Black-headed Grosbeak

Pictures: I took these shots over the last few year when I can find these birds.

Solar: I have sold some of the left over solar stuff that I had, mostly the parts that I had no way of carrying if I left, solar panels and the batteries. I also sold the Solar controler. Now only the big item is left, which will be harder to sell because it is high dollar item, solar wise that is, and that is the 3500 watt Inverter/charger.

I am loving my system with the 1000 watts of solar panels, it works better with the extra solar!

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3 Panels Mounted

Pictures: A White-crowned Sparrow and a couple of Sand Hill Cranes.

Solar: Added another panel today, one to go!

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Dove and Quail

Pictures: White-winged Dove/friends and a Gambel’s Quail.

Solar: Today I got out and tackled the solar replacement and I over did it a bit. My friend (Barry that hook me up with the solar panels) help and was beat down by the time we finish for the day. I was still feeling pretty good but now as the evening has set in, I too am feeling the beat down! Often my Friend Barry and I do job that old dudes like us should not be doing …. but hey they need done so we do them!
At any rate we took off my 4 130 watt panels and put on two 260 watt panels, so 520 watts off and 520 watts back on. Needless to say they are much different size panels so had to be mounted very different but we got it done for the most part, still some loose ends but the hard part done for the first two panels. Two more 260 watt panels to put on.

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Solar Systems

Chilling: It is cool and overcast today so I am chilling for today. My friend(Barry) had to be talked into it, he is always ready to get after a job. As for me as I have gotten older ….. I’m not near as ambitions to get after jobs. I still need to remove the Inverter/Charger and the 4 batteries, it will only take about an hour or two, so not much left to remove the rest of the solar system from my friends RV, however it will be a real job to reinstall it on my rig!

I have a complete solar system install on my RV but this new one is a far better/bigger system, so I will be keeping parts of my and parts of the new one. I will have a left over Inverter/Charger and 2 Solar Chargers, at least one Solar Panel and other assorted parts.

Pictures: White Crown Sparrow and Sand Hill Cranes in the distance.

Bust of Energy: Well I decide to go ahead and remove the last of my friends solar system after all. Now it will be a matter of what to do with what.

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Frosty out this morning

Pictures: Not use to all this cold weather and frost. I have winter in this area a couple of winters before but now I remembering why I like going to AZ in the winter!

Frosty Tumbleweeds on the fence.

Frosty Tree.

Clouds/Generator: The winter has many clouds and that is not a good thing for my solar so the little Honda 2000 watt Generator is getting a little use now and then. I have had it for 11 years now and it has never fail me! The Honda generators are very costly but if you need something you can depend on it is a fine buy. These generator are also very quiet which is a good thing for your neighbors 🙂 . The newer ones are 2200 watt which is even better yet. Honda Generator   In the scheme of things, this 2000/2200 watt generator are pretty low powered generators but they are fine for my use and they make much bigger ones if needed.

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Steller Jay

Pictures: Here is a couple of shots of a Steller Jay that has been enjoying my seeds.

Exercise: Barry and I walked 4 miles today, not bad for two old dudes!

Solar: Barry had a solar system put on his RV and we are now going through and doing all the things the solar installer should have done. One; the fools hooked his inverter up in a way that it was charging his house batteries when on and that is a no no. (He has two battery system the way they installed it)

One; the house batteries run the house as always and two; the installer put two large batteries in to run his electric when off grid.
They put in 1060 Watts of solar panels (very nice) but they put all the panels in series and they should have put them in a parallel series circuit, we’ll fix that later.

They did not put a breaker between the solar panels and the Controller and we did that today.

We also put a switch in place to turn on/off the RV’s build-in Converter so when running the installed Inverter it is not running the Converter to charge the House Batteries. Now he can turn on the switch when he runs his generator and turn off the switch when he runs he Inverter.

A good days work for two old guys 🙂

The other day Barry helped me do some plumbing on my rig, he is much better at that kind of thing than I. Me, I understand solar a little better than he does so it works out pretty good.

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Finally

Pictures: Oh AZ, does have the nice Sunsets 🙂 Here are a couple.

Solar Controller: I finally got the new Solar Controller installed. It turned out to be a bit longer job than I thought it would be. It is a larger in both capacity and size than my older one was so it had to have bigger space,wire and breakers. I have to put together new cables with bigger wire, #6 to # 4 on the battery side with new connector ends, add a DC breaker box (the older controller just had breakers in line kind of like a fuse, the new breakers are better), move things around so there was room for the bigger controller and other small things that needed to be done. Now I got to do a lot more reading to figure out all the settings. I got the basic stuff down but need to dig deeper into things for the fine settings. One of the things it will do (with its Auxiliary out put) is operate a fan in the battery box and I could use that.

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Black Sheep

Pictures: Sheep came by today while I was busy working on my solar. I stay in the open range areas, and often see live stock and I kind of enjoy seeing them. I was raised in the country so it makes me feel at home.

I always look for the one black sheep 🙂

Last night’s sunset.

Solar: I got a little work done on my solar today. I have an older RV and there is not all that much room for this newfangled stuff! Had to cut a few holes and make some room.

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Solar goodies

Pictures: New solar goodies! Needless to say I’m going to change my solar up a little bit.

New Breaker box and breakers.

New Solar Controller.

City: I went into Flagstaff today and did laundry, picked up propane, went by Northern Arizona Sun and Wind and brought myself a new solar controller and a DC breaker box/breakers and stopped at Best Buy just to look around. That was just about a full day.

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Settling in

Pictures: Just a couple snaps of the brown winter look of Joe Skeen Campground.

Settling in: My boss told me that he would get the truck out to me today so I can start to check things out and get started. Seeing as there has been no host this winter I’m sure I will find lots to do and I am kind of looking forward to it.

Solar: It is nice to be on the big Solar array 🙂 No worries about Electric. Here is a shot from last year of the solar array, 48 panels and I am the only one on them. Mind you, I still can’t do all the Electric I might want (for example run all electric heat) but I can do about 90% of all the things I would do if plugged in.

Weather: Yes it is chilly here but I have the heat running and I am comfortable as can be. Of course I have not had to be outside much yet. I will be using a lot of propane the first couple of months here but that is OK.

Update: Well the boss got the truck to me today and tomorrow I will have to collect my tools. Lots of work waiting for me.

Night folks