Yes, I’ve been for a walk in the dark.
In fact, I’d just finished tea when Rosemary telephoned me. And with chatting about this and that, and all things considered, it was about 22:15 when we hung up.
A couple of weeks ago, that would have been broad daylight. But not so tonight. Cold, cloudy, windy – and dark! I can’t wait for it to be dark at a sensible hour so that I can have an hour outside with the new camera and see just how good its much-vaunted “low light” facility might be.
And Rosemary is just as bewildered as I am about what is happening in the UK right now. But don’t get me started on politics. I vowed that I would avoid them in this reincarnation of the blog.
I’d had a really good night’s sleep too. out like a light without a care in the world. And off on a mega-ramble too that was so exciting that I reached for the dictaphone to record it. And by the time that I’d put my hand upon the aforementioned, every single thought about where I’d been had completely evaporated.
Something that’s happening far too often these days.
After breakfast and a nice shower, I went off to the shops. And apart from a pack of button-cell batteries on offer in LIDL (I remember thinking when I had the remote-control issues the other day that I didn’t have any of those) I bought nothing exciting at all.
My trip – just to LIDL and LeClerc, came to a mere €23:00 and I was back here for 11:00.
But I do like the frozen vegetables in LeClerc, and when I come back, I’ll be buying a small freezer. The choice is endless and won’t that improve my diet!
Frozen veg is generally fresher than fresh veg, and you have much more choice – living alone means that you can only buy small quantities, and they don’t do small quantities of leeks, sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, that kind of thing.
And diesel – down to €1:10 at LeClerc – and queues a mile long too.
Lunch was on the wall as usual in the uncertain weather, and the Woman With The Dog came to say hello. As I said, people are noticing me now. I’m not sure whether that is a good or bad thing.
Apart from that, I’ve been on the blog doing the Canada 2012 updating. It’s not easy and I’ve only managed to unravel two pages – this one and this one – so far.
But never mind the slow progress – that’s two more pages than were done yesterday so we’re heading in the right direction.
The big question is though – will I finish this rewriting, or will the rewriting finish me?
I tried the 10ah battery on just one charge controller. Now I know why it was getting a warning triangle on the charge controller. The charge level built suspiciously quickly and fell very rapidly giving only a few seconds of fan power. It looks like that battery is toast. On the plus side, it’ll make an interesting pistol target!
So today I bought a 35ah Harbor Freight battery. It’ll fit my 50 cal ammunition box nicely. The terminals don’t touch the lid but I’ll put some plastic liner in anyway. The box is airtight and non flammable. Plenty space to put a built in voltmeter and two sets of plug in terminals – one for power from each charge controller. Two charge controllers until I can get under the bus in the winter to install extra cables.
If you are putting it in an enclosed box DON’T FORGET THE VENTILATION AND THE EXTRACTOR FAN
With the use that battery will be put to, no ventilation should be needed. The maximum input is 35W. Gas will probably be able to escape through the holes for the connectors.
As soon as I’m able to work under the bus… read winter… I’ll probably move the battery box.
And the heat? You need to think about that too, don’t forget.
I’m not too bothered about heat. I’m nit using enough power to heat the battery nor putting enough in to heat it up. Ambient is unlikely to rise above 104F.