Selfsufficientish.com

G'DAy Mountain Girl,

The motor of a car or lawnmower will be useless to you! What you need is a car alternator, that it the bit that does the work in generating electricity. You then attach blades or a water wheel (in this case a pelton wheel would be best I think, but I am no expert ). The blades or wheel turn the alternator which then generates AC ( a generator provides DC power but are becoming few and far between) which is then rectified by diodes within the unit to 12 volts DC.

If you have a supplier of blades nearby, that would be a good option, otherwise I do have info on blade construction but it does take time, effort and skill. I once made a wind generator based on a bike generator ( which was actually an alternator also) and bike parts but it was only a trickle charge. If you have the bits you could build a number, they are low tech, but each unit only provides an amp or two.

Let me know what you require!

Nev

Hi Nev,

Yep I just looked up a pelton wheel on the net. is it better to use an alternator from a posh car than a cheap car? Sounds like a job for the car man. But I'll post when the time comes.

Bit by bit I'll have to save to buy things and do so by increasing self-suffieciency to lower costs.

Here it is late winter and I shall be moving early spring. I shall wait another month before moving and concentrate on getting some crops down when I get there...........hope theres a garden.

I saw an article about making your own solar panels, but again you would need someone skilled to put it together.

How do you get the net? I hope I can get it through my sattelite system but have no credit card?

G'Day Mountain Girl,

I am on broadband at home and at work. Here they are making a big deal about "going unwired", maybe this is an option for you. I think it uses the same system as the mobile phones. As for satelite dishes - sorry, they are way beyond my experience.

Here, most of the alternators seem to be Japanese anyway and they seem to be OK from my experience. The main things that I have had go wrong is the diodes blow, the brushes wear out or the bearings clacker In all cases it's just getting the spares and replacing the old ones. For the bearings you need a press, but it is possible to make one with a car jack, for the rest its just a screwdriver and assorted spanners plus a soldering iron.

Lots of luck with your adventure!

Nev

By the way,

When I used the term "your man" I did not mean your man, I meant it in the generic way that the Irish use the term ( a bad habit picked up from Irish friends.

Nev

Wombat wrote:By the way,

When I used the term "your man" I did not mean your man, I meant it in the generic way that the Irish use the term ( a bad habit picked up from Irish friends.

Nev

Hi Nev, Well I had meant it more in the Margorie 'to the manor born' sense of ones engineer person as opposed to ones butler or driver!

O' dear looking like I will have no internet unless I can find a company. I suppose most homesteaders have laptops, I think you can receive it throughh a laptop?.

But yes I have heard of wireless net but I dont think that its come out or if it is through a mobile connected to a laptop or wot.

Its a big factor i my decision.

About 5 years ago I attended a course (on accident investigation) and the trainer had a laptop and a mobile and they were set up with an infrared link. To maximise his time he would type out his emails, then ring up and sen/receive in a matter of seconds then shut down. I suppose it would depend on the mobile plan that you were on, how much surfing the net would cost.

