Off-Grid Ranch in Northern Arizona - Send me your resume!

[sunshine_eggo]

I thought canbus was an industry standard that Victron was courteous enough to support. I suppose I should have known better.

It's a communications standard also used by automotive system (IIRC, it was developed by Bosch). The data that is passed is device/system dependent.

CAN bus is speech.

Gotcha. When I first saw it I was pretty impressed, but again, that was a couple years ago. I haven't checked into it recently and don't know what new stuff is out there yet. Hmm... Batrium... I've heard of it, but can't place it.

Batrium is out of Australia. It's expensive...

Bought my PM3 in 2010, still going strong.

 

[JoeHam]

FINALLY, we have a thread about AZ pest control ?.

We’ve had scorpions twice at our house SE of PHX over the years. Oddly enough, our dog woke us up one night barking like crazy at one in the living room, she didn’t get stung but knew it was there and alerted us.

I’m more concerned due to the disorganized black widow webs I see outside from time to time but haven’t seen a spider. We spray quarterly.

I have an off grid ham station in a sea can outside of town and worry about spiders, rattlesnakes and coyotes there. I leave the door cracked open and one night a coyote stuck his nose in for a sniff. Freaked me out a bit. I’ve learned to spot the rattlers in the spring and give them a wide berth.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

FINALLY, we have a thread about AZ pest control ?.

LOL!

We’ve had scorpions twice at our house SE of PHX over the years. Oddly enough, our dog woke us up one night barking like crazy at one in the living room, she didn’t get stung but knew it was there and alerted us.

I’m more concerned due to the disorganized black widow webs I see outside from time to time but haven’t seen a spider. We spray quarterly.

That reminded me of a suppressed memory... we found a barely alive (cold) black widow IN the trailer ON the bed up North. I try not to think about it.

I need to set off a bug bomb.

I have an off grid ham station in a sea can outside of town and worry about spiders, rattlesnakes and coyotes there. I leave the door cracked open and one night a coyote stuck his nose is for a sniff. Freaked me out a bit. I’ve learned to spot the rattlers in the spring and give them a wide berth.

We hear single/a pack coyotes up North. Can be a little disconcerting when it sounds like 20 are coming your way.

Had a coyote just trot down the street in Mesa. Was showing interest in neighbors' back yards, so I chased it away. We have a ferocious rat terrier that likely doesn't have the sense to hide from a coyote...

 

[RFOneWatt]

It's a communications standard also used by automotive system (IIRC, it was developed by Bosch). The data that is passed is device/system dependent.

CAN bus is speech.

So I'm going to guess that all the OBD2 stuffs in vehicles communicate in the CANBUS language. I'll check it out.

Cool, ya learn something new everyday.

Batrium is out of Australia. It's expensive...

One rule that always rings true - you get what you pay for.

I'll absolutely see what Batrium has to offer. Thanks!

 

[RFOneWatt]

That reminded me of a suppressed memory... we found a barely alive (cold) black widow IN the trailer ON the bed up North. I try not to think about it.

I need to set off a bug bomb.

I was laying in the master bedroom of my TT one evening and something caught my eye. I looked up and there was a baby black widow on a single strand of web, trying to work his way down to the floor from the A/C vent.

This was about a month ago. I grabbed a book off the shelf, opened it and let it land on the book and promptly closed the book.

Unsettling to say the least.

We hear single/a pack coyotes up North. Can be a little disconcerting when it sounds like 20 are coming your way.

Had a coyote just trot down the street in Mesa. Was showing interest in neighbors' back yards, so I chased it away. We have a ferocious rat terrier that likely doesn't have the sense to hide from a coyote...

"Ferocious rat terrier?" Ok, I get it, I've had a couple rat terriers, but I caught myself smirking when I read the sentence.

 

[RFOneWatt]

I’m more concerned due to the disorganized black widow webs I see outside from time to time but haven’t seen a spider. We spray quarterly.

Black Widows, like scorpions are notoriously hard to kill because they don't groom themselves, like, say a cockroach.

When you spray insecticide the only route it has to enter the critter is absorption through the skin. This works on scorpions as they drag their asses around but it does take MUCH longer to affect them as they have quite thick exoskeletons. It usually takes a couple of days after exposure before they die.

Black Widows, because they have such minimal contact with the surfaces they occupy, you have to hit them directly with the spray. The only way to thoroughly get rid of them is to eliminate their food supply or by physically removing them. If you see the web, there's a spider there. Go take a look around 12AM-3AM. You have to sneak up to the web though as ANY vibration will send them into hiding. (thankfully)

To me, the only thing scarier than a Black Widow is the Australian redback. Ugh.

