DeepBass9

Wattle definitely has a higher energy density, but tends to form coals better so is more suited for braai or in a closed stove. For more flames and radiant heat bluegum is better. Cast iron is better than steel for longevity, and will last decades, but mild steel will burn through in a shorter time. I have a jewel cast iron stove that is ancient and still going, but a similar steel stove collapsed in a pile of rust in about 8 years. The best supply of wood is to buy your own chainsaw, and find someone with a bluegum/wattle problem. You can cut a tonne of wood in about 2 hours. Drying takes 3 months minimum. I start cutting winter firewood in Feb/March, so it is now getting fully dry so as to not be too smokey. Its best to tile around and behind a fireplace like that as you will get soot on the walls, no matter how good you are at making smoke free fires.

The brown looks nice. Just pretend you bought brown ones in the first place.

I have now switched the motor around so I have 3 forward speed and one reverse. It was actually good that my wife spotted that the wheels were running backwards, otherwise I may have jumped on, twisted it's ear and ended up having a reverse crash. A question on charging. If I get 4 x 12V car batteries, would it be possible to charge them by putting them in parallel with my solar batteries for a short time. Either when the solar batteries are at float, or early morning when the charge current is low. In that case I can just charge with jumper cables or make up a dedicated plug to do the charging. The other option would be to use one of my solar MPPTs to charge the quad batteries. I could put a changeover switch on the MPPT output to go either to the solar batteries or to the quad batteries. I don't think car batteries are that particular about charging voltages?

Where the fuel tank was I'll get a plastic box to put the electronics inside. There is lots of space where the engine was to fit batteries, so I'll make a tray to hold them with some tiedowns or something to hold them in place. On the controller there are plugs for a forward/reverse switch, a three way plug for forward slow/medium/fast speeds and another plug for a brake on the motor. I have the rear disk brake on the quad working, and I'll wire the brake light switch on the brake lever into the engine brake, so you will be able to pull the lever a bit and get engine braking and then further and the disc brake will engage. It actually seems like it will be quite powerful, more than I expected. If you open the throttle (so to speak) it spins the wheels up very quickly. I'll still need to test that to see how it actually performs, but the gearing will be quite easy to adjust by using different sized sprockets. How much longer is this lock down going on for??????

Here's a video of it running : VIDEO. It makes a clanking noise because the back chain is loose and running over the frame. I still need to adjust that and make a rubber chain slider. Otherwise, apart from body work etc, I am quite please with the results so far.

With lots of lock down time on my hands, and a quick visit to Bearing Man beforehand, I have managed to progress on this project, almost to completion. I have a 4:1 reduction chain onto the quad final drive which is a further 3:1 reduction. One thing that I forgot is that when you use another gear set, the rotation direction is reversed (duh!), so I need to remove the motor mounting and reverse it. So it currently has one slow forward speed and 3 fast reverse speeds. I don't have batteries as yet, so it is running from jumper cables from my solar batteries (hence why it is standing on the paint bucket). After the lockdown ends there is a place in Kdorp that does recon car batteries for R500 each, so I'll get 4 x 30Ah or 40 Ah and get it mobile.

Or just wait until the fire starts, then you'll see exactly where the problem was.... Joke, heaven forbid that happens.

Sounds like low voltage due to a dodgy connection somewhere. Maybe check the connections in the switch seeing as all of the lights on that circuit are affected. Those energy saver tube lights don't last for ever, maybe replace those or switch them around somewhere else.

I presume these are LED lights?

Those voltages look too low for the batteries (I'm assuming cycle is bulk and standby is float). So it appears that your batteries never really charged properly and were possibly damaged. Although they are new, and maybe just undercharged. Changing the voltages to the correct one's may revive them. Does anyone else have experience with these batteries?

You need to set the bulk and float voltages for your battery type and bank size. I am not familiar with axperts, but lots of people on the forum have them and should be able to help. Bulk should be 29.4V and float 27.6V from the specs above.

That midpoint deviation is very high, definitely looks like a battery problem. What are your charging voltages and settings. If these are new batteries they shouldn't have died so quickly under normal conditions.

Have you checked the generator voltage and Hz. Can be that is out of tolerance. Is there a significant RPM change when the load connects? There will be an adjustment on the governor to make sure that the generator is running at 50Hz.

Probably easier to put a tin cup on the exhaust manifold!

Its one of these : https://www.takealot.com/salton-single-induction-cooker/PLID46915693?gclid=CjwKCAjw3-bzBRBhEiwAgnnLCq0yenDQI0UFjKkMCRdmxIE3NyxXGZGPFcxhOadj41jplVt4Y7nFlBoC5IkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds On full power it is 2kW so plenty fast enough, and the lowest setting is about 400W. Induction is efficient as the container is heated directly, so it will be the same as an immersed element in a 'normal' kettle. Is works on any steel container, but not aluminium, copper or brass. If a magnet sticks to the pot it will work, so even those baked enamel pots and kettles work, or cast iron. I have a big flat bottomed potjie pot (no legs) which works great for stews etc on the 'hotpot' setting on the induction plate.

To boil water quickly on gas you need one of those cheap ugly aluminium kettles. They boil very quickly as they are thin metal and the aluminium conducts heat very well. Ours last about 1 year before they start leaking from the spout and get converted into a flower pot, but they are very quick on a gas hob. The other thing we have is a wood stove so once that is going in winter, you always have a hot kettle on the hob. Helps to humidify the dry winter air a bit as well.

I use a single plate induction stove and a stainless steel whistling kettle. The nice thing about that is it has different power settings, so if the sun is shining I put it on full power, and otherwise at a lower power setting.

I am finally getting towards the end of my building projects! My new office with Lister heater running nicely. It's raining quite hard here so no solar power being produced at all.

Sorry to hear that. Batteries are not cheap. Maybe lithium batteries will work out better for you.

Sounds interesting, subscribe for updates.

So if its not a hardware problem, then it must be..........?

Batteries full? Inverter switched to grid? Bad connection to panels moving in the wind?

As a matter of interest, if you put a large load on the batteries, does the voltage on each battery drop to the same value, or is there a difference?

I also came across this guy who managed to get it right with a script that writes the data to a file which then gets parsed into HA. (translated from Norwegian) : https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fbaatplassen.no%2Fi%2Ftopic%2F141981-b%C3%A5tautomasjon-med-batterioverv%C3%A5king-og-zigbee%2F

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