...Needs safety railings! (Not to mention two whole walls and a door on the room!)





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


Scattered Thots

* Someone sent me a link to a video on Bitchute where the maker was complaining about various sources of electrical noise causing tinnitus. He especially said that since 2020 when all the "5G" equipment was being installed everywhere, way more peoples' ears have been ringing. Maybe it's caused by ANY AC power at any frequency, not just 60 Hz power lines? This would agree with my original supposition from long ago (from hearing what appeared to be morse code) that it was from radio transmissions. At my present location so close to the 14,400 V AC power lines, any radio signals are drowned out by the loud piercing tone.

"The Root Cause of Tinnitus - Can we hear electricity?"
https://www.bitchute.com/video/FYei2fN7PZvd/

   Later I read a comment under a Youtube video ("WHY THESE MASTS ARE POPPING UP EVERYWHERE...") about measuring signal strength of 5G, that "My neighbors claim they started hearing annoying tinnitus like noise even before realizing there was a new mast in the neighborhood."

* Another commenter under the same video mentioned people getting headaches, itchy, prickly skin, and more. He said that at one mast he felt head pain and "pressure" near it. He measured the field strength and found it was way above Swiss and German legal limits. And he said he saw a lady go out of her way to walk across a muddy field to a bus stop to avoid the area of the antenna. And in Daajing Giids someone said that everyone in the few houses right around a (5G?) mast had cancer including himself.
   Electricity has grown around us over the decades with hardly a thought to the fact that the fields travel right through us and the long term - or even the more subtle short term - consequences of that. There is no question but that electric fields of all kinds and frequencies warrant far more study than they have ever had.


* I usually walk on the beach at lower states of tide when the big, flat sandy area is exposed. I should know better than to walk up near the high tide lines - sometimes I come back with all the bottles and bits of plastic waste I can carry. (And there's virtually never a plastic - bag - to put it all in!) I understand many remote beaches where no people live to cart it off are just awash in plastic.
   One day I went down with a 5 gallon bucket to get drying kelp for garden fertilizer. I ended up with half a bucket of plastic and a big, heavy chunk under my other arm. And some kelp mixed in - all to be separated again. A couple of days later I repeated that, and had to leave a very big plastic float behind for later.

Some big beachcombing finds including the aforementioned float


and the day's handful of plastic bits (the hand not dragging the float)
Hmm, no drink bottles or caps today

NOTE TO THE WORLD: I'm tired of picking up your plastic! The water is no place for it. If it has no other use, remember that most "single use" plastic, especially PE (LDPE, HDPE, UHMW, plastic bags, many food containers... also PP) is a simple hydrocarbon that burns the same as natural gas or propane: no smoke, no ash or residue, just water vapor & CO2. (It burns hot - just burn a little at a time. But it doesn't really save much firewood - maybe if I cut up the big pieces with a saw!)


* My microwave oven had such a dark grill on the door I really couldn't see inside. I thought there was a cup of coffee in it that I had placed there earlier, but I had already taken it. I started it carelessly without making sure - empty - and in a few seconds there was a sound and a bright flash. I shut it off. There was a burned spot on the side. I used it one more time, but then there was another flash and not knowing much about them, I decided I had better discard it. Just once, run empty, was a terminal mistake.
   I bought a new one. Same brand, even more obscure window. Worse controls and no reminder signal - in fact no indication at all that something has been cooked and is still inside. Sigh! (Why aren't there buttons to turn the light on to see inside? They have the light, they have a keypad - how hard could it be?)


* Some have taken to calling birds "avian dinsoaurs" and actual dinosaurs "non avian dinosaurs". To me this seems like an absurd mischaracterization.
 At least one long extinct line of birds also evolved from dinosaurs, as did marine and avian reptiles. Dinosaurs also evolved into mammals more than once, the last time creating the much superior placental mammals. Dinosaurs themselves evolved during the Triassic from other early reptiles or amphibians (frogs & toads; lystrosaurs), which evolved from fish, which evolved from lower life forms.
   If we follow this logic that everything is a dinosaur, then mammals are also "non avian dinosaurs" of some sort - but also not extinct. Amphibians must be "hybrid marine dinosaurs" and fish "unevolved marine dinosaurs".
   My point of course is that birds are not dinosaurs any more than mammals are, or any more than adult frogs are "land dwelling fish".


* Many negative trends, directions and events that would have been unthinkable in decades past have been, are, and surely will continue to be, taking place. I have documented some of them in past issues because the mass media, now all owned by a very small clique and all in unison either doesn't cover them at all or presents fictitious views of them, repetitiously and often word for word alike from every outlet, to direct the hearer's thoughts in a particular direction and fit a particular agenda.
   We might think of the Urantia Book's well known example of the image of a filthy, brutish caveman wielding a club - obviously a savage aggressor who deserves our hatred. Then we broaden the picture and see there's a woman and child behind him, and a hungry sabretooth tiger in front. Suddenly we admire him and are sympathetic instead - same brute! Often the present day mass media only shows us the first image to arouse our fear and indignation.
   It is well to be aware of major civilizational trends and ulterior agendas as they continue to arise and unfold, and to search for one's news from multiple sources and broader viewpoints, mostly available on line from some of humanity's deeper thinkers who are looking at broader pictures. The unwary are too often ensnared by the unscrupulous. Scams abound.

   But dwelling on the problems is of little value except insofar as creative thought may help generate solutions to them. Citizens should be involved in societal decision making processes, but in the present era channels through which to do so are are few, inadequate, and most often negative and "after the fact" - "protests" coming after politicians with no prior societal feedback have already made decisions. Being aware of problems, it's better to keep one's thoughts and actions focused more on the positive side. Negative thinking and actions (such as protests and demonstrations) tend to generate negative results and positive thinking good results. And it is the little things that each of us individuals does during our day that aggregate to make the whole world a better or worse place. (Remember that when you think "It doesn't matter!")
   IIRC it was Buckminster Fuller who said that to change a system, one must first envision a new and better system that makes the present one obsolete. That requires awareness of the benefits and the inadequacies of the present system -- and then positive creative thought.

* Hmm... the protocols that run the internet were originally built on programmers' ideas mutually submitted by "RFC's" - "Request For Comment". Nothing was "set in stone" without all the programmers first having had a chance to provide feedback. Could legislation be subjected to a similar public prior review process that might modify poorly thought out or cancel ill advised programs before they are enacted? Proposed legislation could be posted on a web site for public purview. (Today governments usually seem to legislate in a near vacuum of public input, and hence are easily swayed by vocal or wealthy special interests, ultimately leading to corruption.)
   If it would be chaotic to have a zillion individuals commenting, perhaps legislative proposals could be submitted to (or simply perused by) citizen "committees", "teams" or "think tanks" for well conceived, clearly voiced comment as agreed by the group? ...And then of course, perhaps such "ad hoc" - or perhaps formally constituted, qualified and recognized citizen organizations - probably concerned with a particular topic area, could also themselves research and propose legislation that would be socially valuable but which isn't high ranking in politicians' thoughts and agendas? (Perhaps they would be vetted/certified by some organization outside immediate government, recognized as the "citizen committee qualifying organization"?)



ESD
(Eccentric Silliness Department)

* They say Samuel de Champlain "founded" Montreal, as if perhaps he had made it in a foundry. "Found" is already past tense. For Champlain to say "I hereby found Montreal." is nonsensical because it wasn't there to find, so to use "founded" in present tense, we must find a different form. So he must say "I hereby finded Montreal" or "Today I am findeding Montreal."
   But when Aleric went to sack Rome, it was already there and he found it. (It wasn't hard because "All roads lead to Rome".) However when he left, Rome was no more. Aleric was the "unfounder" or "defounder" of Rome. While defindeding Rome, Aleric and his horde were looking for food. But (at least by the time the city surrendered and opened its gates) they were shocked to find there was no food in Rome. Thus in his motive for the confindering of Rome, Aleric was dumbfounded.
   Luckily neither Aleric nor Champlain spoke English. Their languages probably didn't have these particular grammatical idiosyncrasies to confound them.


