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  • The Solar Powered Woodshed

    We put up a new woodshed because the old one was getting a bit ratty. The new shed holds 24 cords of firewood - plenty to get us thru a tough winter. I been processing and delivering firewood to my other customers - 700 cord in the last month. So I only got our shed about 1/3 full right now, but I'll finish filling it this week.





    Gotta have lights in the woodshed. Always used a flashlight in the old one, which was a PITA in the middle of winter. And I'm not about to bury power to this shed from the next closest building when all that is needed in there is decent lighting to load the wheelbarrow at night and split some of the bigger chunks that the wood processor let slip thru.

    So I dug around in the shop to see what I had to put in a standalone off-grid lighting system in the new shed. I found a Everstart 14ah motorcycle battery that was badly sulfated and only had 11.53 volts in it. So I put that on the charger for the last week and EQ'd it for 5 days. It finally came back to full capacity on a load test after 60 hours of EQ charge at 15.5 volts. I found two Attwood marine LED's in a box - perfect for lighting in there. And I found a VW solar panel that has the plug thing gone off it that used to plug into the cigarette lighter in the car. Volkswagen put these solar panels on cars that were shipped to the US to prevent the battery from going dead, and IIRC they're like 11-12 watts or something like that. It puts out 22 Voc and about 800 mA @ 12.5 volts. The lights draw 700 mA and light it up bright as day in there at night.

    It all works - battery with a toggle switch taped to the top of it. I ran the lights for 3 hours last night to draw the battery down a bit and the solar panel already has it up to 13.5 volts today on bulk charge. I know from previous experience with this solar panel, using it as a maintainer on my diesel genset battery, that it will not get the battery much above 15.0 volts on a perfect day.

    All the wiring is fully off-grid approved - as in whatever you can find laying around the shop to make it work. The only thing I have to buy is a 1A fuse for it, which I couldn't find in any of my boxes of stuff.





    off-grid in Northern Wisconsin for 14 years

  • #2
    Good job on saving the battery. I only go through 2.5 cords in the winter, so I've been just having it delivered split, and then I let the stack sit in the driveway to dry for a couple months, and then stack it (the next major job this month). But to cut and split 2 cords, the saw maintenance, moving log and such, it seems easier to buy it. So you have the the log feeder that cuts and splits, and then you sell and deliver. I've seen videos of those rigs in action.
    I just use a couple 5gal buckets to carry wood in with, makes for a balanced load and I stock up buckets when it's not raining.
    Powerfab top of pole PV mount (2) | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
    || Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
    || VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A

    solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
    gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister

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    • #3
      I have a Multitek processor with a 45hp Kubota V1710 diesel on it. I saw this machine demo'd at the farm show last year and bought the demo machine they had there.



      I had a Hahn processor before that was mounted on a tracked skid steer loader. I had a lot of problems with the Hahn processor so I sold that when I bought the new one. I also have a chipper and chip pulp wood for a couple local chip burners that heat commercial buildings with them. The chipper has a 900hp Detroit 12V-71TT on it and it will eat a 48" diameter log. It's a brutal high-maintenance machine and I got it for sale, along with the chip business. Don't have enough time to run it anymore. The firewood business is pretty good and easy-going. I select cut timber a year ahead, skid the logs out with my skidder and pile them up on the landing and let the logs season for one year before processing them. It only takes two months from cutting and splitting to get the wood down to 20% moisture for delivery for the season. And some of my customers like to get green wood delivered and let it season in their own woodshed.

      Most of the folks up here heat with wood, except for in the towns and villages where folks might use propane. A lot of the residences here aren't accessible by road in the winter to have propane delivered, so storing the winter's heating fuel supply in the woodshed is a tradition that goes back over 150 years here.
      off-grid in Northern Wisconsin for 14 years

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      • #4
        My little motorcycle battery holds 12.71V after the lights have been on in the shed for 15 minutes. So I'm going to say it survived its sulfation ordeal pretty well. Not bad for a cheap Walmart (made by Johnson Controls) battery.

        A guy gave me that battery and said it won't hold a charge. The date code on it says it's only three years old. Whatever charger he tried to charge it with didn't put high enough voltage to it to "fix" it. None of the modern automotive battery chargers do. I happen to have a 20 year old Schumacher charger that goes to 15.7V for equalize charging. It took awhile, but that little battery came back from the dead.

        off-grid in Northern Wisconsin for 14 years

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        • #5
          I bet spiders, rodents, and scorpions love you.
          MSEE, PE

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          • #6
            Well, there's lots of spiders but they're no problem because they make webs and catch and eat mosquitoes and flies. We get along good with the spiders.

