Turquoise Energy News #207
Covering Research & Development Activities & Projects of August 2025
(Posted September 12th 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.)
* Tlell Fall Fair - Electric Caik Motor Refurbishment for Unipolar Operation Tests - Reflection on Old Battery Experiments: Why was it 2.6 Volts? - Making Copper Powder for Copper Electrodes - Solar Powered Car Charging - New Solar Power System - Tinnitus & "Faraday Cabin": Better Grounding Rods

In Passing (Miscellaneous topics, editorial comments & opinionated rants)
* Scattered Thots
* ESD
- Detailed Project Reports -

Electric Transport - Electric Hubcap Motor Systems
* Making the New Electric Hubcap Motor - Caik Motor refurbishment for "Unipolar" tests

Other "Green" & Electric Equipment Projects
* Faraday Cabin Construction - Cutting more styrene foam insulation
* Haida Gwaii Gardening - Summer

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

August in Brief

'Touched up" Electric Caik motor stator
- a solidifying coating of epoxy with ilmenite
& separated wire exits plus a wire to the "Y" common point

   It was a mostly cloudy, wet, cold summer with only a few sunny breaks until the last 1/3 of August and the first week of September were over two weeks of warm, sunny weather. Lots of things were behind in the garden and pollinating insects were scarce. The fine weather so late was only partial compensation. The single gardening report is again in the "Other Projects" section.
   A chief preoccupation was writing the How to Make the Supercorder Straight Flute textbook, and this will continue into September. I'm not sure anyone has ever written a comprehensive book on how to make woodwind instruments of any kind, so this may be a first. Of course, a lot more may now be available on line and I haven't been checking it out. But in addition to much general woodwind instrument knowledge I gleaned from here and there, this book will also have the specific info needed for making this flute, all in one place.

   August started with getting a few "exhibits" ready for the Tlell "Fall" Fair on the 2nd.









   I brought some plastic recycling stuff - a mold and some samples, my just harvested apricots and josta berries, a coffee tree and some coffee beans my trees had grown. (I still haven't used any of the beans! Altogether they would still only do one medium roasting.) The tree won first prize in "house plants" and the apricots got 2nd in "fruit". Not that there was much competition. (If the "fall" fair was later more people would have more things ripe!)

   On September 6th I pressed the power button on my old Acer Aspire One laptop to continue writing, but it didn't boot. Black screen! I spent the day scouring the web to find a solution, but none of the suggested cures brought it to life. Fortunately, I had been saving my work on a USB memory stick rather than on the laptop's internal hard drive, to make it easier to copy to another computer. That saved the day. (Actually, saved the previous month and more of writing! The hard drive is probably recoverable, but I may need to take the computer apart and take it out.) Also I tried setting up an old Raspberry Pi 2B+, but once it was working it looked like I couldn't run my usual HTML editor, Sea Monkey, on it.
   All just in case this newsletter wasn't late enough. Finally I got out the tinnitus causing new laptop that my tinnitus (and battery drain) says definitely isn't off even when you shut it "off" (what a technicly awesome piece of $hit), and set it up in the cabin. With the grounded metal shields over and under, it's at least not as bad as working at a computer in the house surrounded by 120 VAC... or is it?


12 Coil Unipolar Electric Hubcap Motor

   I cast a slab of HDPE plastic for the motor end plate at the start of the month, then got the ideas to try driving it with 3-phase unipolar "all norths" drive (with "any old" BLDC motor controller instead of having to make the special 6-phase "3 norths and 3 souths" one). Then to try that out on the existing Electric Caik [outboard] motor first. I would take the boat out on Meyer Lake in warm summer weather. That motor needed refurbishing and I didn't get that finished either. Okay, can it still be in fall before rains set in? Okay, before winter?

Electric Caik Motor Refurbishment for Unipolar Operation Tests

   To test the idea of unipolar motor controller operation before putting together the "Larger Electric Hubcap" motor (12 coils instead of 9), I could try the idea on the 6 coil "Electric Caik" motor that I had in an outboard. Probably on Meyer Lake. For this I pulled the motor out. There was considerable rust on the shaft and bearing on the top, and on the bolts holding it together.

   And I saw why the cooling was so poor. The air holes for cooling in the rotor side (hidden underneath when mounted in the outboard) were miniature, apparently just the size of the router bit in the CNC table. I had neglected to drill them out larger or add more holes later.


   In the magnet compartment, the magnets had at some point (long ago, I think) been rubbing on the separator wall between rotor and stator. But it is one of the magic things about axial flux with supermagnets that where magnetic gaps in radial flux motors are measured in fractions of a millimeter, they are somewhere around 12 mmin mine and others, a distance that prevents the coils from gradually demagnetizing the rare earth magnets, and it even allows a protective wall between rotor and stator.


   In the stator, some of the ilmenite in "Plastidip" had flaked off, and the three wires coming out a single slot were fraying, threatening to short out the motor like the one on the Sprint had done in 2016. And I had the thought that perhaps some on the interconnections inside might be in danger of vibrating together and shorting too.

  Having recently got the idea to simply add ilmenite to epoxy, I coated at least the tops and down the outsides of the coils, and along some of the wires, with it. (I suppose I could have pulled the coils out and done all faces. I didn't.)

