Turquoise Energy News #206
Covering Research & Development Activities of July 2025
(Posted August 8th 2025)
Lawnhill BC Canada - by Craig Carmichael


[Subscribe: email to  CraigXC at Post dot com ; request subscription]
Main URL TurquoiseEnergy.com  Also at craigcarmichael.substack.com


Month In "Brief" (Project Summaries etc.)
* Another 50 Amp T-Socket (+ extra info about the design) - Supercorder Straight Flute Making Instructions - Puzzling Power Monitor Readings - Thinking toward new chemie battery Production - New Electric Hubcap type Motor (breaking huge project into three; making coils) - Plastic Recycling 2.0

In Passing (Miscellaneous topics, editorial comments & opinionated rants)
* Electrosmog - Electrosmog in the Faraday Cabin - Ultrasonic Audio "Smog"
* ESD
- Detailed Project Reports -

Electric Transport - Electric Hubcap Motor Systems
* Making the Mythical New Electric Hubcap Motor: - separating the unmanageable project into three - Coil Winding with ilmenited epoxy - motor controllers

Other "Green" & Electric Equipment Projects
* Solar Deep Well Pump
* Haida Gwaii Gardening - Fruit & Nut Trees - Corn - Greenhouse
* The Claw-Hoe: a Better Hoe for Weeding - ?
* Plastic Recycling 2.0 (...for Motor Housing parts - see under Electric Transport)

Electricity Generation
* The usual Latest Daily/Monthly Solar Production log et cetera - Monthly/Annual Summaries, Estimates, Notes


July in Brief


Apricots in the greenhouse!
3 dozen ripe fruits from a spindly little Moorpark Apricot tree I bought just last year, bending the whole tree way over.
I had to break off about 70 when they were small so the branches wouldn't break.
Still it all bent over. A branch touched the ground. Straightening now that they're picked.

   The gardening report is in the "Other Projects" section.

   I went to put up the 36 volt T-Plug house wiring infrastructure components on line at Thingiverse.com .  I had some trouble logging into my account after all these years and with a new e-mail address, but somehow managed to do it and change my address without requiring human intervention. By that point I only uploaded one design: the three receptacle wall plate. There it sits waiting for more!

   After putting up scaffolding at the end of June, and having to turn sideways and sidle past it going up and down the stairs all this time, I didn't manage to do any work on the inside of the cabin. I did however get a helper for one sunny day and we took all the metal siding off the East wall, cut it all 1/2 inch shorter, put some flashing under it to direct rain away, and put it all back up. Water had been running down the siding and wicking in underneath - even being directed in by sheet plastic and tarpaper under the sill plate, rotting the plywood sheathing, and eventually the wall frame itself. Luckily I hadn't yet drywalled some of it. I finally noticed from inside and figured out what was happening.
   The new solar power system also sat idle, waiting for the electrician. He's been busy but has been moving it ahead, ordering lamacoid labels and parts and getting info ready for an electrical inspector. (On August 5th I got quite the shock: an 811 $ bill just for a PERMIT to do the wiring! (presumably from the BC government since I'm not even in a municipality.) All to do one connection, from the solar panels through an outdoor switch box to the breaker panel.
   At the energy symposium in September a BC Hydro rep told me there was a 75% rebate for an individual home solar installation if it's on a diesel powered utility grid. This seemed really good - only believable because BC Hydro spends around 70 cent/KWH for diesel and sells us electricity at the BC price of 12-14 cents. I asked him to confirm what he had said applied to an individual home. He said it did in the presence of a second rep who didn't contradict him (but who may perhaps not have been listening). It would be worth it for them, so it made sense.
   From "a few thousand" then for this solar power system I'm up to at least 14000 $ out of pocket when the real terms turned out to be "50% rebate, maximum 5000 $" -- a splash in the pan (~25% of the cost) to save BC Hydro a lot of pricey diesel oil and me a few hundred $ a year! For me it's now something like a 15 year payback. I feel scammed. If it wasn't for the winter months when the need for power is greatest and there's almost no solar to be had, one might consider just getting big batteries and going off grid. The equipmentis cheaper if it doesn't have to be approved... and the work inspected. In some climates it could be worth it.


Another 50 Amp T-Socket (+ extra info/thoughts about the design)

   Continuing from June, near the start of the month I made another 50 amp T-socket, for a plug-in in the cabin. I think this is the first illustration where I've shown it with the wires. "+" comes out one edge, while "-" comes out one face. (Here the "-" wire is being held in a vise helping to keep the pose for the picture.)
   With the heavy wire pigtails (AWG #8) the largest, deepest "regular face" electrical box is desirable if not vital.  especially when I've added two 20 amp sockets to the same wall plate for convenience. (Maybe I should extend the borders of the wall plate to make one that can be used with a wholly larger size electrical box?)
   Again, the blades of the socket and the inserted plug are pressed together by the spring, to "theoreticly"  make contact all along one face of each blade. With my design, the spring is a loose piece with no electrical connection, held in position by the assembled shell. The inspiration for this came from the original T-Plugs, but there the springs are external, attached to the plug blades. This is easier to make. If I was able to change the original T-Plugs (used for 20 amp outlets & plugs) to make them more ideal for house wiring, I would do them like this and make the blades 10 mm long instead of 8. Like the "HAT" plugs/sockets I created before I found T-Plugs, and which are so similar the plugs actually fit into T-sockets. But without a manufacturing facility, this is impractical. I did the 50 amp set myself because I couldn't find anything suitable available, and because it fit with the "T-Plug" philosophy.

   Gosh, I ought to 3D print another socket for the kitchen, where I put in an inferior draft version where the nylon filament wasn't extruded hot enough to make the socket solid.


Supercorder Straight Flute Making Instructions

at TurquoiseEnergy.com - URL in image is gone

   From September 2003 and on through 2006, quickly tapering off in 2007, I created the Supercorder, a marvelous "21st century" alto blockflute. Other wind instruments (transverse flutes, clarinets, oboes...) had undergone various improvements in the 19th century and were made louder, but "recorders" were still stuck on simplistic designs from the 1600-1700's with relatively weak and uneven sound, and no way to fine tune while playing. The sound is beautiful, but they were inadequate for playing in a modern orchestra, concert band or other ensemble.
   I modernized the alto recorder, over a century after most other woodwinds. I made about 20, of improving characteristics, as I went on. I could and did play the new instrument in amateur orchestras and concert bands (usually oboe parts, sometimes flute) as well as in music jam sessions. The unique sound was often much appreciated. But of course I branched off into other endeavors and soon made them no more. I still play the one I kept for myself but here on Haida Gwaii there are no appropriate ensembles to play it in.

   I didn't create it just to let it die there and be forgotten, but other exciting new things keep taking my attention away... and now it's been 20 years! I've long meant to "write up some instructions" so others could recreate this wonderful instrument without having to reinvent it. I got earnest about it this month.
   I measured up the bore reamers and wrote the exact dimensions (critical!) for every point along their length, and the tone and bolt hole positions from the drilling jig - details vital and specific to this instrument. Of course, as I worked I started thinking of more and more details. Making metal keys and all that entails... Jigs, tools and my unique techniques for various things... The keyhole surrounds in the wood... How to set key pads on keys... Porcelain beaks (with the special shape for the fine tuning hole)... Windway dimensions and how-to... How to tune the instrument...
   Was I writing something for experienced woodwind makers, or did I have to go over a lot of basics - things it took me two or three years to learn, even including tutelage from a lady who repaired woodwinds? I decided that experienced makers were probably going to stick to making the instruments they already knew and were marketing. To get a new enthusiast(s) to venture into making "supercorder straight flutes", and perhaps make a business or career out of it, I would have to bring beginners up to speed on all the relevant topics. If I can do that, someday someone somewhere will get the ball rolling again.


One example of the many bits of info and illustrations someone would need to make this flute:
my angle iron jig for drilling 15 inch long bore holes through the
instrument body piece and still come out near the center of the wood at the far end

   Finally I started to realize I wasn't writing a few simple pages or a "pamphlet" of instructions but a whole book - even a considerable tome. There's solid weeks of writing to be done. This is inevitably going to take time away from other projects. (No wonder I've put it off for 20 years!)


Thinking of new chemie battery Production -- ?