            My wife's cat tends to be hard on the rodent population. So our place is pretty rodent-free zone and the cat is forced to range out into the woods to find food. We don't feed him and he's damn big - about 17 lbs - so I think he does pretty well. He sleeps in the trees, sometimes in the woodshed on top of the wood pile, sometimes on the front steps. He hardly ever comes in the house unless it gets down to -20F and even then he lasts about two hours in the house and he's scratching at the door wanting to get the hell out of there.

            Never seen a scorpion around these parts. But if one does show up I'm afraid the cat is going to kill it anyway.
            off-grid in Northern Wisconsin for 14 years

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            • #7
              Stacked wood or piled wood back home in TX is a bit of a dangerous place. They are a magnet for Fiddle Back Spiders, Red and Brown Scorpions. Even attract snakes and TX has 3 (pit vipers) of the 4 bad ones. Oddly enough the dang Fiddle Back is more dangerous than the dang snakes. Red scorpion is not fun to get bit by either. If that ain't enough TX is capital of Fire Ants.

              Down here in Panama though makes TX look like walk in the park. We got spiders and ants big enough to carry a cows away. Some species of an ant down hear is 2 inches long with pinches to match. Them suckers can quarter up a beef and carry it off in a day or two.
              MSEE, PE

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              • #8
                Yeah, I'm going to say that heating with wood is probably less common down there in the tropics than it is up here in the North. We don't have them big insects here because they freeze out in the winter. We got bears, wolves, 'coons, skunks, and big cats. And lots of whitetail deer. The wolves and big cats eat the deer. But when one of these shows up the wolves leave and go someplace else. These big cats have been known to chase down a wolf pack and kill the whole pack just over a territorial dispute. When you're out in the woods and suddenly you get this feeling that something's not right and you look up and see one of these 150lb cats studying you intently, fire ants and scorpions and snakes are the last thing you're worried about:

                off-grid in Northern Wisconsin for 14 years

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                • #9
                  I just build a ''wood shed''. it is 4 feet wide and 24 feet long with a 8 foot height and an aluminum sheet metal roof and it is located along my property line. This will hold enough wood for the whole heating season. I am heating with wood for the last 9 years because it saves me $200 a month or better on the power bill.
                  I will be doing the same as you did since I got 300 watts of panels already.
                  I found 12 volt fluorescent and LED bulbs at ebay.

                  Would you have a link where you bought your light when it was new and how many watts does each light have.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Johann View Post
                    I found 12 volt fluorescent and LED bulbs at ebay.

                    Would you have a link where you bought your light when it was new and how many watts does each light have.
                    I think I would tend to shy away from florescent lighting because I don't know if it will start the bulbs in cold weather.

                    I bought my lights at Farm & Fleet originally. They are Attwood marine courtesy lights and I believe this is the identical lights I used:
                    http://www.starmarinedepot.com/attwo...w6mhoCrBjw_wcB

                    The two of them provide PLENTY of light in the shed at night to hand split some bigger chunks and load up the wheelbarrow for a trip to the house. The amount of power they use is insignificant. According to my meter they use 700 mA so leaving them on for three hours only uses 2.1ah out of the battery. At 700mA draw and 12.5V that's 8.75W. So each one must be a little over 4 watts.
                    off-grid in Northern Wisconsin for 14 years

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by ChrisOlson View Post
                      I think I would tend to shy away from florescent lighting because I don't know if it will start the bulbs in cold weather.

                      I bought my lights at Farm & Fleet originally. They are Attwood marine courtesy lights and I believe this is the identical lights I used:
                      http://www.starmarinedepot.com/attwo...w6mhoCrBjw_wcB

                      The two of them provide PLENTY of light in the shed at night to hand split some bigger chunks and load up the wheelbarrow for a trip to the house. The amount of power they use is insignificant. According to my meter they use 700 mA so leaving them on for three hours only uses 2.1ah out of the battery. At 700mA draw and 12.5V that's 8.75W. So each one must be a little over 4 watts.
                      Thank you for your link and reply. I think that this kind of light would do for me since I only need light to get the wood off the stack without having to use a flashlight in the other hand.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Johann View Post
                        Thank you for your link and reply. I think that this kind of light would do for me since I only need light to get the wood off the stack without having to use a flashlight in the other hand.
                        Yep. Problem well understood.

