Equipment Mods Completed
Originally posted 12/9/2012
Note to self: One milestone has been reached. All electrical work related to the solar system is done, not needing to be played with any further. I’ve installed heavy 12GA wiring with a big-ass 40A fuse directly from the four-battery office pack to the 300W DC->AC inverter, per Samlex’s instructions, and I can operate just about any combination of gizmos in the office without having to wonder how high connector temperatures are, because there aren’t any. Realistically, I don’t think I’ll actually use more than 200 watts at most, on media projects. My usual usage hovers around 120-145W. I patched over the TV/DVD to the same pack too, since it seems to have such abundant capacity.
What’s abundant? In practice, this lets me (in sunny Arizona anyway) use the office computer all day if I need to, watch a couple of DVDs that evening on the 28″ TV, then put in more computer time until 11PM if I have a project going, which I often do. Then rinse and repeat the next day. The pack will still reach a completed recharge by early or mid-afternoon, day after day. Of course, that’s harder on me than it is on the office pack, so I go for my Official Health Walk, read, fix meals, meditate on what the heck I got myself into, and examine the peeling wallpaper that still needs to be removed, or survey all the crap that still needs to find a permanent hidey-hole somewhere. (I’m still looking for my tiny harmonica that I got in the ’70s. It’s here somewhere. It sounds great. I’ve just never been able to get anything resembling actual music out of it.) Oh dear – now I no longer have an excuse for procrastinating on cleaning this rat’s nest up. Look for photos of the trailer’s interior when I’m in a position to be less embarrassed about it.
Finally, just so you will no longer be jealous, we’re now in the official Cold December mode of weather down 
here. The next 9 days are forecast to be 67-71 degrees during the day, and 38-40 at night, which takes the trailer interior down to about 50-52 by the time I wake up and fire up the propane heater to break the chill. From somebody hailing from the Upper Midwest, this is perfect sleeping weather! Apart for a 30% chance of showers on Thursday, it will be sunny as always. If it does rain, I may try to take a photo of it. I haven’t seen more than two minutes of light sprinkles from a passing cloud since I got here, twice on the same day. That was a month ago. This is really nice!
I just took the snap below at 4PM local time. For some reason, the weather sources like The Weather Channel and Accuweather use a different standard down here. They refer to this as “mostly sunny”. No joke.
Strolling Amok 