   Two chief problems in my experiments were sufficiently compacting positive electrode materials, and keeping them compacted in the cell. I could solve the first problem for nickel hydroxide electrodes by using the "+" material from nickel-metal hydride dry cells. Those cells worked well for a while until the second problem raised its head, causing deterioration. (That's why they cram them into metal cans!)
   When I made cupro-nickel 70:30 sheet metal electrodes, they also worked well for a while - really well - but deteriorated rapidly. But I've had the thought that monel ("nickel-cupro" eg 60:40) powder might do better, even without compacting it much. All the insoluble nickel hydroxide would hold the soluble higher-oxide (valence +3) copper hydroxides/ions in solid solution? And then there's the SDBS* to stop dissolved cuprate ions from escaping the electrode, just like with the zincate ions. Only 1.2 or volts or so, but it should make an everlasting cell with Great energy density. Meanwhile large lithium batteries are doing a lot of damage worldwide, even burning dwellings and sinking ships. An alternative or replacement is surely needed. This is probably worth an experiment or two.

(In the news I saw an older Nissan Leaf like mine that caught fire at a fast charger. First time I've heard of a Leaf burning. I think I won't ever try fast charging mine!)

* SDBS: sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate


Puzzling Power Monitor Readings

   In the cabin power system two identical DC Power monitors read charge and discharge from the battery. The one on the load side says "0.0" if nothing is turned on. The one on the charge side says "11.2 W" (or so) at night when no solar energy is coming in. This "zeroing error" adds up to around 8 fictitious "KWH generated" over a month.
   I decided to swap them. But when I did, it was still the one in the charging that wasn't zero, this time the other monitor. I tried shorting both sense wires to the same side of the shunt but it didn't help - still 11.2 W. To be sure I had actually swapped them, I swapped them again. Still whichever one is on the "charge" side doesn't zero. even with the solar panels and charge controller breakers Off. I'm mystified.
 (The monitor in the house system's charging circuit also reads not zero: "2.1 W" - not so bad, still a mystery.)


The Mythical New Electric Hubcap Motor

   Having some years ago conceived of a better "unipolar" axial flux BLDC motor and motor controller plus a few improved ideas in the meantime, I finally decided to break the project into three separate projects, each of which would be a valuable accomplishment in itself and not dependent on the next one. The first was to make the BLDC motor. I conceived it could be run as a regular BLDC motor wired as "delta" instead of "wye" and rewired for unipolar operation later with the same coils. Then I could buy and wire up a "regular", "off the shelf", BLDC motor controller.

   The other two pieces of the "total" project, the unipolar motor controller and the "induction powered" brushless electromagnet rotor, can be put off until later or even indefinitely.

   Then in thinking of the regular BLDC motor controller, I then got the idea that by tying one leed of each coil to B+ and the other ends to the the three motor controller drive outputs, one could get unipolar operation from the bipolar motor controller. Just one phase of each three would be on at a time, and all would have the same polarity. (I thought for a bit one could wire 'north' coils to B+ and 'south' to B- and have a finer torque ripple curve, but then I realized that trying to do this with three outputs in place of six would tie coil ends together so they would be two in series from B+ to B- when the output was unpowered.)
   It seemed that there was insufficient reason to make my long-planned six phase unipolar motor controller if the job could be done - at least adequately - with a commercially made three phase one. That eliminates project two entirely. Project three can stay on the "wish list" for a long time too if the car runs well with the original motor.

   I (at last) continued work on the motor by winding the 12 coils, each 27 winds of #11 wire.
   Each coil will take the full 36 volts rather than being effectively two in series (18 volts each) as in "Y" configuration.

   I added the ilmenite [nano powder] to the epoxy. I don't know why I never thought of that before, when I was always having so much trouble with it flaking off the outside.


It seemed to me the next thing was the plastic plate "end bell" to hold the coils. And it seemed I would have to make the plate myself - from recycled plastic.


Plastic Recycling 2.0

   So on the 23rd I finally finished the large oven for melting plastic, begun so long ago and sitting outdoors under a metal roofing sheet. (2022; TE News #164-169,171) I thought I would have to remove the ex-freezer's inner 'tub' and replace the melting foam insulation with something that would take the heat. Then I decided to put some mineral wool insulation right inside all around, so that the foam insulation wouldn't get too hot. That's what I had done on the lid. I bent up the oven element to make it narrower and put a small piece of metal roof under it so it wasn't right on the mineral wool.

The lid fit really badly. The mineral wool sticking up helped. Then some boards stuck in around the edges.


   Then I took a metal frame that I scrounged for this very purpose in 2022, and cut it up to make supports inside the oven. With several tens of pounds of weights on the mold lid, the mold needs to be well supported!


   Plastic melting oven put off for 3 years, operational in a day!


   Oven with first mold inside, ready to melt.


   After that I went through a few iterations of trying to make a nice plate of polypropylene. I set the oven to 205°C (400°F). It seemed to be too hot! The plastic stuck really hard to the mold plates. The next one popped off nicely, but the third one stuck fast again. Both times it stuck I had to scrape and re-polish the mold plates. Yuk!


Here is a whole "not very brief" gallery of plastic pictures for anyone interested to end "July in Brief".

Otherwise, here we run into August and the Tlell "Fall" Fair.

"Contour map" - insufficient material to fill the space


The back side was nicer




Really glued on! I had to heat it up to 75°C again to get it starting
to come off at all - and even then I had to chisel some of it off.
Still a mediocre result

   Then I decided to try 180°, and oiling the mold plates with canola oil, and a different plastic: polyethylene from a large fishing float. I cut it up pretty small as it was all curved and big pieces stuck up a lot. 3 Kg of it fit in the mold better than 1 Kg of ropes.

At 180°, plates buttered with canola oil, and with 40 pounds of weight on top, the polyethylene didn't flow very well.
It did however pop right out of the mold.

This time, 80 pounds of weights


It came out better, but still not a solid, square plate.
I think I can get it there. Solid, dense material for the motor end plate!
   The second try with more weight was better but still didn't flow sufficiently. I'll have to try a higher temperature - maybe 186°. But I'm going up slowly. I really really don't want pieces stuck hard to the mold plates again!


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


Electrosmog in the Faraday Cabin

[15th] I didn't seem to be getting the sort of tinnitus relief in the cabin that I was getting a year ago when I started sleeping there in the summer. This was especially puzzling when I thought that only the 60 Hz power lines were the cause. Now that I understand every frequency through to at least UHF (WiFi, cell phones, centimetric and perhaps even millimetric waves) contributes, and as I brought computer equipment into the cabin, I started being affected by new and previously unsuspected sources.
   Most especially, I have been feeling like my tinnitus starts getting worse and worse in the morning while I'm still in bed. How could that be? Was I imagining it? After an hour nap in the afternoon it seemed worse instead of better. I had turned the laptop OFF and unplugged the DC to DC power adapter. What on earth else was there?
   Suddenly it dawned on me that the main solar charge controller, notwithstanding that it's "MPPT" with a "steady" DC voltage output to the batteries, must nevertheless regulate the voltage by some form of PWM in the DC to DC conversion. The fluctuating readings when I tried to make a "dump load" device that measured the solar panels' voltage demonstrated that. That would be On-Off voltage switching at probably 16 to 100 KHz - supersonic. (15 KHz, maybe even 10 KHz, is now supersonic to me.)
   It starts charging when it gets light out. In the summer that's 5 AM or whatever. By the time I'm getting up it's switching several hundred watts, charging to make up for the electric heat I've been running all night. Likely there's the aggravation. Whether it's supersonic audio (actual vibration, humming) or supersonic electrical field I don't know, but it explains the timing really well.
   Last summer, 2024, the charge controller was "temporarily" mounted on the far wall. Then it had been moved to the center of the cabin, much closer to the bedroom.
   But the charge controller is in a metal housing! I checked with a meter. The DC voltage on the housing was jumping all over the place. It wasn't grounded. The perfect electrical noise shield already surrounding the unit was left unconnected! I connected a ground wire to the distribution ground and to one of the controller's mounting bracket screws.
   I decided I wasn't satisfied with that. I flipped off the solar panels' breaker and disconnected the charge controller. I also shut off the AC source power supply that I had set to 38 volts in the event the batteries became too discharged. (It has never been needed since the earliest times of setting up the 36V DC system.) Let's see if a couple of mornings without it at all are better, and then try it with the shield and see if whether it gets bad again or not. It's finally warm enough that no heat is needed at night. The batteries could probably run lights and computers for weeks.
[Aug 3rd: It's better. I'll be moving it outside entirely, into an equipment box high up on the far wall!]