I have an off grid ham station in a sea can outside of town and worry about spiders, rattlesnakes and coyotes there. I leave the door cracked open and one night a coyote stuck his nose is for a sniff. Freaked me out a bit. I’ve learned to spot the rattlers in the spring and give them a wide berth.

Oh! Based on your username I have a question you might be able to answer:

Have you had any issues with RF noise from your solar controller and/or other electronics associated with your off grid power delivery?

I haven't crossed that bridge yet but I have a pretty extensive shack that will be on my property and I've often thought about it.

 

[Bluedog225]

Darn it. I found a black widow web under my stairs last weekend. was going to bug bomb.

 

[RFOneWatt]

Darn it. I found a black widow web under my stairs last weekend. was going to bug bomb.

I have no experience with bug bombs, could work if it coats their body? no idea though.

Honestly I don't even worry about them anymore. They want nothing to do with you and the only way they will ever bother you is if you stick your hand in a dark, unoccupied place, step on one, etc. but because they vanish so quickly with any vibration / movement chances are slim you'll ever have a one-on-one with one.

When it comes to scorpions, they creep me out but I've been stung twice (stepped on them) and, to me, it was the same as a bee sting, I wasn't really bothered. When I tell people this they say "huh? they are deadly!" They may very well be, I'm no expert, but that certainly wasn't my experience. (at least so far)

I found a dried out scorpion in my garage and made sure to put somewhere the wife would run into it... that didn't go over well.

But I DID take a picture.

Again, sorry for the subject deviation.

 

[AndreasPassat]

Still off topic...
I just read through this thread.
What you guys are doing is basically the same as what my wife and I are doing except, we have a very modest 3.5 acres about another 20 or so miles south of Maricopa.
We started out with around $100k and with all of the prices reaching in some cases 400% more than what they were a couple of years ago that has mostly been burned away.
You aren't kidding, water is the new oil.
A short distance from me a couple drilled their well on a piece of property they had just purchased, in excess of $100k just for the well. A well would be really nice to have but for me, any amount of money spent on a well and if it ever goes dry, that's just too much money spent. That is a very real risk down here.
At the beginning of 2020 concrete was at around $120 / yard. I had 40 x 60 garage / shop slab and a second slab for a casita poured at Christmas time last year. $320 / yard. I had just over 60 yards poured. You do the math. It's ridiculous!

This little area we are in certainly has its share of wildlife. So far we've seen numerous types of snakes. King, rattle, coachwhip and some others I have no idea what they are. Scorpions, black widows, several packs of wild dogs are in the area. Fox, coyotes, gila monsters round out the variety.

I'm commuting to Mesa every day for work. That's a drive I'm getting real tired of.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

Still off topic...
I just read through this thread.
What you guys are doing is basically the same as what my wife and I are doing except, we have a very modest 3.5 acres about another 20 or so miles south of Maricopa.
We started out with around $100k and with all of the prices reaching in some cases 400% more than what they were a couple of years ago that has mostly been burned away.
You aren't kidding, water is the new oil.
A short distance from me a couple drilled their well on a piece of property they had just purchased, in excess of $100k just for the well. A well would be really nice to have but for me, any amount of money spent on a well and if it ever goes dry, that's just too much money spent. That is a very real risk down here.
At the beginning of 2020 concrete was at around $120 / yard. I had 40 x 60 garage / shop slab and a second slab for a casita poured at Christmas time last year. $320 / yard. I had just over 60 yards poured. You do the math. It's ridiculous!

This little area we are in certainly has its share of wildlife. So far we've seen numerous types of snakes. King, rattle, coachwhip and some others I have no idea what they are. Scorpions, black widows, several packs of wild dogs are in the area. Fox, coyotes, gila monsters round out the variety.

I'm commuting to Mesa every day for work. That's a drive I'm getting real tired of.

Ouch. If you haven't encountered these guys:

They're in the low desert like you, and it may be more economical. In the high desert, we have about 11 in/year of rain. With 40 acres, I'll seriously be considering catchment over a well. I have a lot of terrain that would lend itself well to:

https://arizonabillboardcompany.com/used-billboard-tarps/

A 14x48 would harvest over 4000 gal/year on 11in/year.

 

[Bluedog225]

That stuff is brilliant. Never occurred to me to have a ground level collection system. I’ve got the elevation. Thanks!

 

[JoeHam]

Oh! Based on your username I have a question you might be able to answer:

Have you had any issues with RF noise from your solar controller and/or other electronics associated with your off grid power delivery?

I haven't crossed that bridge yet but I have a pretty extensive shack that will be on my property and I've often thought about it.

Yup, most of the off grid goodies cause RFI. I love my Victron MPPT’s but they are my worst offenders.