'Touched up" Electric Caik motor stator
An epoxy with ilmenite coating over flaking ilmenite/"Plastidip" coating,
also to stiffen the wires so they don't vibrate.

I pulled out the hall sensors board to test because it looked corroded.
(and to not get it painted in with epoxy!)

   Somehow that was as far as I got.


Reflection on Old Battery Experiments: Why Were My pH 12 Ni-Zn Cells 2.6 Volts?

   They probably still teach in schools that manganese can't be made to remain in metallic state in aqueous solution! In 2011-2012 I got manganese to hold its -1.5 V metallic charge at around pH 12-13 by adding antimony sulfide and zirconium silicate (1%, 3%) as hydrogen overvoltage raising additives.
   Using nickel oxyhydroxide as the "+" electrode, it was charging cells to 2.6 volts. I think I thought the that the nickel must be a higher voltage at pH12 than pH14. This is true... but from +0.5V to +1+V? That's quite a stretch. Maybe +.7V really?
   They would hold that voltage for a while, but mostly they seemed to self-discharge quite a bit overnight. Part of that (which I didn't understand at the time) would have been hydrogen evolution at the Mn negative terminal, because the terminal itself didn't have the hydrogen overvoltage raising ingredients. (Zinc bubbling hydrogen and turning into zinc hydride at -1.5 V in water would explain why the zinc terminals and current collectors corroded as well as the reason for self discharge of the "-" electrode. I never determined whether a graphite/carbon terminal & current collector has a high enough overvoltage to work without evolving hydrogen. But zinc powder worked as a conductivity additive within the electrode, since it was in with the Mn and the Sb2S3 and ZrSiO4 overvoltage raising powders. A solution might be to paint the terminal post and the back of the current collector with an insulating coating, probably one sprinkled with the overvoltage raising chemicals.)
   I seemed to have prevented oxygen evolution from water (at least, rapid evolution) with the oxygen overvoltage raising additives, but even so, I occasionally think of the above cells and am puzzled because that voltage doesn't make sense. Even generously allowing for -1.5 V from the metallic Mn at moderate alkaline pH, the nickel oxyhydroxide should be at most +.7 volts, not +1 volt. That's just 2.2 volts, not very near 2.6.
   On my occasional and few discharge tests, it seems to me the voltage quickly dropped from 2.6 to 2.3 volts, and then the discharge proceeded at a more normal pace from there.

   It has finally occurred to me to look up a chlorine pourbaix diagram, since I was using potassium chloride as the electrolyte. Sure enough -- it's a bit over +1 volt to oxidize  Cl- to ClO-  at pH 12). +1 - -1.5 = 2.5 V. That would explain it! With the K+ that would be potassium hypochlorite, a form of Bleach for my electrolyte! But it's still dissolved. (Did I smell any chlorine gas? Would I remember?) There wouldn't be much of it in contact with the electrode to maintain that voltage, so it dropped quickly to 2.3 when I tried a discharge test. And surely unless the cell was well sealed, which most of them weren't, bleach will pick up O2 from the air and self-discharge. As well as discharge when ClO- wanders over to the negative 'trode. 'Overnight' seems a reasonable time frame for the self discharge. And oxidizing chlorides probably explains the gradual accumulation of green colored gunk on the [graphite] positive terminal on the outside of the cell - nickel chloride.

Without exploring further reaction possibilities, I'd say there's a longstanding puzzle finally explained! (A nickel manganese oxides (+) / manganese (-) cell would probably be about 1.7 to 1.8 volts. It would be a simple cell: it wouldn't need to be gelled or have osmium catalyst.
   But the copper hydroxides (+) / zinc (-) cell would be superior in energy density (with optimal substance utilization) and the cycle life should be indefinite.

To Make Copper Powder for Copper Electrodes

   Copper is easy to get. And it's easy to make it into copper hydroxide or copper chloride. Copper powder seemed like a different proposition, but I thought copper powder might be a better way to start the electrode off than the hydroxides, notwithstanding that the hydroxides would form on charging the cell. Matt gave me some copper powder for experiments, but what about actual battery production? To make powder I had visions of vacuum systems with heat, 'sputtering targets' and compressed air to melt the copper and blow it to gritty powder - not exactly DIY processes, and also doubtless much less fine than nano powder.
[28th] Youtube suggested a short video on pouring molten copper into water. It didn't even show the final product, just a guy pouring copper into a barrel of water! But that got me started. I found another one but the product wasn't powder at all. More like chunks of 'coral'. (What, you're not surprised either?)

   Then I tried going for the obvious search: "make copper powder". To my surprise a simple chemical procedure does it! Starting from a copper chloride solution (his was left over from PCB making), hydrochloric acid was added. Then four large steel nails. The nails quickly turned black. (Ferric chloride?) But then, on top of that, pure copper fuzz started to form on the nails! It kept going until the solution was clear and there was a heavy coating of copper fuzz on the four nails. He rubbed it off the nails, rinsed and dried it. In the comments it was said to be fine flakes. Just what I wanted!
   Hydrochloric acid plus hydrogen peroxide will turn copper into copper chloride. Ferric chloride will also turn copper into copper chloride. Hydrochloric acid turns iron into ferric chloride (I presume), and that plus hydrochloric acid somehow (iron having a higher reaction voltage than copper and no passivation layer forming) turns copper chloride back into copper. Presumably it also makes dissolved ferrous chloride, which can be rinsed out. So there's a pretty simple way to turn solid copper into fine powder-flakes of copper!