[17th] It seems better with the charge controller off. If, as seems only too likely, the charge controller hums audibly at whatever supersonic frequency it switches at, grounding the case won't help. The conclusion I reluctantly came to was that it will have to go on the outside of the wall in a box. ...the east wall at the north corner, where I had it "temporarily" just inside with the batteries, and where all the solar panel wiring comes to. ...up by the eaves.
   In fact, the little power adapters that power things like computers should be outside, too. Yikes! I set my laptop with an alume base and an alume pizza tray over it, both grounded, with just the display sticking out. I can sit a few feet away using a USB hub and cables to the mouse and keyboard, and with the text in the editing window greatly magnified. (I bought another display, but I've been unable to get the computer to output to the HDMI video port. I also run the laptop off its battery while I'm there, and turn it OFF when I'm not using it but in the room. When I go to leave I shut it down (or "sleep" and plug in the DC to DC power adapter to recharge it.

Laptop sitting on metal plate, covered by baking tin except display.


It's all grounded.

   It's a diabolical machine. There's no worse electrosmog than the intentionally broadcast WiFi, and it turns it back ON unbidden whenever the computer powers on, with no indication that it is on, not even a tiny icon! Unless I remember to turn it off (after it has finally booted up, told me to enter my password then showered me with distractions bringing up menu bar, icons and windows), or until it dawns on me that my tinnitus is getting worse, it just sits there blasting me. WHY is there no setting to default the WiFi to OFF?!?

   I bought a VGA to HDMI adapter and got the new display working from the old laptop. The larger display makes it good enough for writing with.

Here's a taste of some of the "electrosmog" stuff at researcher Magda Havas' website (MagdaHavas.com) on electrosmog. If I'm noticing tinnitus and it's only the least hidden of many effects from EMF fields and radiation, the whole area is potentially of more than academic interest to a lot of people. Someone I talked to thinks a lot of people (in Victoria BC) are going around in a "brain fog" since they put in all the "5G" cellphone towers, and he says his car radio completely breaks up into static when he passes by places where they are known to be.

<<
This "allowable exposure standards" table shows the nonchalant treatment of the whole subject area by the West compared to what researchers who were probably more biased toward "playing it safe" came up with. Havas says the American standards were based only on occasional exposure by telecomm workers, not for men, women and children to be subjected to them "24-7" at home, work, school and everywhere - even by multiple sources and frequencies at once.

The table is from: Influence of High-frequency Electromagnetic Radiation at Non-thermal Intensities on the Human Body (2001) - A review of work by Russian and Ukrainian researchers)


No Place To Hide – Newsletter of the Cellular Phone Taskforce Inc., Volume 3, Number 1 – Supplement, 33 pp.

1. Introduction
2. Natural Electromagnetic Background
3. History of Research in the USSR
4. Physical Approach to Resonant Absorption of Low intensity HF EMR
5. Reception of EHF EMR at the Cellular Level
6. Experiments on Animals
7. HF EMR in Medicine
8. Mechanisms of Action of EHF EMR on Biological Objects
9. Standards and Normalization of HF EMR
10. Effects of High-frequency Communications Media on Human Health
11. Discussion
12. Conclusions
13. Appendix
14. References
>>


Ultrasonic Smog

[28th] A month or so ago I had discovered that DC to DC power adapters evidently 'humming' at maybe 50-100 KHz were a big tinnitus problem, and probably from actual ultrasonic sound waves rather than from their electric field. (AC power adapters are probably little better except for generally being lower power capacity and housed in a sealed plastic case blocking much of the sound.) I had moved it to the floor downstairs and made a long cord to bring the power upstairs to my old 19 volt laptop. [It's slower, quieter and WiFi & networking can be turned OFF until manually turned ON again.]
   One morning I thought, after it being On a while, that it was still aggravating my ears even from 10(?) feet away through the gap under the door - and maybe through the floor and wall too!
   I took one very long cord and made a second one, and threw the converter outside the far door of the cabin. Surely that will afford relief! At least until it rains, the unit shorts out, and my laptop blows up. Hmm. I put a bucket over top of it. (As if on cue - drizzle!)

   If I wasn't sitting in a "Faraday Cabin" with very low electrical noise, in the morning after my tinnitus having been somewhat quieted down from sleeping there overnight with everything (especially including the adapter) unplugged or off, I probably wouldn't have noticed. It would have been just one more unsuspected ear/tinnitus aggravation of many, an innocent looking little box.

   The solar charge controller also seems to be a source of ultrasonic smog. I've found an large electrical box and plan to move it outside on an outside wall far from where I usually am - the side where the power lines are anyway. In fact, probably up by the eves well above where people are (outside or in). In the meantime, if I'm in the cabin it's turned off.

   I tried online to find some meter to measure ultrasonic audio, or all audio up to (at least) 100 KHz, but I drew a blank. Most audio level meters it seems crap out somewhere below 10 KHz.

Scattered Thots


* This seems exaggerated. I once heard that sometime in the 1950's 10$ would buy a week's groceries -- probably that was for a family. I remember bread at about 25 cents a loaf around 1967. In the early to mid 1970's 20$ might have got a full cart.
   But if the time scale is off, it's still illustrative! In July 2025 I just paid 37.59 $ for one nice big carrot cake. (I was in shock when the price came up on the cash register. I almost put it back.)


* The "private central banks" system makes currency into a pyramid scheme. Money from thin air is "loaned" to the government. The government then "owes" the money back with interest. The money to pay the interest can only, in the final analysis, come from borrowing more money.

   Governments will spend what they will. Wherever the money comes from, it is incumbent on them to be prudent and spend wisely on the public's behalf. Wouldn't it be better to have the public treasury simply print the needed money itself? Then nations wouldn't be "in debt". The money wouldn't be "owed back" to make bankers rich, men who have done little of productive value to create the wealth they assume possession of. The end of government interest payments alone would cause a lowering of taxes. Of course, greedy bankers have always found some misinformed person with a grudge to murder national leaders who try to eliminate private central banks. Andrew Jackson was the only one on whom the guns misfired, and the US was rid of private central banks for 80 years until Christmas 1913.
   Reckless, unproductive spending (by governments... and citizens themselves) and private banks able to conjure money into existence (central and otherwise) have both contributed to impoverishing the citizens of nations round the world.



* The Nazis conquered Germany by force before they went on to attack other nations. At the Nuremberg trials someone asked Hermann Goering something like "Weren't there people in Germany who objected to this?" Goering's chilling reply: "Not above ground."
   I had an uncle (my mother's sister's husband) who was in the Canadian military. Shortly before he died, he confessed to his family that in World War Two he had been an assassin for the Canadian government, killing people the government didn't want around.
   It was wartime, but is the parallel not disturbing?

ESD
(Eccentric Silliness Department)


* The schizophrenic went on a relaxing vacation hoping to find some peaces of mind.



* Pi = 3.14159 ; 1/2 Pi = 6.495

   "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

Making the Mythical New Electric Hubcap Motor


Breaking Daunting Project Into Three Smaller Ones

[18th] I couldn't seem to get on with this motor plan - for years now. Now I think to break it down into three separate projects, each of which would be "complete" in itself without doing the next one(s):

1. A 12 coil, 8 permanent magnet poles "Electric Hubcap" type motor along the lines of my previous versions with improvements I've thought of over the years including for more robust construction and mixing the ilmenite into the epoxy for the coils.
   I've recently realized that it can be the same motor for either bipolar or unipolar operation. I was already going to make it so the coil wire ends poke out and are connected externally, so it can be easily reconfigured. If I wire it up "Delta" instead of "Wye", then the coils will have the same voltage and so the same number of windings for either bipolar or unipolar operation. At 36 volts that's about 27 or 28 windings instead of the 20 or 21 of my previous "Y" wired motors. 27 winds of #11 wire is exactly three full layers of wire.
   I will also just complete the Hallbach configured permanent "supermagnet" rotor that I started making some months back. Forget the improved but more complex rotor with electromagnet poles to be powered via induction instead of troublesome brushes & slip rings.

   That means I can build Just the motor similar to the way I've built them before (with all the latest of course), and simply buy a BLDC motor controller instead of having to make the unipolar one before I can make it run. Curtis, known for reliable motor controllers, seems to make several variants, a couple of which should work fine and hopefully still use the old Curtis handheld programmer that I already have.
[Aug. 3rd - Hmmpf: On line I've contacted 3 Canadian Curtis distributors and none have bothered to reply.]