* As seen from BC

- Near East: Alberta, Saskatchewan
- Middle East: Ontario, Quebec
- Far East: Labrador, Atlantic Provinces
- Beyond That: Made in China



   "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 Drivetrain


   The variable torque is to be controlled by what is essentially a large, low speed generator with the magnet rotor spinning on the planetary body and the "stator" spinning on the input gear, which is also the motor shaft. Where I used a small number of turns of thick wire in the 12 inch "improved Piggott alternator", I want this 10 inch one to go readily up to about 80 volts to put its juice into the "72 volt" Miles truck battery. (Let's see... about 75 turns of #15 wire?)

[18th] Whether or not I do the new version of the variable torque converter, the vibration in the drive train has to go before it can be used on the street, much less on the highway. I had to drive the truck out of the garage to make floor space (for epoxying my new garage door for the cabin), so as I've been meaning to do for some time, I put two hose/pipe clamps onto the rear driveshaft and clamped on a piece of steel bar (150g) because it's slightly off-center at the front and so out of balance. (Oh how I wish I had kept the original transmission, or at least the end "slip spline" piece that fitted properly into the driveshaft! That's why I have so much junk around - just in case. In this case I didn't keep it.)
   I went around the driveway loop and it seemed considerably better. Next I clamped another piece on the other side (30+g) and it seemed better. I found two pieces about 110g and replaced the 150g, also removing the 30g. That seemed best, fairly smooth to a higher speed, but at a certain speed a big vibration started up.


   I couldn't help but think that this must be in the motor shaft before the planetary, which turns five times faster than the driveshaft. But why? It's a long shaft, but nothing there is out of balance (AFAICanSee) and there's a steady bearing part way and it ends at the clamped-on planetary gear. What could be rong?

[20th] I had made the back end of the housing mount "springy" so that it could shift a bit for any misalignment. I took another video and I could see the whole housing vibrate. I stuck a wedge in that held it. It seemed a lot smoother until that fell out. That seems to be the problem. I need to attach the rear end of the box solidly to the frame.




Other "Green" & Electric Equipment Projects

Open Loop Air Heat Pumping ("OLAHP")



Indoor-Outdoor Air Heat Exchanger

   I put together the box then placed the finned pipes inside. I wished I had made it taller. 30 inches instead of 24 would have made it much easier to fit the pipes in, all in a vertical zig-zag, and it wouldn't have needed to be so deep front to back. Instead, at least one pair of pipes is going to have to be fitted behind and in front. OTOH 24 inches is the tallest that can fit between the baseboard heater that I never use and the window on the dining area wall.


[19th] I had been shopping around for some way to connect the pipes. The "zig-zag" arrangement needed very sharp turns. I had some 3/4 inch PVC pipe which I had found in 2020 that I could heat with an air gun and fit onto the 3/4 inch copper pipes. I wished there was a plumbing store where I could buy PVC pipe fittings. I bought some hydraulic hose thinking it might bend sharply enough without kinking. Finally I got my bucket of plastic plumbing bits from storage and to my amazement pulled out enough elbows and pieces to do the job! I should have looked there first.

[23rd] I started putting insulation in the box. I really hadn't reckoned with just how much room two inch insulation would take up on every side. It seemed too shallow to do front and back unless I had almost no insulation between the pipes, and still almost none between the rows. I ended up redoing it: no insulation at the top where it would be closest to room temperature and only one inch at the bottom. That provided three more inches vertical space to put all six rows in verticly, none front and back - still with very minimal insulation between rows. On the plus side, the front and back insulation, the large faces, could both be two inches, R10, leaving just 3-1/2 inches width air space for the 2-1/4 and 2-5/8 inch square pipe fins.


[26th] About the outer holes for the non-compressed air? I found I had a 3-1/4 inch hole saw. That would be much nicer than roughly cutting a hole out with a jigsaw. I drilled the two holes in the box... but what would fit into them? I looked on a shelf with pipes. I knew I had 4 inch PVC. Lo and behold, hiding inside that was a 3 inch piece. It was a perfect fit for the holes I had just drilled. I might have a really hard time finding an elbow and other fittings, but at least something went into the box. (Hmm... If I cut the pipe at 45° and glue it on the other way, it would be a 90° corner. Worst case choice.)
   I'd have done more work on it but it was too cold. Maybe I should do the test install in the workshop instead of in the kitchen & dining area? That also would have the advantage of not having a fridge periodicly at random adding other heat into the space, which made good measurements tricky in 2020.


[27th] I unsoldered and soldered fittings onto the finned pipes in order to let me connect them the way I want in combo with attaching PCV elbows and pipe bits by heat gun. 3/4" PVC pipe is a bit to small to go over 3/4" copper pipe... unless you heat it. Then it slides over and shrinks again as it cools, making a tight fit. A pipe/hose clamp makes sure of it. Same with 1/2" and 1/2". Using plastic fittings at al the bends creates thermal barriers to stop heat transfer along the copper pipes. (FWIW)
   Then I went into town. By some miracle the building supply store had 3" PVC elbows and I found them. It looked like they only had 4" PVC, all laid out in a bunch of shelf trays, but as I was about to give up, I spotted a box of 3" fittings across the aisle, all jumbled together. I'd guess they aren't getting any more. (No discount, tho - 12$ each!)



Cabin Construction

Styrene Foam Garage Door

   At some point I put in the stairs, then concentrated on making the one-piece pull-up garage door.




   At some point I glued the extruded styrene foam sheets together with expanding "gap filler" spray cans. (I remembered this worked well with my "superinsulated Peltier fridge" around 12 years ago.) With the 2 inch foam the insulation value of the door is R10. Pretty good for a door!

[20th] Yesterday & today I epoxied white polypropylene (PP) "landscaping" fabric onto one face of my extruded styrene foam garage door, which I had finally glued together with "gap filler" spray in recent weeks. (I finally finished off a ten year old gallon of "West System" epoxy and its hardener.) I suppose I should paint it.
   For this I drove the electric truck outside and used the heatable and relatively clean garage. I did my best, but it didn't turn out perfectly. As I suspected, everything shows through the thin layer, even the printing on the styrene. The plastic picked up some spruce needles and things by static and I missed some little bumps of the "gap filler" foam that I glued the sheets together with. They're all under the PP, visible and making bumps. But overall pretty good effect. I used my usual technique of putting the left over epoxy in the freezer overnight so it wouldn't set and I could continue in the morning with what was left and the same roller.
   My ideas for how to attach the door are still rather vague.

[25th] I took the door from the heatable garage to the cabin and set it in place to check the fit. I had to cut the "overhang" part off the bottom. It wouldn't quite go in as the outside frame wasn't quite square. I figured I'd have to cut the door down a bit.

[26th] I looked at it again and decided to change the frame instead: I ground off some cement where it rose up a bit at the bottom in one corner, and I planed off some wood from the 2 by 4 along the top, which was warped and bent down a bit in an area in the middle.






   Then I decided it would be easier and maybe better to hinge the door, opening out to the outside wall instead of having it roll up into the ceiling. It's very wide for hinging but also very lightweight. But the weather turned freezing cold and I haven't wanted to work outside, so there it has sat.



Electricity Storage

Everlasting Copper-Zinc Cells with Plastic Pocket Electrodes

Blended Copper-Nickel Hydroxides Positive Powder & Electrode

[6th] I decided that if copper by itself didn't want to recharge - except it seemed to to some extent as contained in cupro-nickel sheets - I should try and make a mixed nickel-copper oxide similar to the way I had for so long been trying to do with nickel-manganese oxides (AKA nickel manganates). Except now I know to dissolve them in acteone to form into epitaxial crystals as the acetone evaporates, and I realize that I should only charge to copper oxides voltages, not high enough to turn the nickel component into nickel oxyhydroxide.

I decided to make the ratio 60:40 copper:nickel, a 3 to 2 ratio, without bothering to try and count copper and nickel atoms. So with 21 grams of copper hydroxides in a jar, I would try something along the lines of:

Ni(OH)2 - 14 g
Mixed copper hydroxides (with graphite) from my own previous electrodes - 21 g
A bit more graphite - .5 g (Actual: .6 g. The scale settled .1 g above where it read when I finished adding. Grr! Still, not far off.)

   I measured them into a 100cc beaker and added acetone. As I stirred the hard lumps disintegrated, the colors blended to dark gray, and it made a thin paste. I put it on the hotplate at the "60°" mark to evaporate the acetone faster and hence presumably grow smaller crystals.
   In a while it was "burping" occasional bubbles that came up from beneath, and there was a thin layer of liquid on top. I poured off most of this little bit of excess. By bedtime it seemed powdery again and I turned off the heat.

