Thursday, April 15, 2010

We got SLAMMED!

Starting about 4:30 yesterday afternoon it began to rain. It was coming down in sheets and the wind was blowing so hard that the rain was almost falling horizontally. That continued until about 9:45 when I noticed that I no longer heard the defining sound of high speed rain slamming the roof and various sides of the dungeon. The wind seemed to change directions totally about every 15 minutes so most of the time I had to have the door closed.

At some point in there I noticed the light flickering and a beeping noise coming from something I had plugged in here so I shut down the computer. Shortly after that I lost power in here so assumed the Half-A battery hut hadn't done its job because of the blowing rain. I was right because an inspection when I went out there at about 10:30 showed that the little inverter I'd used had been getting pounded with splashing mud from beside the Half-A and the blowing rain to. That inverter is now toast! (Second 300 watt I've lost so far since I've been here.) I scrounged around in the back storage and found my next size up inverter and took it out to Half-A and hooked it up. Came back in and had power, but the internet was down. I tried several times between then and the time I said to heck with it and hit the rack. I guess I should have made Half-A a Full-A so I wouldn't have lost the other inverter, but I didn't expect the rain to be blowing at a 60 degree angle! I'll have to remedy that ASAP.

Got woken up by several coyotes howling real close to the dungeon about 4:30 this morning so decided to try it again and then the server was up, but wouldn't let me connect to the internet. Its still that way so this will likely be posted from the Legion after noon (IF the internet is up there.) The internet down here is like the on grid power. You never know whey it will be lost area wide. (Same with cell phone in a power outage and this all happens often)

Now for the inverter I'm using now? well its an old 800 surge/400 watt running) and was defective when I bought it at a garage sale years ago. Its a power hog to start with and will NOT run the load of the two 300 watt inverters I've run through. I left it connected with very little load on it from the time I swapped them out late last night and it had already drained the battery bank by about 8:30 this morning when I was trying to compose this offline. Needless to say when it cut out this computer shut down and I lost most of the new thread. This is all over from scratch.

When going to fire up the charger earlier I noticed that when I wired up the batteries with the heavy cable I'd failed to connect the two bank so I've only been using 400 AMP Hours of batteries since then. I also noticed that the wind genny was charging the back bank and they were hotter than a firecracker because of the high wind last night and not having been used since then. (Another one of those DUAH's!) Well when I've been running the charger I've been charging the front bank and that was the one I've been getting my power from and the little 300 watt inverter has still been making it 24 hours between charges. The damn 800/400 will never do that though so I need to come up with another 300 fast! I may resort to trying out the 1000 watt inverter Dennis sent me and see how that does, but for now its over kill for what I need.

Before the storm last night.
Rain, Sun, Rainbow & Wind. You can see the angle the rain is falling at and the sun is actually shining on my little piece of heaven in this photo.
Above are from this morning.

12 comments:

  1. I love the promising sign of that rainbow ... thank you ... and the other snapshot is exquisite.

    Beautiful.

    Despite the appearance of pesky struggles, you really are blessed ou there.

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  2. We'll be out with a 275 water tank next Thursday, but I'm still trying to figure out how you catch water sideways? lol I'm sure you'll have some idea tho. Hope it settles down for ya, hate to hear about the inverter woes, is there anything I can get you from around here? Looking forward to getting back out to your little piece of heaven, although not as long as last time, darn it. Have a great day!

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  3. Mc, third photo shows rain, sun, rainbow and wind all in one photo. A little different spin on the old "Only in Texas" saying.

    Dale, you have to use the laws of physics and turn the container on its side. The rain just goes right in. ;)

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  4. Great pictures as always! I heard that Texas might also see some snow today to add to your weather mix.

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  5. Well shoot, what ya expect old Billy Bob to do now?
    I don't suppose you had time to run the grader over the road to "da ranch" And how bout my concrete park'n pad....did ya sweep it off? Maybe I better park "da house" at the legion until we check out the roads.
    Somewhere in my collection of "stuff" I have a 300 watt inverter. Now where the hell did I put it???
    See ya this afternoon.

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  6. I have been following your forum for a while. I appreciate your taking the time to share the good, the bad, the challenges. We will be facing the same things, I am sure, when we arrive in the Fall to begin our TR adventure. Love the pics.

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  7. That all-in-one picture actually captured a double rainbow. Very nice!

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  8. I knew you'd have an idea how to catch all that water, no matter which way it was coming from. lol The pictures are all great, I like the full rainbow picture too. I'm looking forward to things being a little greener this time out, to see to the contrast.

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  9. Last picture is awesome. Out your front door?

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  10. Scavenger, I don't think that will be a problem down here.

    BB, a monkey could make it down the roads to this place. Best way to do it would be pull in to the Legion parking lot and head down the road south right by the fence line. The falcon doesn't have a problem with it and the trike wouldn't either. Of course without fenders I'd be pretty muddy though. Just look for the It'll Du, the dungeon and the falcon with a blue cover on it and I think you will have found the place.

    wilkinson4success, One reason I'm doing the blog is hopefully to help others who plan to come down here or for that matter go anywhere it is a challenge.

    Just Me, guess I need to check out those photos again. I didn't see the second one?

    Dale, Things will be greener and there will be a lot more flying bugs. (including Mosquitoes.) I hear they don't last long after it drys out, but you might want to bring some OFF!

    dennis, Yep... out my front door.

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  11. What a beautifully picturesque part of Terlingua.

    The storm must have been exciting. I hope you sort out your inverter issues.

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  12. David, wake up the bar opens in fourty minutes.

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