2. Once the car is on the road via "1.", and if I then decide I have time to spend on it, I can build the unipolar motor controller. I suppose unipolar isn't a vast improvement in reliability given that I finally decided it would actually have to have both high and low side mosfets for best efficiency (the high sides being used only for synchronous rectification). So "shoot through" currents are still possible. (What are the chances of any controller I make even being As reliable as a commercially made motor controller of a quality brand?)
   Still I think it should have the efficiency "edge" by not reversing the magnetic polarity of the iron particles in the coils and so it avoids that bit of hysteresis inefficiency and heat. [Unipolar motor controller ideas are scattered in various issues of TE News from 2016 on, where I made and used one on the "ARM", a feeble attempt at an "Axial flux Reluctance Motor". It got unexpectedly hot largely owing to use of simple diodes instead of synchronous rectification.]

3. Finally if I still want to I can delve into the further intricacy of making a new electromagnetic coils rotor, with the new "induction" technique for powering the rotor coils (rather than slip rings). [An appropriate configuration with a "U" shaped inductor primary and two rings on the rotor to match was shown some TE News issues back.] I could change the rotor without significantly changing the rest of the motor. This rotor would be able to turn down its magnetism as RPM increases. This would give the motor more torque (and hence power) when running at higher RPM's, ie with the car at highway speeds. This will or would mean adding complexity and induction transfer components as well as the coils rotor itself.

   Time moves on and I'll probably be happy just to FINALLY make the motor, put the Sprint car on the road to demo a great "ultra efficient" axial flux BLDC motor, and leave the (formerly futuristic) refinements to someone else.

   I started getting out stuff to make coils. It took me a while to locate my ilmenite, which don't think I've used since I moved from Victoria. (It was near my other "pottery" chemicals, but in another box hidden under some clutter.)

[19th] I set up the coil winder, having somehow managed to keep all its parts together, and got everything ready. Then I mixed 10 grams of ilmenite, 10 grams of epoxy 'hardener' and 50 grams of epoxy resin ("West System" epoxy) to make just 70 grams of ilmenite infused epoxy. After mixing it I poured 1/3 of it into one little plastic cup and kept 2/3 in the other. I put the 2/3 in a freezer so it wouldn't set (for a couple of days, anyway).

   I wound the first two coils, painting illmenited epoxy onto the iron powder core before the first layer and then onto each new layer of windings. When each coil was wound I used a cable tie to prevent it from unwinding. But I also remembered a trick of pulling the wire across the winding handle so it wouldn't unwrap if I had to pause and let go during the winding.
   It was still tacky at bedtime. I can't put the coils in the oven to cure them faster the way I used to in Victoria because this cursed oven has no "warm" setting below "much too hot", at no particular stated temperature. (That makes it no good for raising bread dough in, either.)


[20th] I gave the coils (now set) another coat of ilmenite/epoxy from the cup in the freezer and set them in the sun in the morning, then wound two more in the afternoon. The direct sunlight got the epoxy to set pretty rapidly. When they were ready I gave them their outer coat. In the evening I wound a 5th coil, but had to stop there as the mix was nearly gone and I didn't want to mix another batch so late.
   I wonder that I never thought in past times, with all the troubles I had getting the ilemnite not to flake off, to mix it into the epoxy. I guess I was thinking that it was just supposed to be on the outside where the epoxy was inside the windings. Even then it would have been easy to mix it with epoxy and paint it on the outside. (And why shouldn't it go within the winds as well as around them? Probably better! In fact, why wouldn't one want magnet wire makers to add ilmenite to the insulation? Probably even better!)

[22nd] I finished winding the coils, giving them a second coat of ilmenited epoxy, then (when set) filing off excess epoxy and touching them up.

Council of Motor Coils in session. All those FOR making a motor raise your tentacles!


Unipolar Motor Controllers Are Commercially Available!?!?!
(Then, this boy is DONE with making motor controllers!)

   I started thinking about motor controllers again. The original reason for wanting a unipolar motor controller was so that it could use low-side mosfets only, eliminating the possibility of a short circuit from having top and bottom transistors both transiently come on at once. That would probably drasticly improve the reliability of my home-made motor controllers. Then too, it was to eliminate the iron hysteresis losses associated with repeatedly reversing the magnetic polarity. (Of course, with the ilmenited iron powder coil cores, those losses are already much reduced over typical motors.)

   But if one is to have high-side mosfets anyway for synchronous rectification, where is the reliability gain? And if commercial car motor controller makers are making them essentially 100% reliable now, it's the law of already diminished returns. The Kelly controller worked great in the car until two phases of the motor shorted. (Which said I should change the motor wiring techniques, not the controller.)
   Then I started thinking about wiring the motor in Delta instead of Y. Delta is fine for sine wave AC... but if A and B are on, aren't the two legs going between A and B through C "half on", backwards? Is Delta even a legit configuration for a BLDC motor? Would "C" have to be switched high or low instead of the usual choice of leaving it unpowered?

   But one could gain a three-phase unipolar operation by tying one side of each coil to "B+" instead of going either Delta or Y. Then it would get the full battery voltage when the coil's other wire is driven low.
   Furthermore, the magnetic polarity of the coil can be set as desired by reversing the ends of the wire regardless of the electrical polarity.
   Furthermore [wait... this doesn't work! But read on.], that's only using the low side drivers and getting three phases. One could tie the other half of the coils to ground instead of B+. Then they would be driven ON by the high side mosfets, at the phase angles right between the low side driven coils. Again, the unpolar magnetic polarity is independent of the electrical polarity.

   Thus it seems we can make a six-phase unipolar motor controller out of a three-phase bipolar controller. It's all in the configuration. Well, DUH! Here I finally have a simple answer to something that looked really complicated. ...like adding the ilmenite to the epoxy and other great simplifications occasionally and finally found for vexing problems.

   From this moment I'm going to drop any and all ideas about making my own motor controllers. I haven't been very successful at it in past efforts, and if I can't improve on an available commercial product, there's little point to it.

[23rd] Oops: Wired in delta, if each output of three is taking one coil low and one high, the two coils are going to be in series from B+ to ground when the output isn't driven. It can be made to work but by only using the low side drivers, so no coil is ever driven "south", only "north", in a three phase manner. More torque ripple, but it's simpler.


Moving on... The next task is the housing. Metal is out for electromagnetic reasons. I want to make it of polypropylene, but I was unable to buy a sheet of it a while back. The obvious thing would be to make it out of old PP ropes washed up on the beach. That meant getting back to the plastic recycling project I had started 2? 3? 4? years ago. So that occupied the next days.
Oven, not pretty but ready in a day! added rock wool insulation,      
bent-up oven element (on gray metal), shelving for molds          
[23rd and on] I finished up the large size plastic oven I started making from a discarded freezer about 3 years ago. It went faster and more easily than I expected. Then I scraped and polished the mold plates, still with baked on crud from its last use so long ago. Finally in three bakings in the now temperature controlled oven, I cast a thicker plate of PP than any before. But there were still a lot of air bubbles causing voids under the top mold plate. By early August things were looking more promising. I cover this in more detail under Plastic Recycling


   Of course, that was it for progress on the motor itself.

[August 7th] Last night it occurred to me that while the low side drivers of one phase of my own KBL36301 Kelly controller were burned out, I could use just the high side drivers for unipolar operation. What? I don't even need to buy a motor controller? What about the synchronous rectification at turn-off? Or does that go through the other two phases? Did I damage the board too much for the rest of the controller to work when I was futilely trying to repair it?
   Okay, it might, or might not, work.


Other "Green" & Electric Equipment Projects

Solar Deep Well Pump


[15th] 3 or 4 years ago I bought a "solar deep well pump": "24 volts, 300 watts". It had a solid state control box with BLDC motor controller and that type of very efficient motor. According to the web page info, it sounded good enough for my 67 foot deep well. Now my 36 volt DC systems are running great and could surely supply the well pump even in winter, since it usually doesn't run very long. On top of everything else, if the well pump was DC, I could turn off the 240V AC going under my bedroom to the shop at night and eliminate it's strong electric field. (Electrosmog/Tinnitus reduction)

   A while back I also bought two 25 amp DC to DC converters to reduce the 36 volts supply to 24 for the pump. I finally got the pump out of storage and read the instructions. Great zot! It would run on 36 volts! As a bona fide solar pump, it would run on pretty much whatever solar panels would put out, up to 48 volts abs. max. That's simpler, with no DC to DC needed. Too bad I didn't read the booklet earlier. In fact, the supply voltage specs were identical to those for the 36 volt pump... which the web page hadn't offered me. There the choice was 24 volts or 48. Hmpf!

