Let there be Lights!–installing a solar electric system

It has been great having our camp out at Firehill Lake, especially since it is only about a 10 minute drive from our house to the camp. While there are poles in place and telephone service available there is no hydro power. The poles installed were designed to manage hydro as well but issues cropped up such that no power has been yet been brought in.

I did spend about a year trying to get that off the ground again, including doing a survey of the existing pole line. But Hydro One, the public utility responsible for construction and maintenance of the public electric distribution system, have proven to be anything but helpful. For example they were insisting that all the cottage owners at the lake put up 25 years estimated maintenance costs ahead before they would proceed. This doubled their estimated cost of installing the power line with the estimate being guaranteed to be +/- 50% of the actual cost. This therefore made this totally fiscally unreasonable.

As I wanted to do some of my consulting work while out at camp I decided to spring for a small solar electric system. Nothing too elaborate with just 3-190 watt solar panels, an inverter, a 300 watt true sine wave inverter, 4-6 volt deep cycle batteries and an auto-transfer switch if and when I wanted to run off the generator.

After doing a careful site study I decided the best thing to do was to make an external battery box and box to host the electronics as I don’t have enough room in the camp and the small shed hosting the generator is too far from the solar panels. Both to be placed on the outside of the camp.

Prior to installing everything I built the two boxes, primarily out of 1/2” pressure treated plywood that I had on hand. The battery box I built just large enough for the four batteries plus 2” thick foam insulation as I will be leaving everything there during the winter time too. The electronics enclosure is large enough so that none of the components inside is cramped and with a sloped roof to shed rain.

The first thing I installed was the battery box. I have it on frame made of pressure treated 2x4’s strong enough to support the weight. The batteries fit inside just like a glove when the insulation is in place!

Next came the wall mounted box with all of the electronic components: Blue Sky Energy Solar Boost 50 charge controller, Morningstar Sure-Sine 300 watt pure sine wave inverter (as will be powering electronics I wanted good clean AC power), circuit breakers for the charge controller, the grounding plate and a 30 amp auto-transfer switch (when the generator is fired up the charge controller and the rest of the solar related components will be isolated from the camp to prevent any electrical damage.

Once in place it was time for the wiring. While not complicated, my supplier gave me very good sketches and made sure all connections were colour coded so that there would be no mistakes.

Once I was happy with all of the connections I then installed above the electronics box high up on the wall, just under the cabin eave, a combiner box whereby I tied in the feeds from the panels to a single output lead to the charge controller.

Next came the installation of the panels. These I just fastened using the provided clips to the roof right up by the peak. Fortunately the roof slope angle is very close to the 20° that my provider recommended as being the most optimal all-season angle for our latitude.

Then I ran all of the leads to the combiner box. Now this is where I ran into one minor snag; my supplier had pre-attached all of the wire needed to each of the components with extra to allow for margin of error, except for two of the panels! Each was about a foot and a half short! So I spliced in some heavy gauge wire that I had on hand and made the final connection.

The last step before powering it on by flipping the breakers was the installation of a simple on/off switch inside the camp so I could turn the inverter on or off as needed as it will draw a little bit of power even if in stand by mode. So at night, when nothing is running, there is no sense wasting battery power on an inverter that isn’t being used!

The moment of truth went flawlessly! I turned on the breakers below the charge controller, then went inside and turned on the switch for the inverter. I checked out my cell booster that I had installed last year (as we are on top of a large hill the cell signal here is rather poor) and it fired up nicely!

Since then I have been out to camp several times with my computer and it is a great feeling to be working away surrounded by peace and quiet and able to overlook the lake when ever I want! Perfect!

I’m now in the Sawmilling Business!

A number of years ago we bought a property near Schreiber, Ontario (http://schreiberproperty.blogspot.ca/). Because of the numerous large white spruce on the property, and because of my long time desire to build a log cabin. But not just any cabin; I wanted to build with squared timbers. Since I didn’t know of anyone nearby with a sawmill I decided to build one.

After much research I settled on buying plans from Procut (http://www.procutportablesawmills.com/). Here is a picture of the mill just after I completed building it.

As I was still working and living in Thompson, Manitoba at the time I hauled it to Nipigon in preparation for taking it out to the Schreiber property, once I had some timbers available, but that never did happen.

When we bought our camp at Firehill Lake two years ago the Schreiber property became redundant as did the usefulness of having one’s own sawmill as there is no suitable timber of the new property.

So I mulled over the idea of selling the mill even though I had enjoyed using it the few times that I had. I know a friend locally with a bush lot and who had a small pile of logs that he wished he could cut into lumber. So I offered to cut them for him on condition that I got a portion of the product. So I hauled the mill out to his place early December of last year and started cutting away.

Using my Procut Sawmill

It sure didn’t take me long to realise that a chainsaw powered mill, while very economical, is not one to rely on for relatively fast output. But while cutting away before long 2 others surfaced who had the same problem: a small amount of wood that didn’t justify hiring a truck to haul to a sawmill but would be suitable customers for someone with a portable mill like mine but with a faster production rate than the chain saw mill.

After more research, and the fact my consulting business has done reasonably well financially in its first 2 years, I decided to diversify my consulting business by expanding into custom sawmilling. So I went to the local Wood-Mizer dealer (http://www.woodmizer.ca/?gclid=COjUlvmO4rACFcHPKgodZTdcVw) and bought an LT35 with the manual log loading package as I didn’t feel comfortable spending the extra $5000 for the fully hydraulic version, the LT35HD.

I set the mill up at another friends place as he had a pile of wood he wanted cut and he was willing to learn to operate the mill when other activities wouldn’t allow me. Here is a video of him operating the mill.

Well, it certainly didn’t take long for me to realise that I had been penny wise yet pound foolish in not getting the hydraulic model as manually handling large logs, especially by one’s self was just an accident waiting to happen. Fortunately Wood-Mizer offers a one-month money back guarantee if not satisfied. And since I was still within that month I took the LT35 back and exchanged it for the LT35 HD. The best decision I could have made as this new machine is absolutely fabulous to work with!

Since I no longer had a need for the chainsaw mill I sold it, although I did keep the chainsaw; a Husqvarna 3120xp. While big for day to day cutting it may prove useful, or I may end up selling it too.

Here is a recent video of the LT35HD in operation.

Since buying the mill I have put on about 60 operating hours and it works great! Having the hydraulic log loading arms is fantastic as are the log rolling, dogging and toe boards, all hydraulically operated. While initial business has been on the slow side it will just take more word of mouth and advertising so that people know that I offer the service. This should provide a fun way of keeping myself busy if the geology consulting side falls onto slow times!