                        When it gets dark tonight and I have to go out to the woodshed and get some wood, I'll take a pic to show you how much light those LED's put out. It's at least as good as having like a 13 watt CFL bulb in there.
                        off-grid in Northern Wisconsin for 14 years

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                        • #13
                          Off topic, I know. Sorry. But, I would love to know, if you will share with us...

                          Originally posted by ChrisOlson View Post
                          We put up a new woodshed because the old one was getting a bit ratty. The new shed holds 24 cords of firewood - plenty to get us thru a tough winter. I been processing and delivering firewood to my other customers - 700 cord in the last month. So I only got our shed about 1/3 full right now, but I'll finish filling it this week.
                          You need nearly 24 cords to get you through one winter?! If I may ask, how many fireplaces / wood stoves are you feeding? From other videos on your YouTube channel, I saw you demonstrate your stovetop / oven. So, I know it isn't woodfired. Do you have a boiler or something else you are feeding for heat?

                          By the way, I saw the processor video as well, a little while back. I'm sure that makes life a lot easier when having to split 700 cords of wood per month.
                          Paul

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by livingincebu View Post
                            You need nearly 24 cords to get you through one winter?! If I may ask, how many fireplaces / wood stoves are you feeding? From other videos on your YouTube channel, I saw you demonstrate your stovetop / oven. So, I know it isn't woodfired. Do you have a boiler or something else you are feeding for heat?

                            By the way, I saw the processor video as well, a little while back. I'm sure that makes life a lot easier when having to split 700 cords of wood per month.
                            24 face cord, which is 8 full cord, which is normally 25% reserve, leaving enough to sell some to the neighbors that run out in late winter.

                            Our house furnace is a Daka 622FBT with a retrofit catalyst on the stack:
                            http://store.dakacorp.com/DAKA_Model...e_p/622fbt.htm

                            It is obviously a central forced-air unit.

                            The furnace in my shop is a Daka 521FB:
                            http://store.dakacorp.com/DAKA_Model...ce_p/521fb.htm

                            The furnace in the house is fired 24/7 in the winter (obviously). On a furnace with a cat recombustor you have to get the stack temp up to 500 deg or better to fire the cat. So we typically run small hot fires in the house furnace and feed it often to keep the cat working properly. If we leave for any time, we just let it burn out and re-light it when we get home. The house is normally OK for two days, even at 30 below, with no heat. We have a backup heat pump, but we have to run the generator to use it.

                            The furnace in the shop is fired one day before I want to do some work in there, and kept going as long as I'm working in the shop in the winter. Otherwise the shop is heated with a diesel fuel burning space heater with the thermostat set at 50 degrees so I can keep my diesels in there in the winter to get them to start. I normally leave my log skidder out in the woods and drive my Dodge Cummins out in the woods to preheat the skidder to get it started in early winter. I got hydraulic couplers on the cooling systems in the skidder and the pickup. I hook up jumper hoses and leave the Dodge Cummins running at 1,200 rpm for about a half hour and it heats the skidder engine up so it starts. When the snow gets too deep to make it out in the woods with the pickup anymore, and I still got logging to do, I drive the skidder back to the shop and keep it in there until I get done for the winter. I don't like that program because if it's 20-30 below and I bring a 15 ton skidder into the shop it's like a giant refrigerator in there and it takes a LONG time to heat up 15 tons of solid iron. Plus I get problems with frost condensation in the fuel and hydraulic systems on it. I should just put an electric heater on the damn thing, leave it outside the shop, and start the generator and heat it up with that. But I try to be done logging for the winter before it gets to that point.

                            Our house is 2,500 sq ft. The shop is 1,800 sq ft. So yes, it takes a fair amount of wood to keep things comfy when it's 30 below zero.

                            Johann - I tried to take some photos in the woodshed with the lights on. But my little digital camera just does not do it justice. It takes really good lighting to take pictures with it, and it doesn't have a decent enough light sensor system in it to take pictures in a dimly lit room with shadows. So I'll suffice it to say I'm happy with those little LED's for lights in there, and I think you would be too.
                            off-grid in Northern Wisconsin for 14 years

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                            • #15
                              Thanks, Chris. I appreciate the information. Been a very long time since I ran a skidder. Did a bit of tree work and loggin' in Georgia for several years, as a young fella.
                              Paul

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