Pump Controller


Pump Controller Opened

   I connected the pump wires to the controller and made a long #16 AWG cord with a 36V plug on the end. I took it outside to a rainwater barrel. Then I thought to put in a switch so I could turn it on right at the pump, and quickly off again if needed, instead of it coming on as soon as I plugged it in in the kitchen without me seeing it start up.
   I plugged it in and went out and flipped the switch. Water gushed out of the pump. It didn't seem very strong and didn't spray out of the barrel, but it sprayed and I couldn't slow it down trying to put my hand over the outlet. The pump was running at 3400 RPM and drawing 310, 334 or 350 watts depending which meter you believed. A bit under 9 amps at 35 volts. (The actual battery voltage was still over 40 - too long of too thin wires!) The voltage will be higher when installed and plugged in nearby the power box in the garage. The power to the actual motor deep in the deep well will however go through around 130 feet of wire. (AWG #12)
   I wired my test switch from "COM" to "TH" - "tank high". In this case, it'll be "tank up to pressure". When I flipped the switch On the pump stopped. It didn't seem to resume when I turned it off. Perhaps it has a time delay. I wasn't into waiting around for what might be 30 minutes.




Gardening



[17th] I picked (after rinsing, de-stemming and cutting off occasional bad bits) 300 grams of strawberries, adding to the 100 I picked from the earliest crop. I ate a few and froze the rest in a ziplock bag. I should have picked a larger bag - it's already full.
   Then suddenly no more. They're "everbearing" through summer but with the crappy weather there seems to be a pause after the first crop. Now there's lots of runners going every direction.
   What to expect from a 4 by 5 foot berry plot?

Outdoor Fruit & Nut Trees

   Originally I had a circle of fence wire (of some sort) around each fruit tree. Then I planted a "pollinator" pear inside with an apple tree. Sometime I ended up with the walnut and an apple together. This was murder to maintain. Grass, weeds, ferns and even woody plants would grow inside the fence circles and through the wires, making them hard even to remove to get in.

   This month I ripped out most of these. I cut some stakes/posts and did one large fence around all except the farthest pear over.
   I came back and found the chickens inside. Great, they could root out some weeds and bugs! But I wondered how they had got in. Crawled under somewhere? I opened the "gate" - just a piece between two posts that hooked on one end - for them to get out easily. An opportunist missed no opportunity. I came back about three hours later and found that a deer had gone in and eaten all the leaves up to about a meter+ on all the trees except the walnut, which had no leaves. Why waste time with individual trees each in their own little fence circle when you can go in and eat five trees at once? It ate half the little green apples, and the leaves on my apple graft - the one and only successful graft I've ever made in my life out of innumerable tries over the years. (I was sorry I had pruned away the branches around it to give it lots of room to grow.)
   On the plus side, it looks like there were enough leaf bits left on my graft that it has survived. It's budding a new leaf. I've used branches with flowers from this particular tree to pollinate my own trees before and I'm expecting much better pollination when this branch starts producing its flowers.

From a circle of wire around each tree,
It turned out the chickens were (are) getting in behind the
remainder of the spool of wire, which I hadn't cut off and stapled yet.

   There are just a few apples on each of the large trees, "liberty" and "empire". The "pollinator" "northern spy" produced on flowers this spring. I don't think much of the "empire" apples. And they don't keep long. The "liberty" are nicer, but neither one gets very big. I think the trees are too near the ocean, with southeasters blowing right up the driveway towards the fruit trees.
   This year is slightly exciting because one of the pear trees set fruit and is growing just three little pears, all in one clump. In eight years neither tree has had any pears. (Two years ago they set a few but some squirrel came along and nipped them all off almost before they started growing - Grrr!) Three pears is nothing but at least I get to see what "Clapps Favorite" pears look like. (Longer and thinner than bartlett, already reddish.)

Walnuts  On the 7th(?) I noticed tiny buds on the bark of my seemingly dead large walnut. It was such a cold spring that the buds that came out in May died on both trees. And it was still cold. I decided to put plastic bags over both to try and at least keep the wind off them. On about the 15th it finally warmed up but it was quite breezy. The wind carried off both bags. I tried to do a better job of anchoring them, using bungee cords around the trunk of the large tree.
   I've been watering them daily in the hopes they would spring back to life. I wasn't really expecting anything until I saw the buds. I hope the small black walnut will commence too. My place is just too close to the ocean and the place I've planted them gets the breeze off the beach. (You'd think with 2 cleared acres I could find some better spot for my fruit and nut trees. I haven't.) Combine that with an unseasonably cold, cloudy spring and early summer... Walnuts in Port Clements away from the open ocean seem to be doing fine.
[August 4th] Wow... Just a couple of leaves barely starting to open on the big tree and what might be the beginning of buds on the small one, and the weather has turned cold and miserable again! [August 7th] A couple more now, and leaves are starting to open in three clumps. Might be some tiny buds on the little black walnut too. (or it's starting to grow lichens.)

The cover on the small walnut.
Yes that's the beach and ocean just across
the highway and past a row of spruce trees.



Greenhouse

Greenhouse (Aug 7th) It kind of grew in pieces, neither half being the original.
I've just finished replacing plastic that let little light through with scrapped window glass
on the big door at the right hand side of the left half.
(There's a 2 by 4 behind the door because the roof support board chose right in the middle
of the door, the widest span, to have a big knot that let it sag down to hit the door.)
Squashes want to grow out under the door and grow onto the lawn.
I got some lovely big orange squashes on the lawn that way 2 or 3 years ago so I'm encouraging it.

   Many things grow better in a greenhouse this far north, or outside the south wall of the house. Here the winter is often about as mild as Victoria about 5 degrees farther south. It contrasts with Edmonton at the same latitude where it is often way below freezing for the whole winter. Instead the summer is usually quite cool and many common crops struggle. I've said before it's almost a unique climate. In addition I'm very close to the shore - Hecate Strait. Other gardeners do better a bit farther from the sea.


The Apricots, just before I picked them on the 30th


The avocado pit from the compost pile that I planted
in the house last fall is growing leaps and bounds.
...What do I do with it?


South side of West end of greenhouse.
The Strawberry Tree (Arbutus Unido) I got this spring is also growing leaps and bounds,
tho presently hard to see in the tomatos. (Its main stem is just right of the
closest tall stake.) These are delicious, juicy fruits.
I should get a lot of tomatos.
Note the yellow edges of the zucchini leaves (front). Potassium deficiency.
I've sprinkled some woodstove ashes under it.

.

   With the sudden heat from mid July the corn suddenly started taking off, along with other things that hadn't been growing very well.

Outside Gardens

Josta berries are apparently a cross between currents and gooseberries. They are similar in size to gooseberries rather than the small size of currents, and the bushes aren't full of thorns like gooseberries. Mine are black but I've seen red ones too. I might call them "grape size black currents." Less seedy.

   Somebody gave me two plants about five years ago. I planted them on the west end of the garden on the south side. They had nothing until last year, when there were a few. This year I picked a cup or more off one bush and made a "josta upside down cake" type dish. Mmm.

   At the opposite corner the new yamhill hazelnut doesn't seem to be doing too well. I think of various things it could be, but I'm probably not watering it enough. (It's rather "out of sight" and too many other things to remember!)


Peas mid month
...and chickweed. Oodles of chickweed.


I revived a bit of this little patch with the rototiller and some sprouting
"Russian Blue" or "Violet Queen" potatos with purple skin and flesh, and a few
prolific "Huckleberry Gold" with yellow flesh, all left over from last year.
Potato tops are poisonous.
That doesn't stop the deer from eating the tender tops.
I suddenly got the inspiration to simply throw pieces of chicken wire over
the top of the whole patch. It's spotty coverage but it seems to be working


A large volunteer poppy in the garlic patch.
Should be a lot of poppy seeds in those globes!
(I'd better harvest them all or poppies may be my new worst weed!)


Black Locust and Birch trees grown from seed this year.
Next spring I'll plant some by the front fence with wire
stapled to the fence to keep the deer from eating them.


Again a few sunflowers by the south wall.


