Guru
Joined: 22/02/2006
Location: AustraliaPosts: 2160
| Posted: 10:39am 15 Jan 2024 |
Yea for me back in 2001 I was living in my 39K house I bought in Pt Hedland WA and instead of going down the pub everyday I sat in the cool at home and did research. Saw SA going going to sell the grid so had a look around around the world to find the best and worst case of doing this. Well there was no best case and prices for the grid went from stable to lets make a profit where we can for big business and the sheeple were just stuck with paying the price.
Back in the our friends asked what your off the grid do you live in a cave
these days when the weather moves the same friends didn't like us calling and asking how their dark cave was So my decision was made and 2 years later when we sold up and moved back to SA it took about 8 months to find this farm. 85 acres, 3 dams one spring fed and the cost to get a 10 amp grid connection 80K to the corner boundary. So for me it was a no brainer to live off the grid. Had a 15KVA 3 phase genset that ran on gas for my shed and we spent 17K for our solar/battery array in '04.
Well the dry cell 600AH batteries last 10 years so I got a free 600AH forklift battery which is still powering our house today.
For my shed where I have my own machineshop I just setup VFD's on each machine and programmed each VFD to get the best out of the three phase motors. Now that 3Kw Kipoint inverter I got custom made back in '05 is still going today as well as the SA32 Selectronic inverter for the house and our 80 amp Staff & Stanbury solid state battery charger is still kicking and has gone thru a few gensets to date.
Honestly this forum over the years has helped many of us learn to just make our own gear which run better and just plain work then if something goes wrong well we just fix it don't we.
Cheers Bryan