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What is a Solar Generator?

Power without fossil fuel

Have you ever had the power go out in your home or business?
It can be quite frightening! Fumbling around looking for the flashlight, lighting candles, or even firing up the old kerosene or propane lantern from the last camping trip.
If you had this experience more than once, it may be that there is a gasoline or diesel powered standby generator for such power outages in your home. You go out to the garage, put some fresh gas or diesel in the tank and then run extension cords to the lights and refrigerator/freezer before all the food spoils, and all is well…… until the gas runs out!
There are many such generators in garages and storage sheds all over the country. These generators are sometimes wired t to the home with an automatic switch starting the generator without all the trouble described above. These installations are very few, but a growing number of incidents, and even fears of a power grid long-term failure have prompted many to consider energy independence.
One of the limitations of the above scenario is the availability of a stable fuel supply.


Is there a solution to the lack of petroleum fuels? YES!


The one abundant supply of energy with about a four billion year supply life is…………

THE SUN!

>>Check this website if you are super interested in how it happens<<   

            http://zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph162/l4.html

Most everyone has heard of the use of solar panels to power industry, and even the international space station however the potential use of solar panels was largely used by industry and seldom by homeowner for cost reasons.
The good news for the average homeowner in today’s economy of rising fuel prices, is that solar panels are now a fraction of what they cost just a few years ago. The mass shift in government subsidies and incentives have driven production upwards and cost down. The payback for an average home installation in 1980 was close to 25 years, today it may be as low as 3 to 5 years!


If the cost of electricity is high where you live, a total home rooftop or outside ground installation may be a solution to energy independence, or simply a significant cost savings if you use what is called a grid-tie installation, partnering with your utility by selling back your surplus power generated by the installation back to the grid.
The scenario above while cost effective, requires a significant investment. Many homeowners would rather have a scaled down version of energy independence which will meet emergency demands, rather than a full scale system which powers the high usage appliances like heating/AC and electric cooking, water heater and clothes dryers.
The essential power most needed in a power loss becomes lighting, freezer,s and refrigerators as well as some other low power usage such as today’s television and computers, cellphones and misc. low power appliances, all of which are usually powered with an easily obtained gasoline or diesel standby generator.
Until the gas is gone!……….Enter the “SOLAR GENERATOR”


Simply put, a solar generator is a system of battery with a device called an inverter, which changes a battery current into useful voltage that is the same AC power as the plugs in the home. The solar component is the panel that charges the battery so as to maintain the energy supply to the inverter from the battery.


Many RV’s have used this type of system for years, the only difference is the source to charge the battery in the RV is a generator or plug-in to a campsite AC supply. When the AC is unplugged, the RV runs on a quiet battery, able to use coffee pot or television independent of any grid power. The same is true of solar generators, they use the sun to charge battery, not grid or gas generator, thus no need to be around gas station or ac outlet, only sunshine.
The solar generator is a thing of beauty! It can be scaled upward from a simple $20 device to mega-battery and solar farm powering several city blocks.


in future articles, I will show the simple products that are available to power your life, whatever your power needs are.

 

 

 

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What’s a WATT? Who cares, and why?

“No, Who’s on first, Watt is on second and I don’t care is on third!

The all-knowing Homewatts mascot

Abbott and Costello’s great tribute to America’s favorite pastime, the great “Who’s on first base” is one of the funniest comedy bits ever performed!

The only thing besides being so hilarious which has anything to do with this website, is the great baseball player named “What”.

“What”, you may recall, was on SECOND base and “Who” was on first base.


All humor aside, the WATT as a definition related to electronics has a very precise definition unrelated to the great comedy duo, and predates the national pastime.
The Wikipedia definition of Watt:
The watt is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m 2 ⋅s −3 . It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named in honor of James Watt (1736–1819), an 18th-century Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved the Newcomen engine with his own steam engine in 1776.


An understanding of electricity has been a curiosity since the first lightning bolt was observed but was famously investigated by the legendary Ben Franklin’s kite on a stormy day. In the movie “Back to the Future, a lightning bolt produced the Gigawatts necessary to make the time machine travel as Doc needed to calculate the “amount , and how to produce so many Watts.
In the age of science and invention, tools were constantly being developed for everyday use by inventors and scientists with the hope of making life better for society. Science is a continuing quest to investigate categorize, and name every observed phenomenon. The naming of stars in the known universe is an impossible endeavor to complete, although one can now purchase a star which may be named after you for a nominal price.


You may have asked questions like ” Who decided to call that tool a pliar, screwdriver,r or wrench?”. Every tool needs a name to identify its use. The invention of the airplane may have taken a while longer if Orville had asked Wilbur to hand him that “Whatchamacallit” instead of a crescent wrench.
In the world of Physics and Electronics there is a need to name basic elements which enable continuing research and development, a sort of language of the trade. The WATT is one of the most useful definitions used in our modern world.


Simply put, when discussing a descriptive name for scientific phenomenon back in the 1800’s, a proposal to specify the property of electricity which produced power was suggested. The inventor of the steam engine, James Watt was proposed. Eventually the term WATT was used for units electric Power, as VOLTAGE was previously named after the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745–1827). The other phenomenon called the AMP is named after French mathematician and physicist André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836). Still another popular designation basic to the work in physics and electronics is the OHM, named after Georg Simon Ohm (16 March 1789 – 6 July 1854 ), who was a German physicist and mathematician.


All of these electronic elements have a predictable interactive relationship which allows anyone to create wonderful devices for modern society such as lights ,motors, and electronic gadgets

A simple algebraic formula allows us to design a device by interchanging voltage amperage and resistance to produce the amount of WATTS we need! Mr. Ohm has a law that basically says if you know how many volts and amps are in a circuit, the resulting power in Watts is predictable.


So what’s in a name? More than the eye can see!