Author: The Buchanans Rolling Down The Road

What can be said, about a crusty old curmudgeon, with no fixed address … not much I guess.

A quick solar update.

March 19th 2020

Ok be warned this is an update on our solar system. If you have been following the progress of our latest solar upgrade you may remember that I have been having issues with a voltage drop at the solar controllers, and it was large enough that it would keep moving the controllers from bulk charge to a float charge and it would do this because the controller was seeing a voltage in excess of 14.4 volt which is the same voltage as our battery’s when fully charged. But actually the true battery voltage was only 13.4 volts, the difference was the 1.0 volt drop that I have been chasing.

This was the style of circuit breaker that I was running between the controller and the batteries, it was a 50 amp unit that clamped down on the 6 gauge wire by means of a set screw. I have tightened them multiple times but they always seemed to be loose. This problem is maybe magnified because it is a multi strand welding cable, so less rigid.

What I was able to trace was that because now we are running the controllers at near capacity, 550 watts each the breaker was causing too much resistance when the panels were were in full sun. I even disassembled the connections and tried soldering the cable ends to get a much more solid surface for the set screw to tighten against, but the breaker would heat up and the resistance would increase causing the larger voltage drop, sending the controller into float charge mode, reducing the output until the controller sensed the correct battery voltage again throwing it into a continuous cycle switching cycle from bulk to float and back again. So the better the solar harvest available the worse this condition would be and the poorer our actual solar harvest would be.

This is what I replaced the circuit breaker with, with it I was able to crimp copper lugs onto the 6 gauge wire, and then tighten them with a wrench reducing any chance of resistance and have corrected the voltage drop so the controller picks up true battery voltage. I had to upgrade to 60 amp fuses but they are to protect from a catastrophic failure so the extra 10 amps won’t be a concern.

It is amazing how one of the most inexpensive pieces in our solar system has caused me the largest amount of grief. I just today finished changing the fuse blocks and even with a rainy morning and a cloudy sky we have harvested more than 250 amp / hours of solar power. We are still seeing a voltage drop but less than one half a volt, and it stays consistent at all amperage, over the summer I will replace the 6 gauge wire with 2 gauge with proper crimps and will shorten the length of the cables by running them more directly to the batteries … my target will be less than one tenth of a volt drop between batteries and controller.

That’s all for the solar updates most likely till we are back into Ontario.

Please be careful and stay safe!

Social Distancing …

March 18th 2020

What the hell is “Social Distancing”? – Webster’s definition: the perceived or desired degree of remoteness between a member of one social group and the members of another, as evidenced in the level of intimacy tolerated between them. Well that was pretty much said nothing … so here is how I take it to be. Staying a reasonable distance between people that you have no knowledge of their medical state. Now here in the middle of the Arizona desert we are pretty much separated from everyone else, now our situation will likely change on the weekend when the “weekend warriors” return, but that will still be social distancing as we will not likely be very close to any of them.

Now we are still hoping to get together with friends before we start our trek back to Ontario, this will depend on everyone’s comfort level, our last social gathering was last Friday with some Canadian friends for drinks and dinner (there was only seven of us, so still within Donnie & Mikey’s guidelines of less than 10), and as much as we discussed the coronavirus and how poorly it was being handled, it was not a major concern, and we all felt common sense and avoiding crowded areas should be our best course of action. It is Thursday now and there are some of the group that are going to head to the border sooner than planned, but we are quite comfortable here for now.

  • Looking north
  • Looking south
  • Looking east
  • Looking west
These are photos of our coach from all directions in most we can barely see the coach true “social distancing”

This is our idea of “social distancing” it would be hard to be any more separated from the rest of the world, the gallery of photos are views of our coach from all four directions, as you can see nothing within a few hundred yards. This is Arizona State Trust land and its not a bad spot to settle in for a couple of weeks. We are hoping to get out kayaking with the Savino’s at lost canyon before heading east, but we also have a couple of days with some rain and cooler temperatures this week so we are hoping later this week or early next week to get the kayaks in the water.

Now there is a large panic in the snowbird population as insurance company’s are starting to drop coverage! Now that is a whole new topic, what the hell, they had no problem taking our money to cover us, but god forbid that they should actually have to step up and pay something. And that leads me to our Ontario premier who decided to break federal law and steal our out of province coverage, so many snowbirds will have no coverage if they are from Ontario. Hell I couldn’t get a test here in the States even if I wanted to, let alone worry about who was going to pay for it … but with the decay of the society, people hoarding and the like, we are seeing the true character of many people. The grocery stores even have given anyone over sixty an hour to shop before the stores actually are scheduled to open, a great gesture, but that is the majority of the population in Arizona during the winter … just saying

As our travels are pretty slow we expect to begin that journey soon, as we are about 2400 miles (3800 kilometres) from Ontario and travel around 200 miles (320 kilometres) per day, that’s the best part of two weeks, so it has always been our plan to aim east by the first of April. we had a rainy cool day yesterday and there could be some showers this morning but it should clear late morning and we should be back in the sunshine for the next ten days. And as cool as it gets now we are still well above Ontario temperatures.

Everyone please be safe and stay well!