   Of course mixing with a substantial percentage of nickel hydroxide notably dilutes the copper hydroxides with their fantastic amp-hours density. Making cells that work cycle after cycle without deterioration takes priority! [Later note: totally unnecessary]

Sky blue copper II hydroxide [Cu(OH)2] made by electrolysis in sodium nitrate solution


Parchment paper under microscope: very fine holes
[Later note: actually the best]


Coffee Filter Paper


Used coffee filter paper showing holes (lit from behind)
where powder would have been getting through. It's too coarse.



Cone coffee filter: very coarse and fuzzy.


At some point I made a zinctrode. Compacting a zinc "briquette" works poorly.

[7th] The powder still smelled a bit of acetone in the morning. I put it on the woodstove for a couple of hours to drive off the remnant. In the meantime I printed a new electrode box, this time mirror image to have the terminal on the other side.
   I cut & put in a coffee filter paper then 9.30 grams of powder, filled in loosely to the rim of the box. I scrubbed the used current collector and set it in, then the box back. When I pressed it down pretty heavily with my hands it went down until it was slightly recessed in the box. Then I bleached it in a jar lid of water and a tablespoon of bleach for ten minutes. I figured the liquid would soak into the dry electrode so I didn't bother to stir it. After that I rinsed it in the same lid with water, but I agitated it because it was already wet and the liquid might not circulate very well. All this gets out any remnant sodium nitrate, too. ...and some grains of the powder. I reglued a bit of the back that wasn't stuck. I could see powder drifting out there.
   The cell started off saying .151 volts. (Isn't bleach supposed to charge it? Or was that hydrogen peroxide?) Usually the voltage starts rising or drifting, but it sat exactly there. It started charging at just 52mA with the power set to 1.5V. 47mA after 10 minutes. 12:27, 38mA. Voltages briefly off charge, O/C and 50Ω load are rising. So it seems to be charging.

 12:09: 52mA
 12:11-12:17: 47mA
 12:27: 38mA, 1.1V, .86V   (Ante Meridian until ~12:48 here)
 13:32: 25mA, 1.2V, .97V

As it got a bit more charged I changed the procedure. Instead of very short and unmeasured times, I paused the charge and measured the open circuit voltage after 30 seconds, then immediately turned on the load and read the voltage after 30 more seconds. Once again, at these disappointing charging currents, it's going to take a long time to get to a few amp-hours worth of charge.

 15:32: 16mA, 1.261V, .972V
 15:52: 16mA, 1.245V, .981V
 16:22: 16mA, 1.262V, .986V
 17:54: 12mA, 1.290V, .944V Ouch, this doesn't look good! New tack: switching to 1.8V charge. Started at 72mA, soon down to 35.

   Higher and higher open circuit voltages, lower and lower drive voltages and currents... I suddenly realized the problem was nothing I had been thinking about. The CuNi current collector was becoming higher and higher resistance, losing connectivity to the electrode substance!
   The back of the box was well glued, but I managed to pry it off with a small knife without wrecking it. I removed the CuNi current collector. Resistances didn't seem high on an ohmmeter, so I'm puzzled. I cut out and installed a graphite foil one. It was much worse. But it does illustrate that connectivity to the current collector seems to be the problem. Or at least, something in the connectivity within the electrode. Maybe it's the powder itself expanding and losing connectivity, but pushing on the back to squeeze it against the zinc trode doesn't seem to help at all. Well, I'm totally frustrated now. I don't know what I haven't tried but I keep having the same or similar problems over and over again. [Later note: It was zinc passivation - not the copper side at all!]

[8th] I think it might have something to do with the charging and discharging. If you run it down to .5 volts with a 10 Ω load, it seems to strengthen it a bit. Then if you leave it charging at low current for too long, it weakens it and load voltages drop. There may be some charge-load cycle that will strengthen it for an initial formation - which I then hope wouldn't have to be repeatedly done. I think I'll have to make that microcontroller based automatic battery cycler I've been meaning to do for so long. When charge current drops to a certain point, stop charging and turn on the load. When it drops to .5 volts, stop and recharge. Repeat.

[9th] I made a zinc double-face trode. (at last.) I took the old single-face one out and put in the new one. For the two "plus" end electrodesI used the "current" copper-nickel hydroxides one and the previous copper-only one on the other side. I charged this for a while at almost double the current of the single one, and then ran a 10 Ω load. Unexpectedly it ran for for 27 minutes from over .7 volts down to .500 instead of, like 3 or 6 minutes.
   Has the zinc side been deteriorating? All this time I've considered the problems must be with the copper side. In charging the cell, the new trode made lots of tiny soapy [presumably] hydrogen bubbles, since I made it with metallic zinc powder so there was no zinc oxide to charge.


    Looking at the previous zincode, the face watercolor paper had absorbed a lot of copperish 'goop', probably bits of powder escaped from one electrode after another as I tried new copper electrodes. Or else, the copper stuff has been dissolving and migrating. (If so that would suggest the need for a higher pH than the 6.5 it seems to be working well at. Either way... Like a clogged funnel that won't drain, perhaps all that powder covering the face was the unsuspected, unexpected and previously unseen cause of the declining current capacity?
   After charging (?)an hour and more, the cell ran the 10 Ω load from .9x V down to .50 V in 50 minutes.

[
 Later Note: Wikipedia solubility table says

CuOH:     .0000007 g/100cc
Cu(OH)2: .0000017 g/100cc
CuOOH:   no figure given

Unless CuOOH is greatly different, those really aren't very soluble!
]


[10th] After charging overnight, oodles of bubbles and I refilled the water. It ran the 10 Ω load from .9x V down to .50 V in 95 minutes. Currents were a little higher at a given voltage too. (The 'Charge' - 'Off' - 'Load' switch is crap. (I got ten of these switches off AliExpress. "15 A, 250 V". They have burned out in every power application I put one in, and the switch's resistance changes even just running battery tests in mA! But I digress.)

So:
1 - 27 minutes
2 - 50 minutes
3 - 95 minutes
and by night
4 - 110 minutes
It looks promising!


   It definitely seems that running copper cells down to .5 volts (or so?) after charging strengthens them. This is probably only in the initial charging. After running a load, charge currents are high until the current drawn is replaced, then they get slow again. So once charged and then discharged it's "working" while the portion of the electrode's substance still in "initial state" doesn't charge very fast. So it looks like copper probably makes a viable electrode after all. It just needs special treatment, several or many "forming" cycles, after fabrication.
   Running it down to .5 volts must reduce the copper to the lowest oxidation level it will achieve - perhaps to metallic copper particles. OTOH in the electrode mixed with nickel hydroxide, it may not get quite get to metal. In fact after the discharge it recovered - eventually - to just 1.05 V. That too suggests the copper's oxidation state was pretty low, maybe mostly Cu and some CuOH - or equivalent in the mixed oxide one.
   I connected the two "+" trodes only with an alligator clip leed. That way I could readily disconnect them. While the copper-only electrode seemed weaker initially, I checked during recharging after the 95 minute test and it drew current about equivalent to the copper-nickel one. In a short 10 Ω load test the mixed oxides one held .85 V after one minute while the pure copper held only .71. (Both together were .94 V.) This would seem to validate the higher conductivity of the spinel crystalline structure. But if conductivity and higher current drive is the only object, perhaps the pure copper one could be brought up to a higher level with a few more percent graphite powder, rather than diluting the copper to 60% by adding 40% nickel substance. Certainly the amp-hours should be higher.

[11th] I didn't have time until afternoon. By then it had been charging so long that the voltage started out lower, at .85V and rising in one minute to .90V. But far from meaning the cell was weaker as I had kept assuming, under 10 Ω load the voltage dropped still more slowly than in test 4. By ~30 minutes the voltage was equal to that test (.86V), and from then on, higher. But it only lasted 5 minutes longer. The next test was shorter: I don't think I recharged it long enough.

5 - 115 minutes
6 - 90 minutes

   Short circuit current is only 280mA. This is pathetic and only 5.6ma/sq.cm of interface. To get to 50 that order of magnitude of improvement is still needed. A recent try had been over 15mA/sq.cm, which here would have meant 750mA. What happened?

