Wind/diesel installation....

[Paulh_Boats]

Solar results looks good - over the weekend my 2 x 64 Wp system was doing 60% of full speed. Amazin for January!

But I'm hot on your heels with 560 Wp in the pipeline,  a mixture of second hand made in 2006, ex-equipment (£1/Watt) and new bargains on ebay... all for £2.20 / Watt average.

How did you get the voltmeter to do 40 to 70? Very useful mod. A Zener diode would do the trick, but getting the numbers right is the hard bit.

-Paul

[O MidKnight]

Yes it`s great when you find a bargain

[byways]

Solar results looks good - over the weekend my 2 x 64 Wp system was doing 60% of full speed. Amazin for January!

But I'm hot on your heels with 560 Wp in the pipeline,  a mixture of second hand made in 2006, ex-equipment (£1/Watt) and new bargains on ebay... all for £2.20 / Watt average.

How did you get the voltmeter to do 40 to 70? Very useful mod. A Zener diode would do the trick, but getting the numbers right is the hard bit.

-Paul

Getting the right numbers may be a bit trial and error, but what meter did you wish to use?
Suppose you had a 0 - 30v meter, that you wanted to read 40 - 70 v, you could get two 20v zeners, see http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ITAG=SPEC&ModuleNo=19090&doy=28m1#spec
try BZV85C20V at 12pence, 1.3watts, in series, drops the first 40v, then a 3k resistor in series, measure the voltage across the resistor, it will be almost zero until the 40 volts is dropped across the two zeners, then 30 volts will be dropped across it at 70 volts.


If you had a 0 - 10v volt meter fsd you wished to use, then connect a 1k and a 2k resistor in place of the 3k and measure the voltage across the 1k, calibrated 0 - 30v.

This will not be quite linear at about 30v, but not far out. I assume the meter will be high impedance compared to the resistors

[frotter]

Yeah that voltmeter is really cool innit? It started life as a 30 amp AC ammeter. You Know Who (Lord Speccymort) performed sparky magic on it with zener diodes, multimeter, a calculator and some fish and made it super useful and accurate. (ok no fish then - just checking you're awake). The meters come from Chinese ebay person. Quite cheap and look really neat. Gotta watch the ammeters though as they are a little 'casual' on the assembly front.... 20 amps can cause quite a bit of heat through loose contacts. Been there dun that ate the pie etc..

Ok - quick update then....
We have been finding it can get quite hot in chernobyl when Ivor is running - and its winter.... The thought of melting plastic fittings in the summer prompted the digging out of ancient but trusty Vent axia fan doobrie that i knew 'would be useful one day'. You've got some of them things tucked away and i wont have you saying you havent...!

First, need one large aperture...






then you need to bosh a fan in it like so......




This thread is getting really fascinating in't it..?
No, but we've got it wired to a room thermostat so it goes on and orf automagically, like, when Chernobyl reaches thermal runaway (25+ C). 
I luv automation, me.

Yeah, yeah well thats ok but what about this combi boiler eh?
The heat exchanger has a lot of connections to it which we dont need...... but we need to use the complimacated unions as they are o-ringed onto it with no other easy way to bodg, er connect pipes to it.... Only one thing for it then - solder HM The Queens' coin of the realm over the outlets we dont need. (yes, the copper ones - magnet, blah blah etc....) 




I luv legal tender, me. Er, its not still considered treason is it..?
B*gger.


So heres a tentative trial placing of components to get us going.....
You can see here the fan is operating cooling us down all super while Ivor rumbles away underneath. And no, we dont plan to catch the lukewarm air in giant dustbin bags and run across to let it fly free  inside Frot Towers.  That would just be silly so stop it.






You can also see in this pic that Old Spec has craftily brought into being a snuggly Celotex nest for teh heat exchanger. He's insulation mad that bloke!




Ok enough now.
Next time - the fire-retarding properties of Celotex. 

X

[frotter]

Hah! 11,000 and rising.....

Now if only i could get pay per view on this thing.....

Kerching....!   

[stephen]

let me know where I can send the mony frott, I cancelled my tv licence cos its more interesting on Frott TV.
poor camillitech is on dial up and cant see all your lovely pics.


