DeepBass9

I am not an expert on this, but as far as I know all earth's must be bonded together, so the newly installed earth rod must be bonded to your other earth's. As I understand it, it is so all earth points have the same potential. I may be wrong through.

Most pool pumps are air cooled, the water doesn't flow around the motor, only through the impeller which is driven with a shaft from the motor.

The motor turns at a fixed rpm and drives an impeller. If there are no constrictions in the system, the impeller will have less resistance and will pump the water through the system will less work done. If the filter is blocked then more work needs to be done, and more power will be drawn. I have measured my pump which is rated 800w and it usually uses 450W but 650W with the creepy attached. The power consumption increases with the work done. As the filter blocks up it will take more work to force the water through the filter. Conservation of energy, its the law so I hear.

You guys are joking right?

I would pay careful attention to balancing the blades/rotor assembly. Vibration at high RPM will quickly shake things to pieces. Great project!

There was also the risk that one of the pipe fittings would pop off under the full pressure of the pump and my swimming pool would be pumped away into the veld!

Because the pipe was a lot of different diameters, with the smallest being 25mm, and because I didn't want to load the pump with pushing the water through a few 100m of pipe. Even if the pipe is all the same diameter as your pump outlet, there is still extra work to be done to overcome the friction in such a long pipe. The way it is I can control the amount of water going through the pipe. I generally adjust it so the water is being warmed to about 30 odd degrees (finger thermometer) as it exits the pipe.

The way I have done it is on the outlet that goes back to the pool, after going through the pump and filer, I have a T piece with a valve that I can partially close and direct some of the water flow through a loop of black pipe (various sizes, just joined all the odd pieces I have into a long one). So most of the water goes directly back to the pool, but an amount of it goes through the black pipe and is heated.

Is this the 24V or 48V version?

I don't understand why the 'duck curve' is such a challenge. If they could incentivise industry to use that excess which is wheeled through the grid, they could be selling electricity they didn't even generate. Most businesses operate during the day. The sun shines during the day. Where's the problem?

Au contraire, they are already in the ground. I had a worm farm going for some time in an old bath. I then I took handfuls of worms and put them under the mulch in various places, and now they are everywhere. When I plant the seedlings through the mulch, there are always a few worms in the hole.

Update now that it has rained. It got really hot before the rain came with 35 degree days, and these seedlings would have all expired if it wasn't for the mulching. The bare ground in other places was too hot to walk on, so the plants would have shrivelled. We are getting a few weeds coming up now, so I just go around with a weedeater every now and then, and put some more straw close to plants. Or just stomp on the weeds and put straw down. Easy! Tomatoes being staked up with first fruit: Squash, pattipans, beans etc: Pumpkins, hubbards etc:

I also have two of those that have been working fine for a few years now. The only funny thing with those is I notice if I am running a generator a lot then they start to gain time, although I keep the genny at 50Hz.

Is this grid tie system? What are the loads? Once the batteries are charged, and there is no load, there is no current drawn from the panels. If you want to get the theoretical maximum out of the panels, switch on a kettle at midday on the 21st of December.

That's a good price for a battery bank that size. What's the life expectancy on the 2V cells?

Thinking further about your situation with alkaline soil. Ca and Mg are good for plants, but in an alkaline environment they are insoluble and are not taken up by the plant, or in too high a concentration. Using the deep mulching puts a lot more organic matter in the soil which neutralises the pH and makes more nutrients available to the plants, as well as conserving moisture. The thing to do is to try a large variety of different vegetables, and different varieties of those vegetables until you find something that works well in your circumstances. There are some things, like peppers, I just can't get right, but lettuce and tomatoes are worse than weeds.

Im sure that will work. Just googling a typical compostion of chicken manure gives a NPK composition of 1:3:2, so that should be good for fruiting vegetables.

Basically this idea arose from seeing what could be done with leftover feed bales, which then lead to an epiphany about nutrient cycles and a better understanding of soil characteristics. Google and read about permaculture principles as that informs a lot of what I am doing. I do use wood ash as a fertilisers, particularly putting it around fruit trees as it has lots of K and other alkaline oxides. We try and incorporate anything organic into the whole system so for any 'waste' the logic goes like this: 1. Will the dog eat it? Yes/ No go to next option: 2. Will the poultry eat it? Yes/ No go to next option: 3. Will the Livestock eat it? Yes/ No go to next option: 4. Is it compostible? Yes/ No go to next option: 5. Can we use it for something? Yes/ No go to next option: 6. Is it recyclable? Yes/ No go to next option: 7. No? Lets not buy this again! So anything organic goes back into the soil, either directly, or via the digestive tract of an animal or by composting, which in turn grows into something to feed back into the process.

Next up squash: And tomatoes:

LOL. I was about to make a chirp about doing what you want WHEN THE SUN IS SHINING!. But I see others beat me to it.

OK, so quite a substantial generator. 7.5 kVA or bigger. Thanks.

No one has tried welding with a generator? Is this just a software forum now?😝

I need to do some welding jobs around the farm. I have a small DC inverter welder that will do the job. I generally weld at 80-100A. I need to rent or buy a portable generator for this. How big a generator do you need to drive a welder? Or is is better to use a generator/welder unit that is designed for the job?

Switch on a few big loads t midday and see what solar production you get, it can be you have few loads and your batteries are charged, so as pointed out above, there is nothing for the power to do.

That ray from the Death Star can cause that effect.