I'm behind again!

The sun is shining, the wind is blowing (howling actually), and we got a SNOW DAY! I've also just updated my Blogger account and figured out how to publish comments. Live and learn. I've allowed myself to be streached a bit thin...mentally and timewise, not physically (I'm working on that). There are a lot of projects going on behind the scenes here at Woodhenge. 1) The prototype deep well hand pump has been preliminarily tested. The part that goes in the well was built as a student and teacher project at school and sucked water wonderfully out of a #10 can. But, I get ahead of myself here. I set out looking for information on how to build a deep well hand pump and had very little luck. There were some simple ideas from a site "Gaviotas" (sp?), and some rather primitive designs on a few other sites, but nothing substantial. Woodhenge is looking for businesses that can be based out of our property and help others in a time of crisis. Water is an essential need. If the power goes out for an indeterminate time the crises of heat and water will be the first felt by a vast majority of the suffering population. My goal is to design a pump that can be built with "off the shelf" components with very few modifications. I hope to perfect the design over the next few months and offer the design (parts list, detailed plans and maybe a dvd), or the design and the modified parts, or a complete kit minus the drop pipe and sections of all thread. The lower section needs to be tested to see from how deep it will pump. Right now it consists of a section of 1 1/2" pvc pipe, a 1" pvc foot valve connected to the bottom of the pvc pipe, a 3/4" foot valve minus the screw in sand screen, several fittings that adapt the moving 3/4" foot valve to allow it to be connected to a piece of 1/4" all thread. The 3/4" foot valve has had two grooves cut into it to allow o-rings to fit in a moderately tight fit inside the 1 1/2" pipe. The top of the 3/4" foot valve has a bushing, a 1/2" pipe nipple and a 1/2" galvanized pipe cap. The nipple has been drilled with 3/8" holes and the cap has a 1/4" hole to allow the all thread to be attached. The upper part is made up of 2" galvanized pipe parts. The pipe flange has been modified to allow the reducing bushing to attached (I brazed it) to the underside of the flange. I believe that I can make the 2" fittings tight enough to allow the pump to not only deliver water at the upper part, but to pump water under pressure uphill from the pump. I'm experimenting with modifying the top plug to accept a packing gland of a standard washer and a smaller plug drilled with a 1/4" hole and the upper plug drilled and threaded to accept the smaller plug. More on this project as it progresses. 2) The "Emergency Old Folk Power System". My parents complain occasionally about the power outages the experience in west costal Florida. They live in a retirement community of 12,000 homes and about 1/6 of the residents own a battery powered golf cart. I looked at their golf cart and immedaitly saw it as a portable battery bank. The biggest obstacle is the voltage of the battery bank isn't compatable with most inverters. I'm hoping to get some 'sample' dc:dc converters and some discount inverters, meters and safety systems to build a couple of prototypes and send them to my parents. The basic idea is simple; make sure the cart is fully charged before bad weather comes, when the power goes out go to the cart flip a switch, plug in a heavy duty extension cord, run the cord into the house, hook a strip outlet to the end of the extension cord and plug in your fan, radio, light, etc. The initial system will be small, around 800 watts or so. Bigger systems would require a means of charging the battery bank from an alternative source...again the dc:dc converters could be used in conjunction with a small wind turbine, or a photovoltaic panel or even an adapted automobile (basically an auxiliary plug hooked to the car's alternator). More on this one as it progresses. 3) The bicycle powered TV. This is a project that allows you to quickly hook your bike up to a stand that has a small dc motor/generator that spin against the back tire of the bike. The dc generator would charge some small set of 12 volt batteries. Hooked to the batteries would be either a small inverter or a power adapter for dc equipment. Steve Spence (of Greentrust) and I will be prototyping this project for a group assembly at the Canton Energy Fair. My students are already converting a recumbent exercise bicycle for this purpose. 4) Solar powered food dehydrator. We've built several versions of this in the past and had great success with drying all kinds of things from beef jerky to those giant, out of control squash/zucchinis. I'm presenting a workshop on building these at the Energy Fair too. 5) The high Art and Science of Scrounging is up to 20,000 words....I'm pretty sure about half of those words are useable. I've commissioned my neice, Olivia, to do the illustrations. My fingers are crossed that I can get the first draft finalized by the beginning of the summer. There's lots more going on, but my day has to move on....-Jim-