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*POP* hooray for UPS

pigboy

pigboy

in a galaxy far, far away
Nov 19, 2003
714
168
freeriding the cracks of your cranium
no no. not "what can brown do for you?"

i've moved back onto the power grid. so i bought a UPS (i have never owned one before) and we just had a power bump (first rain of the season here in Santa Cruz County). i was puzzled though because my desktop computer didn't go toes up due to power bump.... then I remembered, "Oh yeah. UPS. cooooool!"

need a bike. all my bikes are on the other side of the ocean. anyone in the Santa Cruz/San Jose/San Fran/Oakland area have a sh*tty old bike of ANY type that i can beg, borrow, steal?
 
pigboy

pigboy

in a galaxy far, far away
Nov 19, 2003
714
168
freeriding the cracks of your cranium
rural Hawaii. year round stream.

80' of head in a 4" pipe. Two units from "Harris Hydro". 1" jets. generating about 800-1100 watts continuous power.

additional power from a few crappy old solar panels. maybe 150 watts during a very sunny day.

backup power from Northern Lights diesel generator. 5000 watts.

Outback Inverter. 48volt battery bank (lead acid, the old reliable).

like being on the grid, but without the monthly bill. fail to do your system maintenance and you get penalized with power outages eventually. it's not a question of "if", it is a question of "when".

things to consider:
power from hydro is a function of pressure. to increase pressure you can do two things. more vertical head or bigger pipe. i don't recall (or never knew) how to calculate increase in pressure due to more vertical head. Roughly speaking you get exponential increase in pressure by increasing diameter of the pipe due to area of a circle = pi * radius squared.
eg.
3.14 * 2 * 2 = roughly 12
3.14 * 4 * 4 = roughly 50

i'm sure someone else can add more details to that half assed explanation. (JBP?)
 
pigboy

pigboy

in a galaxy far, far away
Nov 19, 2003
714
168
freeriding the cracks of your cranium
nelsonjm said:
I would like to see pictures of your setup if you have them. This sounds interesting.
Click to expand...
i don't believe that I ever took pictures of the system. i might do so when i get back to the farm in a month or two.

in the meantime you can take a look at pictures of the Harris Hydro generator bits and pieces from some guy who sells them:

http://www.thesolar.biz/Harris_Hydro.htm

our pipe run is PVC. a mixture of drainpipe (horizontal sections @ top, lower pressure), schedule 40 (downtube, increasing pressure) and schedule 80 (bottom sections, highest pressure).
 
pigboy

pigboy

in a galaxy far, far away
Nov 19, 2003
714
168
freeriding the cracks of your cranium
Total Heckler said:
I am in Santa Cruz and the power just flickered downtown.

As for a bike, check the local craigslist. You can find something on there cheap/free and local.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/scz/
Click to expand...
well yeah craigslist might work. but meeting local monkeys was half of my point of asking if anyone around here had a bike gathering dust. plus i'd rather have my money go to monkeys =)
 
pigboy

pigboy

in a galaxy far, far away
Nov 19, 2003
714
168
freeriding the cracks of your cranium
johnbryanpeters said:
Did pigboy ship a bicycle back east where the rust won't get it? Nooo... :nopity:
Click to expand...
wasn't looking for pity. was looking for a bicycle.

but at this point i'm more interested in electricity. our house has been offline since 11am on Tuesday. our local power monopoly seems to have Zayante Canyon as their last priority during widespread outages.

it was amusing to go through internet withdrawal and watch the children wander around aimlessly in the dark. and who knew that the 11 year old would sob himself to sleep because there was no light? certainly not me.
 
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