Off The Grid: Tesla's Home Battery

Hello Gavilan: I am currently using 16 285 AH batteries. They are DEKA Agm units they are wired in strings of 8 parallel then wired series to get the 24v. then on a wall board there is a main breaker set at 500 amps to protect the system from a short as there is nothing in the house or the shop that will draw that much amperage unless it is shorted.from the fuse I have several inverters that output the 120 and 220 volts and one that puts out three phase for my shop tools that can not use a phase inverter like my welder. As of last time looking no one made a phase inverter that would work with a resistive load like a welder. We have a fence line with a 15 foot high fence on the north side of the property. Adjacent to a railroad track that is raised almost 6ft above the local topography. the whole area was originally a wetlands back in the early days when they built the railroads. Late 1800s would be my best guess it made them rework the R/R beds constantly. And they still do it to this day about every two years. Which made it real easy to lay a walk board on our fence and jump down in the back yard and then take what ever they can carry. I usually catch them when they try to pawn or sell it as scrap as I know all of the dealers in the area. The 15 foot fence fixed that problem and a few rows of electric wire fixed the rest of the problems. Plus gave us a perfect place for the solar panels aimed south. Brought the wires under ground in plastic conduit up to the power building to the batteries also with a 50 amp fuse I may be over rated but it works for me. The panels are 15 watt armouries panels. they don't shut down if a bird dumps on them like the more expensive panels do. Just takes more of them to do the job. The next thing I did was get a few of the spiral windmills that look like yard art and placed them in the front yard next to the road side since the highway runs in front of the house. They run constantly due to the amount of traffic then at night I have two 1500 watt windmills that are on towers which telescope on a pulley system to get them in the wind stream. I only raise them at night and lower them in the day so I don't have problems with neighbors complaining of blade noise that I don't hear but they seem to. out of sight out of mind. The local inspectors don't like my power board but currently I exceed all of their rules and regulations everything is over specked. Wiring is more then double the requirement, all of the distribution panels are over specked as well. The last item to our power system is a propane generator 11,000 KW made by Kohler with a continental 4 Cyl engine that will run forever with just regular oil changes since with propane you don't have the carbon build up in the oil to make it dirty. I'm done for now got to go do something constructive today even if it is to go to lunch with the wife, we all know it pays off to keep them happy.

Thanks for the info. I wish I could see it!

There are so many systems out there you just need to check with the green energy people in your area. Most of what I have is trial and error, take it from a guy trying to DIY some times it is easier to let them speck what you need. Then you see what you might be able to do yourself. Then just get started and try a few small projects and learn from there and progress to larger projects. The only reason I used my back fence was it had the correct relation that the son followed across the sky for optimum light use. The roof line of the house was not conducive to use and still get a good light gain for most of the day. The power inverters were units that I also used in my service trucks to power my machines and lighting out in the field when there was no close power to use.That is what started me out on the hunt to get off grid and keep as small of a footprint as I can. If I am out of sight I can hope that I am out of their thoughts to cause me any problems. There is always someone that wants to cause problems just because they can. Duke

When you go off topic it automatically gives you those points. I don't know why it just does. And thanks for your comments, what is happening to me is starting to happen a lot more across the country. They the powers that be are trying to use county building codes to keep us on the grid but when no codes exist they are trying to use a world standard code from Europe or the UN. I am not currently sure which it is but they will try anything to get you on some form of a violation to accomplish what ever their agenda is or they want it to be. And sometimes a local ordnance meeting will be called to change regulations to fit what they are missing to accomplish their goals. I saw that first hand when a local farmer wanted to turn his own barn into a wedding chapel/party barn. They stopped him with occupancy limits and parking limits as well as hours of operation and he actually his wife and him live over a mile out of town in the middle of nowhere. Six months later almost the same type of an operation was proposed in an old barn just 9 blocks off the city square. It was allowed with the lifting of all of the restrictions that were put in place to restrict him. It was not a pretty sight when the attorney's got done with the zoning board and the city building department especially when it was determined that the owner of the new proposed barn operation was owned by the zoning commissioners sister and he was putting up the money for the remodel of the barn. Resignations were flying everywhere that night after court and a lot of State Police investigations were started almost immediately after. It could not have happened to a better bunch of crooks. Duke

Our world becomes more crooked and restrictive as time passes.

Right on the money with that one. Got to go to work now, 22 degrees now with windchill at 0 deg.Like I really want to go out there, stop me someone, nuts nobody here to stop me guess I will just have to go. Duke

The last time I check I do believe the last lead smelter in the US closed down. That is why the current price of lead is skyrocketing now to the point that a lot of the ammunition manufactures have started using brass and copper instead of lead.As I understand it the EPA regulated them out of business. I believe that it was the cost of multiple millions of dollars. And they just did not want to afford that much to stay in business. But you never know some one may have stepped up and took their place.

The reason I asked about Fire Fly was they had a process to impregnate a foam core with lead that increased the potential storage by 30% or more using this on the negative plates. Last I heard they were trying to also do it on both negative and positive plates for a really big increase in potential storage capabilities. They were trying to market to the trucking industry so they did not have to idle the trucks in the summer at truck stops and rest stops. They were out of Illinois can't remember the trade name of the manufacture.Old timers is setting in

I don't understand why people are voting you "off topic" - very much still relevant as far as I am concerned. I didn't know about the lead recycling industry going into decline. Have to ask why - I am sure there are as many cars on the road now as ever before - all with lead/acid batteries.

There may be a few recyclers out there but just not any new production of lead as far as I know but I may be wrong they may have decided to go back into production. Where I heard about the loss of the smelter closure was in relation to the shooting industry that there would not be any new lead unless it came from outside the US. It seems that a lot of it was driven by the EPA because of the lead contamination so called problems. And just so you know I took myself off topic so I did not bother any one with my long posts and bad spelling it is sometimes not easy being dyslexic and trying to post long replies. But I really love energy topics where I can learn more to take my self off grid as soon as possible and save some serious money for the grandkids and great grandkids. But now I have to go to work, someone locked themselves out so I get to go and rescue them. It currently is -15 with the windchill I really love working in this weather. NOT! I guess the grandkids are rubbing off on me. I will be back a little later and check for additional posts Have a good day Sir. Duke