   Of course copper has many soluble ions. I expect it to charge even to valence III, probably as "cuprate ions" Cu(OH)3-, similar to the "zincate ions" except at opposite points of charge and discharge, making the cell to be about 1.2 volts with very high amp-hours. And I expect to use the same techniques to keep these ions from migrating out of the electrode. The OH- ions will transfer between electrodes on charge and discharge, coupling with the copper or the zinc.


  On the 13th I went to Meyer lake and sun tanned until a couple of horseflies came along. I jumped up and put my shirt on. I charged the car half way from off-grid solar, 6 KWH worth while the sun was out.  The next day was cold, windy and poured rain. So much for summer?
   But the 21st was improved and the 22nd to early September were sunny and warm - summer was back! (or was it "finally here"?) but now we're headed for fall.


Meyer Lake picnic area


Looking west from the boat ramp.
This is only the southern tip of the lake - at the
"far end" it turns north and goes on for many miles.

Solar Car Charging

   On sunny days I charged the Nissan Leaf at 1.5 KW "slowest" rate from the off-grid solar. For a typical example on the 27th I drove to town. The car was at 60% when I got back and I recharged from solar - a 6-1/2 hour almost 10 KWH charge session. And like I say, autumn was on its way. Although the sun was bright, the system was only bringing in 1200 watts while the car charger was using 1500. I looked outside. Sure enough, the shadows from the three spruce trees to the south were across the house garden and up the wall shading the three solar panels there. (September they'll start shading the whole roof.) Later the shadows passed and the house battery charging started catching up with the car's discharging. Still later of course the sun went behind the trees to the west and the car charge came mainly from house battery discharge. But by then the car was mostly charged. Score:
- from solar: +6 KWH
- 24 KWH car battery: +9.75 KWH
- 10 KWH house battery: -3.75 KWH to be made up the next day.


New Solar Power System

[22nd] The electrician, Adam, finally came and we connected the solar inverters to the circuit breaker panel via the BC Hydro required outdoor shutoff box. All the wiring in metal conduit. The worst 'renovation' thing was removing a small section of wallboard for the conduit connection. Luckily the breaker panel, tho on an inside wall, wasn't far in from the outside wall, and the wall space, despite its proximity to the breaker box, wasn't already full of wiring. (one doorbell wire.) [28th] Adam brought the "lamacoid" labels and pasted them on, and he added a copper ground wire apparently required by code inside the grounded metal pipe.


Tinnitus & "Faraday Cabin": Better Grounding Rods

[30th] Once again had I started not getting the tinnitus relief I expected by morning from sleeping in the cabin. as if it just wasn't working any more. Everything was turned off at night, what could it be? I finally realized: My "ground rods" were pretty skinny pieces of copper pipe. I could only pound them into the ground 8-18 inches or so before they started to bend. Now that we were (at last, at last!) having dry, sunny summer weather for ten days, the ground under the eaves was probably drying out to that depth and so my pipe rods probably weren't making good electrical contact with the earth, so the cabin wasn't "Faradaying" and EMF from the 14,400 volt power line was getting through. I went to the refuse station (What luck, it's open today and I have some old flashing to take and toss on the metal pile.) Wow! I found three 12 foot bars of steel, 1/8 x 3/4 inches, seemingly as new. They were on the ground separate, a few feet from the pile. The donor must have thought someone might want them. (And we're so lucky Ralph sets aside anything that looks useful for anyone who can use it to take. I remember in Victoria (BC) the landfill treated everything people dropped off as their personal treasure. Everything had to be added to the mountain. The triangle of waste management is "reduce, reuse, recycle" but those in charge didn't allow anyone to reuse anything. Those in charge of the waste break the triangle themselves!)

[31st] I cut two five foot long bars and sharpened one end. I drilled and threaded the other end for a 5/16 inch bolt to attach the wire. I started in the middle of the long walls, disconnecting the wires and pulling up the copper pipes. The bars didn't fold up when I pounded them to over 4 feet deep - much better! Later I cut two more for the corner grounds of the cabin later.
[Sept. 1st] Overnight it seemed a little better. Then I thought to test with a meter. If I disconnected the new ground rods, only at the end of the cabin nearest the power line was it a little over 20 mV. Reconnected it was under 20 mV everywhere, and definitely lower than without them everywhere - 5 or 6 mV in my bedroom versus 12 or 15 mV. All those figures are way lower than anywhere else except by going back in the forest well away from electrical sources. Just how low does one really need to get it to eliminate tinnitus?
   In a couple of days I had the rest of the grounding rods made and installed at the corners too, total six.

   And what else is there? I can't measure UHF/WiFi. An RF meter went wild in front of my solar charge controllers - in addition to ultrasonic sound, 100 KHz switching is an LF radio frequency. They (along with wall power adapters and DC to DC power adapters) are probably putting out both ultrasonic sound and electrical noise.

