Power Problems Continue

In my last post I announced that I fixed the back-up generator better than it was when we moved in here. Well, it lasted one more evening and then it died again. The fault indicator light showed that it was running faster than it was supposed to. These generators are designed to run at a fixed speed. This one was supposed to be running at 3600 rpm which translates to 60 cycles per second on the dynamo part (the part that produced the electricity). It was running too fast and producing AC power at over 70 cycles per second. Appliances are not designed to handle this so the generator shut down.

This problem was more than I was prepared to deal with so we called a repair guy. He came out a few days later and adjusted the governor that keeps the speed constant. After fussing with it for about an hour it seemed to be running fine. We were excited to think that we could watch a movie at night.

But, no. It ran for about 15 minutes and shut off. The same problem. Note that we still hadn't gotten our replacement battery for our solar power system and were still sitting beneath one light bulb hooked to a marine battery so we could read at night.

We called the repair guy again and he said that, if it wasn't the governor (a mechanical thing with springs and such), then it must be the circuit board. He checked to see if he could get a replacement and they are no longer available. The generator was too old and parts were not available for it anymore. We need to replace it.

Our new battery in place.

Another week went by and we finally got word that our replacement battery had been delivered to Phoenix. From there it was supposed to go to Flagstaff and, from there, to Chino Valley where we could pick it up. Because of the delivery schedules the batter wouldn't make to Chino Valley until a week later. Fortunately, we had the option to drive to Phoenix and pick it up. So that's what I did.

The next day I connected the new battery into the system. However, new batteries don't come with a full charge on them. The one we got was in the same state of discharge as our remaining old batteries. This would not be a problem if it was sunny out. It wasn't. Stormy weather was just beginning and lasted for a few days. It wasn't until a week ago that the solar panels were able to bring the batteries to full charge. FULL CHARGE! YAY!

We were back to normal, except for not having a back-up generator which we didn't use much, anyway. We can watch a movie at night. We can do laundry. We can keep our internet on all day.

The new switch and charge controller are on the left.

We are looking at options for replacing the generator. It is a good thing to have. In the meantime I have been preparing to install four more solar panels to our system. I built another panel rack, got another charge controller, a disconnect switch, wire, connectors, etc. All the components are in place. All I need now are a few special connectors and things like that and we will have twice the solar power here.

digging the trench for the new wires.

To double the system I had to create, practically, a separate system because the new solar panels do not match the ones we already have and the current panels almost max out the amperage rating of one charge controller. This means a separate set of wires running from the panels to the shed where the charge controller and batteries are. It also means a separate charge controller. The systems get joined at the batteries. I had to dig a trench for the wire. In the process I discovered two old sets of wires buried underground that must have been for previous solar power systems.


This whole set of problems and solutions took a full month to resolve. That's a long time. Fortunately we did have minimal electricity during that time. It is also good that our refrigerator runs on propane and we heat with wood. Life is good!

The new set of panels are on the right.

Power Problems

Not much power is generated by solar panels on cloudy days.

In the city, when the power goes out, the only thing to do is light candles and wait for the power company to fix whatever went wrong. Out here in the wild, you have to fix the problem yourself. Which could take days or weeks.

When we got back from a week-long vacation we discovered that one of our big red batteries (the ones that power our house at night) went dead. We thought, at first, that this happened because it had been cloudy and snowy for several days while we were gone and the solar panels were unable to charge the batteries. The first evening we were home our inverter shut off the power due to the battery array dropping below 10.2 volts.

The next morning I measured the voltages of all six of the batteries. Five of them had a pretty good charge - 2.25 volts (they are 2-volt batteries). The sixth battery showed only 1.25 volts. I disconnected it from the system and checked again a few hours later. Zero volts! It had shorted out internally. The batteries were only a little over two years old. We shouldn't have had a failure.

The substitute battery in place.

We cannot run our power systems without all six batteries so that put us in a bind. They are connected in series to produce 12 volts. With one missing battery the array only could produce 10 volts. We took the dead battery back to the place we bought it. The good news was that it was covered under warranty. The bad news was that it would take up to three weeks to get a replacement. We bought a deep-cycle marine battery to use as a temporary substitute for the big battery array. This allows us to have some minimal lights on at night. I had to disconnect half of our solar panel array so as not to blast the little substitute battery with too much power when charging during the day time.

Fortunately we have a back-up generator for higher power loads like our washing machine. We were running the generator for a few hours a day until, one evening, I went out to start it and it wouldn't start. Another problem! This happened during a five day period of cloudy weather, too. Double trouble!

When we moved in here three and a half years ago, the previous residents told us how to turn on the generator. Several times a year we ran the genny whenever we needed more power than the solar panels or batteries could deliver. It always worked but was often not easy to get started. I began to wonder when the generator was last serviced and couldn't find any record of it.

Replacing spark plugs in the generator

I pulled the spark plugs and one of them was  covered in black goo. This meant that it had been running on just one cylinder for a very long time. I put new plugs in and it now runs better than it ever did, maybe better than it has run in four or five years. When I first heard the generator running, way back when we moved in, I figured that was how it was supposed to sound - a sort of put-put-put sound. Now it hums. Great to have figured that out!

We are back to running the generator two or three hours in the evenings so we can watch a movie and run the washing machine, run power tools, grind coffee, etc. We are still waiting for the replacement battery. It is supposed to come in next week and then we will be back to better than normal - better because the back-up generator is in much better shape than it had been.

Such is the saga of off-grid living. When the power goes out, the power company is you!