Plan on choking solar equipment inputs and outputs, go device by device to find what is causing a specific problem. You will want to use mix 43 or 31 based on your frequencies of interest. Good reference here :

Ferrite Mix Selection - Palomar Engineers®

Ferrite Mix Selection Guidelines Quite often we are asked which mix is best for a certain application or frequency range and there is a lot of misinformation on the internet and elsewhere regarding the selection of proper mix for a given application. Material Types There are two basic ferrite...

palomar-engineers.com

Proper grounding and bonding are vital as well. Good reference for that :

http://audiosystemsgroup.com/GroundingAndAudio.pdf

I just hacked away at it a bit at a time and now I’m quite happy with two different setups in different locales. Each one has all radios and amplifiers within 10 feet of the solar equipment and I’m running 160m through 70cm without much problem.

I’m just 10 countries away from DXCC Honor Roll and I took first place in 2023 January VHF contest SO3B for the 7th call district so it works.

 

[RFOneWatt]

We started out with around $100k and with all of the prices reaching in some cases 400% more than what they were a couple of years ago that has mostly been burned away.

Kind of like solar panels, batteries & inverters. Even if you triple your best estimates you'll usually still be on the edge.

You aren't kidding, water is the new oil.

Gotta give the powers-that-be credit though. They've managed to monetize the most abundant resource on the plant.

At the beginning of 2020 concrete was at around $120 / yard. I had 40 x 60 garage / shop slab and a second slab for a casita poured at Christmas time last year. $320 / yard. I had just over 60 yards poured. You do the math. It's ridiculous!

The only thing you can really do is to hold off on the things that you can until after the depression / recession.

This little area we are in certainly has its share of wildlife. So far we've seen numerous types of snakes. King, rattle, coachwhip and some others I have no idea what they are. Scorpions, black widows, several packs of wild dogs are in the area. Fox, coyotes, gila monsters round out the variety.

@sunshine_eggo brought up what could be a workable solution to that issue, something that I didn't really thing about until he mentioned it: an electric fence. I definitely need to look into this.

I'm commuting to Mesa every day for work. That's a drive I'm getting real tired of.

I feel your pain. (Mesa to Scottsdale) I wish you the best of luck.

 

[RFOneWatt]

Yup, most of the off grid goodies cause RFI. I love my Victron MPPT’s but they are my worst offenders.

I have a ton of Victron equipment but nothing Victron when it comes to solar controllers. Warning noted.

I just hacked away at it a bit at a time and now I’m quite happy with two different setups in different locales. Each one has all radios and amplifiers within 10 feet of the solar equipment and I’m running 160m through 70cm without much problem.

I’m just 10 countries away from DXCC Honor Roll and I took first place in 2023 January VHF contest SO3B for the 7th call district so it works.

Thanks for the links. It won't be my first time tackling electrical / RF noise but I need all the help I can get....and congratulations on your honor roll! That's a pretty big achievement. Not to stray too far off topic but I'm getting ready to to tackle a 100FT tower on a 6000FT mountain. Certainly going to be a fun time.

 

[JoeHam]

Not to stray too far off topic but I'm getting ready to to tackle a 100FT tower on a 6000FT mountain. Certainly going to be a fun time.

It’s your thread so you can stray where you want ?.

This spring I did SOTA from Pinal Peak, Mount Union, Spruce and Mingus Mountains and worked Asia, Europe and around North America with 5W CW so the AZ mountains can help a lot. That tower at that elevation will be a sweet setup.

And don’t give up on the Victron MPPT’s. I like mine now that the RFI is tamed.

 

[AHTrimble]

I live close to your area. Bought in 2016, built the cabin/shop in 2017/2018 with the first solar system. Built the house in 2019 with a much upgraded solar system. Upgraded the house system in 2020 to Victron and LifePo4...I LOVE IT! Added a 2nd 5kw Victron inverter/charger and 55% more LifePo4 capacity in early 2023. Just finished adding 45% PV capacity 2 weeks ago.

Our well was already on our property, 220' to bottom, 145' to water. I dropped a DC pump in it with 1000watts of PVs to power it...PERFECT solution!

I will be happy to share whatever I can from my experience. If you ever want to have lunch, give me a shout...we can meet up in Snowflake or Show Low.

 

[AHTrimble]

It’s your thread so you can stray where you want ?.

This spring I did SOTA from Pinal Peak, Mount Union, Spruce and Mingus Mountains and worked Asia, Europe and around North America with 5W CW so the AZ mountains can help a lot. That tower at that elevation will be a sweet setup.

And don’t give up on the Victron MPPT’s. I like mine now that the RFI is tamed.

I am running 2 Victron MPPTs...no problems whatsoever.