Nev

I am not sure how mobil internet works, but a friend of mine plugs his mobile into the laptop, and as Wombat said, types his emails first, then logs on to download. I have looked into satelite broadband, but that is very expensive. About £1000 to install, then around £50/month. If you are in N Ireland, do you have BT? How far are you from the nearest tel. point? I had my telephone line put in 11 years ago, when a flat rate of £99 applied, and I am 650 yards from the nearest phone point. As I wanted the cable underground, they just dropped off a drum of cable and I layed it in the drain ditch I had to dig anyway for part of the way, then covered it over with the spoil from cleaning the road.
If you are going to build a wind geni, there is a good book by Hugh Piggott called Windpower Workshop, around £10, published by the Centre for alternative Technology. A lot of info on how generators work, how to size the system, wireing etc. and basic info on building one from car/van/lorry parts, the different types of generators, even info on how to make one from scratch, which is not that complicated (the copper windings/magnets). It shows how to use car wheel hubs as casings for the generator, with ready made barings, also how to construct blades for a wind generator. I think he also does another book or plans with more detail on construction. But this one gives essential basic info. If you can find one, a permanent magnet motor/dinamo would be better than a car alternator, but suitable ones with the right rev count etc. are difficult to get. Low revs is the more important aspect, and tractor or very old car dynamos are far more suited, definately not from a high performance car. You will need to do some reading on this. Can you post some photos of the stream, the building, location? It would help to evaluate the potential. For a Pelton water turbine you neen decent head, and the more flow, the better. My hydro generator has a similar turbine to the Pelton, have a look at the output on my website to get an idea what to expect from hydro. If you can get a map with contour lines, it will give you some idea of how much head you can get if there are easily recognised markers on the ground that will help pinpoint the location relative to the map. How wide and deep is your stream? The river below me is about 20 feet wide, and on average 2 feet deep in the middle, but with very little head. Even a river of that size would have been just about enough to run a 1KW run of river turbine and I would have had to dam about half the width.
These days you can get a lot of 12V stuff. I use compact flourescent bulbs which consume 5W but give me plenty of light. They are available in warm tone or white, also in 7W and 14W which is very bright, and in bayonet and screw fitting. A 5" TV consumes about 5W in B&W or TFT colour. Standard colour uses a fair bit more. The TFT TV are not cheap, but Maplin sometimes have special offers, about £100, still cheaper than a larger system. You will find, that sometimes the cost of getting something that consumes less is still cheaper than going for more power (not to forget the larger battery bank you need, as the system needs to be balanced).

Hi Nev and Judy,

Thanks for all the great advice.

Firstly I have no pics atmo but I am trying to get a friend of mine to come up with his digital camera before my internet runs out on the 21st april and I move; though I might move before that.

SKY were really heavy when I tried to cancel and all but threatened me, offering sattelite sky at the house without land-line, and they offered me a whole lot of extra newschannels, but eventually I got rid of the guy.

Bad news is that the rent is such that I will have no sat sys in the short term! So no internet either.

I shall no doubt follow simple instructions from yourselves to join my 230 240v~hz copy of the classic 'Bush' radio to a car battery and how to recharge the car-battery on the generator?

Now the owner of the 'comfortable house' that my friends were determined to force me to take, phoned to say his uncle and aunt had decieded to sell it. So bang! Only one choice. Thankfully I have a local friend who will be able to negotiate the deal with the owner.

I am asking for a silent generator at least 1000w that is wired to the house so I dont break my neck in the dark on an icy night going out to switch it off.

Also to replace the Range which I hear is damaged, hopefully with a little 'Doric' (Biscuit colour).

Then I will have to get someone to plum in the washing machine from a black plastic rainwater tank raised outside. God knows when.

I think that I will send my two almost-new tall fridges (one needs re-gassing) and any other stuff to an auction.

It's going to be tough and lonesome to begin with but as soon as the house is ticking over I'll be out of the woods. Nearest house several miles. (When I do get on the net I shall come back to this forum).
mountaingirld

Sounds like quite an adventue. Several miles to the nearest house, wow, I thought I lived isolated over here! How far is town? In all but prolonged icy weather, you can get about on scooters. I only have a small step-through, just pick a dry day when its not too windy to go into town. I can usually o on the same day every week, rarely do I have to postpone more than a day or two at most, though west Wales is probably less severe in the winter than northern Ireland. Have you seen my website and the page with the bike? (click www below, then 'Infrastructure' in the menu) Its the van version, and the picture shows the most awkward load I've taken on the trailer. It was not only very large and difficult shape, but also very heavy. Took me about an hour or two to do the 5 miles. That one I would not repeat!

Hi Judy,

awesome website! Gosh, your scooter is like mine, mine is a honda 90 (actally 85cc in reality I believe).

I hope to get someone to take me shopping once a forthnight if I have any neighbours! I could never get enough stuff into the bike, I would need to do three loads. Town probably 15/20 miles not sure.