   For now I turn off the charge controller when I'm in the cabin, especially for the night. And I keep the new laptop, which obviously is never "off" whatever it claims, in a grounded metal breadbox at the far end of the cabin when I'm not using it, and in the metal "sandwich" with external keyboard and mouse when I am. I have to leave the screen sticking up because Linux doesn't seem to want to drive the HDMI port external screen. ("Solutions" I see on line look complex. They confuse me - the guy who once wrote the world's first "RPG" game, "Viking Raider" for the Commodore 64 (1984) can't figure it out.)



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


Scattered Thots

* In a meeting where Donald Trump of USA expressed concern about stifling of freedom of speech in the UK, UK prime minister Kier Starmer proudly declared "Britain has had freedom of speech for centuries." What level of disconnect from reality does that assertion require when his own government, under him, has passed laws (the so-called "online safety act") which are arresting people in droves because of "hate speech" posts they've made on social media platforms expressing opinions that "might cause someone offense" or that are critical of government or its policies? [What constitutes "hate speech" was not defined in the law - so they can arrest and charge anyone for anything.] In the UK, as is the trend across Europe, it is presently more dangerous to liberty to post an opinion on social media than to commit an actual violent crime.


* Before the invention of the birth control pill in the 1960's, families came unbidden, wanted or not. In the decades before good birth control, the reduction of wars and multiple improvements in living conditions providing lengthening lifespans set the world up for rapid and serious overpopulation. When I was born in 1955, my 29 year old mother was considered unusually old to be having her first child and the doctors were concerned.
   I think it's very unfortunate that only the more advanced nations adopted birth control at first. Uneducated Africans thought the whole idea was voodoo. As the whole world becomes more educated, a few lagging nations are only now starting to really reduce their birthrates. World population has risen from 2.75 billion when I was born to over 8 billion today. which has led to ever dropping standards of living all over the ever more interconnected world. The birthrates in the more advanced countries have continued to drop with living standards, to the point where whole races are being drasticly reduced in numbers or even replaced by the more prolific in just a few generations. (Who wants to bring children into a deteriorating economy with employment and income ever uncertain? Who can afford to? With good birth control available, dropping prosperity = no kids.)
   The good news of course is that as us older folks die off, with so few younger ones, the standards of living will probably rise sharply in the coming century or two, and they will stay high because only wanted children will be born to prosperous parents, and the world's population will stabilize at perhaps between 2.5 and 3 billion people.
   In the meantime, we've polluted the planet and used up the resources. Species are dying out at an unprecedented rate. For now quality of life is still deteriorating and I still think a great crisis is just ahead of us before things start to get better.

I'm not sure where the graph below is from. (USA?)



   And what is the percentage of these who also have kids?

ESD
(Eccentric Silliness Department)

* Grammer: A scale for weighing small quantities.

* Apahelion: The maximum height of apathy.

   "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

12 Coil Electric Hubcap Motor


The HDPE Stator End Plate

[9th] I re-melted the HDPE slab in the plastic oven at 186 degrees instead of 180, with ~80 pounds of weights instead of 40 on top of the mold. It still didn't flow well, and it was almost an inch thick in one corner and just 5/8 in the opposite one. But it looked like I could cut out a solid piece big enough for the motor end plate. I would have to route it flat as well as route out the required contours to mount the coils.


   The G-Code I wrote for the router worked fine in plywood. But given my recent experiences with trying to route HDPE on the CNC table router, I think I should use a 1/2 inch router bit instead of 1/4 inch or 6 mm. I'm guessing the small ones don't seem to throw the chips clear, and instead they re-melt in a half-fused mess right behind where the router is traveling. (And yet I don't remember this happening with the old router table & router in Victoria. But I usually (or always?) used bigger bits to do the job faster.) This means re-working all the G-Code in the spreadsheet for the new diameter bit - Ug!  (This is one of those times when I wish I had done it all in a CAD program that would generate the G-Code for me.)

Motor Controller Testing Idea

   To run as unipolar with single polarity 3-phase outputs, it occurred to me that my present Kelly BLDC controller (KBL36301) even with a busted low drive on one phase, could probably be used by using the three high side drives, all good. (Assuming I didn't bust it completely in 2016 when I was trying to repair it.) Furthermore, it might run an existing motor, say my "Electric Caik" outboard. That could be tested, even on the water. Or I could use the homemade motor controller - which also has a blown low side drive IIRC. (and I could fix that one.)

[13th] I went to Meyer lake for a little sun tan. For me it was too cold for a swim - just a wade. There were fat tadpoles growing legs and turning into frogs or toads in the water at the boat launch ramp. Say, that could be a great place to try out the electric outboard with that controller! I would have to re-configure the coil wiring -- and definitely add a cooling fan while I was at it. I recall the motor getting hot enough to smell like hot epoxy last I ran it in 2018 or 2019, even running at just 30 amps (30A * 24V = 1 HP), because it just didn't have much of any cooling. I hope it could do 60 amps (2 HP) continuous.
   It would be great to confirm that my idea would work. I unbolted the motor from the outboard. Rusty shaft and bearings!

