I'm in northern ontario, canada in the middle of the bush. We are in the process of setting up to go off-grid.

Right now we are capable of powering our lights (LED/CFL combo's) and music using a couple of small solar panels (2x5w), with an occasional boost from a gas generator if it's not sunny for a couple of days.

We just picked up a small wind turbine out of a scrap yard made by a company called Windstream, who doesn't build them anymore, but instead focuses on human power, such as peddle and handcranks. We are just in the process of setting it up. Of course, some of this is already known here... lol

Also known now is I am cheap... worse yet, I'm cheap and broke, which means I am likely the cheapest person in the world... if I can't salvage it, theres a good chance I won't have it... although on occasion I can be convinced to spend money when it's necessary, just don't expect me to be happy about it... lol

What else... our water system is set up on a handcrank system for now, which powers an old piston water pump that fills our cistern tank in the back attic, which supplies the house with water. It was setup as a gravity feed from there, which really sucked as the tank is only 8 feet above the kithen taps, but we have another piston pump for pressure installed now.

I grew up off-grid, when I was 11 or 12, we built a windmill out of an alternator and a hand carved wooden blade, following the instructions in mother earth news handbook to homemade power. We used it to charge a car battery that powered a small black and white tv and a radio. Nothing else was electric in our home.

I've been reading, talking and playing with solar, water and wind at various times throughout my whole life, as well as natural/alternative construction and self-sufficiency.

Unfortunately, I also have an extremely terrible memory. Which means something I read last week may not exist in my mind anymore... lol Which is why I like online forums, so I can go back and re-read things 100 times til it sinks in... lol

So, hows that for an into?

Wow, a total of 10 watts of solar? Talk about needing to be both efficient and conservative! Have you considered getting a few bigger solar panels, now that they can be had for as little as ~$1/watt? Anyway, welcome to Nature2Energy officially. I hope you hang around, and tell us some of your stories.

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On this site, 99.999% of all underlined words are links.

A watt saved is better than a watt generated, since it always costs less than 10% as much, and can cost as little as 1%.

V=volt, A=ampere, Ah=ampere hour, Wh= watt hour, VOC=open circuit voltage, ISC=short circuit current, VMPP=voltage @ max power, IMPP=current @ max power, BTW=by the way, your=belongs to you, you're=you are, too=in addition to, two=1+1, to=towards

lol, yeah 10 watts... the only reason I even have these ones is that they were a gift.

One day I would like to have more, but wind is my preference as even on the darkest days in winter, the wind still blows...

In the winter here, it averages less then three hours of peak sunshine a day, less for us unless we wanted to clear another 3 acres of trees.

Besides all that though... I just like the idea of wind power more... lol

Welcome to the forum Tom, glad you joined us.

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Thanks Desert Rat

I realized I should point a few things out in regards to our energy efficiency here as in re-reading that post, it sounds better then it is... lol

If all our power needs were just lights and music, we would be laughing as the car radio we have for music doesn't use much power and our lights are cfls with LED christmas lights.

Unfortunately, there is also the matter of tv and computers. Right now, we have an older style (CRT) TV, that also requires the satellite reciever, and two desktop computers with CRT monitors as well as the router and modem.

It's because of this, that we are just at the start of creating enough power to be off grid.

We're trying to find some older cheap laptops to replace the desktops with. The modem and the router are 12v already as is the satellite reciever, add in a cheap (I say that word a lot...lol) LCD TV and we'll be on our way.

We're going to be setting up some recumbant style bicylce generators (similar to this David Butcher: Pedal Powered Generator - DIY Plans), that will be used when we are usiing the computers and watching tv. Yes, I do both at the same time... usually stuck on the learning or discovery channel, diy network, h&g etc.), if I didn't I would go insane... (subjectively speaking of course....lol). Right now theres a show on about hang gliding in ontario, personally, I'd prefer a powered parachute.

When I said I prefered wind, that isn't quite true. What I would really prefer was a nice micro-hydro set up, unfortunately, we don't have any running streams or ponds on the property.

Energy things we will play with over the years here will include the standards of solar, wind and human plus wood-gas generators, methane digesters, animal powered generators (imagine four ox walking in a circle as they did for grain mills, but geared way up to a generator), decomposition heaters and anything else that I come across that interests me.

My biggest criteria for stuff is that I want to actually build it. That doesn't mean I won't use pre-built stuff, but it will be rare that I will buy something retail that's prebuilt if another choice is available.

As an example, one of my current projects is building an arc welder. Everytime I turn around here, something needs welding.

Whenever someone post on a thread that you are subscribed to you will receive a email notification that a post has been made on that thread. You can unsubscribe form a thread in your user cp.

That email notification was regarding ScouffJeomoup post and not yours. Scouff posted spam on this thread which is why you received a email notification of a post. That post has been removed.

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oh, okay...

I was just worried I had done something unknowingly... lol

I used to wish for a button that could electrocute spammers... lol