I’ve been slowly converting all of my outdoor lighting to solar and adding more rain barrels for my garden. This got me thinking–what are the rest of you working on? I’d love to see and hear about your projects if you feel like sharing them.
Thanks in advance, I hope you’re all having a wonderful day!
We just had a very similar topic here: https://slrpnk.net/post/9408197
But if you are especially interested in gardening: I am currently thinking about how to DIY a simple automated irrigation system for the tomatoes and pepper plants in my little greenhouse so that I can do a camping trip later this summer without them dying.
My Grandparents found a solution to the watering problem, its called Children an Grandchildren…
We are trying to get it automated for them, but without success.
I have been talking to a friend who lives in a mobile home near Albuquerque. He is thinking about installing a roof above the home to keep it a little cooler in the summer. To that end I am recommending he use decommissioned panels as the roof and connecting them through a transfer switch to a mini split ac. This has the advantage of using cheap panels from Santan solar (which cannot be grid tied) for free cooling during the hotest hours of the day, while retaining the ability to run the ac at night.
Well, there’s a DIY electric car which needs both axles to be re-designed. They didn’t pass driving tests in the field. Design is complete but welding cannot start before weather turns nicer.
Also, my house needs a battery shed on wheels - wheels to keep away construction bureaucrats, shed because it’s uncomfortable to sleep under the same roof with a very considerable amount of lithium cells. I’d like to keep some distance from them so that if something goes wrong, it’s would be just the cells. :) The bottom platform with wheels is complete, walls and roof and everything such - nope, not a trace, not even a good drawing. :)
If I lived closer I’d volunteer to help just to see this beautiful insanity come together. I like the “wheels” work around!
There’s a pretty high chance that when it does come together, it will be presented somehow on c/offgrid on this very server. :)
One of my neighbors moved out and I’ve mostly been murdering the tiger lilies he planted in the common areas. (He said he liked them and the deer would keep them in check. The deer only ate them in the spring, and he ‘liked’ them because then his pitbulls could chase the deer. Fucker . Then one of the other neighbors’ dogs chewed on the lilies and got sick, so …)
Anyway, I’ve replacing them with a mix of like 20 local pollinator plants, chosen for a mix of both pollinators and seasons. Trying to figure out how I can get some rain barrels in to feed the new gardens without pissing off the HOA, and carrying on the eternal battle to let the HOA let us install solar (beyond the two panels we hid in the backyard, but we can’t get any more in there).
Common area veggie garden has finally settled in, and the apple trees should be bearing fruit in another year. [The berry bushes we snuck in the woods are doing nicely, and the local animals love them!]
Still setting up the new house - so far got the entirely solar powered lighting for my workbench in my office going, and parts of the solar watering system as well as the solar powered garage vent
Gonna repurpose the maze mini tanks from the old place to increase our total storage - setting up an interlinked system with floats so that the 2kl gutter fed tank will automatically keep the smaller ones topped up (which then feed the irrigatia and wicking beds).
Also planning out the solar powered lighting for the basement…busy busy busy…
A lot of it is built around the waterwand / irrigatia system - fantastic units, cannot recommend enough.
Once again my life is hampered by the fact that I do not live in Australia . . .
