25Mar11
Today was sweet. We managed to finish up just about everything on the solar installation.
Unfortunately, one of the inverters I was installing is broken. The fan does not work, so it immediately gives me an error as soon as it has power. It was in a broken box leaving the store in Miami, as acknowledged by one of the employees, so hopefully we’ll get it figured out.
This system will be special cause it does not allow the grid power to touch the household at all. Instead, I am using the DC conversion as a less efficient but much cheaper line filter. All the Grid power comes into a battery charger, which is used in addition to the solar battery charger. Then all of the house is run off the inverter.
This will work for now, but could make things difficult if their power consumption ever exceeds the 30 Amp output of the inverter. Then we will have to add a second inverter, and possible some more batteries.
Overall, this is a good system though. Long term, Madame Bonite would like to be off-grid because EDH (the power company) produces more headaches than it is worth.
In essence, she now has the starter system for solar power, and can expand with more solar panels as needed, allowing her to invest in more panels as finances allow.
I also managed to secure the panels very well in the frames. So well that I will not be able to remove them without a lot of struggle, but I am fine with that. They are welded in place, and the whole frames probably cost me about $250 in materials. I have also deemed that I am a half-decent welder now, at least for haitian standards. This frame is better welded than most gates and window frames that I have seen, and I was using the same equipment, a haitian welder, consisting of a transformer with copper leads sticking up. Hopefully I’ll have some pictures of that later.
Then, we got to enjoy the rest of the day off of work. We went to Lakou New York, a beach area in Jacmel, riding on the motorcycle taxis. There we went to the art gallery run by Lee Rainboth for his ministry Living Media International. It’s a pretty sweet place that you should check out if you’re ever in Jacmel.
After that, we went swimming at La Salinne, near Cap Lamandue Hotel, before coming home to Madame Bonite’s for dinner.
Finally, we played some soccer. from about 10pm-11:45 or so.
Final Score:
Etazini (U.S) : 20
Ayiti (Haiti) : 3
Yeah, we whooped up on them. It was kinda funny cause they are all better individual players, but they do not know how to play as a team on a big field. Also, they seem to not be used to goalkeepers and big nets, so we had a great keeper in Ian Keith, and they did not find anyone to be a decent keeper the whole time.
It was sweet. We’re all gonna be sore tomorrow cause we played real hard and all came back covered in mud and sweat. I miss good games like that.
That is all.
Good Night.
