This evening, a long partnership ended. This partnership has existed for approximately 15 years, longer than I’ve owned my car, my (our) house, indeed longer than I’ve been married.
It was a long and amicable relationship, based on mutual dependency and trust. I supplied the power, and, in return, it provided me with light. I am talking of course, about a now defunct, Philips 18watt energy saving lightbulb. It has now joined it’s colleague in lightbulb heaven!
Winter is most definitely on the way, slight frost on the car this morning, and the weather station run by the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group showing a significant dip last night, though it was colder on Sunday night. Strangely though, I’m looking forward to getting a nice fire going on our new stove. And seeing how well it can heat the sitting room and the rest of the house.
I finished off the rewiring i mentioned in a previous post. This was mostly just a tidy up of the cables around the inverter. The inverter itself is an older model Powermaster PM-1500SL-24, however the battery charging circuit generates terrible Radio Frequency interference. This means that the shortwave bands are completely obliterated when charging is taking place (from either solar or mains/generator power), so I leave the inverter off unless I need it. I use a Steca PR3030 and two 80watt panels, facing roughly South, to keep the battery bank topped up.
I have tested the system it by running the central heating, fridge-freezer and chest freezer off the inverter for a few hours, but I must give it a more thorough test at some stage in the near future. The batteries are no longer new and, should there be a power cut, I’d better be able to keep the TV running or the boss will not be pleased!