[12th] After overnight charging the load voltage started even lower, .75V, but it was soon over .8 and it crept up to almost .85 over the first six minutes under load. In an hour it was similar to other loads at an hour. I turned it off there, .64 volts, thinking discharging to nothing every time might not be strengthening it.

   Something I've been noting all along is lots of bubbles from the negative and having to refill with a bit of water a couple of times a day or even before or during a load test. It would seem that I should make the cell housings with lots of room above the trodes for a water reservoir. Presumably it will stop needing more once it has been fully charged and if there's a cover over it.

   The more I see, the more I realize I have been taking the problem of separators much too casually. Some kind of membrane? But what?
   If I use a woven PP cloth ("landscaping fabric", "cloth grocery bags") it will doubtless have holes for powders to seep through. If I iron it, it will turn into a solid sheet of plastic. Maybe if I iron a coffee filter into a piece of PP cloth it could make a good separator that will let ions pass but not powder, however fine. But it can't be as fine as the parchment paper, which didn't let ions pass freely enough and reduced current flow.

[13th] Under the microscope I see there's a subtle difference in hole sizes between different brands of basket coffee filters. I'm going to use white "GK Connoisseur" brand. They seem to have smaller holes than "Great Value" or (I didn't check any brown filters.)

   I also belatedly thought to look at parchment paper under the microscope. It does have tiny holes and I'm surprised it doesn't work better. Maybe it too cloggs with nano powders?

   Under a microscope the black PP fabric that looked rather like woven cloth turned out to be a random non-woven with regularly spaced tiny spots fused by heat to make it "solid", if that's the right word - to keep all the fine strands in place.

Front Lit


Back Lit


t

   I decided to make a sheet with PP in the middle and coffee filter paper on both sides, with the iron set to "Extra Steam"; but I didn't use any steam. I had to do each face separately because the heat didn't go through the cloth. Holes showing light through in the finished "membrane" were small, few and far between, and even so they had fibers crossing them.






Pieces cut 50x50mm for new electrode(s)

   But even before trying a new electrode, I decided to try cutting the "clogged" watercolor paper off one side of the zinc and replace it. It turned out to be "rip" off rather than cut, exposing the doped cellophane paper. I decided to try it with just the cellophane. It too was soaked in sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate (herein "SDBS") and might by itself stop zinc dendrites. I put one of the copper electrodes in with it. (Three electrodes were really hard to get in and out. Two is easier.) It started out around 1.15V and dropped to .9x with a ten ohm load. Short circuit current was 420mA - a considerable improvement with just half the interface area... under half really, as the paper I peeled away wasn't the whole 50 x 50 mm face. Maybe I need to ditch the watercolor paper entirely?
   It started charging at over 100mA which soon dropped under 80.


   I had replaced the switch that had poor contacts, and now in checking the short circuit current I found another poor connection that has probably been degrading my readings: the bolt and nut on the terminal. I tightened it. With charging that current rose to as high as 530mA. If we call it 20 sq.cm of interface that's hit the 25 mA/sq.cm "good enough" mark, or 1/2 way to the more desirable target of 50 per, instead of the previous best of 17. If there are no zinc dendrites I'm definitely ditching the watercolor paper. But any leakage of powder from the copper side, however slight, will have to be eliminated.
   With some charging, discharge into 10 Ω started at a bit over a volt, 95mA current, and that's with just one copper trode and half the interface area. Things are looking up!

   But I figured powder would leak and clog the cellophane and so the whole thing would start deteriorating again. And in fact by later afternoon it wasn't quite as good. So I took it apart. It was worse than I thought. The cellophane not only was starting to accumulate gunk, it was ripped across the middle. And the coffee filter had disintegrated, leaving half the box weave wide open! The watercolor paper around the zinc was disintegrating too. Apparently I needed to re-think the whole system of separators, not just the one.
   And this in fact was what I saw as the biggest benefit to the separate tube electrodes in a jar: if powder leaked out, it would mostly just fall to the bottom of the jar. But I suppose while good for testing, anything that isn't "perfect" is going to deteriorate over time one way or another, so "perfection" needs to be achieved.

[14th] To do the zinc side, I ironed a coffee filter onto one side of the PP fabric. I set the iron a little hotter (to "cot") and everything melted together quickly. The shrinking PP fabric made it curl up. Then I set it up so I could iron the edges, and glued the PP fabric with the iron to form an envelope.
   It was really a "double" size envelope but I just managed to get a single sided zinc trode into it. The inward curl grabbed at the doped cellophane and tried to keep it out. (I should have made a metal spacer to keep the top wide open.)
   When it was in I ironed the top shut and trimmed off the excess.
   Then of course I soaked it in SDBS for an hour - "again" for the innards but first time for the new cloth/paper cover.




[15th] The cell didn't perform very well, and even less until I squeezed the electrodes together. Now I'm starting to think the problem is the zinc side. I have assumed it will charge from oxide to metal readily. But the last cell, with the negative made of zinc powder, worked better. This cell has the same substance, but I've noted that as it dries out when leaving it on the counter, it seems most of the zinc turns to oxide in the damp saltiness. And it swells up quite a lot. Whereas the zinc metal had a ziilion tiny hydrogen bubbles when charging the previous cell, in this one the water is placid since the oxide is charging back to zinc. So along with not being very well charged I don't think the connectivity is as good so the currents are lower. I could add a conductivity additive like graphite powder, but it's probably better just to never let all the zinc turn to oxide: always keep the electrode submerged and never let it dry.

   So... new zinc trode. Maybe half zinc, half zinc oxide. (And of course half a percent zirconium silicate.)




   Breaking up the lumps, on closer inspection they aren't "mostly oxide". A considerable surface layer is, but inside is more metal. But when I used the lump pieces it was the oxide that went against the current collector. This time I ground these up before reusing them so there would be some metal throughout. Then I added 5% graphite to improve conductivity regardless of state of charge.


   Looking at the copper box, the fab new fabric was colored with blue again. It had to be copper dissolving and getting through rather than powder getting through cracks. [Later note: apparently wrong. Holes; powder.]


 But when first made, performance was good even at the lower pH of about 6.5. Two things to try?:

1. raise the pH to 12 with calcium hydroxide, or
2. block dissolved ions from getting out of the positrode box.

   Raising the pH might just mean the same thing happens much more slowly and the cell lasts a long time. But not 'forever'.

[16th] So I decided first to try the latter. A while back I ran across a pricey 30x30cm sheet of Nafion that I must have bought years ago. (It seems to me it fell apart in an alkaline environment. Since that's where I was working, I only used one little piece.) I cut a 50x50mm square and put it in the window of a new box. I scooped the copper (or was it copper-nickel?) mix from a previous electrode into it.
   So, now we have dissolving zinc ions trapped by SDBS soap and dissolving copper ions [hopefully] trapped in a solid box with an ion blocking membrane in the window. Come to think of it, how could ions that dissolve and re-solidify, but can't migrate anywhere while they're dissolved, do any degrading during charge and discharge cycles?


   I had to make a new CuNi current collector - the terminal had corroded off at about the waterline/top of box. I think it was too much charging at 1.6-1.8 volts instead of 1.5 or less. (Why can't I get monel?) I think I'll extend the plastic of the box to above the waterline around the terminal tabs. That will also ameliorate the effects of any leakage around the terminal. (But leakage will still eventually cause trouble, I'm sure.)

[17th] The new cell - both electrodes - put together in the evening, was disappointing. It started charging at just 25mA or so and overnight dropped to 11. Discharge into 10 Ω started out hardly above .5 volts. Well, so much for Nafion!

   But it seems to need something if the copper ions want to migrate. [Later: wasn't the problem] I decided to try the same thing as in the zinc: SDBS. (After all, when the ions came out of the copper trode, they seemed to stop at the SDBS impregnated paper around the zinc.) I just soaked the previous electrode with the coffee filter/PP separator in the window for an hour. (Same as before: a tablespoon of SDBS powder in a 200(?)cc drink bottle of pure water - a refill because it was about empty and dirty with zinc.)
   That was much more gratifying, having similar performance to the initial performance of previous cells, with several tens of milliamps of charge current (@1.5V) and 360mA short circuit drive. I note the zinc wasn't well distributed inside its envelope, having tended to fall toward the bottom when it was turned upright. It seemed there was almost none at the top, so it was probably well over 15mA/sq.cm in practical terms. (Now, how do I uniformly fill zinctrodes when 'briquettes' just crumble?) And putting in spacers to squeeze the trodes together, more especially to squeeze the zinc envelope, definitely improved the current drive. I did it while running a 10 Ω load and the voltage crept up from ~~.85V to ~~.93V as I added more.