Stephen

[Paulh_Boats]

Yeah that voltmeter is really cool innit? It started life as a 30 amp AC ammeter. You Know Who (Lord Speccymort) performed sparky magic on it with zener diodes, multimeter, a calculator and some fish and made it super useful and accurate. (ok no fish then - just checking you're awake). The meters come from Chinese ebay person. Quite cheap and look really neat. Gotta watch the ammeters though as they are a little 'casual' on the assembly front.... 20 amps can cause quite a bit of heat through loose contacts. Been there dun that ate the pie etc..

I know all about the zener stuff, but how did Speccymort add the 40-70 numbers?.

-Paul

[goodnoisefella]

Where do I send for my FrotTV licence?
far superior to bleeding Freeview

We hang on every knuckle grazing twist of your stillson........

Oh for a decent scrappie 'round here!

We send one of those little karma sweeties for giving us so much fun

Cheers
Tim

[frotter]

The Frotview channel will always remain free from this end!
We had actually thought about setting up a Chernobyl-cam. The Speccyone has such a device somewhere.....

As for the 40 - 70 volts on that meter..... i was really pleased with that bodg,.. er modification. I took the original scale out (nice thin metal) and scanned it at fairly high resolution. Easy job then to change the 0, 10, 20, 30 amps to the desired numbers with Paint Shop Pro. Printed out the new scale and stuck it onto the metal plate. Bish bosh, job's a good 'un.
Does look good though dontit?



More laters if i get chance......

Wuv yous guys!

 

[frotter]

Well here we are - more pipes and wires and stuff. The bent copper 15mm going downwards is off toward the exhaust heat exchanger. The plastic one coming back is off into Frot Towers - hopefully hot when running!





Heh! More pipes and gubbins. Theres pressure in that loop and everything! looks a bit like below the poop deck on a ww2 destroyer...
The rubber hose is straight from thermostat housing on top of Ivor - to 3-way valve which will choose either to heat the intermediate loop or lose heat to the external radiator - if the temp ever gets that high...





So... we are nearly all set for test run. Just an awkward joint to solder down between the engine frame and wall. The wall made of MDF, wood and Celotex.... Just about managed to get the heat mat down there but the only thing for it was to heat it like mad quickly with the torch and solder it up as quick as poss. Did that - ok. Sprayed plenty of water all over the charred area once finished. ok.
At this point i had to skip off to drop Frotling into town - was just getting the car around when Frotling starting babbling something about shed, speccybloke, immediately...
Ran back to Chernobyl ( ) to find Fireman Spec frantically squirting water from gay plant sprayer up into the wall cavity towards a sort of crackling noise!  Seems that just where we soldered was a joint in the fiendish foam product which had caused a splendid narrow chimney to exist inside the wall. Celotex burns ever so well and ever so quickly.....
Luckily i picked up the Co2 FIRE EXTINGUISHER (just outside the door, JUNIOR Fireman Speccynumpty!) and cooled its ardour quick as you like. I luv Co2, me.
Lucky we had it there as smoke and heat was just starting to appear over the crack in the mdf inside at roof level. Worst of all in all the kerfuffle i only managed to get one rubbish pic... This is after the Biceps of Spec had frantically torn off the steel mesh covering this bit of wall.
 




Suggestions for new shed name may be considered at this juncture.
Bhopal, Flixborough, 3 mile island..? I dunno.

Ahem.

[frank2]

charnobyl 

[martin]

 

[ajstoneservices]

speccybloke's not worked at a large 2nd home in Windsor with that torch has he?

[frotter]

He (El Specco) is Squeaky Clean Bloke here as it was me wot wielded the hot flamey firetorch o' misery. He was just rubbish at remembering a shiney new Co2 dispenser had just been made available. Blimmin lucky really.  I 'relocated' it from an abandoned office i helped to clear out couple of weeks ago. On the strength of its performance i have bought another two off of Egay to scatter about the place randomly.
I imagine the value of our considerable renewable energy assets would have been significantly diminished without said gas emitting contrivance.
(dont know why i came over like a minor Dickens character there... shock i Spect.  I'm not gay or owt.)

Pfff...


Just to lighten the mood briefly here is a pic i just spotted of our ex-cat Brian who sat like this with a wine bottle top on his head for absolutely AGES..
Silly old git!



He's brown bread now. That'll learn 'im!

XX

[stephen]

Did Speckybloke work on old boats in London?

Lucky escape.  I have actually performed many a fire test to propper BS and EN standards and polystyrene is the worst its nasty followed by celotex.  Rockwool on the other hand just sits there looking cool.

Stephen