How to fry an egg with the sun…

Add 13.6 kW of solar panels on the roof!

16 off 425 Watt panels this side

And another 16 this side, in two strings due to shading from next door

I’ll detail more about the system and some numbers in the future, but I saw it as a simple choice,

Pay energy bills at XYZ per month

Or, pay an identical repayment on a small loan at XYZ per month.

Really, the math is that basic.

We don’t have a battery, so will have some energy bills, but switching everything to Time Of Use (TOU) will mean we can shave at least 75% off our energy use by simply not using tumble dryer at midnight, or not heating water automatically after sunset!

We chose to pay a $3k deposit to make the math work out such that our predicted energy bills matches the loan repayments…

Anyways, enough waffle, stuff should arrive early next month, then I can really start playing and getting back to Amiga / speccy thingies

Always distractions….paddling Pool Pump, solar heating

When you buy a 3D printer, sometimes you search for ages to find ‘anything’ to print, just to actually use the printer.

Other times, you spend ages searching for a suitable coupling device to mount a pool pump with a roughly 1/2 inch inner bore and 20mm ish unknown thread to a 31ish mm diameter INTEX style corrugated hose……..

I’ve done both.

I bought some solar pool heating mats to make the small 8 foot paddling pool a little toastier and less ‘my nipples are so stiff , they could cut glass’ cold……

They work fine – But, the flow rate is quite slow using the 330 Gallon pump that came with our larger, but rodent damaged 12 foot Bestway pool

A few months ago, I purchased a cheap pump from Aliexpress – and after a few hours trying to find and purchase a fiting to hook it to the paddling pool and my Intex solar mats.. I realised I have a 3D printer! (well, many of them actually)..

So, Quickly knocked up this oddity in Fusion

Fits well, one is already attached

I’ve no idea what the thread is….So decided to set the inner hole just big enough to catch the thread…To screw it on, I use my hot air gun to heat up the inner hole so that it gets soft, then screw on the adaptor. leave it to go cold, then unscrew, add PTFE Tape to the threads, screw it back on and, voila, a nice, waterproof adaptor.

I’ll test the thing soon (it’s warm here)………But, during typing this, I’ve noted that the Bestway pump is 330 Gallons per hour – approximatley 1500 Liters per hour

The Aliexpress pump is about half that, D’oh!….

BUT – where i’m hoping to create an efficiency – the Bestway pump has a filter built in, which quite severely restricts the flow, this pump willl either boost that, or i’ll split the 4 mats into two circuits!