   Now the 64 thousand dollar question is, will it continue to perform, or deteriorate? As well as having many other things to do, I think I've just about reached the limit of my frustration and patience with this project for this winter if I don't have a really working battery or at least a clue why not.

[18th] I pried the last box apart and replaced the Nafion with the new composite fabric. I cleaned the current collector and sprinkled & smeared a thin layer of graphite onto the copper substance before putting the current collector back on. Maybe that will help the CC connect to the powders better? Then SDBS for an hour.
   The zinc is double sided and I put both copper boxes in, one on each side. The new one initially gave around 330mA sort circuit current, but after a while of charging was down to 275 or so. The other one was around 225. Both together were around 425. This suggests that the zinc side is probably partly responsible for the low currents.

[19th] Discharge voltages and currents dropped with charging and time again. Two things occurred to me. One was that I had forgotten to bleach the new electrodes. The second was that 1.5 volts might be too high a charging voltage for cells that are fully charged at around 1.3 V. 1.6 or more seemed to degrade the CuNi current collectors, but perhaps there was still something causing a problem at 1.5V? Worth exploring. I dropped the charge to 1.4V, then to 1.35V. Charging current didn't drop much. It didn't help. Output voltages/currents continued to decline.

[20th] I took out the electrodes. I put the zinc in water so it wouldn't mostly discharge. I dried the copper ones on the woodstove, then bleached them: each separately, a tablespoon of bleach in a cup of water for 10 minutes or more.

[21st] Maybe SDBS was the wrong gel for the plus side? I heated a little bowl of water and mixed in a teaspoon of agar. I put in one of the copper trodes and let the mix soak in. Then I reassembled the cell with just the zinc and that one copper. As usual it seemed to be working okay, but currents were lower. I finally put the other one (now bleached) in instead.
  As the zinc was fuller at the bottom than the top, I pressed the top of the zinc in a bit with extra spacers and the discharge current rose notably. Obviously it pays to have the zinc well "squashed" against its current collector - and I probably haven't got it very well yet. How can I make a zinc with flat faces if it settles to the bottom of its "envelope" before it gets into the cell? In fact, I'm starting to think that's the main problem with the cells.

   AHA! The more I think about it, the more sense this makes. When I opened the big flat cell last month, the zinc metal had largely turned to oxide and it had swelled from 4-5mm to 7mm or more - 1.5x to almost double. So as the cell charges the zinc oxide returns to metal and shrinks, and in doing so with no added compaction it loses connectivity between particles and to the current collector. So the more the cell charges, the worse the performance gets - exactly the symptoms I keep seeing. nothing to do with migrating copper ions. Then when I push added spacer pieces in, the ever dropping load voltage and conductivity go up again. So it would seem that the thickness of the zinc electrodes needs to expand and contract with charging and discharging. And the copper ones would probably do likewise, except expand with charge and contract with discharge. But it might not be even between the two sides.

[22nd] I think I'll try redesigning the electrode boxes so that they slide together like a cardboard box with separate top and bottom, with the faces having the mesh, and use them for both electrodes. The layers will be assembled into the bottom and then the top put on. Enough material will be stuffed into them so they don't quite close all the way. Then they'll be stuffed into the cell tightly to keep them squeezed closed and compacted. Sponge rubber will be placed at one end to keep them all pressed uniformly together as they expand and contract a bit with changes of charge state. I think this plan should work - if the powders don't seep out the edges.
   If I keep the boxes lying flat until they're all squashed into the up-ended cell, perhaps the powder will remain equally distributed instead of settling toward the bottom like my "no box" zinc trodes have been doing. I suppose theoreticly the paper wrapped zincs should be able to expand and contract, perhaps even more easily than "telescoping" boxes, but I'm going to try boxes in order to get them square and even. (Hmm... how do I seal around the terminal? need "Flex glue"? Separator fabric?)

   First, an experiment: take out fixed spacers and put in some with "weatherstripping" sponge rubber pushing on them and see how even the discharge voltages and current stay. I accidently left the cell on "discharge" overnight and it was down to about .12 volts, so there will be a great deal of charging over the day.


[23rd] The sponge rubber seemed to be of little help. Any manipulation of the electrodes - shifting their position, pulling one out and putting it back in... tended to be restorative. And there's powder getting out. The parchment paper with its tiny pores at least seemed to be keeping it in place. Others have used parchment paper successfully... was it really blocking current, or were there other factors I missed?
   Dang it, others have made electrodes before. Why am I having problems here?
   I had some white PP cloth (that I had just used for my garage door). It was lighter material than the black. I ironed a piece of that onto a piece of parchment paper. It made a very thin sheet with very fine pores. I cut two pieces of that for the faces of the new "telescoping" electrode box.

[24th] Reading again about zinc in electrodes and trying to find more info on volumetric changes during charge and discharge, found a fabulous paper containing a write-up on rechargeable zinc electrodes and their foibles:
Electrically Rechargeable Zinc-Air Batteries: Progress, Challenges, and Perspectives

http://chemeng.uwaterloo.ca/zchen/publications/documents/Fu_et_al-2017-Advanced_Materials.pdf


   Where I thought zinc was considered a "perfect" negative electrode except for the repeated mention of dendrites, it seems it actually has four problems with being rechargeable:

- Dendrites
- Shape changes
- Passivation
- Hydrogen generation

   I generally knew about these except for the passiviation. I add .5% zircon to reduce hydrogen generation. The dendrites and (I expect) shape changes should be eliminated by the SDBS preventing migration of the ions. Within the shape changes are noted the tendency of the zinc particles to amalgamate into larger clumps, reducing the active surface area touched by the electrolyte as well as shrinkage of the gaps for the electrolyte to flow. (I thought this was a serious problem mainly with iron electrodes, which is where I had read about this problem previously.) The hydrogen bubbling was also greatly reduced when I reduced the charge voltage from 1.5V to 1.4.

Hydrogen bubbling, esp. at higher charge voltages

   But it seems zinc oxide with its wide band gap is virtually an insulator at normal charge voltages. After being a soluble ion it returns and builds up at the electrode's surface. There it doesn't recharge to metal and the electrolyte is increasingly blocked. This is almost surely what has been happening to my cells all along, and it probably explains why physical manipulation of the zinc electrode improves it temporarily, disturbing the layer. (And I've been blaming the copper hydroxide side.) Why, in all the reading I've done about about zinc batteries and zinc electrodes have I never seen any mention of this before? This is the very first time I've seen a passivation problem mentioned. But even so, I had discounted such problems because the SDBS should prevent the soluble ions from migrating.
   Suddenly things seem to be falling into place. With thick electrodes the problem is worst, so it has manifest itself strongly and before I was happy for a while with how things were going.

   I think I was doing better with the manganese negative electrode a decade ago! At least I seemed to have got that one down to what seemed like a single main problem: continual self discharge via hydrogen bubbling from the current collector tab. (But I only realized what was causing the self discharge years later.) But with no soluble ions at all, Mn <=> Mn(OH)2 [~-1.5V @ pH 12] probably has much lower actual amp-hours capacity than theoretical.

[25th] I tried charging the cell at 1.6 volts to shock any passive oxide into charging. For a while it seemed to be getting better (higher discharge voltages), but then it started getting worse again. If I go any higher, or perhaps even at 1.6V, the positive side CuNi current collector will start dissolving.

   So... a new and modified zincode to try to solve the problem seems to be in order. Making it thin reduces the severity and increases cycle life. But my goal is to fix problems and get indefinite cycle life.

   The article mentioned adding 10% calcium (hydroxide) to the zinc. The electrochemistry evidently formed a complex of more conductive substances instead of just ZnO. That was for in alkaline solution. I already have the SDBS to chelate the zinc ions. What else might I try?

