Author: W7HCG, Heather Galvin
Seattle Summer: A stop in Post Falls on the way, and fishing Lake Washington
After Montana, we headed back to Seattle to summer over where it was cooler, and help my folks out with some more projects. On the way, we spent a couple nights in a Cabela’s parking lot in Post Falls, ID. There are a few Cabela’s in the PNW with large lots and separate Truck/RV parking….
Holter Lake, Montana
Together with Nathan’s folks we headed to Holter Lake, MT, for a few days that would cover Memorial Day weekend. We left on a Tuesday afternoon with plans to stay somewhere along the way. During our search for our overnighter, we came across a place called Honey’s Park, a place for free dry camping in…
Boondocking at Fiberpipe, and some drone play.
It’s now been about five weeks since our solar system was completed. We’re currently plugged into shore power in Seattle, staying here for a couple of months to avoid the heat and help my dad on a couple of projects. We’re also doing some fishing. On Kayaks! But, backing up a bit… After we finished…
It works!
Phase Three: PROFIT! But before that… We ran into an issue as we were nearing the end of the installation of our components. It just wasn’t working as expected. The Quattros would come on and pass through shore power, but when shore power was disconnected, they wouldn’t start inverting. Also, they were misbehaving when the…
Solar – The Other Components
Phase Two: Install Inverters, Charge Controllers, Wiring, Breakers, Switches, Batteries and Etcetera. We made a project board the same dimensions as the wall in our front pass-through, so we could play around with positioning components trying to come up with the best fit and flow. Here’s some of our early ideas: After this, we found…
Solar Panel Installation
Phase One: Collect Underpants Install Solar Panels Here’s the roof diagram again: They are Grape Solar 180 watt panels. They were the best bang for the buck for us, the form factor was correct, and they are assembled in Eugene, OR.
An introduction to our Solar project
So let’s set up the conditions for this project. We’re both technical folks, currently Nathan works remote and Heather is working on other projects (like this blog) that require computer needs. We wanted a system to support a “mostly” normal lifestyle for us off the grid. In correlation with designing our system, we did some…
A spontaneous stay on the Columbia River
The plan was… after leaving Albany, we had reservations to stay at another Thousand Trails resort in the Sun River/Bend area. We were looking forward to this, we love Bend. We saw that there was a winter storm coming for the mountains between us and our destination, so we chose a southern route, that would…
Albany, OR… and we pick up our Solar project parts.
After Seattle, we traveled south to Albany, OR, to see Nate’s sister Janine and her family. We spent our evenings with them visiting for dinner and seeing the kids. We read bedtime stories and played board games. On one occasion Janine took us to the Historic Albany Carousel. Each animal on the carousel is hand carved, and…
Sewer, Water, Power. Oh my.
So in Seattle, we’ve been staying on my folks’ property. I’ve gone over this aspect, but what I haven’t covered is that the hookups for our trailer – while “worked”, weren’t really sufficient for a long term stay. So, one month before our departure – we rolled up our sleeves, donned the frogg toggs (rain…