Brian’s Morning Newsletter for June 26th 2009

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Good morning

Wow, here we go with another Friday edition. It isn’t unusual for me to start the morning out with little idea of where to go and a nagging sensation that I need to culminate the week in some sort of glorious finale. I see in the news as I’m surte you do as well, that stars are dropping like flies. Michael Jackson and Farah Faucet. Good god, anal cancer? Possibly the weirdest famous guy on the planet dies from a heart attack?  Can I go back to the moment before I read those stories and bypass them for the good news? Oh yeah they don’t post good news on the front page.Apple fans ought to be thrilled that their iconic leader Steven Jobs bought himself a new liver.   I wonder if these horror stories will shed some light on the unhealthiness of the Hollywood lifestyle? Doubtful, huh. Does everyone want to be rich and famous, and downright weird?

In the meantime let me see if I can turn around the weirdness and make this BMN the upbeat newsletter we all hope for?

Again yesterday it was very hot here in northern New Mexico, I did manage to work in the garden before it got too hot to be outside. I did a bit of weeding, Nell picked spinach and lettuce and we distributed the fresh produce to our family. After hoeing around all three of our gardens for an hour or so I decided it was time to dig the lawn mower out from under all the crap that lately inhabits  what was once my shop and is now storage.  I gassed the mower up and topped off the oil and  amazingly it fired up on the first pull on the rope. I pushed that mower around our hillside yard for a half hour maybe more before it was so hot I had to quit. One of the things I always hoped I’d be able to do when I retired from the service industry was create a yard that was easy to maintain. So far we aren’t anywhere near there and pushing the lawn mower over rough ground is very hard work. So what to do? I’ll keep working to smooth out the ground around our home, create beds and water catchment basins for berry bushes and trees. In time we hope our house and yard will look like it is part of the hillside it was cut into. 

Here is an lovely culmination to a story in Mother Earth News. I yearn to be able to express this kind of optimism: Life on the Homestead

"If a few things on your plate every season came from the work of your own hands, you are creating food for your body, and that is enough. If your landlord can be sweet-talked into some small backyard projects, go for it with gusto. If you rode your bike to work, trained your dog to pack, or just baked a loaf of bread, let it be enough. Accepting where you are today — and working toward what’s ahead — is the best you can do. Maybe your gardens and coops will outgrow mine, and before you know it you’ll be trading in your Audi for a pickup. But the starting point is to take control of what you can and smile with how things are. Find your own happiness and dance with it.

While I’m on this good news story kick I’ll post another from the latest edition of Mother Earth News magazine. I’ll share Live on Less and Love It! with you and we can take this Friday and turn it into a weekend.

Image Gallery If you live in a forested area, cut your energy costs by heating with wood. And wherever you live, never skimp on insulation — you’ll save money and energy. BRIAN ORR

On paper, my wife and I are poor. How poor? In 2005 we made $4,303.84 combined; in 2004 we made half that. We’re in such a low tax bracket that I have trouble convincing the government of our tax return’s accuracy; they simply can’t believe Americans can live on that kind of money.

Yet in many ways, we’re better off than a Wall Street banker: We’ve saved enough money to buy land without a mortgage, we have no credit cards or monthly bills, I work 20 flexible hours a week from home, and my daughter has two stay-at-home parents.

Simply put, we never want for anything, and we have a lot of fun.

We’ve arrived where we are now through a decade of daily financial decisions. Because we didn’t want to spend our time earning money at jobs we didn’t like, we instead focused on how to stretch our money. We found that by controlling our day-to-day expenses, we could save a lot of money without sacrificing our quality of life. Neither my wife nor I will ever be confused for financial wizards; there’s nothing we’ve done that you can’t do if you’re serious about saving money. Here are 75 money-saving tips to consider, drawn from our own experiences. Find what works for you and enjoy living on less!

Good Cheap Food

1. Buy raw ingredients instead of prepackaged foods. If you don’t know how to cook, learn. You’ll save on food bills, and your body will thank you for it in the long run.

2. Buy in bulk from a local health food store, or place bulk orders directly with mail-order companies. If you can’t meet their minimum order size, go in on an order with another family, or organize a larger food buying club.

3. Avoid the middleman and buy directly from farmers. Look for farm stands, community supported agriculture programs and farmers markets.

4. Eat fruits and vegetables in season, when they are least expensive. (Once, we found organic watermelon for three cents a pound!) Stock up when they’re cheap and freeze or can any excess for later use.

5. Keep up with what’s in your refrigerator and make sure nothing spoils. Once a week, make soup or casseroles to use up vegetables and other leftovers.

6. Calculate the price of food per pound when you visit supermarkets. Doing the math will help you spot good deals.

7. Don’t overeat. When you do, you’re flushing money down the drain.

How to Avoid Rent

8. Find a live-in elder care position and help someone stay out of a nursing home. There’s always someone desperate for reliable help, and often there are no qualifications needed other than compassion.

