Sunday, March 28, 2010

Surprise Squash

While Helen was clearing weeds at the bottom of the garden she discovered this28032010128 It’s a  calabaza  which is a type of squash or pumpkin it had grown from some seeds which ended up on our compost heap. As our compost heap doesn’t work very efficiently at the moment it isn’t getting rid of the seeds but it does grow some wonderful pumpkins as looking at the vines which are coming up from that area we have found about 3 more potential calabazas which are only about an inch long at the moment.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Wiring a Power Station

I do wonder if this may be overkill but it has to handle up to 100 Amps and its better be safe than sorry.

I have started to layout the main solar power switch box. This box provides for the main isolation switches, fuses and some electronics to measure the current flowing in one of three locations, into or out of the battery, into the house 12v supply  and to the inverter that will provide 240v to the house.  Each of these circuits can also be isolated in this box.

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Front and rear of main switch box panel

There is a second box that provides isolation for the solar panels. see Danger Electric Shock Risk for the layout of the full power panel.