   I had made the new "telescoping" electrode box hoping to deal with volumetric changes. Let's see... a layer of calcium oxide painted on the current collector? And more graphite to improve conductivity at any state of charge? Instead of 5 wt% graphite powder in the last one, I decided to try 15-20 wt%. Being much less dense than zinc powder, 19% looked like maybe around 40% of the volume. Would that not put graphite between all the zinc particles and keep all the ZnO and zinc ions connected at any state of charge? And keep the zinc from amalgamating into large pieces?
   Perhaps those would modify the tendencies? Let's see... that would double the volume and the zinc would only be 80% of the weight, so it would go from 820 AH/kg to 656 AH/Kg. The volumetric energy density is cut in half. But if it works well the utilization should be very high. And with all that graphite, the amount by which it shrinks and expands on charge and discharge should be considerably reduced.
   I put together the electrode and submerged it in SDBS solution. A considerable amount of powder leaked out the "telescoping" crack around the edges and I decided it just wouldn't do. I printed one of the previous single sided electrode boxes. Late in the evening (along with doing several other things) I put it together, 'glued' around the edge with methylene chloride, then soaked it (same insides except single sided) in SDBS again.


[26th] In the morning I tried it out. The currents were very low, starting to charge on the order of 20mA instead of 80 to 100+. Oops, I forgot to put in the osmium doped cellophane sheet! Also I had used parchment paper ironed to thin PP cloth - that was a gamble that I may have lost. And there really wasn't enough zinc powder to compact well. Sigh! I suppose if the next try is better I won't be sure why.

   An absent minded guy like me should have a checklist. But then I have to remember to look at it!

NEGATIVE ELECTRODE (Single sided, box type)

[...1. Obsolete already! See new checklist under [29th]. I've modified that one too.

Pfew, did I miss anything? No wonder I do skip a non-self-enforcing step or two at times! Now I guess there should be a sequence list for the plus sides as well.]

POSITIVE ELECTRODE (Single sided box type)

1. 3D Print electrode box [same files as above]
2. Mix the copper hydroxide powder:
    Cu(OH)2 - 94% [active ingredient... or Cu, CuOH, CuOOH. NOT CuO - it doesn't convert to hydroxide]
    Graphite powder - 5 to 7% [conductivity enhancer]
3. Cut cupro-nickel (better: monel) current collector to shape. About 26 gauge would be better than thicker sheets.
4. Pound pinholes into it with pin frog & hammer, then flatten with hammer (IF it's thin enough to make that possible and double sided 'ode)
5. Clean it
6. Iron together thin PP cloth with the paper being used (basket coffee filter? Watercolor paper? Parchment paper? Or?...)
7. Cut the paper and put it in the window of the box
8. Weigh it
9. Dish in enough Cu(OH)2 mix to fully fill the box (if it's in Cu(OH)2 form, it only shrinks on charge & discharge)
10. Weigh it. The difference is the amount of Cu(OH)2 mix
11. Place current collector on top then box back on that
12. Glue it all shut with methylene chloride, ABS cement and heat glue (or just heat glue?)
13. Soak in bleach solution for 10 minutes
14. Rinse it 5 minutes
15. blot out excess water with paper towel

   Performance still sucks. I guess it's that parchment paper? [Later: No!] Ironing PP cloth to it didn't help it. Would multiple layers of coffee filters and PP cloth block all the powder holes and still let electrolyte ions through freely? I redid it with a thin PP cloth with coffee filter ironed onto both sides. Rather to my surprise that didn't seem to help. I put a little square of 1/8" ABS in the recess of the back of the box to put some squeeze on the zinc powder. That did help a little. But I'm wondering if I used plasticized cellophane. They don't tell you on the package if it is.

[27th] Running the cell over the day - mostly charging - the only thing that seems to help improved load performance is to get a better press on the zinc powder via the plastic spacers including the one in the recess. That did help a bit: the discharge voltage into "10 Ω" went up about 100mV to over 350mV/32mA instead of 250mV/20mA. Back to needing an order of magnitude and more of current capacity improvement!
   But within the disappointment there seemed to be one big improvement: it didn't seem to be getting weaker with successive charges. And there was much less bubbling from the electrode. The charge current was usually only unit milliamps, but it still seemed to be substantially less even for that current. Perhaps adding the large percentage of graphite to the zinc has solved the passivation problem?

[28th] I noticed that where the previous cellophane I had used had wrinkled up when I painted the dopant onto it, the new one didn't. I made a new double faced zinc box with no cloth, just the cellophane. This held the zinc in fine, but it worked like crap.

   While knowing it wouldn't last, I put a piece of zinc foil in between the two copper electrode boxes. After some time on charge - which started out way over 100mA - it put out much better load currents and voltages - almost a volt into 10 ohms. Short circuit current hit 400mA. That's still short of the desired or "ideal" 50mA/sq.cm (~1.0 amp), but at least it's in the ballpark. At this point some of the blame for low currents probably is in the copper side. But only the great zinc improvement made the copper weakness apparent. I had to make a "real" zinc'trode that worked.

[29th] I put the electrode I had made by ironing the edges of the cloth shut with the powder in it back in. Decent currents (10mA/sq.cm instead of 1) came back, but it will doubtless "passivate" again with charging. So I think I should go back to this format but with the graphite enriched zinc mix, and find the other roll of cellophane that I used before. (What was the name on that roll, again?)

  PP-parchment paper fabric envelope, ironed shut at the edges with heavier PP cloth
   In looking for the thin white PP cloth and the cellophane, I ran across rolls of copper "window screen" mesh I had purchased a while back. Mesh hadn't seemed to work as well as solid copper foil, so I hadn't used it. (But the copper mesh I had used before was coarser, heavier, expanded mesh. In this one the squares were about 1.5mm between thin strands.) A new plan came to me with this lightweight mesh: wrap it up into several layers. The zinc powder and copper mesh would all be all though the electrode and ideally no zinc particle would be even a millimeter away from some strand of copper current collector. Even a thick one should work great and with the graphite powder, I doubt there'd be much ZnO surface passivation. And there would be no such thing as a "single sided" zinc electrode.
   5 x 30 cm with a copper foil rod came to 9.3 grams. Maybe less mesh and a thinner rod next time.



Envelope ready to stuff in 10g zinc mix.
NEGATIVE ELECTRODE (cloth envelope type)

1. Mix the zinc powder:
    Zn - 85-80% [active ingredient]
    Graphite powder - 15-20% [conductivity enhancer]
    Zircon - .5% [hydrogen overvoltage raiser]
2. Make a PP cloth & parchment paper "envelope" (see description)
2. Make copper mesh current collector with copper terminal post
3. Paint a layer of calcium hydroxide on it
4. Dope two pieces of cellophane (or one larger to fold at the bottom) for both faces
5. Cover the outside faces of the current collector with the cellophane (doped side in) and put it all in the box
6. Spread the mesh out to open the top of the envelope wide
7. Dish in 10 grams of zinc mix. Try to fill the envelope evenly. (Note: metallic zinc will expand some when discharged to ZnO.)
8. Put another strip of heavy PP cloth across the top and iron it shut
9. Soak in SDBS solution for an hour
10. blot out excess water with paper towel

   I put that together and got it going by early evening. I extracted a piece of the old cellophane (crinkly) from a previous electrode and put that on one face, and I put a new doped piece (non-crinkly) on the other. I figure I should be able to tell whether it works better with the copper  on one side or the other, or if the type of cellophane actually isn't an issue. I also used parchment paper since it didn't seem to have helped to switch to coffee filter in the last rendition. Its holes are much finer than the coffee filter holes, but if I can see holes at all, how can it possibly block molecular size electrolyte ions? (The only powder that came out during handling was around the terminal. The PP wouldn't iron onto the copper, and I didn't bother with heat glue. Also I folded the copper foil terminal over, making an inside slot in it.)
   It seemed to work okay, with one copper'trode on the "crinkly" cellophane side. In fact, it seemed to be improving with charging before bedtime, rather than load voltages dropping. Tomorrow will tell more. (Dang! Somehow I turned the charge off before I went to bed, so it did nothing all night.) Short circuit current was only 170mA.