9. Help renovate a house in exchange for lodging. This is how we came into our current home.

Documentary about building a steam boiler

A science question from a newbie    

By madmardagan, Section Newbies

Posted on Fri Jun 26th, 2009 at 02:44:06 AM MST

Could someone help explain?

Hello, I have been ready the posts here and have been working on my own wind generator. I have what may be a simply answered question but one that has stumped me when explaining it to my kids. I have constructed my rotors and stator and tonight built my rectifier. When turning by hand I am easily getting 35+ volts (it’s a 48 volt stator). But the moment I put a light to it as a load, the rotors are dang near impossible to turn. What is the mechanics behind this? Is this what also happens once the wind gen is up in the air and connected to a battery bank or is there something I am just missing here altogether? I must say it was facinating and completely unexpected. I’ve read about cogging but wow.

Thanks in advance for your posts!

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A science question from a newbie | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 editorial) | Post A Comment

[new] Re: A science question from a newbie (3.00 / 0) (#1)

by TomW on Thu Jun 25th, 2009 at 08:56:47 PM MST

(User Info)

Simply put, That resistance to turning is power being transferred from your hand into the load.

Tom

Amateurs built the Ark. Experts built the Titanic.

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[new] Re: A science question from a newbie (3.00 / 0) (#2)

by wooferhound (tim((NoSpamAt))wooferhound.com) on Thu Jun 25th, 2009 at 11:04:56 PM MST

(User Info) http://wooferhound.com

 A generator should spin freely without a load, as you start drawing power off of the genny it will start to be harder to turn and will get harder to spin as you take more Amps from the output. In fact, we will short out the generator to protect it from high winds. shorting the genny pulls the maximum power from the output causing the maximum drag to a turning motion.

 I am a little unclear on the cause but I’ll attempt to explain it.

Without a load there is no current flowing in the coils. As you start pulling power from the genny and current flows in the coils they become electromagnets operating with AC voltages. Unfortunately the electromagnets that the coils create the same polarity as the magnet that is approaching the coils creating a North against North arrangement and trying to repel the approaching magnet.

 Multiply this effect by the number of coils and magnets in your generator and it can be a quite strong drag with high current outputs. This is why we talk a lot about stalling the blades as there is no drag while not producing electricity, and the drag increases as the blades speed up and more and more current is flowing creating ever increasing drag.

W o o f -={(

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[new] Re: A science question from a newbie (3.00 / 0) (#3)

by Flux on Fri Jun 26th, 2009 at 01:24:16 AM MST

(User Info)

Don’t confuse normal loading with cogging.

Cogging is an issue associated with iron cored alternators when the magnetic reluctance is not constant. With no load on it it turns in a series of lumps ( like badly meshed gears, hence the term cogging).

What you are experiencing is purely the load reaction and whether it feels lumpy or smooth, it is not cogging. There is no iron in an airgap alternator ( it can’t cog by definition).

If the thing didn’t become difficult to turn when on load you would be looking at perpetual motion. Whenever you change energy from one form to another this takes place.

You are just converting your work ( mechanical energy) into electrical energy in the alternator and then into heat and light in the lamp. Man can only produce just over 100W for any length of time so it becomes hard work to produce enough energy to light a modest bulb. This gives you some idea of the power produced by the wind turbine blades in a good wind. Even a small machine say 10ft can produce several horsepower but man can not manage 1/10th hp for more than a few seconds unless you are a cyclist or trained for man powered flight.

Best way to look at it from the conservation of energy point of view. You are converting work to other energy forms.

Flux

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[new] Re: A science question from a newbie (3.00 / 0) (#4)

by tecker on Fri Jun 26th, 2009 at 06:13:57 AM MST

(User Info)

When the magnets align for charging the coils in a axil flux (air core stator ) the charge rises .As that phase is released ie the magnets move to null the current moves through the load .For a moment a flux is developed with the opposite  pole as the magnet in the center hole and the same pole as the approaching magnet.So for one half phase  all the coils in the phase that is conducting are trying to bond with the center hole  magnet and repulse the magnet that is  approaching.  As the current is relaxed the charge is reversed etc etc.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2009 June 26

Explanation: This six month long exposure compresses the time from solstice to solstice (~ December 21, 2008 to June 20, 2009) into a single point of view. Dubbed a solargraph, the unconventional picture was recorded with a pinhole camera made from an aluminum can lined with a piece of photographic paper. Fixed to a single spot for the entire exposure, the simple camera continuously records the Sun’s daily path as a glowing trail burned into the photosensitive paper. Breaks and gaps in the trails are caused by cloud cover. In this case, the spot was chosen to look out from inside a radio telescope at the Ondrejov Observatory in the Czech Republic. At the end of the exposure, the paper was removed from the can and immediately scanned digitally. Contrasts and colors were then enhanced and added to the digital image. Of course, in December, the Sun trails begin lower down at the northern hemisphere’s winter solstice. The trails climb higher in the sky as the June 21st summer solstice approaches.