When the weather Finally turned nice and sunny in mid July I brought out
the coffee trees from inside the patio door. Oops. Many leaves got badly sunburned.
They have been dying and new leaves are growing to replace them.


Strawberries in the south wall garden. The berries are good at hiding.


Corn in the greenhouse, 21st. Only the ones from Dragonfly Garden look like
they might make cobs. The ones I planted just aren't growing. Why?


Also 21st: The corn I planted in a the big "cold frame" box are
doing about as well as the Dragonfly ones in the greenhouse.
By August 7th they were a bit ahead, forming husks with
"silks" to catch the pollen.


Hidden fishpond with water lily. It hasn't grown a flower since the first year, when a deer ate it.
Unfortunately if it isn't well covered over raccoons will be fishing and someday
some otter will find it and clean out all the goldfish in a brief time on one day.
(That happened to my pond in Victoria twice.)
Instead it is occasionally visited by frogs or toads
that just stay a day or two and don't eat goldfish.



House Garden at the end of the month (July 31st):
garlic, corn growing tassels, seeded trees in pots, the coffee trees in pots.
Far right, back: small blueberry bushes.


House Wall Garden outside section at end of month:
Carrots that not many grew, now reseeded; board; carrots that grew;
strawberries; onions (some from an onion bulb "set", some from seed.)
(Where did that poppy come from?)


The Claw-Hoe: a Better Hoe for Weeding?

[23rd] I once bought the most useless hoe imaginable. The cutting end was formed of two overlapping circles. Either I was in an experimental mood or it was the only one in the store. (Who can remember from about 1980? and why did I still have it?)
   Of course no cutter dragging along the ground is or stays "razor" sharp, so the effect of the circular shape was to push the weeds sideways into line with the crop plants, making them harder even to pluck by hand.
   Last week I thought to buy a "normal" hoe for the copious weeds choking out my crops, but didn't. Instead I got the idea to make this one the opposite shape: straight and not sharp at the left and right sides, so as to go by the crop and not cut it, and concave on the end to form a point at the left and right edges. Then sharpen the rear face so as to cut the weeds as I drag the hoe backward through the weeds, including right next to but not quite in line with, the crop plants.) I tried it out. Not bad. Actually it had a better working angle on the handle than most hoes. When I went to do the right side I had an inspiration: cut it into triangles and points - almost "tines". Then dragging it through the weeds they would catch in the inner slots instead of escaping by slipping by underneath.



I can see my beets!

   With this I was plucking up great gobs of chickweed and other weeds as I went. I had to keep dumping them aside, and for the first time ever I actually cut some good swaths through the thick weeds choking out my beets, beans, spinach and lettuce. and near the peas and potatos. The working end is pretty narrow left to right, but that might be good if you can get between "double rows" planted close together. And the cutting edge isn't very far to the back, so it has less tendency to twist than most hoes.



   I checked on line to see if there were any better hoes than those I've seen before. There was just one new type, with tines - sharper tines than mine. Like mine it worked at a more slanted angle, and it also had a horizontal slicer on the front that could potentially be useful. But it also had a couple more cutters on the sides which IMHO just would make it hard to get next to the crop plants for close-in weeds without endangering them. I think the designer just got a little too fancy, to the detriment of the tines idea. Also in the video the user kept having to pull the weeds off the tines by hand instead of dumping them off, so they may have been a bit too pointed and the slots too narrow, gripping the weeds too strongly.

   So if I may be so bold as to claim another very tiny "world's best", I think I've just made the most effective hoe. In fact, other than the above one I just looked at on line I've never seen a hoe that even was very effective before. I've always considered them an almost useless implement. Only my desperation to somehow pluck up chickweed without plucking my crops led me to think of trying one again - and then to experiment.





Plastic Recycling 2.0 (to Make the Motor Housing)

(Note: The gallery of plastic images is in July in Brief - not many pictures in this text.)

[23rd] I was unable to buy a sheet of polypropylene (PP) a while back. So to make a PP housing for the motor, the next most obvious thing would be to mold the plates out of old PP ropes washed up on the beach. That meant getting back to the long neglected plastic recycling project and finishing the plastic melting oven I started 2? 3? 4? years ago.

   Since that's outside work and it was a nice day, I began. When I left off, I had found that heating the oven - the shell of a freezer - not unexpectedly melted the foam insulation. I had thought to heat it up and melt it, then yank out the entire inside surface assembly. Then I could replace the foam with higher temperature insulation. I heated it to 120°C for a while, and then started slashing at the foam just inside the inner walls with a long, thin knife. But it didn't look like it would be an easy or clean job, and as I worked I thought up another idea. There was plenty of space. What if I put higher temperature insulation inside of the inner walls so that the foam just didn't get all that hot?
   So next I took a "cube" of steel racking (1 x 1 inch square tubes) that I had got at the refuse station when I was working on it before to use as shelving to hold plastic molds up off the bottom. I cut it to fit inside and make a single shelf near the top of the space. I also bent the oven element that heats it up to a shape to my liking that fit under the shelf unit.
   Just two pieces of 22 x 27 x 3.5 inch insulation covered the inside walls. (The floor took one full piece. With the width of the shelf I had to split a piece down the middle twice, to 11 x 1.75 inches to line the front and rear walls, so the other half was left over to do the ends and misc.)
   So what I expected might take a couple of days I got done in one.

   Later I cleaned and polished the large rectangle mold (17 x 22 inches). On the last piece I had done (so long ago) I had overheated some horrid black plastic in the previous oven with no temperature control and it was solidly stuck to the alume. I did a lot of scraping with a chisel, and the then polishing took a long time. It did more smearing the plastic around thinly than getting rid of it. But eventually it was done.
   Finally I took some crappy old rope and cut pieces to the length of the mold. 1030 grams of it. I looked forward to doing the melt in the temperature controlled oven, where I could leave it in for hours for the plastic to flow into the corners and voids, and hope for generally better results than I had been achieving before. But it was getting late so I left it. "Monyana (is good enough for me)", as the song goes.

[24th] I put the mold in the oven, put weights on it, and turned it on. I set the control to the temperature mentioned TE News #197 (400°F) 205°C. In 90 minutes or somewhat more it was only at 199. But the plastic was oozing out and seemed a bit charred around the edges, so I shut it off and opened it. I was afraid the plastic would be baked solidly onto the mold surface again, but it wasn't too bad.
    Then I realized what the problem was:  A piece of the insulation was covering the temperature sensor! So the oven was considerably hotter than the sensor indicated. It surely would have been up to temperature and beyond. The oven's outer foam insulation seemed to have weathered that pretty well. I peeled the insulation away to expose the sensor. I tried to pull it farther into the oven space, but it didn't seem to want to go. Good enough I hope.

   The 1030 gram plate seemed pretty thin and one corner wasn't filled. I decided to add another 600 grams of ropes on top and try the same piece over again. There was also a jute or hemp rope within it. That one didn't melt at all.

   In the evening I added 600 grams more plastic, with the original plate under and the new ropes over. This time the temperature reading rose much faster and the oven was at the setting (205) in about 45 minutes. I left the mold in for a further 45 minutes at full temperature, then turned it off and opened the lid. With the oven not overheating, the smell, which was awful and strong the first time, was barely objectionable. In addition it didn't seem like the plastic material was deteriorating or sticking much to the mold - I could probably re-melt it several times if need be.
   The resulting slab however was pretty poor. It looked more like a routed contour map than a flat piece. I thought of three possible reasons for the spotty filling and poor flow:

1. insufficient weight (~40 pounds) on the lid of the mold.
2. oven temperature too low.
3. insufficient melt time

   Then the real reason occurred to me: there was simply insufficient material to fill the space. The first time I had put in stand-off screws in the corners holding the top 1/2 inch above the base. It seemed awfully thin and I had changed to 1/2 inch stand-offs. But it already had left a void corner with 1030 grams of rope bits. I had only added another 600 grams (=1630) and doubled the volume to fill. Probably it should have had a total of maybe 2200 to 2500 grams. Manyana!