[15th] I looked at the motor to see where I might add in a small cooling fan. Wait! How on Earth are the spinning magnets, acting as a centrifugal fan, supposed to flow cooling air through those tiny little air outlet holes? No wonder it doesn't cool well! Before going to the trouble of putting in a cooling fan, I think I should just try making the holes bigger and more numerous. So the jobs on the motor are to drill holes and to bring the coil common centers out through a wire. Not so much to do! The set screw on the bearing tightener wouldn't come out so I sprayed some WD40 on all the rusty looking parts.


[17th] I got the set screw loose, took the ends off the motor and pulled the rotor out. Funny how much you forget - I thought the rotor was still stuck, but it was only being held magneticly. Also, to open the stator and get at the wiring I would have to undo the 18 nylon bolts holding the coils on and holding it together. Hmm, power connections... the three magnet wires came out together with just their own enamel and thin sleeving for insulation (to a triple Anderson 70A APP connector) - the same arrangement that, with electromagnetic vibration, had shorted the motor in the car and burned out a phase (low side) in the Kelly controller in 2016. I would have to improve that while I had it apart!

[18th] Sure enough - the sleeving has frayed off. How long would it have run before the thin enamel rubbed through and shorted?


[19th] In my first motors I made coils with 60 turns of #14 wire. The coils of each phase were in parallel. Since two phases were in series at any given time, that's 120 turns across the 36 volts. That seemed to work quite well. Then I made the 9 coils with 20 or 21 turns of #11 wire and put the three coils of each phase in series instead of in parallel. With two phases again in series, that's 120 to 126 turns of wire across the 36 volts. The Electric Caik motors were two coils per phase instead of three and 24 volts instead of 36.
   Now for the new 12 coils unipolar motor I've wound each coil with 27 turns. There are four coils (in series) per phase, but one side of each phase is grounded instead of them being two in series via the more common "Y" configuration, so that makes 108 turns across 36 volts. The currents will ramp up a little faster. 27 turns makes 3 full layers of wire on the coil cores. I didn't want to expand it to four layers in case that might leave too little space (or even overlap) between coils. I recall making the overall motor diameter as small as I dared, which will put the coils quite close together.

   One day in here I drilled the ventilation holes bigger in the rotor end cover plate.


[22nd] I removed the hall sensors board as it looked corroded, and anyway I didn't want to paint it in when I touched up the coils & connecting wires. I decided I should make a 3 LED "breakout" board for between the motor controller and motor, to show which magnet sensors were on and off and disclose any sensor faults or wrong patterns as the motor was turned.

[25th] I mixed 28 g of epoxy with ilmenite and painted around the inside of the motor,  going over the windings of the coils (for the ilmenite - some had flaked off) and their connecting wires (to stiffen them so they wouldn't vibrate and rub and eventually short out).


   Now it's waiting for me to check out the hall sensors board before reassembly.


Other "Green" & Electric Equipment Projects

Faraday Cabin Construction


[12th] I finally got around to clearing off the "hot wire table saw" to cut foam (or is it a "hot wire foam mill"?). I now had the huge chunk from the beach which I had thought had a plastic barrel for a center (I thought I heard water sloshing around inside it), and a smaller one I got from the recycling center - Craig phoned me to let me know it was there.
   I cut the smaller one without issue except that at 19 volts it went somewhat more slowly than necessary. Sticking a thin round file deep into the large one showed it was in fact nothing but foam. No plastic barrel center after all! It was so wide toward the center that I had to use bigger C-clamps and put about 4 inches of blocks in to increase the effective "width of the table" and hence the length of the hot wire. There was almost no wire not inside the foam. If it had been any wider I'd have had to come up with some new arrangement. With the longer wire I finally got out a DC power monitor and a screwdriver and set the voltage to 24 volts to make it hotter and speed things up. (It dropped to 22 volts under load, drawing 3.33 amps.)
   I pulled the hot wire out from one of its end bolts once, which was much better than all the breaks cutting the foam piece infused with mussel shells and toredo worm castings that just wouldn't melt.
   I cut several nice big 5 inch thick slabs. When the edges are trimmed with the large handheld hot wire cutter, I should have enough foam insulation to do the next ceiling section top and bottom, using some fiberglass to fill in the middle areas.
   Also it's really nice to finally get these big blobs out of the garage! The Chevy Sprint has been sitting out on the lawn since March when the solar power system arrived on a big palette, and the garage still needs more de-cluttering.

The cut chunks.
Foto-bomber at left wants to start pecking at them.
No, it's not good for you! Go away!

   I remembered to set the DC to DC power adapter back to 19 volts again before I took it back out to the cabin to power my old 19 volt laptop computer so it wouldn't blow up when I went to write this. (It quit working later anyway.)




Haida Gwaii Gardening - Summer

   August was when the gardens finally got growing after a cold, windy, rainy spring most days until mid July. Somehow I did find enough decent days earlier to plant all my plots. There seemed to be a big shortage of pollinating insects this year, again probably because of the weather. The blooming sunflowers usually have bugs crawling all over them. This year I'd see one or two. I suspect they'll have lots of empty seed shells.

