What Creative Ways You Use Extra Free Energy?

[42OhmsPA]

Question for all the coin miners out there.
What kind of data speeds, at a minimum, do you need to run reliably?

 

[Crowz]

I'm on cable so I have amazing speeds but I don't see much traffic from the miners. They are chatty but its light traffic. I imagine dsl would work with them fine if you don't have a ton of them like me

If you can ping consistently to the net I doubt you will have any issues. Wifi being a packet dropper at times probably wouldn't be ideal.

 

[Zwy]

Heat in the morning, A/C in the afternoon. We haven't had to use any grid power this month for climate control.

I had that in October. It changed this month and late October. Heat is on all day.

 

[42OhmsPA]

I'm on cable so I have amazing speeds but I don't see much traffic from the miners. They are chatty but its light traffic. I imagine dsl would work with them fine if you don't have a ton of them like me

If you can ping consistently to the net I doubt you will have any issues. Wifi being a packet dropper at times probably wouldn't be ideal.

Thanks, my internet connectivity is a 4G WiFi hotspot on a cheap unlimited phone plan ... There's no cable out here, I'm not paying for crappy DSL and don't want to pay the starlink monthly fee.
Might not be the best option but it sounds like it should work.

 

[Zwy]

Down south, they work decent for heating but once you get down towards freezing, they are not very efficient. Non- low ambient units will ice over. I never bother buying low ambient since efficiency is so low at below freezing anyway. I just switch over to wood.

If there is excess PV power stored in my batteries, I'm burning it using heat pumps but if it gets cold enough I turn off the heat pumps and turn on electric radiators with a fan behind them for air circulation. One in the kitchen and one in the living room. If the temps are high enough during the day, the heat pumps come back on and the radiators off. I can control the radiators and fans remotely using Shelly plugs and the heat pumps using the apps on my phone.

If PV yield is low or forecasted to be low, the propane furnace is used instead. I will be adding a gasification boiler with 1400 gallons of thermal storage in the future.

I like having multiple small separate mini spilts vs one big one with multiple heads. That way, if one fails, your whole system isn't down and other can make up the difference.

I like the ability to zone different areas using separate units.

 

[42OhmsPA]

The past few days I've been burning some watts with the steam generator for the mini sauna to combat the dry air from the coal stove and resistive heaters that I kick on when the batteries get above 54.2V.

 

[Brucey]

Took me two days to get close to filling up while everything was switched back to grid.

Using some juice now with the oil filled portable radiator, can maintain 72F pretty easy with 35F outside usually have to turn it down after 74.

 

[timselectric]

It's been 8 days since my last full charge.
This is the time of year when the sun is low, and the trees still have most of their leaves. But I think they also grew a lot taller since last year. Or at least it seems like it. lol

 

[Zwy]

It's been 8 days since my last full charge.
This is the time of year when the sun is low, and the trees still have most of their leaves. But I think they also grew a lot taller since last year. Or at least it seems like it. lol

I was in Des Moines 3 hours away yesterday, left by 8 AM. Sun was shining in Des Moines, was really nice. After VA doctor appointment stopped at Home Depot and checked SA to see if batteries were fully charged yet. I was at 71% and getting about 800W from 8.4 Kw of panels.

As we headed north 2 hours, we still were in the sun. Looking to the east towards home, you could see the line of clouds. Arriving home an hour later, it was heavy overcast and cold. Today was full overcast with light rain predicted that never came. Good thing my wife did laundry and ran the dishwasher on Monday.

I have 40% of 72 Kwh left so I think I'll survive another night.

 

[timselectric]

Yup, raining here again.
But no more laundry this week, so I'll get by ok.

 

[Crowz]

Trees are being a pain especially as mentioned they haven't dropped leaves yet.

 

[wpns]

This sounds like an AA meeting.
Hi, my name is Tim.
(Everyone) Welcome, Tim

It's been 8 days since my last full charge.

(Everyone) Hang in there, Tim. The sun will come back someday.

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

It's been 8 days since my last full charge.

I won't see a full charge anymore until March or so.

 

[wpns]

Yesterday afternoon was nothing like yesterday morning:
http://dotnetdotcom.net/GeekHo/TimeLapse/SatScrape/Timelapse_2024-11-13.mp4

 

[wpns]

See if you can tell when I turned on all the AC, started charging golf carts, and fired up the clothes dryer:

Mother Nature: "You want a dump load? I'll dump a load of rain on you!"

http://dotnetdotcom.net/ViewCamLeft_2024-11-13.mp4

 

[MattMan119]

This time of year is killing me… I see this great overnight usage, the day starts off fairly strong (cause of time change) then afternoon showers blow in and the rest of the day is a crash and bleed.

Going to have to find new and unique ways to connect extra sun in these months some of us call winter.

 

[Q-Dog]

We had over a month of great sun and mild temps ... then 8 days of warm, wet and cloudy ... then one day of sun to get the batteries back to 100% ... then a lot more rain yesterday. Today is cooler but not cold (no heat needed), and supposed to be mostly sunny, so I expect to have a surplus.

We have been talking about using more solar and less grid and we will need to add more inverter capacity to do that. Then, of course, more solar and more batteries.

 

[Prefersdirt]

I am nowhere close to having extra. With extra I would run a pellet mill to make wood pellets. AC or chillers w blowing air for the animals. (10 degrees is a huge difference for them). Press for fertilizer bricks.

 

[UberTenere]

I will probably add a 24k BTU mini split for next winter, maybe this summer, but my short term solution was to install a Changeover switch to my Dryer (25A at 240V) to eat up the excess power during peak sun. I'm producing around 8kw at peak and using 3-4kw charging the batteries (full by 10:00), 12k heat pump (not primary heat), a space heater, and my 10 circuit transfer switch which covers my house base load minus dryer and oven. I have 3 kids so the dryer is a fair chunk of our electric bill.




system is a 10kw hybrid inverter and 11.5Kw solar, 840Ah 48v, on 2 transfer switches, because My power company will not net meter and will only pay 4.25 cents per KW/h and wanted an engineer involved and an overly invasive connection agreement. This way its MY power.

 

[macdaman]

On the rare occasion.... I have a 1500 watt heater I can crank up on the cold days. It runs real dry here in the winter so I'll also throw a pot of water on an induction coil and high simmer/low boil some humidity into the air.