[25th] I re-assembled the mold and put the piece back in, and added another 600 grams of old beach ropes material on top, making it theoreticly 2230 grams. I cut and slipped two very thin slivers of sheet metal into the cracks along two edges of the mold, about 3-1/2 inches tall, to help keep the lid from shifting when the material placed in the mold caused it to be sit above the 2 inch edges before it started melting, which is most of the time, especially if you want to make a thick tile.
   If it works well I may sand the top piece a little and add thin sheet to all sides. Four inch tall sides for the molds would be wonderful. (1 x 4 inch rectangular tubes? 'n' x 4 angle iron"? Do they even make such sizes? What's at the refuse station?)
  I heated it for three hours this time, hoping it would become more uniform and air pockets would fill with plastic instead of air. The whole process, while still needing to be done outdoors for PP, is much more pleasant with an oven that holds the desired temperature instead of overheating, scorching and vaporizing plastic and warping the alume alloy mold plates.

   Ever since I originally started the project, I've wanted to make longer plates for dug-in garden surrounds to keep grass roots from spreading into the garden, but it suddenly occurred to me that one could melt tiles together with a heat gun to make a double size. Or even string several together to make a whole impermeable wall. Well, duh, so why did I make a larger plastic melting oven? But there are other pieces that would be nice to make larger or longer. (Eg, plastic fence posts?)
   I have also realized that in the one "sample" garden border I dug in before, I should have put the plastic Outside the wire deer fence instead of Inside. Then one could weed-whack the grass right up to the plastic without hitting the wire fence. With it on the inside, there's a troublesome line of grass between the wire and the plastic that the weedeater can't get at.

   The 2100 gram piece is by far the thickest I've done. Putting it in the oven for 3 hours helped - it popped out of the mold easily. The lower surface was smoother. The upper surface was still full of sharp edged voids here and there, probably from trapped air bubbles.
   I think I'll try making a few very small holes in the top piece for air to escape. I hope plastic doesn't fill the holes, leaving sprues and making it hard to separate from the plate.

[27th] I put 6 tiny holes in the top plate, about 5-1/2 inches from the edges and from each other. I tried to make a new plate with 1200 grams of old ropes. It was a disaster! The plastic stuck to the mold plates like krazy glue, especially the bottom plate. When I finally managed to chisel the piece off it, there was all this horrid black plastic here and there, stuck solid - the same as in the last disaster. Except this time, I know I hadn't used any black ropes or pieces. It seems the whitish-gray ropes turn black and stick to everything.
   The 6 tiny holes were filled with plastic.

[28th] Another session of scraping and polishing black crud off the mold plates. (Isn't this where I came in?) And I drilled the plastic out of the 6 air holes. I'll stick to green, yellow and blue twisted ropes from now on. The "woven" whitish ones must not be polypropylene. (Nylon?)

[29th] I used 1 Kg of "almost new" green rope. Instead of being easy, I couldn't get it unstuck from the mold even with hammer and chisels.

[30th] I tried putting it in a freezer, but it was no looser when it came out, whether still cold or warmed up.

[31st] I tried putting it in the oven at 75°C. While hot I managed to pry off one of the mold plates. When I tried the other, the plastic bent instead of popping off. I pried it out gradually in curved form inserting a chisel to scrape off many really well glued spots. Then I put it back in the oven at 75° on one of the plates, with weights on top, to flatten it out again.
   It occurs to me that maybe 205°C (400°F) is too hot, or at least hotter than it needs to be, and that it might not stick so badly at a lower oven temperature. When I've cleaned and polished the mold plates again (sigh!) I'll try 180°, again for 3 hours. If it hasn't melted down properly, 190°. I hope I don't have to go up to 200° again, and that it doesn't stick at a lower temperature.

   The piece was pretty much 1/4 inch thick, maybe a bit over. There was a void corner. If I want 3/4 inch for the motor stator end plate I'll have to stuff in about 3 Kg of rope. I'll probably have to do it in two or three passes. Three or four inch walls on the molds would be great to hold more loose material - if I could find something to make them from.

[Aug 1st] I cleaned off and polished the plates - again. I decided to try polyethylene instead of PP ropes. (presumably HDPE - most large buoys on line are advertised just as "polyethylene") This time I heavily greased the mold plates with some canola oil hoping the plastic wouldn't stick.

   I had a big black oval fishing float from off the beach, which I had dragged home and cut into pieces some time ago. The piece all being compound curved I cut them smaller on the bandsaw. I put 3 Kg of this material into the mold and the mold into the oven. I put the usual 40 pounds of steel weights on top and heated it to 180° for 3 hours. The corner with the most material stayed high. The piece popped out easily - what a change! It came out having not flowed much and was a patchwork full of big holes. Either it wasn't hot enough or it needed still more weight.


[August 2nd] The canola oil had turned into baked-on grease in patches on the mold plates and the piece. I did my best to clean them off with dishsoap and a scouring pad. Without going for heavy duty stuff like solvent I decided that was probably good enough. I cut off the thick corner and cut it into four or five pieces. I put it back in the other way up. I put the pieces into the holes.

   This time I scrounged up about 80 pounds of weights. (I had to turn the splitting wedges sideways - they didn't quite fit under the oven lid and propped it open. The double layer of weights was touching the lid.)


   I repeated the process, 180° for 3 hours. It was better than the first time, but mostly not squashed into a solid cube. The high corner where I cut some away to redistribute material didn't fill in. And with 80 pounds of weight! Sigh! 365°F, 186°C next time!

Electricity Generation
New Grid-Tied Solar Power System



[15th] BC Hydro approved my application. Now the electrician, Adam, is looking into the paperwork/inspections, parts et al.
My (Old) Solar Power System(s)

(My solar panels recent images - TE News #200)


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

Notes:
* All times are in PST: clock ~48 minutes ahead of local sun time, never PDT which is an hour and 48 minutes ahead.
* Unapproved AC/Grid Tied systems have been removed.
* House panels include four old ones on the roof (upper - total rating ~ 1000W), two 305W on the roof, three 305W on the south wall below the roof, and one broken panel mounted verticly on the porch railing (seems to still work but a lot of shade there).
* Cabin DC includes the three carport panels and the two on a pole in the yard as well as the four on the cabin roof itself. All nine are 305W.
* The wall, pole and porch panels are easily wiped off from the ground if it snows.
* Km = Nissan Leaf electric car drove distance, then car was charged. Car KWH does not add to or subtract from any other readings.

Recent fotos of solar panels, TE News #200:

House System Panels: House roof, wall (9 solar panels) - Porch (1 broken one - usually shady)
Cabin System Panels: Carport (3 - sunniest place on the whole property) - Pole (2 - shadiest place) -Faraday Cabin (4 - badly shaded in winter)

New Order of Daily Solar Readings (Beginning November 2024):

Date HouseDC, CabinDC => Total KWH Solar [Notable power Uses (EV); Grid power meter@time] Sky/weather, notes...

June
30th 539.18, 482.67 =>   9.04 [10Km; 30152@21:00]