   It was so cold that the April buds on my walnut trees all died. I feared the trees were dead. In July I saw a bud or two on the Carpathian English walnut. Not totally dead?!? I belatedly put plastic bags over them both to keep them warmer in the wind.

In August the Carpathian tree finally grew some leaves and started to look alive again.
Still lots of bare branches.


The only thing the Black walnut seemed to grow was lichens.
I'm still hoping that if I keep it watered - and covered next spring - it'll come back next year.


The black locust and birch seeds I planted in April were growing well - the
locusts were about two feet tall; the birches (hmm... hardly seen from this angle)
were growing well with dense leaves.
With the locusts, each long "branch" with leaves is considered to be one leaf.
Hard, dense Locust wood used outdoors is said to last longer than treated wood.
(Wood is definitely a long term investment starting from seeds!)
In the spring I plan to plant them in a row by the front fence with some wire
semicircles to keep the deer off. Then if I can remember to water them...


The greenhouse jungle, reclaimed from grass this spring.
With a row of big trees to the West, the left half especially
doesn't get a lot of sun later in the afternoon.
(I'd cut a few of them down, but there's some leaning that would
fall on the shop. Hmm... Maybe I should hire someone to fell those?
It'd be a lot safer if there's ever a forest fire.)


At the back wall of that half is the "Sauvignon" green grape vine I bought 3(?) years ago.
The leaves and vines are growing great. Last year there was one little cluster of purple(!) grapes.
This year, no flowers!


In the front of that half, tomatos, squash plus a cucumber, the avocado shooting up (far right, pot),
the strawberry tree/bush shooting up (tallest thing on left), jalapeno "semi hot" pepper (front
left pot), and some "cherry hot peppers" planted very late in pots.
   I grew the "cherry (semi) hot peppers" in 2019. I liked them and saved seeds. They haven't been in the stores since. I've been trying to grow them ever since, but they never seemed to germinate and survive. I finally ran out of seeds. This year someone mentioned that peppers need warmth to germinate. I bet my house windows were too cold in April or May! In (?)late July, rummaging through my seed drawer in the fridge, I found another small package of the seeds. (Good thing they were labelled. I'd never have guessed they were the peppers I've been wanting!) This time even if the house generally wasn't warm enough, I put them right under an LED light and they grew!


Coffee tree recovering from its July sunburn when I moved it from inside
on the first sunny day in July (15th?)


Cucumber: I looked it up on line. New leaves with yellow edges that then turn brown mean
potassium deficiency. Looks like a classic case! I then noticed a number of my other plants with
similar pattern. And here I had a pail of woodstove ashes just sitting doing nothing! I
sprinkled them here, there and everywhere. The squashes and I think the fruit trees needed it.


The corn I planted in the greenhouse didn't amount to much. The corn I got from Dragonfly garden,
which had been off to a good start, wasn't as far along as that from my "corn box", now outside.
I don't think I'll try to grow corn in the greenhouse again. It's a waste of time.


The corn outside was just about ripe by the end of August.
It was delicious not long into September.
I wish I had planted some of the "Dragonfly" corn in the box to compare.


Good news! The graft I put on the Empire apple tree from a tree I liked in
town grew new leaves on the end after the deer had eaten most of them.
I'm hoping for better pollination when it flowers - and maybe some nicer apples.
(It's the only successful graft I've ever made. Some gardener I am!)


First corn and carrot at the end of August.
The corn was riper by the first week of September and the carrots got better - Passable results.
I harvested the rest of the corn and the first little plots of carrots on September 10th.
The next day it rained.


I fear two or three of four sunflowers aren't ripe and probably won't get there.
Usually this variety is ready by the end of August. They sure grew tall!


Growing potatos in an open space. The deer eat the "poisonous" tops anyway.
The chickens were digging up many of the potatos.
This time I threw some chicken wire and some stucco wire over top.
It was partly successful. The heavier wire worked better than the chicken wire,
which got trampled down or pushed aside.

   The garlic was very good and the onions usable. The strawberries, black currents and josta berries did well, along with the native salal berries, which like cool, damp weather. The raspberries would have been better if I had been picking them befre the early ones went mouldy. I still got quite a few.

   Looks like I'll only get a kilogram or so of peas from two rows instead of from each row. The squashes started too late to grow fruit except for the cucumber someone gave me and a zucchini in the greenhouse. Even those were marginal. A mouse ate half of the best cucumber (of two). Even the potatos aren't amounting to much. Great heaps of chickweed drowned out my potatos, beets, turnips and carrots I planted in the main garden, and threatened even the peas and the garlic.
   One looks at this year's disappointments and hopes for better next year. But unless it's a good summer, it's not an ideal place for growing the food crops that seem to work so well in other places. Good summer or not, weeds grow profusely all year. There's no really cold winter weather to cut them down, so by spring planting time they're already a major headache.

   I've been thinking again of the CNC gardening machine idea, and then I ran across a video on sterilizing soil with steam. A CNC gardening machine tilling and steaming out the weed seeds in the spring - and then regularly watering each plant - could be a wonderful thing! Maybe even something of a game changer? It's a project I just haven't managed to get to. But maybe I should as it would cut down my gardening time a lot, freeing up more project time!