[March 1st] After about a 2 hour charge I tried another load test. It ran much longer before it hit .500V (38 minutes), starting off a little higher, over .7V for a few moments. A second test after about 3 hours of charging wasn't as good - it started just a little lower and lasted 28 minutes.
   While it was recharging at 33mA, I pulled out the zinc and turned it around so the non-crinkly side faced the copper. Charging current dropped to 14mA. However to my surprise it still put out over .63V with a 10 Ω load, which is probably not much different from the other side. Perhaps 10 or 20 mV lower?
   But it seems to me that there was much less hydrogen bubbling during charge when "non-crinkly" cellophane was in use. In addition to lower current it's probably charging with higher coulombic efficiency, that is, an amp-hour in = .95 amp-hours charge instead of .75 amp-hours and hydrogen many bubbles. Just a thought. Hmm... short circuit current is just 100mA instead of 170. I put it back the other way.
   A test in the early evening seemed much stronger again. It would always start around .7 volts when I turned the 10 Ω load on, but the times it ran to drop to .6 volts and then .5 volts (where I would end the test) got longer and longer. There was a place the voltage drop would slow to 2-3mV/minute, at first somewhere below .5V, then just above, then 5.25, then 5.4. Sometimes it would stay above .7 volts for up to 30 seconds, but only on shorter charges. Charging currents right after a load gradually rose from 45mA to 55 to 64 and stayed higher longer.
   But the last load started at a lower voltage and ran a shorter time. I wasn't sure if it was deterioration or just not a long enough charge. And then I hit another idea, made a new electrode, and didn't run it again. (I was getting ahead of myself. I should have kept trying it - an overnight charge and a load test would have ascertained whether performance was continuing to improve or if some zinc passivation had set in.)

   There may be better cellophane?... or something better than cellphane? Or... what if I just doped the PP cloth and parchment paper on the inside before I folded up the envelope? It would use more dopant, but there would be one less layer altogether.
   I got enthused and put together this electrode. I forgot to check the checklist until almost the end and found I had forgotten the calcium layer on the copper. Too late! By then it was late. I put it in the cell and on charge for the night. Charge current was very low and I thought I might have just made another version like the "uncrinkly" cellophane.

[March 2nd] I ran a 10 Ω load test. Voltage seemed low. I fell below .6V in 20 seconds. But it ran for 15 minutes before dropping to .500V. It started charging at 45mA, which is more like the better side of the previous one. If it didn't seem to be as good in a day or two I would put the previous one back in for further tests. In the next test it did much better - roughly comparable to the previous electrode.

[March 3rd] A test in the morning gave similar results to the previous day - No deterioration. It would run for 1/2 an hour or so from about .7V until it was down to .500V. Current obviously still sucks. 50mA is only about 2.5 mA/sq.cm. 50mA for half an hour is only about 30mA-hours, but it was by no means exhausted, only its feeble current capacity overdriven. After this test, once it was already down to .5 volts, I switched to a 50 ohm load without recharging and it put out .813V, 16mA for 15 minutes before beginning a very gradual descent. In half an hour it was still at .8V. Here it started dropping by about 1mV/minute, then a bit less. I turned it off after 120 minutes at .717 volts.
   But with a well charged cell all the voltages should be nearer if not over 1.1 volts. I am really hoping to be able to multiply the mA/sq.cm figure by 5 or more - somehow. But low current capacity by area can be compensated by having a large interface area, ie, having many of these electrodes all in parallel in a longer box, which at the same time gives huge storage capacity. Two electrodes only give about 20 sq.cm, But with two-face electrodes each additional one adds another 20 sq.cm. (I'm not about to try doing rolled up electrodes.)

   After a few days the initial voltage dropped more and more. The graphite helped, but didn't solve the problem. One more thing I can think of to try is acetone. "To be Continued..."



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      East
                            (carport)

January 2024
29th 915.35, 8.51, 65.42, 47.14 => 3.48 [55Km; 12800@18:00]
30th Double OOPS! (and right at month end yet!) (prorated 1.74 as .74, .05, .50, .45)
31st    (prorated 1.73 as .73, .04, .50, .45) [50Km; 12868 (prorated)]

February
01st 918.76, 8.72, 66.84, 48.74 => 1.73 (prorated 1.73 as .73, .04, .50, .45) 5.20 [12873@18:30]
02d  922.59, 8.87, 68.91, 49.92 => 7.23 [12895@21:30]
03rd 925.34, 8.94, 70.90, 51.80 => 6.69 [55km; 12931@21:00; 50Km]
04th 929.18, 9.03, 73.09, 53.90 => 8.20 [12953@18:00]
05th 932.04, 9.08, 74.63, 55.32 => 5.87 [12980@17:30]
06th 932.83, 9.16, 74.96, 55.72 => 1.60 [20Km; 13002@18:00] Power failure through heart of the day cut solar to grid way down.
07th 935.20, 9.25, 76.80, 57.18 => 5.76 [13028@17:30]
08th 936.38, 9.39, 77.39, 57.91 => 2.64 [13051@18:00]
09th 936.75, 9.49, 77.51, 58.15 =>   .83 [85Km; 13085@17:30]
10th 939.68, 9.62, 79.65, 59.97 => 7.02 [70Km; 13124@21:30; 50Km]
11th 944.92, 9.66, 82.45, 62.98=>11.09 [55Km; 13152@18:30] Now that's sunshine!
12th 949.24, 9.72, 85.02, 65.46 => 9.43 [55Km; 13185@18:00]
13th 954.09, 9.80, 87.09, 67.78 => 9.32 [13208@22:30]
14th 959.74, 9.87, 89.54, 69.67=>10.06 [55Km; 13231@18:00]
15th 965.56, 9.94, 91.89, 73.28=>11.85 [13251@18:00]
16th 968.47,10.22,94.24, 75.55 => 7.81 [13270@17:30]
17th 969.78,   .09, 94.85, 76.35 => 2.82 [55Km; 13309@21:30; 50Km]
18th 971.11,   .16,     .61, 77.11 => 2.77 [13322@17:30]
19th 976.62,   .20,   3.61, 80.38=>11.82 [13344@18:00]
20th 978.90,   .25,   4.75, 81.75 => 4.84 [50Km; 13395@18:30]
21st 980.00,   .29,   5.19, 82.36 => 2.19 [13418@18:00]
22d  984.40,   .35,   7.17, 84.64 => 8.72 [13440@19:00]
23rd 986.96,   .42,   8.24, 85.87 => 4.93 [90Km; 13480@19:30]
24th 990.24,   .47, 10.12, 87.52 => 6.86 [55Km; 13524@21:30; 50Km]
25th 994.99,   .51, 11.91, 89.74=>10.63 [13555@19:00]
26th 1001.49, .58, 15.53, 94.12=>14.57 [13582@18:00]
27th 1004.87, .65, 16.60, 95.75 => 6.15 [60Km; 13622@18:00]
28th 1008.29, .74, 18.31,   1.72 => 6.94 [13638@18:30]
29th 1014.55, .82, 21.16,   5.52=>12.99 [13659@18:30]

March
1st 1016.13, .88, 21.68,   6.14 =>   2.78 [13683@19:00]


Chart of daily KWH from solar panels.   (Compare February 2024 (left) with January 2024 & with February 2023.)
Days of
__ KWH
 February
2024
(18 Collectors)
 January 2024
(18 C's)
 February 2023
(18 C's)
0.xx
 1
 14
1.xx
 2
 6
 4
2.xx
 4
 3
 6
3.xx
2
 4
4.xx
 2
 2
 1
5.xx
 2
 1
 4
6.xx
 4
 2
 4
7.xx
 3
 1
 2
8.xx
 2
1
9.xx
 2

10.xx
 2
1
11.xx
 3
1
12.xx
 1

13.xx


14.xx
 1

Total KWH
for month
 201.53
 68.18
 132.46
 Km Driven
on Electricity
 967.2
(130 KWH?)
 1117.8
(160KWH?)		 713.1 Km
(110KWH?)


Things Noted - February 2024

* The abysmal power generation figures of a cloudy January, following a cloudy November and December, when one says "Why bother?" started looking up again in February.

* In fact this February was FAR sunnier than February 2023!

* In 2023-2024 the solar systems provided about half of all the power used here. This was owing to some sunny weather and to using less power overall.


