Contributor
Malcolm,
Glad to hear your preparedness and capabilities are helping yourself and many others.
Say, when you are out of crisis mode, while these events are fresh, I hope you might find the time to put your experiences to paper in a journal or series of articles. It's a real eye opener for many of us who cannot even fathom what you and your fellow islanders have endured. Even your few posts here have been amazingly insightful.
Contributor
The sad thing about this entire thread looking at the news is that you could have planned appropriately and had a 2000 watt honda inverter genset, 40 gallons of fuel, have had the foresight to buy 12v DC car chargers for all your cordless tools, and then wound up with your shed with the car chargers and genset destroyed or blown away,.. your car flipped upside down, flooded, or floated away,... all your fuel reserves tipped over or contaminated, solar chargers (slower than hell, and I know because I have lived off grid for 16 years) smashed,.. and you'd still be sitting there wishing you had a good old fashion bow saw, and a some hand tools.
Hard to imagine not just curling up into a ball and breaking down sobbing.
P.S.
I think Im a super resourceful person given my years in the trade. I cant imagine the feeling of being in a situation where even if you had every single resource you could think of at your disposal that you could, and will, be wiped off the face of the earth should the cards fall that way. Seems like a life altering event to me.
Last edited by Mark Bolton; 09-12-2017 at 5:46 PM.
[OP]
Contributor
I promise to post the whole thing when all is restored, plus a list of lessons learned and a few images. I have tried many times to read the comments and tonight was the first I was able. Thanks for all the thoughts. Power has been restored downtown- get this- up to but not including my house. Hopefully tomorrow they will fix the broken pole and get my house going. It will be January for folks on the far side of the island to get power. I am blessed. The amazing thing is seeing poles snapped not at the bottom, but at the top. Also some buildings sandblasted of paint and even stucco. There is a 38' Catamaran on a hill in neighboring Tortola. It didn't float there- it was blown. Seriously- too many stories to tell.
Emotions still turned off at the moment- you just keep going. Kudos to my wife who is volunteering at the RedCross 7-11:30 and then nursing 2 until when. As soon as she heard the hospital was badly damaged, she said, I have to go, and ran out the door in her shorts and a scrub top. Kudos to Gurleine who survived by jumping in a bathtub which is now all that remains of her home, but still she is spending all day entertaining my daughter while we work relief. Also the young man across the street who spent the day helping me fix homes and prepare for the next Cat5 storm, and then very apologetically said, "look, I am sorry- I have to go soon because I still don't know if my mom is okay and my friends are going to take me to look for her." Too many stories and too many heroes.
PLEASE See my comment to recent post in this forum about where can you donate to help hurricane victims.
Contributor
The Media makes it sound like everyone is walking around down there with machetes and handguns. Your story sounds different.
Contributor
Well, they are the same people who told us the people were being massacred in the super dome.Originally Posted by Larry Edgerton
Contributor
This was on the news again last night. I do believe there is some of this going on. It isn't fake news and it isn't surprising in the least. Once catastrophes happen there are bound to be renegades with little concern for life or property. If you want to think its being sensationalized, so be it. That doesn't mean that it isn't true though. The National Guard or local cops have not secured the entire island (islands) according to the report on the national news though. If that is the case, even somewhere, then its newsworthy. I hope Malcolm, his family, his friends and his neighbors all are safe and sound.
Moderator
I believe this video is relevant about the situation in the US VI
http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2017/09...soares-pkg.cnn
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
Contributor
Some "News" outlets want to sensationalize every story and they attract audiences that "want" such.
There will always be those who are outside the norm and disaster often has them trying to take advantage of a bad situation. As a whole humanity comes together and will even overlook many differences in the times of greatest need.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Contributor
You can't charge an 18v battery from a 12v battery, but you should be able to charge it from 2 of them wired in series to get 24v. You might be OK with directly connecting the 18v batteries and watching the temperature. If you had time to prepare, finding an appropriate resistance to step the voltage down some would be more elegant. Or put a long piece of relatively small wire in series with the batteries. Not the best solution but might work if you have no other options.
Contributor
If you have the capacity and knowledge to step the voltage down from 24v to 18v you could just as easily step it up from 12v to 18v.
The real issue is the charge controller aspect of the process. Shortly into the process you would have to sit there and on a second by second basis be cutting the charge current on and off to not exceed the peak voltage capacity of the battery. Shortly into the process of throttling charge a charge controler is shunting power coming into the battery hundreds of times a minute. It would be almost impossible to do manually unless you were willing to risk trashing a lot of batteries.
Contributor
I wouldn't mind knowing how. I can't imagine how you would do that without components more sophisticated than scraps of wire. I agree the charge rate would be a problem but we're talking emergency conditions here. Any resistance in the circuit would help throttle the current through the batteries although it might be far from perfect.
Member
Stepping down a DC voltage is as simple as a few resistors. Stepping up a DC voltage is much more complicated. You can go the route of using a LM2731 IC and some simple circuitry. But Lithium Ion batteries need chargers that can monitor the battery so it doesn't catch fire.
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm2731.pdf
Contributor
Thats my point. Stepping up or down the the voltage is a simple as a batch of scrap wire made into a transformer winding or a resistance load. in a battery charging situation getting the voltage to match that of the battery being charged is the very least of the challenges. If it were that easy I would just plug a 24v solar panel into a 24v battery bank and walk away. It doesnt work that way. As the battery gains charge it can no longer withstand the full amperage output of the the panel (still at 24v). So the charge controller (your tools battery charger) keeps seeping as much power into the battery as possible without exceeding its high voltage limit. This happens on a second by second basis and takes a long period of time (perhaps 75% of your batteries charging cycle) to fully top off the battery.
The whole conversation is pointless because anyone who hacked their 12v battery into a cars vehicle charger would likely find themselves with a partially charged battery, or minimally charged battery, in an hours time. Charging technology in todays batteries is about as advanced as the battery chemistry itself. Hacks and work arounds are hard to come by.
Member
If this was AC voltage I would agree. With DC voltage it is not easy. Just about anyone can twist a couple wires and resistors together to drop the voltage. But you need skill to use the modern ICs and produce a circuit board with the components wired exactly correct. Just finding them is one challenge.
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