Plastic Recycling 2.0 (to Make the Motor Housing)

~80 pounds of weight on the plastic to squash it down better


In spite of all the weight it wasn't totally flowed to all points and solid, but it was better than previously.
I think I can cut a solid piece the size for the motor end plate from this slab.

   I did this at the start of August, then got the ideas for testing things out on the old motor first, so refurbishing the older Electric Caik motor took priority.

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.

[22nd] Adam, who had had other commitments and then the flu, came over and we connected the solar panels (actually the microinverters) from the roof, through the outdoor shutoff box, to the indoor breaker panel. however, we can't flip the switches on until it's inspected, which it can't be until the plastic labels arrive for the boxes. Adam has ordered them and hopefully they'll arrive next week. The Chinese plug-in grid ties were a whole lot simpler, and easier to access! And these "approveable" AP Systems ones are made in China too. and installed outside - are they going to be any more reliable?
   These 10 grid tie microinverters, each powered by two solar panels, each have a strong WiFi to ensure there is plenty of perpetual electrosmog around. If it wasn't for the fact that they are right above a grounded metal roof and I hope to spend much of my time in the Faraday cabin way across the yard anyway, I'd be very concerned. No doubt they're powered by the solar panels even when the AC isn't connected, so doubtless they've been "live" ever since panel installation.
   Furthermore, although a "communication unit" with ethernet was supplied, I discover it won't connect to a web browser. Instead one needs a smart phone or tablet to set it up, which also involves downloading an "app" from Google, and getting an account with AP Systems. With no cell phone service at my house (ever since they changed some antennas and put in "5G") I don't have a cell phone, I'm not buying another tablet after the last one died ignominiously and I have no other use for one, I don't want to go to google plays store, and I don't want an account at AP Systems. (Hmm... that must be how "the Chinese" (or AP Systems) can shut off YOUR solar panels remotely, as I've been hearing about lately. Not some mechanism in the panels themselves, but they could probably shut off the inverters over the internet.) So I'm going to decline to connect the monitor. Their whole monitoring system then is useless - just a way for them to spy on and have control over everyone. How then to see what's happening? Other than seeing lower electric bills, I guess I'll have to find some 240 volt power monitor that I wire into the circuit breaker box and put on the wall next to it. Again the plug-in grid ties that I could just plug in through a plugged-in power monitor, were just too simple.

[23rd] I looked on line and found a "DIN Rail Power Monitor". Say! There was something that could be hooked up within the system configuration without too many contortions. The outdoor shutoff box had DIN rail circuit breakers, with a spare DIN rail slot for the monitor. It would be a simple wire-up.
   Not without drawbacks... The box was screwed shut and would have to be opened every time for readings - like daily as I've been doing. That screw was going to get lost fast! Then inside, there was a plastic cover for breakers over the din rail positions. That was going to have to be chopped to put the monitor in and be able to read its display. And it was outside. I'd rather have the monitor indoors.
   Another thing I note is that the outdoor switch box, where mounted, is going to get rained on. I'll have to make a little roof  over it - and while I'm at it, over the patio door, which has needed a roof all along. It's annoying to be rained on while opening the door to get in!
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...

July
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 =>   4.90 [45+45Km; 30874@21:00]
  4th 717.25, 578.47 =>   5.34 [30891@23:00]
  5th 719.37, 579.82 =>   4.80 [30912@20:00]
  6th 722.93, 582.50 =>   6.42 [55Km; 30931@21:00] Charged car on solar by 7.5 KWH, finished from grid. (4 KWH?)
  7th 728.64, 583.32 =>   6.53 [30960@22:00]
  8th 730.56, 585.96 =>   4.56 [30983@23:30]
  9th 733.20, 588.56 =>   5.24 [55Km; 31023@19:30; 50 Km]
10th 735.32, 589.96 =>   3.52 [31037@'24:00']
11th 737.36, 590.25 =>   2.33 [31046@'24:30']
12th 738.66, 591.26 =>   2.31 [35Km(s*); 31053@22:00] * s=recharged via solar off grid power (~6.9KWH).
13th 747.06, 593.71 => 10.85 [85Km(s*); 31070@'24:00'] *35-63% (6.0KWH) chj. on solar, rest from power grid. Sunny!
14th 748.40, 694.48 =>   2.11 [55Km; 31088@20:00] Yikes, winter is here! No solar, chj.car from grid.
15th 750.44, 594.81 =>   2.37 [85Km; 31134@22:00] House barely recharged from 13th!
16th 753.08, 597.28 =>   5.11 [105Km; 31184@'24:00']
17th 756.14, 599.29 =>   5.07 [35Km; 31206@23:30]
18th 758.19, 600.47 =>   3.23 [31232@'24:00'] AM: Pouring rain, cold. Few days 'like summer' so far and it's 5/6 over! I would be using substantially more solar power now if there WAS more solar power!
19th 762.41, 601.55 =>   5.30 [31273@22:00]  Sun showed briefly in AM, but soon it was overcast and then raining again.
20th 768.29, 605.87 => 10.20 [60Km; 31299@23:00] Sun!?! Chj.car on solar @55%: 11+KWH !
21st 774.58, 609.46 =>   9.88 [31309@'24:00']
22d  776.33, 610.68 =>   2.97 [31320@'24:00'] New solar system finally wired up!
23rd 779.08, 614.89 =>   4.38 [55Km; 31338@?; 50Km]
24th 786.46, 616.60 =>   9.15 [45Km; 31348@23:00] Chj.car solar @63%: 9 KWH
25th 793.09, 616.92 =>   6.63 [31357@23:30] STILL sunny out! (seems like a miracle!)
26th 793.51, 617.56 =>   1.06 [31366@23:30]
27th 800.23, 619.17 =>   8.33 [55Km; 31375@19:00] Chj.car solar @60%: 9.75 KWH. STILL sunny!
28th 804.84, 621.59 =>   7.03 [31386@20:00]
29th 805.25, 622.02 =>     .82 [31397@'24:30'] Ordered 75m spool of #10-2 cable at Masset Home Hardware to replace skinny(er) cables for solar stuff. Over 500$! (and that was doubtless the cheapest place) These days, that's the price of two more 350W solar panels!
30th 805.67, 622.26 =>     .66 [55Km; 31412@20:00; 55Km]
31st 814.22, 622.58 =>   8.87 [35Km; 31421@20:30] Solar chj. 60%=>80%, drove, 55%=>81%, ~12.5 KWH total (just 9 KWH from grid)

