light in freezer went out. no big deal, just go grab one from Ace ......   wtf... its freaking proprietary .. 35 bucks.. for a lightbulb

Yay flooding. Everywhere. roads closed, rivers over bank.. parks flooded.  Spent the last 3 hours pumping water off my back porch before it got into the garage.   Could have been worse i guess, several houses down the road form here are effectively under water.   And more rain coming....

A big part of it is due to this ** construction.. tearing up the trees and farmland that used to absorb the water, and grow our food from it, AND give us air. Plus natural water pathways to retain overflows are being filled in and paved over. Too bad all that nonsense wont just wash down stream, along with the people who built them, and live in them. Grrr

lol  and now that a lot of towns are partially flooded around here..  "weather alert - freeze warning"   for the next couple of evenings. 

Reading that as of around noon, we had upwards of 7" of rain last few days.   No wonder we are swimming.

Well, i know what i'm doing tomorrow afternoon. one of our windmills broke apart. We have several 'vertical' ones we made from scratch out in the back yard. They drive old car alternators. For a bank of batteries out in the garage. Not traditional air plane bladed thing but not real sure what 'style' they are. Picture a large diameter PVC pipe cut in 1/2 lengthwise to make 2 blades, and they sort of sit inside each other in an S shape, to catch wind.

And since my description sucked, bad.  This is the idea. But its PVC pipe so thicker, the top and bottom are made of PVC cutting boards, and there are bolts to hold it all together.

Have several of them out there in a row.  All wired in parallel that run back into the garage.    Im sure there are far more efficient things, but its cheap, not flapping in the wind to hurt the birds, bla bla. 

I'm starting to see more of those, but the blades are sort of helical, like a ribbon lawnmower turned sideways.  And many of them look like they have the same configuration, the helical blades and a small solar panel on top of it, to produce both kinds of output.  I guess someone is mass producing them.

As some here know, I've been contemplating the construction of a DC system here at home for some time now, mostly as a backup but also to catch some "free" input power if I add it later on.

How do you keep the batteries from overcharging?  What kind of batteries do you use and are you concerned about fire?

We have a wire rack in the garage of little LiFePO4 deep cycle batteries, around 3x6x4. Each shelf has a solar charger thing to keep things under control. all wired in parallel to keep the current down. Ten we have a 120v to 12v from the power grid to keep them charged.  One adapter per shelf here too.. keep the current down on most of the wires.  Used to have old car batteries, but slowly swapped them out for the better ones, and added more.

Then, out of the controllers, again in parallel, we have something like a 5kw inverter that runs the house, bolted to the wall beside the rack. ( we don't use that much juice, it is overkill, but was on sale )

We do have regular grid power, but its not real stable during bad weather so having the batteries means we don't go without when it blips out. And we figured by using incoming to help charge ( or run the inverter when the batteries are charged ) we don't have to run out and flip the switch when its storming and get hit by lighting or something. ( garage is a separate building. and its where the power comes in at )

We also have a few panels on the roof of the garage that attach to the wire coming in from the windmills.  We added those when we were without for a couple of weeks, not too long ago.. and not really enough wind. We also bought a generator after that as a plan C.  Our fault for not really thinking/planning ahead...

Fire? Well, it's one reason we put them in the garage. Don't want to lose that either, but better than the house if we had to choose.  Also have a smoke detector and a couple of fire extinguishers out there, just in case. Oh, and a temp monitor stuck to the rack.

sigh. i meant the batteries were about 3" x 6" x 4". Small ones, but several. I could see that being interpreted as feet and the size of the rack.  

sorry. 

I think fans + temp sensors + alerts would be plenty.  

But you could always rig up a fire retardant sort of thing.   Other than restricted air flow ports, keep it in a 'box' ( steel or something ) add sensors, and if any sensor freaks, cut the power supply and drown it in some sort of anti-fire fluid...    And if the temp just gets a bit too much but not scary levels, it shuts it all down and the fans go into high gear.

Tue May 06 2025 22:58:42 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

The fire risk is one of the things keeping me from doing a big DIY battery bank.

He was thinking to keep them cool.  If fire, then shut off.      

Sat May 31 2025 20:36:38 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

I think fans + temp sensors + alerts would be plenty.  

Blowing fresh air onto a battery fire?

Well I'm in a bit of a bad position right now with regard to cash flow so nothing's happening soon anyway.

What I seem to be settling on though, whenever it happens, is a marine battery charger (because they're designed for continuous use, and they don't mind sharing the battery with other charging sources, like a generator or a solar array) and a bank of SLA batteries.

So i have been bitching about the paving over of everything here..  And now its reached where i grew up ( and where i take my dogs to walk along the river ).  Several thousand acres of woods and farms, rezoned for 'subdivision housing' and at least one apartment building ~1000 units.   Everyone i know is getting ready to get the hell out. ( if they can )

F- these people.  

Grrrrrr, along the same lines as above.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House broke ground Monday on construction projects ordered by President Donald Trump to pave over the grass in the Rose Garden and install flagpoles on the north and south lawns.