July

   1st 543.58, 487.58 =>   9.86 [30179@23:00]
 2nd - missed - => (est)     9.50 [55Km; -- ]
  3rd 553.52, 497.41 => 10.27 [30229@20:30] Finally, ONE sunny day!
  4th 558.38, 502.60 => 10.05 [90Km; 30248@21:30] ...then mor clouds & cool to cold.
  5th 562.06, 507.06 =>   8.14 [75Km; 30282@21:00] & mor
  6th 568.40, 513.34 => 12.62 [35Km; 30301@19:30] & mor
  7th 571.25, 516.85 =>   6.36 [30330@23:30] & mor
  8th 580.16, 522.90 => 14.96 [55Km; 30359@21:30] A largely sunny day(!) after a few AM rains. The batteries got a chance to recharge plus I charged the leaf, around 9 KWH. The house solar energy pretty much kept up until the last 3(?) hours as the sun got low, but ended up only around 60% charged.
  9th 589.33, 529.21 => 15.48 [20Km; 30383@23:00] Enuf sun to make up for chj. car 9KWH (yest) & 5 KWH.
10th 593.23, 533.50 =>   8.19 [30411@23:30]
11th 596.91, 538.08 =>   7.89 [30424@22:00]
12th 600.72, 542.29 =>   8.02 [105Km; 30474@'24:00']
13th 603.09, 546.83 =>   6.91 [45Km*; 30507@'24:00'] * car started charge from house DC/solar
14th 612.18, 553.07 => 15.33 [30553@'25:00'] * Car finished charging in sunshine - had to turn off yesterday. It took all but 10 KWH.
15th 616.88, 556.20 =>   7.83 [35Km*; 30556@23:00] Sunshine! Start of sunny, warm weather! * Car completely charged. Battery is down some. Disconnected cabin chj.ctrlr. because of apparent ultrasonic noise. (to be moved outside of cabin!)
16th 623.07, 556.47 =>   6.46 [30566@'24:00']
17th 628.33, 556.77 =>   5.56 [55Km*; 30575@23:30] Charged car from solar ~10KWH
18th 637.52, 557.03 =>   9.43 [85Km; 30593@20:30] Charged car 31% to 65% on solar (~7 KWH), then to 100% from power grid.
19th 644.12, 557.37 =>   6.60 [75Km; 30611@22:30] Charged <1/2 way (5KWH) by solar 45%-62%(?).
20th 654.35, 557.70 => 10.23 [35Km; 30620@22:00] Chjd. car from solar. Still sunny & warm!
21st ...must have missed it. => 0 Was it cloudy anyway?
22d  663.60, 558.22 =>   9.25 [55Km; 30642@23:30] Charged car from solar : 9.7 KWH
23rd 667.19, 558.52 =>   3.59 [30652@19:30] Top up but just running 36V lights.
24th 667.53, 558.58 =>   0.40 [30669@'24:00'] Din't use no 'lectricity, so din't genrate no 'lectricity.
25th 670.25, 558.85 =>   2.72 [30685@23:00]
26th 672.51, 559.xx =>   2.26 [55Km; 30701@21:30; 50Km] 1st recharge from grid. Didn't recharge car after 2nd drive (64% left)
27th 678.66, 559.45 =>   6.15 [35Km; 30720@23:30] Start recharge car (solar => 77%), drove (=> 44%), continued solar charge, topped up from grid (81%=>100).
28th - missed - (est)  =>   3.50
29th 684.60, 562.48 =>   5.47 (est from 8.97) [10Km; 30769@'24:30'] charged car on solar.
30th 690.74, 568.81 => 12.47 [55Km; 30790@20:00] charged car to 91% on solar (voltage got below 38V)
31st 695.66, 569.45 =>   5.56 [10Km; 30805@23:30] Finished charging car. (Cloudy,rain - House battery still not up.)

August
  1st 703.69, 574.08 => 12.66 [90Km; 30833@'24:30'] Started recharging car (from 34% left) on solar
 2nd 710.38, 575.12 =>   7.73 [45Km; 30854@21:00] Contd. chj. car to 72% then switched to grid charger. (Then drove again)
  3rd 712.92, 577.46 =>  [45+45Km; 30874@21:00]
  4th 717.25, 578.47 => [30891@23:00]
  5th 719.37, 579.82 => [30912@20:00]
  6th 722.93, 582.50 => [55Km; 30931@21:00] Charged car on solar by 7.5 KWH, finished from grid. (4 KWH?)
  7th 728.64, 583.32 => [30960@22:00]


Chart of daily KWH from solar panels.   (Compare July 2025 with June 2025 & July 2024.)
Days of
__ KWH
 July 2025
(18 Collectors,
DC/ Batteries.)
 June 2025
(18 C's - DC/
batteries only)
 July 2024
(18 C's - Grid
Ties & DC)
0.xx
 2

1.xx


2.xx
 2

3.xx
 2

4.xx
   1
5.xx
 3

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

1
17.xx

2
18.xx


19.xx


20.xx

2
21.xx


22.xx

2
23.xx

2
24.xx


25.xx

1
Total KWH
for month
 243.26
 316.55
 563.61
Km Driven
on Electricity
 1035.8
@8.2 Km/KWH
= 130 KWH
 1038.9
@8.2 KWH/Km
= 130 KWH
 1348.1 Km
~180 KWH

Things Noted - July 2025

* The crappy weather, following a miserable May & June, seemed to finally end mid July.

* Disconnecting the charge controller on the 15th showed that the power monitor is not well zeroed. This gets added to the charge recorded. I decline to make daily cumulative adjustments and must let the readings be off by this small daily amount. (Could subtract ~30*~30=~900 WH from monthly total?) Oh wait! Isn't that 300 WH/day? Not trivial! Now what? [See "Puzzling Readings" in "Month in Brief"]

* The summer sun sure shows that power goes to waste if it can't be fed into the utility grid. (See July 2025 vs July 2024 in table above) Not needing heat, the only substantial use of the solar power is to charge the electric Leaf, and usage, and hence recharging, is actually lower than in the spring when heat was on using much of the available solar.


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

As these tables are getting long, I'm not repeating the log of monthly reports. The reports for the first FIVE full years (March 2019 to February 2024) may be found in TE News #189, February 2024.

2024
Month: HouseAC + DC +Carport+Cabin[+DC] (from Aug 2024)
Jan KWH: 31.37 + 3.14 +  16.85 + 16.82 =   68.18 [grid power used: 909; car (very rough estimates): 160*]
Feb KWH: 96.52 + 2.36 + 49.67 +  52.98 = 201.53 [grid: 791; car: 130]
FIVE full Years of solar!
Mar KWH 150.09+ 1.63 + 93.59 +  92.50 = 337.81    [grid: 717; car: 140]
Apr KWH 181.89+35.55 +123.50+142.74 = 483.68      [grid: 575; car: 140]
May KWH 129.23+67.38 +109.6  +126.32 = 432.53      [grid: 405; car: 145]
Jun KWH  152.54+51.02+118.99+141.17 = 463.72         [grid: 420; car: 190]
July KWH 174.22+30.53+111.19+128.62 = 444.56           [grid: 386; car: 165]
Aug KWH 221.99+ 2.63 +142.49+151.67+  5.78 = 524.56 [grid: 358; car: 180]
SeptKWH 120.98+ 2.49 + 83.50 + 19.10+ 39.95 = 266.02 [grid: 662 (yowr!); car: 155*]
Oct KWH   78.48+ 7.29 + 64.39 +  7.52 + 40.75 = 198.43 [grid: 711; car: 120*]
Nov KWH   19.63+12.19+ 23.90 +  3.35 + 25.62 =  84.69 [grid: 900 (ACK!);car: 110*]
Now solar is charging batteries only. 2 DC systems: house, cabin.
Dec KWH  20.37 + 16.76 = 37.13 [grid: 1866 (using electric heat - awg!); car: 120*]

2025
Jan KWH   35.02 + 26.30 = 61.32 [grid: 2136 (electric heat OW!); car: 120*]
Feb KWH   55.43 + 39.00 = 94.43 [grid: 1937; car: 100*]
SIX full Years of solar!
Mar KWH 115.13 + 87.41 = 202.54 [grid: 1860; car: 155* KWH]
Apr KWH  126.25 + 120.36 = 246.61 [grid: 1246; car: 100*]
May KWH 147.08 + 186.24 = 333.32 [grid: 1354; car: 150*]
Jun 145.58 + 170.97 = 316.55 [grid: 959; car: 130*]
July 156.48+ 86.78 = 243.26 [grid: 653; car 130]

* Car consumption comes from solar and or grid: it does not add to other figures. (Just from grid from Nov. 18th. 2024 on -- much of it from off-grid solar as of June 2025.)


Annual Totals

1. March 2019-Feb. 2020: 2196.15 KWH Solar [used   7927 KWH from grid; EV use: -] 10, 11, 12 solar panels
2. March 2020-Feb. 2021: 2069.82 KWH Solar [used 11294 KWH from grid; EV use: - (More electric heat - BR, Trailer & Perry's RV)] 12 solar panels
3. March 2021-Feb. 2022: 2063.05 KWH Solar [used 10977 KWH from grid; EV use ~~1485 KWH] 12 solar panels, 14 near end of year.
4a. March 2022-August 2022: in (the best) 6 months, about 2725 KWH solar - more than in any previous entire year!
4. March2022-Feb. 2023: 3793.37 KWH Solar [used 12038 KWH from grid; EV use: ~1583 KWH] 14, 15, 18 solar panels
5. March 2023-Feb. 2024: 3891.35 KWH Solar [used 7914 KWH from power grid; EV use: ~1515 KWH] 18 solar panels
6. March 2024-Feb. 2025: 3428.88 KWH Solar [used 12773 KWH from grid; EV used: ~1685 KWH]

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]; or maybe it's 62 ¢/KWH [according to BC Hydro at Renewable Energy Symposium Sept. 2024]:
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$
6. 411.47$ ; 1714.44$ ; 3428.88$

   I had to disconnect the system from the grid in November 2024. These two now independent installations (house, cabin) will continue to run their 36 volt DC systems and I'll see how I can most effectively utilize the available solar energy with the limited available storage.



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