September
1st 822.71, 624.61 => [31433@'24:00']
2d  824.38, 627.08 => [31441@22:30]
3d  826.77, 629.39 => [50Km; 31447@22:00] chj.car solar 64%=> 80%. No sun, insufficient solar!
4th 828.88, 630.70 =>   2.52 [31467@20:00] Chj. rest of way (~10 KWH total? still no sun)
5th 837.54, 634.23 => 12.19 [90Km; 31474@19:00]
6th 843.61, 637.51 =>   9.35 [55Km; 31502@22:00; 50Km] Had to charge from grid after 1st drive.
7th 851.40, 640.39 => 10.67 [45Km; 31510@21:30] Charged 58%=>84% from 2nd drive yesterday, another part charge from 51%=>76% from today's drive.
8th 857.55, 643.10 =>   8.86 [31525@21:00] Finished charging. total ~12 KWH.
9th 861.38, 645.90 => [31536@23:00] Still mostly sunny all this time!
10th 864.26, 646.40 => [31542@23:30] Cloudy.
11th 865.02, 646.69 => [31564@23:00] RAIN! (There goes summer!) Also, Nissan Leaf said "T/M Error - visit your dealer", and wouldn't run. First real trouble with it, but it's very real when it won't go anywhere. I had to drive to town and renew the insurance on the Toyota Echo, which I had hoped to save a month or two or three of insurance on.


Chart of daily KWH from solar panels.   (Compare August 2025 with July 2025 & August 2024.)
Days of
__ KWH
 August 2025
(18 Collectors,
DC/ Batteries.)
 July 2025
(18 C's - DC/
batteries only)
 August 2024
(18 C's - Grid
Ties & DC)
0.xx
 2
 2
1.xx
 1

2.xx
 5
 2
3.xx
 2
 2
 1
4.xx
 4

5.xx
 5
 3
6.xx
 3
 5
 2
7.xx
 2
 2
 1
8.xx
 2
 3
9.xx
 2
 4
10.xx
 2
 3
 2
11.xx

3
12.xx
 1
 2
 1
13.xx

1
14.xx
1
 1
15.xx
2
 2
16.xx

1
17.xx

1
18.xx

1
19.xx

1
20.xx

3
21.xx

1
22.xx

1
23.xx

2
24.xx

3
25.xx

3
Total KWH
for month
 167.06
 243.26
 524.56
Km Driven
on Electricity
 1193.2
@8.2 Km/KWH
=150 KWH (much of
it from off-grid solar)
 1035.8
@8.2 Km/KWH
= 130 KWH
 1420.2 Km
180 KWH

Things Noted - August 2025

* Since the power has nowhere to go except to charge the batteries, and with little demand for power from the DC systems, little power was generated even tho the sun & solar panels had plenty to give.  (This note is from very early in the month. I still had hopes that it would be nice out.)

* This is the most dismal summer I've seen here. (until Aug 21st, then it got warm, sunny)

* Owing to "ultrasonic smog" I kept the solar charge controller in the cabin Off when I was in it - and then sometimes neglected to turn it On when I left during the day.

* With the systems now off-grid and wasting excess power instead of sending it to the grid, consumption form the grid was up, from a low 358 KWH in Aug. 2024 to 616 KWH this year.


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 SIX full years (March 2019 to February 2025) may be found in TE News #201, February 2025. Note that in November 2024 I had to disconnect the "unapproved" solar power systems from the power grid, and I have been running them as two "off grid" 300 amp-hour, 36 volt, battery systems since.

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]
August 118.56 + 48.50 = 167.06 [grid: 616; car 150]


* Car consumption comes from solar and or grid: it does not add to other figures. (Just from grid from Nov. 18th. 2024 on)


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