The Campfire Trail: July 21 - Resort Adventures

July 21, 2022

Day 213 of the Adventure

Base Camp Coffee of the Day:

We managed a "First" at Camp Run-Amuck today. We crashed our solar plant. I say crash, it was actually just a shut-down of the system. Our solar plant handles up to 6,000 watts of demand (Which is a lot) but only has a limited power storage for the time being. Until today, we weren't sure just how long it would last before a shut-down caused by depleted batteries. Tonight about 9:30, we found out. While working at my desk, a "thump" followed by darkness occurred. Did I blow a breaker? This had not happened before. I went to switch on a light on another circuit and...... nothing. Then it dawned on me. While working on the cabin yesterday, we unplugged a power strip from a brown outlet and plugged it into a white outlet. A power strip that was running an A/C unit, our refrigerator, several lights, computers, etc. That was about 2pm. You may wonder why a brown vs white outlet would make a difference. In our cabin, the source of power is brown is Grid, white is Off-Grid.

It's designed that way on purpose so we have the option to power things either way. In the hot weather, our two A/C units put a pretty heavy demand on the solar plant. Today it was powering both of them for actually quite a long time. A lot longer than I expected. I just had forgotten that I switched so much over to solar during the heat of a 103 degree day. And then forgot to switch it back when we were done working on that wall. Live and learn I guess. Once the switch was made back to a brown outlet, everything came back on that needed to be on. A/C's mostly.

Those who are following our story and wonder about our hybrid off-grid set up (or are even critical of calling it off-grid because it's not purely off-grid) I only have this to offer, we are doing it the way we want to and having some grid power at our disposal when we want or need it is okay with us. I did get my first electric bill this month and it was a whopping $35. The sun is doing the heavy lifting for our electrical consumption right now, but having A/C at night when your solar plant crashed is priceless!

Have a great day........ Stay Cool!

Adventure Quote: “Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure.”

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