ArizonaRanch

  Water System Work by rdpecken on Apr.27, 2014, under Water System For my trip in April, once the Solar Bay ventilation system was installed, I moved on to replacing the water pump for the Littlehouse. New Pump Model The original system worked with a nice variable speed pump that would change speed to keep the pressure steady regardless of flow. It worked really nice until I went away and forgot to turn off the power to it after one trip last year. When I returned weeks later, the battery was dead (I didn’t have solar at the time), and the pump no longer worked. At that time, I salvaged the old pump from our shed and installed it in the Littlehouse. This got us by with the necessary pressure. Here is the old pump that died… Shurflo Extreme 5.7 gpm Pump I took the bad pump home and started to take it apart to see what was wrong, but the control circuitry is potted with epoxy, so you cannot access it. The manufacturer does not sell replace parts for that pump,

  More Solar Equipment Work by rdpecken on Apr.27, 2014, under Electrical I made it up to the Ranch on the weekend of April 11th. I had four goals on this trip: 1. Finish installing the solar panels and their equipment box 2. Open the place up after winter 3. Replace the water pump for the cabin 4. Collect pictures to support creation of a how-to guide for the Ranch Fans Installed in Solar bay I left Mesa on Friday and stopped at the well site in Seligman to fill up our 200 gallon water hauling tank. I verified that if the pump is shut off when you put in your coins for the actuator, you lose your money. So you need to remember to turn the pump switch ON before inserting your quarters. I also verified that you can feed it as many quarters as you need to pump the amount of water you need. It appears that there is now a $1.00 minimum to start the pump (used to be $0.75). $2.00 gets me about 220 gallons. So I guess about 30 gallons per quarter. So that has gone u