February 27, 20197 yr Hi everyone With the recent load shedding, it seems a lot of City Power's infrastructure took strain/damage, so even though there hasn't been any load shedding in two weeks, we have had multiple power outages (usually in the evening). Having a little one at home, this has been stressful, especially for my wife. Step one was to get a backup generator. Cheap capital outlay (although running costs are high) and fast to get setup up so that the essentials can still function. Step two is the longer plan. Get some critical items (Lights, Fridge, TV, Alarm, Internet, Electric Fence) on an inverter with battery backup. This must allow for further expansion with added PV. It should also allow us to run around 5 hours (load shedding in Joburg is 4.5 hours). I am looking forward to exploring some of the discussions around this subject and seeing what works, and what doesn't. Regards Carl
February 27, 20197 yr 31 minutes ago, CarlT said: Get some critical items (Lights, Fridge, TV, Alarm, Internet, Electric Fence) on an inverter with battery backup. This must allow for further expansion with added PV. It should also allow us to run around 5 hours (load shedding in Joburg is 4.5 hours). Many of us started here. The challenge remains the "expansion" bit. You usually have to buy several big-ticket items straight off the bat (inverter and batteries to start with), and then there is a little bit of room for leaving other items for later. But I feel you. I installed my first system back in 2013 around the time my daughter was born, and the one thing I really missed (because my inverter was a little small) was the ability to heat small amounts of milk in the microwave oven. Instead you have to use hot water from a thermos flask, which takes minutes... while the little one is crying her head off cause she is hungry...
February 27, 20197 yr Author 4 hours ago, plonkster said: Many of us started here. The challenge remains the "expansion" bit. You usually have to buy several big-ticket items straight off the bat (inverter and batteries to start with), and then there is a little bit of room for leaving other items for later. But I feel you. I installed my first system back in 2013 around the time my daughter was born, and the one thing I really missed (because my inverter was a little small) was the ability to heat small amounts of milk in the microwave oven. Instead you have to use hot water from a thermos flask, which takes minutes... while the little one is crying her head off cause she is hungry... I'm actually reading through the Victron Grid-Tied thread. My genny is bog enough for fairly big loads, like the microwave, kettle, hairdryer and maybe even the electric geyser (still need to test this). The big test will come in how easy/difficult it is going to be to rewire parts of the house to get the critical items on separate isolators, to make it easier to install the inverter. Our DB is full, and the house dating from the '80s, the kitchen is full of weird brownish-greenish tiles, making it difficult, if not impossible, to increase the size of the DB or even expand. I might have to move the entire DB to the outside room where I'm planning on installing the inverter.
February 28, 20197 yr 13 hours ago, CarlT said: making it difficult, if not impossible Some of the guys move to surface mounted DB, get a big one and mount it over the existing DB? 18 hours ago, plonkster said: ... while the little one is crying her head off cause she is hungry... Aw man ... that brings back a lot of really fond memories for me. 🙂 Back to the point. When we where there we used a Cadac camping gas stove top in case of emergencies as little one needing hot food.
February 28, 20197 yr 23 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said: Back to the point. When we where there we used a Cadac camping gas stove top in case of emergencies as little one needing hot food. Raising kids is one of those things that just completely rewrites the rules. Years ago (as a student actually) I read a book by Alan Cooper, "The inmates are running the asylum", about why high tech stuff (and computer software) are so unfriendly to normal people (cause engineers think like engineers). This made a few good arguments, for example, if you want a door to be PUSHed open, stick a large metal pad on the front, if you want it to be PULLed, stick a large handle on it. But there was one thing he said that initially made sense, and later broke down completely for me, and that was that the best interface for a Microwave oven is a large dial and a start button, and that it is fine if the dial runs in 5 or 10 second increments because nobody needs it to be THAT accurate. After having kids, or more specifically small babies, I realised Mr. Cooper was profoundly wrong about at least one kind of market: Those who need to heat an ounce of milk, or a table-spoon of food for exactly 11 seconds, at 3AM in the morning while severely sleep-deprived... Edited February 28, 20197 yr by plonkster
February 28, 20197 yr Author 1 hour ago, The Terrible Triplett said: Some of the guys move to surface mounted DB, get a big one and mount it over the existing DB? Back to the point. When we where there we used a Cadac camping gas stove top in case of emergencies as little one needing hot food. 1 That idea for the DB might work. Our current DB is behind the (fairly tall) fridge, so I just need to make sure a surface mound DB will fit. We also have a little 2 burner cadac camping stove, but it takes up too much space in our kitchen. I'm currently looking into replacing our ceramic hob with gas/induction.
February 28, 20197 yr Author 58 minutes ago, plonkster said: After having kids, or more specifically small babies, I realised Mr. Cooper was profoundly wrong about at least one kind of market: Those who need to heat an ounce of milk, or a table-spoon of food for exactly 11 seconds, at 3AM in the morning while severely sleep-deprived... 4 We were unfortunate and fortunate in that regard. Our son was born 2 months early, spending the first 40 days (incl Christmas and New Year) in ICU, with me and the wife almost living there as well. But after coming home, I can almost count the number of sleepless nights on one hand. He has essentially been sleeping through from about 3 months old. But even with a calm little one, these outages are still stressful. Can we survive without a genny or inverter system? Probably. Do we want to? No. We want to keep the disruptions as minimal as possible.
February 28, 20197 yr 18 minutes ago, CarlT said: Our son was born 2 months early, spending the first 40 days (incl Christmas and New Year) in ICU, with me and the wife almost living there as well. Dude! My first child was 6 weeks early, and we also camped at hospital for 2 weeks. The second one stuck it out right to the end, not even turning over... so we made the call at 39-weeks to do a scheduled C-section rather than wait for this to get serious... good call too, her foot was stuck in the umbilical cord.
February 28, 20197 yr 2 hours ago, plonkster said: Dude! My first child was 6 weeks early, and we also camped at hospital for 2 weeks. Our first born came out tanned like a surfer ... severe jaundice. Three blood transfusions and two week in hospital. Getting kids is not for sissies. Makes woman out of a girl and a man out of the boy (at least it takes some of the boy out of us, not all - wife's will attest to that). 🙂 2 hours ago, CarlT said: Can we survive without a genny or inverter system? Probably. Do we want to? No. Now THAT I like. Spoken with honesty. Because I was going to say that for as long as humans have been on this earth, and even today, billions of people have been born and grew up without electricity. 😉
February 28, 20197 yr 4 hours ago, plonkster said: ... about why high tech stuff (and computer software) are so unfriendly to normal people (cause engineers think like engineers) ... Door knobs, car doors, gear levers, software front ends ... whole skill set in how to design that. 4 hours ago, plonkster said: Mr. Cooper was profoundly wrong He probably never had a small tiny bit of hungry angry human to feed at 3am at the time he wrote the book. You want to know what is needed, ask parents, but listen to the wife more.
May 8, 20197 yr 13 hours ago, Riley said: 1600w peak on your inverter means it won't break just because the normal 800w happens to go up for a few seconds, but you sure don't want to run it at peak for a matter of minutes. If it's rated at 800w continuous, then your microwave better be rated for 500w max. A microwave's input is often 2x it's rated output. That 500W microwave night use 1000W or perhaps 900W to run.
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