Roads v dangerous here, everyone rich (cept me) and loadsa SUVs flying at great speed so dont use scooter too much, also petrol expensive now. But definitly I will want to visit neighbours when weather permits. More wet and cold here than Wales and less light............Scotland other side. Thats a problem with the herbs, mine were rather raw and unripened this (very cloudy) last summer and hard on the throat.

My biggest dread is my three psychopatic cats attacking rabbits etc.

Who ever invents a collar borne wildlife protector for cats should win a nobel prize! Something that goes off from a collar when it detects the noise of prey close to cat and so disturbs the cat from killing. Will be the richest inventor other than Mr Zimmer!

Well very mixed emotions, poor sleep for days, tomorrow is the reckoning when I meet the owner.

hopefully wont be long til they have wireless laptops and I could save up or buy one by instalments.

Well, talk tomorrow.

G'DAy Mountain Girl,

Charging the car battery from the generator is easy, some even have a 12 vold charging option, otherwise a cheap , plug in battery charger will do it for you. It is a buggfer that you are all the way over there, i have an old 1kva gen that you could have....ah well!

I have some stuff that I have downloaded off the net, but I don't know how to get it to you except by email. I will try to find the original links to the stuff and post those. I think that the book Judy is referring to is available on thr Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) website in pdf format....at least I have gotten it it and that must be where from! Again, I can email it if required.

I also have some stuff in books which I can photocopy and post or scan and email. Let me know what bits you are interested in.

Again, good luck!

Nev

wireless Internet! On an apple mac you can buy an 'airport' connection that make your computer wireless. I imagine that there must be a PC equivalent? My mate has a laptop that uses wireless technology and he seems to forever find networks to plug into. How remote are you, do you have neighbors?

Dear Judy and Nev,

btw thanks Andy for the advice I look into that. I would like to get a laptop.

Well I am afraid to say that the house did not turn out. What I found was that there were not only no amenities.....which as we discussed would be ok, but no toilet and no kitchen.

Now if 'twere out in the woods that would be ok, somewhere away to process the effluence into compost perhaps.

But the fairly small yard was fenced all around for sheep, had no garden, and a darn billy goat lives in the yard crapping all over the place so that you walk in his stuff everytime you go in and out, and no doubt it turns into a slippy surface after rain.

The inside of the house was incredibly damp, all the ceiling slats needed filling, damp-trapping polystyrine tiles glued to ceilings that would all have to be scraped. The pine wood on the ceilings was so wet that if you dried the house it would have shrunk and cracked. I'm too old to take on that much work and the expense would have been immense.

The lovely stone bridge had been demolished and an industrial concrete structure with high silver metal sides and heavy cattle gates had been installed for running sheep into the yard for shearing. The metal and the gates looked like something from a slaughterhouse. Across the road on the once ancient mossy verge tons of horrible foreign red-brown stones had been spread to make a park for tractors etc. i.e. my shangri-la had been wrecked.

And you could see from all the building going on that there would have three or more houses near yours in no time.

The electric had reached up to the area, and house after house.........all appeared in only three years! snaked all the way from the main road fifteen or so miles up into the mountains. And along that ribbon of development the people had scraped away the ancient mosses, heather and ice-sge stones and turned the land into silage fields for cattle. Pushing out the wildlife, changing the nature of the environment and losing its natural peace.

So I have not yet found a place to live and must keep looking. But I have learned so much from self-sufficieny and I intent to change my lifestyle, even if I am still stuck in Surry like Tom and Barbara.......(more like stuck in the slurry with me though!)...I will begin the process of alternative living.

Sorry to hear that Mountain Girl, sounds like a thorough rip off all the way along . There is still much that you can do while still in suburbia, to make a start on becoming self sufficientish anyway.

Lots of luck, and I hope that something turns up for you soon

Nev

Thanks Nev, you and Judy have been a real help and source of support last while.

I thought I was about to drop out again, last time 1972. I thought I could become free of the system and the utilities companies. I was practically living the Good Life in my head.

My friend found a house at the top of a lane, currently it has no garden and is both small and the yard small. It looks over an expanse of countryside which means more and more lights below as houses get built. However, if I get offered it I will take it from end of May giving me two precious months in the meantime to find something else.