Earthship – Sunray Circle

Earthship – Sunray Circle

A magical circular earthship build deep in the wilderness of Northern ontario. Built from more than 80% reused or natural materials We cut the trees and milled the wood to build our home, and used 80,000lbs of earth rammed into tube netting for our primary walls.

Size of land : 50acres
Structure size:1000 ft² home with 400 ft² greenhouse
Living space: 1000 ft²
Location: Ontario, Zone 3a

Powersystem

1600 Watt Solar Panels
540ah 24v deep cycle marine Batteryblock
1400w pure sine Inverter
3000w modified sine Inverter
A gas/propane generator soon to be using methane digested from our animals (biogas).

Heating

Natural passive heat from earthship design.
6-8kW Wood stove and in floor radiant heat

Water

Water sourced from a sandpoint well that was driven inside the greenhouse.
Pump it to cisterns both in the house for the home water and up into a water tower where it auto irrigates all the gardens.
The home is 50ft from a large rivers edge, between two waterfalls, one 30ft and one 17ft. The plan is to to generate power from the river eventually.

Food / Garden

Size : 12,000 ft²
13 separate gardens, mostly keyhole style.
The garden is using hugelkulture mounds and permaculture companion planting, utilizing the local established ecosystem to create an abundance of wild forage including hazelnuts, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, mushrooms and plenty of vegetables.
Plenty of livestock: chicken, sheep, horses and such .)

Special thanks to OffGridEnclave community member Xivanari for providing Pics and Infos to present this as Project.
If you would like to see more pictures or read up on details of the build go visit https://www.facebook.com/SunrayCircle/ .

Maintenance and small repairs of a deep cycle lead acid battery

Maintenance and small repairs of a deep cycle lead acid battery

We will be looking at maintenance and small repairs on a deep cycle lead acid battery. Commonly these are used for forklifts or OffGrid power systems. We are talking about big battery blocks, not the ones used for common cars.
To ensure optimal lifetime of your deep cycle lead-acid batteries you should do maintenance at least once every half year to a year.

On the image you can see here there is quite a bunch of sulfation that formed. Initially sulfation will be green but, over time it can take all sorts of colours. While it is still green it usually is rather easy to remove, once it turned brown’ish to black its becomes very solid. As an idea of size, this battery here is my main block, it has 1250 Ah at 24 volts.

For safety, before we start doing anything on the battery we will be disconnecting all the connections. First by turning the fuses from the inverter and all the solar charge controllers off. Next we physically disconnect the battery from the system by separating the connection plugs. For this system each inverter and charge controller has its own connection plug.

If you are interested in how this complete OffGrid power system works check out the Project Link.

After removing the connections to the battery, unscrew each of the batteries cell connections, and remove any sulfation you encounter around the pole.

This can require quite some force. It is recommended to wear safety googles and a dust mask for this.

After cleaning all the connections of sulfation, make sure to apply batteryfat to all the connections before screwing them back on.
This helps to protect against moisture and future sulfation or oxidisation.

Some 2-3 hours of work later, your battery should look something like this. No visible dirt, dust or particles of sulfation leftover. No sulfation on the connections and a fresh layer of batteryfat.

Next we will be checking the waterlevel of the battery.
Each battery cell has the connection for the distilled water in the middle.
when you look closely you can see there is a small window build in. Under that is a swimmer that shows the water level of the cell. This will indicate a need for refill.
Use only distilled water for this, do not use normal tab water as it will damage the battery!
After refilling the battery reconnect the system plugs and we are done.

Solar Suitcase

Solar Suitcase – A portable Generator

Here we will be looking at small and portable yet powerfull mini solar system. This system was done as tutorial and training to get some basic experience. The design was choosen to have a electricity supply for power needs during camping and other outdoor activities. Charging the phone, run some small stereo, illuminate a construction site using led’s, etc.. nothing like powertools or such.
This little system is running since 2014 and is always usefull to have around. I can not count how many times it was great to have a small mobile electricity source that recharges itsself.

Technical Stats

• 10 Watt Solar Module
• 5 Ampere 12 Volt Solar PWM Chargecontroller
• 20 Ah 12 Volt Lead-Acid Gel Battery
• Voltmeter
• 300 Watt Modified Sinus Inverter
• 5 Volt / 12 Volt / 220Volt Output

Materials used

As housing i choose a aluminium suitcase. They are reasonable cheap, very lightweight and easy modifiable. For DIY projects any casing that can house the components should do.

The size of the solar module was picked so it would fit inside the suitcase for transport. The solar chargecontroller supports a lot more power-input so it is possible to have a larger “home station module” to connect the suitcase to. This is highly recommended to have if you DIY this project, as the 10W solar module will take quite a while to charge this battery size.

As mounting for the chargecontroller and the switches i choose a sheet metal plate and cut it with an anglegrinder to fit the suitcase middle bar.

For connections i used the power plugs and cables from computers.
The Plug in the solar suitcase was recycled from a broken pc power supply. These make for smooth connections. As this system will not be getting to much power from the solar panel the cable diameters is not a problem.

Inside the suitcase

To stabilize the components i used a few wooden blocks that got fixed by screwing them into the suitcase. I made some distance pieces and used ductape to make shure the metal cover and inverter or cables dont touch.
The inverter was fixed to the suitcase using additional screws.

Output

220V and 5V output of the inverter and the 12V output of the chargecontroller are placed to the right side of the suitcase.

Questions, ideas or input on this or many other projects ?!?
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