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

Month: House system (+ DC system at house) + Cabin system = KWH made [used from grid]

2019
March 1-31: 116.19 + ------ + 105.93 = 222.12 KWH - solar [786 KWH used from grid] (10 solar panels total)
April - 1-30: 136.87 + ------ + 121.97 = 258.84 KWH [608 KWH]
May  - 1-31: 156.23 + ------ + 147.47 = 303.70 KWH [543 KWH] (11th solar panel connected on lawn on 26th)
June - 1-30: 146.63 + 15.65 + 115.26 = 277.54 KWH [374 KWH] (36V, 250W Hot Water Heater installed on 7th)
July  - 1-31: 134.06 + 19.06 + 120.86 = 273.98 KWH [342 KWH]
August 1-31:127.47 + 11.44+91.82+(8/10)*96.29 = 307.76 KWH [334 KWH] (12th solar panel connected on lawn Aug. 1)
Sept.- 1-30: 110.72 + 15.30 + 84.91 = 210.93 KWH   [408 KWH] (solar includes 2/10 of 96.29)
Oct.  - 1-31:  55.67 + 13.03 + 51.82 = 120.52 KWH solar [635 KWH used from grid]
Nov. - 1-30:  36.51 +   6.31 + 26.29 =   69.11 KWH solar [653 KWH used from grid]
Dec.  - 1-23: 18.98 +   .84* + 11.70 =   31.52 KWH, solar + wind [711 KWH + 414 (while away) = 1125 from grid]

2020
Jan.  - 6-31: 17.52 + ------* + 10.61  =  28.13 KWH, solar+ wind [1111 KWH from grid]
Feb.  - 1-29: 56.83 + ------* + 35.17  =  92.00 KWH, solar + wind [963 KWH from grid]
* The solar DC system was running the kitchen hot water tank. Now it's only running a couple of lights - not (usually) worth reporting. So there's just the 2 grid tie systems: house and "roof over travel trailer" (AKA "Cabin").
One year of solar!
March - 1-31: 111.31 +   87.05 = 198.37 KWH solar total  [934 KWH from grid]
April   - 1-30: 156.09 + 115.12 = 271.21 [784 KWH from grid]
May    - 1-31: 181.97 + 131.21 = 313.18 KWH Solar [723 KWH from grid]
June   - 1-30: 164.04 + 119.81 = 283.82 KWH Solar [455 KWH from grid]
July    - 1-31: 190.13 + 110.05 = 300.18 KWH Solar [340 KWH from grid]
August- 1-31: 121.81 + 83.62   = 205.43 KWH Solar [385KWH from Grid]
Sept.  - 1-30: 110.68 + 65.09   = 175.77 KWH Solar [564 KWH used from grid]
Oct.  -   1-31:   67.28 + 42.55   = 109.83 KWH Solar [1360 KWH from grid -- Renters!]
Nov.  -  1-30:   35.70  + 20.79  = 56.49 KWH of Solar [1301 KWH from grid]
Dec.  -  1-31:   19.78  + 11.31  = 31.09 KWH Solar [1078 KWH used from grid]

2021
Jan:   25.47 + 18.58  = 44.05 KWH Solar [1185 KWH used from grid] (1 solar panel moved to DC system only -- 11 panels)
Feb:   47.18 + 33.22  = 80.40 KWH Solar [1121 KWH used from grid]
Two years of solar!
Mar:    81.73 +  55.22 + 2.2 (DC) = 139.15 KWH Solar [1039 KWH grid]
April: 161.83 + 112.35 + .44(DC)  = 274.62 KWH Solar [680 KWH from grid]
May:  156.25 +  97.22 + 1.29(DC) = 254.76 KWH Solar [678 KWH from grid]
June: 197.84 + 112.07 + 2.21(DC) = 312.12 KWH Solar [& 448 KWH from grid] (Connected 12th solar panel -- 13 panels total but one goes to DC system only.)
July:  204.35 + 121.21 + 4.06(DC) = 329.62 KWH Solar [426 KWH from grid; 150(?) KWH used by Nissan Leaf]
Aug:  176.19 + 102.91 + 5.37(DC) = 284.47 KWH Solar [477 KWH from grid; 165 KWH (est) used by car]
Sept:   94.35 +   51.34 + 3.30(DC) = 152.29 KWH Solar [590 KWH from grid; 155 KWH (est) used by car]
Oct:    77.52 +   41.85 + 4.10(DC) = 123.47 KWH Solar [1066 KWH from grid; 150 KWH (est) used by car] (2 new panels on pole making 14 -- but they are mostly in shadows all winter.)
Nov:   34.69 +  18.92 + 3.82 = 57.43 KWH Solar [1474 KWH from grid (ouch!); 140 (est) used by car]
Dec:   24.00 + 5.22 + 3.76 = 32.98 [1589 KWH from grid (ouch again! Must be the -10°'s); 120 KWH used by car] (New switches allow switching some panels between AC and DC as needed, so all 15 panels are productively employed.)

2022
Jan: 32.83 + 20.54 + 4.57 = 57.94 KWH Solar [2556 from grid] Double ouch! Trailer 400W heater, Perry's RV 500W heater, bedroom heat, car using extra power (100 KWH with less driving)... and so little sun!
Feb: 66.63 + 32.09 + 3.42(DC) = 102.14 KWH Solar [1118 KWH from grid; 130 (est) used by car]
Three years of solar!
March:128.53 + 82.29 + 3.66(DC) = 214.48 [1124 KWH from grid; 160 KWH (est) used by car]
April: 251.29 + 149.87 + 3.01(DC) = 404.17 KWH Solar [911 KWH; est. 170 KWH used by car]

May: 255.01(house)+6.46(DC)+140.46(carport)+145.91(cabin)=547.74 KWH Solar [933 KWH from grid; 140 KWH (est) used by car; Bitcoin miner using extra power from 22nd on.] (3 new solar panels on carport roof -- sunniest location around -- total 18 panels)
Jun: 234.54 + 2.10 + 160.70 + 139.18 = 536.52 KWH [from grid: 864 KWH - dang bitcoin miner!]
July: 232.12 + 4.57 + 143.03 + 139.65 = 519.37 KWH Solar [from power grid: 710 KWH; 165 KWH (est) used by car]
Aug: 205.57 + 4.20 + 157.88 + 137.47 = 505.32 KWH Solar [from grid: 561 KWH; 145 KWH (est) used by car]
Sept:165.52 + 3.97 + 132.24 + 104.29 = 406.02 KWH Solar [from grid: 856 KWH; car used (est): 165 KWH]
Oct:   97.96 + 2.86 + 78.76 + 59.04 = 238.62 KWH Solar [from grid: 1067 KWH; car used (est): 143 KWH]
Nov:  47.37 + 3.30 + 37.81 + 26.43 = 114.91 KWH solar. [from grid: 1504 KWH; car used (est): 120 KWH]
Dec:  31.05 + 3.11 + 29.46 + 16.35 = 79.97 KWH Solar. [from grid: 1266 KWH; car used (est): 135 KWH]

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 (est): 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]
"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]
Oct KWH:  94.26 + 2.70 +   55.01 +   56.11 = 208.08 [grid: 842; car: 170]
Nov KWH: 45.70 + 3.10 +   24.35 +   15.91 =   89.06 [grid: 760; car: 120]
Dec KWH: 28.96 + 2.43 +   15.58 +   10.96 =   57.93 [grid: 815; car: 110]
2024
Jan KWH: 31.37 + 3.14 +   16.85 +   16.82 =   68.18 [grid: 909; car: 160]
Feb KWH: 96.52 + 2.36 + 49.67 +    52.98 =  201.53 [grid: 791; car: 130]
FIVE Years of Solar!


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. March 2022-Feb. 2023: 3793.37 KWH Solar [used 12038 KWH from grid]
5. March 2023-Feb. 2024: 3891.35 KWH Solar [used 7914 KWH from power 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$
5. 466.96$ ; 1945.68$ ; 3891.35$

   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$/KWH by now the way inflation of diesel fuel and other costs is running.)
   With about 4000$ worth of solar panels and maybe a couple of thousand in related equipment (and not considering my own labor) in terms of overall net benefit and savings of diesel fuel to BC Hydro, the installation has already paid for itself maybe twice over. In terms of savings on my personal electric bill it has quite a way to go. (But solar panels continue to get cheaper and to generate incrementally higher powers per panel.)



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